After nearly two decades AdWords will cease to be. Well…sorta anyways.
Yesterday (Tuesday 26th June 2018) Google announced that flagship marketing brands AdWords and DoubleClick will be changing in a new effort to streamline its offerings.
Simplification and ease-of-use have long been marketing strategies for Google’s wide array of products. AdWords is universally known as the world’s most used PPC network with just over 4 million active advertisers, but the goal has always been for Google to push this number even higher.
So what does the rebrand mean?
- Google Adwords will become Google Ads
- DoubleClick advertiser products will now fall under the Google Marketing Platform, along with Google’s Analytics suite
- DoubleClick for Publishers and Ad Exchange will be integrated into a new unified platform that will be known as Google Ad Manager
In a recent interview with Search Engine Land Google’s head of ads and commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, said of the new branding:
“With Google Ads as opposed to Google AdWords, it is moving the imperceptible default opinion that you get as an advertiser when you hear ‘Google AdWords’ … you think, ‘Oh, Words. Search.’ It’s basically a slight cognitive dissonance to all the other great things that we are doing in terms of both the format and surfaces these ads can show. And so, Google Ads, in our opinion, is a much more straightforward representation of what Google advertising can provide. It’s that simplicity and alignment of the core message from the first instant you hear the name, which is the goal.”
Marketers should start seeing these changes over the course of the next month, just as the new AdWords interface finally replaces the old experience.
Our Take:
The new changes, while interesting, won’t make a difference to the way these platforms work. Google’s aim to simplify might appear a genuine attempt to make the end user experience a better one, but we know Google love to try and ease users into accepting their recommended settings – something that will always benefit them and not the advertiser. Also announced was Google’s small business solution, Smart Campaigns. This sounds a lot like AdWords Express.
If it is, we would recommend advertisers avoid for now.
