New Google AdWords Features introduced in 2013

December 2013

• Engagement Ads go Easy: Set up and run a new Engagement Ads campaign, with a simple workflow and user interface. The new self-service feature gives you the chance to take more control of your ad campaign, so you can get started telling your brand’s story right away.
• Earned Actions in AdWords for video: Formerly known as Follow-on Actions, these new reporting columns will show your Earned views, Earned view rate, Earned subscribers, Earned playlist additions, Earned likes and Earned shares, with additional columns rolling out over the next few weeks. So if you’re an advertiser, you can see, how many people stayed on your channel to watch more videos, subscribed to your channel, added your video to a playlist, or shared your video with a friend after watching a TrueView ad.

November 2013

• Google Trusted Stores: A free certification program to highlight retailers that offer a consistently great shopping experience. Qualifying merchants display a badge on their website, and Google stands behind these stores by offering $1,000 of free purchase protection.
• New Opportunities tab: Added several new opportunity types and made each easier to understand. Now the Opportunities tab is even better at answering the question, “What else can I do to improve my performance in AdWords?”
• Calls as Conversions in AdWords: Phone calls from mobile click-to-call ads is added to the regular Conversion columns, which enable them to be used with automated bidding solutions like Conversion Optimizer. These mobile call conversions are available in countries where Google forwarding numbers are available.1 In addition, calls made by customers from your mobile and desktop ads will be counted in your “Estimated Total Conversions,” a new column you can use to measure the full value you’re getting from AdWords.
• Google Shopping in 8 new countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Turkey
• Search Network with Display Select: Search Network with Display Select uses improved signals and methods of predicting when and where your ads are likely to perform best, and sets a higher bar for when to show them. That means your ads are more likely to be shown to a smaller number of prospective customers, who are more likely to be interested in your offerings. This new campaign type offers better results on the display network than the old Search & Display Networks campaign type.
• Location Targeting Improvement: Let’s say you own a hotel, and you are currently targeting Paris with the keyword “Paris hotels.” Previously, only people searching on Google.fr or Google.com from France could see your ad. Starting the week of November 11, your ads will be eligible to show to people searching for “Paris hotels” from anywhere in the world — for example, someone who lives in New York City who is booking a vacation in Paris.

October 2013

• Ad Rank Improvements: With this update, Ad Rank will also take into account a third component: the expected impact from your ad extensions and formats. In addition, we’ve increased the importance of Ad Rank in determining whether your ad is eligible to be displayed with extensions and formats.
• New Flexible Bid Strategy, Target ROAS: Target ROAS helps you maximize revenue by automatically adjusting your keyword, ad group, and campaign-level bids to meet a custom target return on ad spend. Your target ROAS represents how much revenue you want to earn for each dollar you spend on AdWords. For example, if your goal is to earn $7 for each $1 you spend on AdWords, your target ROAS would be 700%.

September 2013

• Launch of Ready Creative: Consists of two powerful tools: Ready Image Ads and Ready Ad Gallery
• New Conversion Import Feature: Help you measure and optimize for the complete end-to-end purchase process. Now you can upload your offline conversion events into AdWords and see how clicks on your ads led to sales made in the offline world such as over the phone or via a sales rep.

August 2013

• Paid & Organic report in AdWords: A new report to help you analyze and optimize your search footprint on Google. To get started, you’ll need to link your AdWords account to a Webmaster Tools account.
• Upgraded extensions: Improved sitelink, call, and app extensions to help you reach people more effectively in this multi-screen world.
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• Google Display Planner: Integrating three of classic tools — The Contextual Targeting Tool, the Placement Tool and the Google Ad Planner

July 2013

• Introducing the Google Databoard: Allow people to explore and interact with some of Google’s recent research in a unique and immersive way.
• Free course on Creating your Online Campaign

June 2013

• July 22 auto-upgrade to Enhanced Campaigns
• Review Extensions (beta)
• Launch of Affinity Segments in AdWords and YouTube: Helping brand advertisers reach their ideal audience via 80 unique lifestyle segments based on Interest Categories and Demographics
• Top Movers report: Click the Dimensions tab, then View: Top movers. The report compares performance for two consecutive time periods of equal length, and finds the campaigns and ad groups that experienced the largest change between the two periods. You can compare periods of 7, 14, or 28 days, or look at reports generated in the last 90 days.
• Launch of dynamic remarketing: Automatically create beautiful, customized ads that connect with shoppers across the web, by reminding them of items they’ve seen on your site. You can build ads quickly with dozens of templates to choose from that you can customize to reflect the design elements of your brand.
• Auction Insights report: Gives you valuable insight into how your ad performance compares with that of other advertisers.

May 2013

• Display Benchmarks Tool: An easy-to-use webpage that lets you pull benchmarks to help you make better decisions about your campaigns.
• New Flexible Bid Strategies: Allows multiple bidding strategies within a single campaign or across campaigns.

April 2013

• Google Display Planner: Google Display Planner, a free research and planning tool that delivers targeting ideas and estimates to help you build better display campaigns.

February 2013

• AdWords Express is available through My Client Center

January 2013

• Five resolutions for better search management in 2013