PPC News Roundup: AdWords App Supports Universal App Campaigns

Rachel Poole and Sarah Kemp share the latest in paid search news and advice including an update from the AdWords app, protection against pesky botnets, and GTIN requirements.

Android AdWords App Now Supports Universal App Campaigns

The new Google AdWords App for Android now includes universal app campaigns and two new features for conversion columns.

The new conversion columns now allow you to measure performance and make adjustments to your universal app campaigns. If you are promoting your app, the new conversion columns will give you an insight into the performance of your campaigns such as the cost per install, and number of downloads. It also allows you to make adjustments to your budget on a daily basis.

Google AdWords Announces New Malware Protection

Google AdWords has introduced new software to defend infected computers, or ‘botnets’ from causing invalid traffic and fraudulent malware seeping into our systems.

The new feature automates the filtering of traffic from three of the top ad fraud botnets; Bedep, Beetal, and Changthangi. One of the key benefits of this new feature is that it is resilient to potential changes to the malware that generates the Botnet traffic.

Google stated:

Our move to consistently and confidently cut out the traffic from these botnets, despite any changes in the malware on which they’re based, represents a significant milestone in the defense of our advertising ecosystem.

GTIN Requirements Update

GTIN’s (Global Trade Item Numbers) are now required for all products with a GTIN assigned by the manufacturer.

Google has decided to expand this beyond the 50 tested brands in 2015. This is because Google can understand the product further and serve the ad in more relevant ways to users. Merchants who have added the correct GTIN’s to their product have seen conversion rates rise up to 20%.

Here are the important updates to keep in mind:

February 8^th 2016: Warnings began. In the diagnostics tab for products that do not meet requirements.

May 16^th 2016: Enforcement began. After this date you will need to meet the GTIN requirements to continue serving ads for your products. Any ads that do not meet the GTIN requirements will be disapproved.

Emojis Banned in Google PLAs *Frown Face*

Just when one advertiser in Denmark thought the newest feature of PLAs was the emoji, Google fixed the glitch.

In the Google Merchant Center, it was recently announced that “repeated and unnecessary use of punctuation, capitalisation, or symbols (e.g. using emoticons, ALL CAPS, emoji)” was not best practice. So, until a brand decides to put an emoji in their brand name, it’s safe to say that emojis won’t be seen in PLAs for the foreseeable future.

More Paid Search News and Advice

Read our previous PPC news update: Custom Metrics in AdWords

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