I have an important announcement for anyone advertising or thinking about advertising in Google AdWords. If you haven’t already “upgraded” to Enhanced Campaigns, then Google is going to automatically switch your campaigns on July 22, 2013.

Do NOT wait for Google to migrate your campaigns for you!

Take the time to go through the upgrade process for each of your campaigns to prevent any unwanted results.  If you have questions or concerns about this major update, then Main Street Inner Circle members should call me during office hours tomorrow.  This is a big change that should not be taken lightly.  Make sure you double check ALL settings after you switch to Enhanced because I found some bugs in the bulk upgrade tool.

For example, I used the bulk upgrade tool (within the AdWords platform) for one of my private clients last month and set all of the new Enhanced campaign mobile device bids to negative 100% (-100%).  I did that because my client does not yet have a mobile optimized sales funnel so I didn’t want to waste money on mobile traffic.  When a ran a report segmented by device a few days later I was shocked to see a LOT of mobile traffic!  And none of that traffic was converting to sales so it was a complete waste of money.  Hopefully Google has fixed this bug by now, but the lesson learned is to double check ALL of your settings after you “upgrade.”

I used quotes around “upgrade” because I personally think this is a step backward for Google AdWords.  In the old platform, advertisers could target desktops, tablets, and mobile devices in separate campaigns.  If you’re an AdWords Success Formula customer, then you know I always recommend separate campaigns for each device you’re targeting so you have greater control and you can optimize your sales funnels per device.

With these new Enhanced Campaigns, you can no longer separate devices. Every campaign will now target desktops, tablets, and mobile devices by default.  Luckily for businesses that do not yet have mobile optimized webpages, Google allows you to set a bid of negative 100% (-100%) for mobile devices so you can block your ads from mobile phones.  Paying for traffic when your website is not set up for mobile is like throwing money out the window.  So make sure you set your mobile bids to negative 100% unless your website is setup properly to convert on mobile traffic.

I expect a lot of changes in the months ahead as Google continues to improve the new Enhanced Campaigns.  In the meantime, update your account ASAP so you don’t get caught off guard on July 22.

[google_authorship_badge]