New York — In the world of online advertising, search-based ads rule the roost, and Google’s display network is a great way for small business advertisers to dabble in the banner advertising space, but one part of the process was a bit more complicated than it should have been–the bidding on managed placements. Hence, Google is eliminating the way bidding or targeting is managed in an effort to simplify bidding on its Display Network.
Users of pay per click services who use managed placements are said to have given feedback on the old system and reported it was confusing, as they recalled seeing 3 default bids for their ad groups – namely:
- Regular default bid
- Managed placements bid
- Display network bid
According to feedback from users, Google discovered that most people were baffled by the three default bids displayed and, as of 15th March 2011, Google has decided to simplify the matter by eliminating the managed placements default bid option, which should remove some of the confusion.
“We have heard feedback from advertisers that it is confusing to work with these three default bids,” said Google in a blog post, adding that most advertisers do not use the managed placement default bid, anyway, preferring to set bids individually.
Surprisingly, the change has already been introduced by the organization, meaning customers can no longer use this type of bid for new ad groups containing placements.
The change will go into effect March 15. From the Google release post, this is how the change will impact you:
- Starting today, we are no longer allowing managed placement bids to be set for new ad groups containing placements. You would not be required to enter a new bid when you add managed placements for the first time (we are launching this change gradually, so it may take about a week to reach your account).
- Starting on March 15, we will automatically update existing managed placement bids. There are several changes we will make in order to make sure your ads will continue to serve as normal with the bids you intended. Learn more about the changes that apply to your account in our Help Center.
- If you are eager to say goodbye to the managed placements bid today, you can do that too! You can change your managed placements bid to 0, which will cause it to disappear from your account (this change is also launching over the next week).
The display network can be a real treasure trove of advertising gold for small business owners, especially if they target their placements carefully. Another recent introduction was to allow users to compare performance when testing ad units, using the Performance Reports tab then searching for the name of an updated ad unit.
Finally, the last component in accomplishing the task for Advertisers using AdWords Editor 7.6 will be to download the latest version of AdWords Editor to manage their bids under this new system, as the 7.6 version is not compatible with this change.