New AdWords Device Targeting: Tablet Goes Solo

The Digital Essentials, Part 3

Developing a robust digital strategy is both a challenge and an opportunity. Part 3 of the Digital Essentials guide series explores five of the essential technology-driven experiences customers expect, which you may be missing or not fully utilizing.

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The Change
Recently, Google announced a lot of new features that are coming to their search advertising platform, AdWords.  One of them being expanded text ads, which you can read about here.  Another big one announced was complete device targeting on AdWords.  Now, advertisers will be able to set bid adjustments at all three device levels: desktop, tablet and mobile.
The Effect
The effect this will have on the advertising landscape is enormous.  It will allow for those who excel on tablet devices to drive their bids up to show more often and for those who do not, to show less.  Google has not said what type of bid adjustments will be allowed.  Currently their top competitor, Bing, allows for as low as a 20% decrease in bid on tablets, and up to a 300% increase.  One would imagine Google would want to up the ante.   I would expect Google to allow for an up to 100% decrease on tablet traffic, and up to 300% increase on tablet traffic, like Bing. This gives the advertiser complete control.  As an example, below I have a screenshot of a client of mine’s tablet traffic for non-branded campaigns.  Because my client currently does not have a mobile friendly site or a responsive one at that matter, it performs very poorly on both mobile devices and tablets.  I could save my client a lot of money by being able to bid down on tablet traffic.

Final Thoughts
As mentioned, this will change the landscape a ton.  Some advertisers may drop from the tablet space completely, some may emerge even more aggressively.  The most important part is it will allow for advertisers, like myself, to provide the most profitable paid search environment for my clients.  Roll outs are coming soon.  Check in with your agency, paid search team, or mix of the two to see what your next best steps are.