Acquirgy?s POV on How Major Google Change May Affect Marketers

Acquirgy’s POV on How Major Google Change May Affect Marketers

Lots of questions about the RHS change.

St. Petersburg, FL (PRWEB) November 17, 2011

Marketers are wondering how Google’s recently announced (11/2/11) change is going to impact their paid search programs. Unlike tweaks that have no major impact, the announcements by Google could have a significant impact on SEM programs. Acquirgy’s search team has been studying this change.

Currently, when paid search ads are triggered they show above and on the right hand side of the organic results. This new change, which expects to be completed by the end of November, will show advertisements above the organic results and then either the RHS (right hand side) or below the organic searches.

The Genesis

Google expressed that they “dynamically optimize each search page, including its ads, to provide the best experience for our users. In certain cases, displaying ads below search results fits better into the user’s flow as they scan the page from top to bottom. This change is in line with our key design principles of focus – presenting information to users when they need it most — and elasticity — allowing flexibility in layout depending on the user’s needs and environment.” It is still unknown which type of queries will trigger the different types of ad placements, but once those changes take place, optimizations shall follow.

What prompted Google to change how their ads were displayed? In 2009, Google was experimenting with eyescan software. This allowed Google to track an individual’s tendencies and movement throughout Google’s landscape. One can only suspect that from the data collected in those trials warranted the change in Google’s ad placements.

Potential Effects

Once the new placements are rolled advertisers you can expect ads to be shown “below the fold,” meaning viewers would need to scroll down on the screen, in order to find those advertisements at the bottom of the organic results. If an individual triggers an ad “below the fold” and he/she does not scroll down an impression is still recorded, when normally it would be shown on the right hand side (RHS) of the results page.

There are currently times when ads are below the fold and generate an impression without the searcher seeing it, which evidently hurts the CTR. In Google’s new rollout this can happen much more frequently due to no ads showing on the RHS of the screen. This has people thinking the change could potentially decrease the advertiser’s CTR.

There was an initial thought that all RHS ads would disappear making people think that Google will make people bid top dollar prices for showing in top position. There may be “inexperienced marketers running to their computers and bumping up bids because they think consumers will not be searching at the bottom of Google’s search results page,” said Steven Regan of acquirgy after Google’s announcement. If this happens, advertisers could potentially see an increase in CPCs for the top three positions.”

Google has expressed to marketers that the change in ad placements can be different from one query to another. When Google was asked, “Do bottom ads get a higher or lower CTR than RHS ads” they responded with the following. “Bottom ads have been seen to perform comparably to RHS ads in experiments. However, individual ad performance may vary.”

Acquirgy’s POV

We are notifying our clients and recommending a wait-and-see approach before making any drastic changes. “No actions have taken place just yet,” said Dorothy Weaver. She continued, “We plan to adjust accordingly once the transition is complete. If you act prematurely and raise bids you can potentially be paying more money than what is needed to show in the proper position. We understand that Google’s changes are always made with the best interest of the searcher in mind.”

Throughout the brief history of SEM, there have been numerous changes by Google and other engines, the merger of Bing and Yahoo, and a constantly evolving search landscape. Now is the time to develop strategies based on what happens to your search results on Google for your ads that have been appearing on the RHS that are moved to the bottom:

    Metrics remain the same
    They improve
    They decline

Clearly the case to be concerned about is the last one. Since this change is less than 3 days old (at the time this story was written), thinking about a strategy should results decline makes sense, but waiting to implement it until you determine that the results are unfavorable.

Grab a PDF of this story at: http://R1V.acquirgy.net

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