Yet ANOTHER big change happening in the world of Google ads. Google recently stated that “Starting September 17, 2019, Standard delivery will be the only ad delivery method for Search campaigns, Shopping campaigns, and shared budgets. Accelerated delivery will no longer be available.” With this, all search and shopping campaigns will now only have one option to serve - “standard delivery”.
All campaigns with shared budgets using accelerated delivery will be automatically switched to standard delivery by October 1st, 2019. To note, this is not impacting any Display or Video campaigns (yet).
This is a pretty big change, and we here at Seer want to make sure you understand more about this update, how it will affect you, and give you our point of view on what we think this update will do.
What is Google’s reasoning behind this change?
Here’s what Google is saying regarding why they are switching to just standard delivery:
Accelerated delivery does not help in better utilization of budgets. Campaigns limited by budget and using accelerated budget likely see higher average Cost-per-click (CPC) due to the higher auction pressure in the early hours. Alternatively, Standard delivery takes into account expected ad performance throughout the day and is better at maximizing performance within your daily budget. TLDR: Standard delivery will allow you to have more efficient CPCs and will help maximize your performance.
Since this is affecting both Search and Shopping campaigns, we wanted to give you our point of view on how this will impact accounts and how we can combat this change.
How will this change impact Search campaigns?
Google mentioned that this will help make CPCs more efficient, but it also might increase competition throughout the day, which could result in higher CPCs over time.
“When I read ‘Campaigns that are limited by budget can see higher costs-per-clicks due to increased competition early in the day, or unintentionally spend most of their budgets in earlier time zones’ it makes me wonder if there will actually be more competition across the country at peak times if more advertisers' budgets are still available when the peak time of the day hit.” - Nick Viggiano, Sr. PPC Team Lead
Another way that this update could impact your search campaigns is if you have a budget that is uncapped. Kelsey Malone, Sr. PPC Manager said “This could mean campaigns that spent a lot could see a sudden decrease in spend potential. But hopefully, if Google is confident in their algorithm, this should help increase conversion rate. It'll just be tricky with clients that need to spend a daily amount.”
On the other hand, this update could actually really help businesses with smaller budgets to have the opportunity to play with the “big dogs” (aka the businesses that have huge, uncapped budgets).
“I think this levels the playing field for clients with smaller, more finite budgets. Standard delivery was automated bidding before automated bidding was a thing -- Google deciding which queries at which time of day to serve you ads.” - Audrey Bloemer, Associate Director of PPC
Solutions to combat this change
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- In order to make the most of this update and spend your whole budget, you'll need to be on automated bids, have the appropriate goals set up accordingly, and need to understand what a budget cap might need to be in order to not limit yourself on coverage
- In terms of automated bidding, our team members recommended testing out Target impression share. It should have similar impact as accelerated ad delivery if it's a campaign that is performing well.
- If you have a campaign that is uncapped, test out more ways to increase your reach such as search partners, device bids, audience targeting, etc.
How will this change impact Shopping campaigns?
If you are currently using accelerated budgets on your Shopping campaigns it might be time to start testing tROAS as a bidding strategy on these campaigns instead. Smart Shopping campaigns never had the accelerated setting available, so if you have been running Smart Campaigns - you will see no affect in your campaigns.
If you aren’t already running Smart Shopping campaigns or automated bidding strategies on your Shopping Campaigns, it's time to get to it!
There are always pros and cons to any big change that Google makes, but we always hope that it’s a positive one. We’ll be testing out new strategies and looking at performance for our clients that are on accelerated delivery before vs. after the update and follow up with our findings.
Have questions about all these recent updates from Google? Reach out! We're happy to help.
