• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, September 19, 2013

It's no secret that marketers had a difficult time transitioning to Google Enhanced Campaigns, particularly around mobile bids and cost per clicks. Some advertisers in retail pulled back campaigns in late July through early August during the transition days to reassess strategies and return on investments, according to one analyst.

In a research note, J.P. Morgan Analyst Doug Anmuth takes a close look at Google Enhanced Campaigns as Google prepares to close on its third quarter. An overall health check finds that even with all the hardships marketers experienced, advertisers dabbling in mobile should see a better bidding environment in time.

Checks suggest that in the travel sector, mobile CPCs rose since the transition. Overall, search bid adjustments around devices, location, and time of day will increase the brand's ability to better target ads to consumers, driving up ad spend as a direct result of ROI improvements.

"Our 3Q13 Google segment revenue is driven on 21.5% Y/Y paid click growth and a reported CPC decline of 5.2% Y/Y, and our overall Google Inc. net revenue of $11.6B is essentially in line with consensus," Anmuth wrote.

Enhanced Campaigns offers greater strategic and bidding capabilities for advertisers, Anmuth wrote, but a shift in context to focus more on location and time of day will become important. Stacking or layering various bids adjustments provide advertisers with conversion, ROI, CTR, and efficiency improvements, but Google needs to make it easier for advertisers to analyze results.

Anmuth points to examples from Google on how advertisers have benefited from bid adjustments. American Apparel set proximity bidding features to set mobile bid adjustments at 100% for a certain radius around their physical stores. This led to two times the growth in mobile conversions and 7% higher aggregate CTRs.

Similarly, Autobytel experienced a 10% improvement in conversions while managing 30% fewer campaigns following their transition to Google Enhanced Campaigns.

Anmuth did not analyze the impact on the Yahoo Bing Network, but Microsoft's move to make its platform more compatible with Google Enhanced Campaigns will likely drive improvements there, too. The changes provide marketers with a smoother transition when porting campaigns.

"Magnifying Glass" photo from Shutterstock.