There has been a major change recently announced by Google Adwords with regards to how they charge for clicks. This is going to affect a large number of customers using Google Adwords as it will potentially lead to a rise in the amount you are spending on a daily or weekly basis.
Many businesses use Adwords to drive targeted search traffic to their website and traditionally the ability to track and measure conversions has allowed businesses to achieve a strong return on investment. The latest update announced by Google just this week now appears as if Google are trying to charge for no clicks!
Let me explain, when placing an ad on Google Adwords many businesses use the local extension to automatically display their business address. Google has found that by doing this it massively increases the interactivity of your ad with visitors mapping directions to your business. These interactions were free until the recent update, as Google has now announced that when someone requests directions to your business from a Google Ad you will now be charged.
This change is major as now instead of getting charged only when someone visits your website you are now getting charged when someone requests directions to your business. The great minds at Google are always looking for justified ways to increase revenue and it seems that this update has hit the mark.
There is heated debate online at the moment about this issue with many marketers defending Google. The main argument supporting this change is that if someone is looking for directions to your business based on your Google Ad then it’s highly likely they will become a customer and Google should get paid.
The more cynical marketers believe that this is just another step in Google’s never ending quest to expand their income potential and reach.
Obviously as a business owner this change is major as it shows Google is cracking down on areas where they are potentially losing money. For many years there has been insider talk about the potential for Google to remove the URL of your website from ads. The reason being that visitors can see your ad and type the URL directly into a browser and visit without you having to pay Google.
We will need to watch with interest over the coming months to see what other changes Google may make to its Adwords service to increase their revenue streams. In the mean time if you are an Adwords user make sure you track the metrics on this new advertising spend. When you log into your account you will now see tracking on these statistics, to measure the Return On Investment you should start surveying your customers to see how many of these direction requests results in real income.
This change will make Google’s investors happy as it means more revenue for the company and profits for its investors. We will need to wait and see how the consumers of the Adwords service respond over the next few weeks.