Google's new Dynamic Search Ads

In Blog Posts By Julie Batten, VP, Strategy - Media

Google is the world leader in full text search (sorry OpenText and Autonomy) and its search engine marketing tool, AdWords, is the backbone of its corporate revenues. Certainly, Google is trying to find and build alternate revenue streams to reduce risk, but the latest data shows AdWords on the Google.com sites accounting for 69.3% of revenue (with another 26.7% coming from ads displayed on the network).

In October they announced a new way of handling ads called “Dynamic Search Ads” which has the potential to revolutionize the way these massive revenues are generated. We can expect Google to be extremely careful with the launch of this new technology.

Some history

To date the way this tool has worked is fairly simple in concept (but nuanced and complex in execution):

1. Choose a set of likely keywords for your brand
2. Price the amount willing to be spent on clicks on those keywords
3. Write a set of ads based on available insights and knowledge
4. Run ads against keywords
5. Measure impressions and click-throughs
6. Refine keywords, ads, and bids
7. Repeat

In this system the advertiser has absolute control over the keywords and can influence (but not control) where and when Google displays the ads.

The new Dynamic Search Ads

Using the new dynamic ad engine the advertiser feeds a URL or multiple URLs to the search indexer and it selects the most likely keywords to use for those pages. The system continually monitors keyword searches and can dynamically change the keyword bids based on changing information on the sites and changing keyword preferences by the search audience. So, with dynamic search ads, the process now looks more like this:

1. Feed URLs to the DSA engine
2. Price the amount willing to be spent on clicks
3. Run ads, DSA automatically determines keywords
4. Measure impressions and click-throughs
5. Refine websites to influence DSA engine
6. Repeat

In this system the keyword marketers will no longer be choosing words in the AdWords interface, instead they will be influencing the keywords by changing the content on the owned sites to try and attract the right searchers to the sites. The question becomes, will advertisers accept a system where they can only influence the keyword end of the business rather than retain strict control.

For pharma marketing there is also the regulatory issue of linkage of indication to any branded ads. For example, if Condition X is automatically chosen by Google to bring up an ad for Rx Brand X with no ISI visible there becomes the potential to run into regulatory trouble.

The turn-key element of the new Dynamic Search Ads will certainly appeal to some, especially small businesses. Whether it catches on in Pharma remains to be seen.