Google Removing Sidebar Ads?

[pgtownsyou]

Just tested a few google searches and this seems to be true...

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-removing-ads-from-right-side-2016-2

Google is removing the ads from the sidebar of their search results page. I've been solely a facebook advertiser up until this point, but was looking to start testing out AdWords soon.

For you google gurus, what will the impact be for paid ads? Surely now in order to be on page 1, you must be a higher bidder than before. I'm wondering what you all think the implications of this change are.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

Just tested a few google searches and this seems to be true...

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-removing-ads-from-right-side-2016-2

Google is removing the ads from the sidebar of their search results page. I've been solely a facebook advertiser up until this point, but was looking to start testing out AdWords soon.

For you google gurus, what will the impact be for paid ads? Surely now in order to be on page 1, you must be a higher bidder than before. I'm wondering what you all think the implications of this change are.

@Andy Black @Travis Phipps

 

[theag]

Prices will go up. In many cases significantly. A lot of businesses that scraped by on a cheap middle or low position (4-10) will probably go out of business because they cant afford the top spots and wont get any traffic on the bottom spots. Shopping ads will become even more important, but CPCs there will also go up. We already saw a big spike in CPCs in a lot of our customers accounts. I guess many people will try to change strategies from low/mid positions in Adwords to SEO. All in all, Adwords will become more of a winner takes all market. The big players will get bigger and everybody else wont be able to afford it.

 

[IGP]

They also rolled out 4 ads on top in case you didn't notice.

 

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[theag]

They also rolled out 4 ads on top in case you didn't notice.

Not for all searches, only with "high commercial intent". Usually just 3.

 

[IGP]

Not for all searches, only with "high commercial intent". Usually just 3.

It used to be very few, but now it just jumped: https://moz.com/blog/four-ads-on-top-the-wait-is-over

Typically, the searches I am concerned with are the "high commercial intent" ones..

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Interesting, what I find curious is you can bet for damn sure they ran some kind of financial analysis on this.

My instinct is to suggest that this will cause them to lose a ton of money. If that was the case, they wouldn't do it.

Somewhere deep within the annals of Google, some data guru churned numbers and figured out that this will make them more money.

In other words, get out your checkbook and start writing.

The less ad real estate for the little guys, the more problematic this news is.

 

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[IGP]

Interesting, what I find curious is you can bet for damn sure they ran some kind of financial analysis on this.

My instinct is to suggest that this will cause them to lose a ton of money. If that was the case, they wouldn't do it.

Somewhere deep within the annals of Google, some data guru churned numbers and figured out that this will make them more money.

In other words, get out your checkbook and start writing.

The less ad real estate for the little guys, the more problematic this news is.

For sure... It basically pushes the SERPs down even more. So, what does that 4th ad do? It takes over the spot where the #1 SERP used to be.

And that #1 SERP historically had about a 40% CTR, where the #2 SERP had a 15% CTR.

 

[Tom.V]

Yeah, this is a predictable, yet confusing move by G. The fact that they are actively doing away with a large amount of potential ad real estate with nothing to replace it with (in most cases, excluding shopping) is odd.

For more generic service related queries, there is a LOT of white space. The question now is, how do they plan to monetize that area?

I think the main positive aspect of this change is going to be an increase in conversion rates for advertisers who make it above the fold. For one, there is less competition, by a shit ton. The continued improvement of ad extensions make it even MORE possible to win auctions, more frequently, so long as you aren't half-assing it. This should, overall, result in a better user experience for the most part. Less options to choose from in a single serving = less confusion.

What I'm really hoping for is the option to shove some banner ads in that newly freed up real estate

I have a bunch of campaigns up and running on both sides of the spectrum, the higher end in positions 1-3, and the lower end, or bottom feeders. If I see anything worthwhile in the data this week, now that this change has been rolled out, I'll let you guys know.

 

[pgtownsyou]

A really interesting change they are making. The #1 spot will likely be getting the same amount of clicks as they are still in the same position on the page, but they're going to have to pay a premium to stay there now.

I guess I'm going to have to let the dust settle before I start trying to advertise with Google. From a first glance, it seems to really hurt the small players. I wonder if there will be a ripple effect of those people moving over to FB ads and driving up costs over there.

 

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[Andy Black]

It looks more and more like the mobile search results doesn't it?

The game has been increasingly about the top ad positions anyway, with Google introducing more ad extensions that only appear in the top ad positions. These made the top ads more attractive, which increased their CTR, which reduced the CTR on the side ads, and probably caused a bidding war anyway.

So it's just a continuation of that, and as MJ said, they'll have worked out this will bring in more $$ into their coffers.

I like understanding it, so I can adapt to it.

I'm keeping an eye on volume and CPC changes for my clients.

I'm particularly interested in whether the impression share for these top ad positions changes. i.e. we might have had an 80% impression share in position 3, but now maybe Google will "round robin" us with other businesses who'd been averaging positions 4+. Maybe business who weren't in top ad positions will get some time in the sun that they didn't before.

Previously I'd segment by "Top vs Other" and see that most of the visits were coming from the Top ad positions. Other businesses wouldn't segment this way, so would sometimes get confused as to which ad performed best in top ad positions. This advantage I had has been taken away.

I'm glad there's still ads below the organic results. This means I can still use my strategy of bidding low and counting impressions - to see where the demand is.


Like all changes, I'm looking for the opportunities, and just have to make sure I use all available ad extensions, and extended headlines, to get the best CTR I can when I have my time in the sun, to convince the Google algorithm to keep showing me there.


I'll add more to this as I see changes in client accounts, and as I think about it more. I'm in and out of campaigns today...

 

[Andy Black]

Oh yeah, i forgot to say...

Bye bye search-engine arbitrageurs (AdWords to Yahoo/Adsense).

Your model got vaporised overnight.

CONTROL


Wonder what's gonna happen to ASK now...

 

[Andy Black]

www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/22/google-kills-off-right-side-ads

What we said, but with pretty pictures.

 

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[bottomtothetop]

I think it's time for a Google alternative to please stand up.

 

[eliquid]

For a long time, 3rd - 5th has been solid gold for ROI in many verticals I manage. So much so I set up bidding rules in Adwords to specifically hit these targets ( I was trying to hit a position of 2.5-3 )

The cost for these placement vs their price was just a solid gem. Mainly because the 3rd, 4th and even 5th ad basically lines up with the last top ad or first organic and could be easily seen on the right-hand side with the right ad format.

I think Google also knew this, and with pretty much cutting out 4th-5th ( sending them to the bottom with the exception of some queries getting 4th at top ), they can force people to pay more and bid higher.

People are going to want to bid more now, but even if you bid 300% more than normal.. you might only get to position 2 or 3 in Adwords reporting. So I am not too worried about the price floor going up because most of my campaigns have strong QS.

Also, you need to remember... the positions you see in Adwords are an average. You might bid 300% more to compensate for this and see a position of 3 in Adwords, but that's an average. You might actually be spending a fair amount of time at the bottom of the page in reality.

If you want to win in this new game, you need to have 8+ QS and also position of like 1.5-2.5 in the Adwords interface or else you are gonna be losing when it comes to being above the fold now. I also predict more people are gonna jump ship on Search and hit Display and Youtube and Gmail ads as a result ( if not Bing and other platforms too ).

 

[Tom.V]

Just as an update to this whole fiasco: http://searchengineland.com/googles-right-side-adpocalypse-really-happened-data-245011

 

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[Andy Black]

It's just BAU. Some things have changed, we're reacting.