Paid Search Instant Preview: A Sign of The Things to Come

By Emily Salant, Director of Paid Search

It seems like these days Google comes out with a new feature every week. The question that always remains constant in our world of digital marketing is “what does this mean for our clients?” Often times what may seem extremely relevant to us as advertisers, at the end of the day, turns out not to have the impact (negative or positive) that we initially thought it would. Each time a new product is rolled out, this question is up for debate.

Google Instant is a perfect example of this. While some marketers believed this would change the shape of Paid Search Marketing, the reality is that we’ve seen little to no impact on the day-to-day performance of our campaigns. There’s no denying that Instant makes it easier for end users to find the ‘search query’ faster, but the user behavior that follows seems to remain the same.

The latest in the development of enhancements by Google is the introduction of Instant Previews in Paid Search Ads. While some enhancements are meant purely for advertisers: site links, product extensions and video plus box; this feature aims at the end user by showing a magnifying glass next to the listing they are viewing. Once they hover over it, a smaller version of the website pops up, providing the user a preview of the landing page without ever having to leave the SERP (search engine results page).

As far as the user is concerned, the advantages include an increase in options without clicking back and forth, in turn providing those who utilize it with a much better user experience. This hopefully will result in them clicking on the most relevant link, getting them exactly where they want to go. There aren’t many disadvantages to this as of yet.

From an advertiser’s point of view, the story changes a bit. While this will guarantee more qualified traffic, in exchange decreasing the cost, advertisers face some new obstacles. Landing page quality is one of first things they should be re-evaluating. Because they are now so closely associated with Paid Search ads, it is up to the advertiser to re-visit these pages and ask themselves: “Is my site too flash heavy? Does it look presentable and clean within the smaller frame?”

The relationship of keywords and landing pages will now begin to play a more prominent role in the success of a paid search campaign. Ad groups will most likely need to be refined to be made more granular. Landing pages will also need to be revised to be as targeted as possible. Similar to the current set up (keyword search-> paid search ad -> landing page), this new preview feature will eliminate a step as the ad and landing page can be presented on the same screen. Advertisers might want to change the destination away from the home page where possible to ensure relevancy.

All in all as I stated before, when features like this are initially rolled out, it takes some time to figure out what the effects will be on the advertisers. In the meantime, advertisers/agencies should make sure to track their metrics and do a before and after comparison from when this feature went live. Though the effect on keyword performance is still unknown,  landing page stats on the other hand should see improvements for both abandonment and bounce rates.