Google’s own Inside AdWords blog announced yesterday afternoon that the ever-expanding world of their Instant Preview feature has finally made it’s way to advertising. Their news release explains that the Instant Preview feature for ads works in the same way it does for organic results. A small magnifying glass now appears next to the headline of each ad that populates for a user query, allowing the user to preview the landing page before clicking the ad.
The above screenshot was taken after I queried ‘wedding shoes.’ I clicked on the magnifying glass directly to the right of the first ad that came up and Google showed me the landing page for that ad. I can easily see by the preview that there are, in fact, wedding shoes available on this website. That is the goal: give users the opportunity to preview what they are about to click on and verify that the page contents match what they are searching for, thereby hopefully increasing user satisfaction and providing more highly-qualified traffic to websites.
But, you may be wondering, doesn’t that mean people can spend your PPC money without actually getting through to your page? Well that wouldn’t be very fair now, would it? Your PPC account is not charged for the Instant Preview clicks, only the clicks directly on your ad, which take the user to your website, so not to worry. However, it is likely that you will see a drop in traffic to your websites from your ads, as users will now be able to see if you are sending them to a generic landing page or to a page without the content they are searching for. To that end, make sure you take a little time to double-check your ad landing pages to ensure they are as user-friendly and content-focused as possible!
It may take some time to see the results of this additional feature, but we want to hear from you! As you monitor your accounts in the next week or so, take a look at overall clicks and report back to us here at PPC Hero! Did you clicks go down or increase? Was there a large change or does the change seem minimal? What about the future? Could Instant Preview for ads hurt or help PPC account holders? Post your ideas below in the comments section!
For further information about this topic, check out the following links:
- The SEO Impact of Google Instant Previews-SEO Boy
- Google Instant Preview Ads Fully Launched for Search Ads-Search Engine Land
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more news updates from PPC Hero!
