Facebook is again at the forefront of savvy advertisers minds.  A new feature is being tested and speculated to be fully rolled out this year that is said to dramatically change how ads are being served to fellow Facebookers. The current model of advertising serves ads based on preferences set by the advertiser which match those of the target user’s profile preferences. For many, this was already in itself smarter than the Google AdWords targeting which was designed to be keyword focused. The only similarity between the two is the bidding system; Facebook’s ad bidding system is similar to Google’s in theory but not quite in practice. A key difference is that after clicking on a Facebook ad you can attribute an “I like” which gives a vote of confidence to the page where you ended up and effectively goes beyond bounce rate. On Google, things are changing and Google +1 is meant to deliver exactly the same functionality from the SERPs. More on that will come in a separate post from us.

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The Farmer update has shaken the world of SEO in the USA recently and was undoubtedly rolled out with the end user’s benefit in mind – ensuring the most relevant results for any given search. Hurray! Good for Google! Does that then mean that the latest changes to Adwords were rolled out for the benefit of its advertisers?

Unquestionably, many of the changes that Google has made to Adwords over the last 18 – 24 months have been to the benefit of its users. As a PPC management company, we know as well as anyone the impact that ad extensions (for example) can have on CTRs and conversion rates; ergo users are finding paid results more and more relevant. However – and call me a cynic – I would argue that Google’s latest changes to Adwords are purely for the benefit of advertisers, and hence to the benefit of Google’s bottom line.

Google is refining the art of disguise, to the benefit of its advertisers.

So, let me explain my cynicism…

Google is making its ads much more similar in appearance to the organic listings. Around 70-80% (depending on your sources) of search engine users ONLY use organic listings, so there is logic in disguising the paid listings as organic to trap the less savvy searchers. But how exactly has Google done it?

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