Javascript is something that all web programmers should know. But advertisers? The people who manage paid search campaigns on Google? What possible use could they have for learning Javascript?
Google has one in mind.
At SES San Francisco this week, I sat in on a Google session where they were demonstrating new features in their AdWords and DoubleClick advertising platforms. One announcement in particular leaped out at me. Google is now beta testing an AdWords Scripts feature that lets advertisers use Javascript to automate their campaigns.
It looks like this:
Advertisers can write simple (or not-so-simple) scripts right in their AdWords console, using them to programmatically change bids, pause/unpause keywords based on external inventory data, update spreadsheets with account stats, send email alerts on campaign conditions, and even dynamically adjust ads based on local weather conditions.
How cool is that? (Answer: Very cool, um, if you know Javascript.)
The feature was created because Google saw the need to bridge the gap between super-sophisticated advertisers who could write their own custom software using Google’s API and the majority of advertisers who were limited to only what they could manually do in the AdWords console. AdWords Scripts is a halfway point between the two.
Of course, you don’t have to learn how to program Javascript to advertise on Google. But those advertisers who do have a bit of Javascript skills at their disposal will be able to run more powerful and efficient campaigns. If you’re not one of them, your competition may be.
Chalk one more up for the rise of the marketing technologist.
P.S. A few tangential stats from that Google session that you might also appreciate:
- Over 40% of the world’s population is now online
- There are now 1 billion web-enabled smartphones worldwide
- There are over 30 trillion — trillion with a “t” — web URLs out there
- Google now serves over 100 billion Internet searches per month
- Google is now testing 15 different kinds of desktop web ad formats
You’ve just scratched the surface! I now use Scripts to update prices in product-specific ad copy, and adjust bids based on performance and margin! Being javascript, you can actually ping your own webservice somewhere on your own servers to increase the available data in the script (you can use the weather example code as a guide). Combine that with embedding AOV into the adgroup names, I’m able to control both product-level bids and broad, short tail bids all with three clicks, replacing nearly 3 hours of analyst time per day.
It’s fantastic.
There should be an award for that. 🙂
And now they’ve enabled scheduling! It’s not quite as sophisticated as ad scheduling, but it’s an excellent expansion of the tool.