What we gained was granular control over mobile bids at the ad group level if desired, flexible and quick geobidding factors, and improved dayparting.
I sincerely doubt many advertisers, after having time to reflect on all this, would go back to having three times the number of campaigns just so they could control bids by device type, and three, twenty, or fifty times that many again so they could nimbly bid accurately by geo segment.
Sure, it’s not all great now. Costs have risen, device switching is rampant, and competition is tougher than ever. Google’s Quality Score remains opaque and often punitive, inaccurate, capricious, or simply profit-driven.
Google still allows low-quality advertisers and arbitragey “partner search engines” to pollute the paid search results, despite claiming crackdowns. In some countries, fake comparison engines and the like still pollute paid search results, allowing certain advertisers to de facto double-serve. The playing field should feel more level for conscientious players. Enhancements like ad extensions are welcome, except that advertisers want to game them, and like a planet where Mariah Carey’s fake hair is the norm, you look bad if you don’t play along. Just more busywork on the PPC treadmill. It’s [nearly] enough to drive a man to content marketing, or “what used to be called SEO.”
