I recently noticed, by accident, that all of my Google Adwords campaigns had been automatically opted-in so that I was also now (unbeknownest to me) spending my advertising budget on showing ads on iPhones and other mobile devices. The reason I came across this change is that I noticed an increase in my bounce rate on a few of my campaigns – obviously this is a bad thing since it means that more users who were clicking on my ads were not staying on my landing pages on Wahanda, thereby costing me money that I would have preferred not to spend. This also ate away my daily budgets more quickly, preventing other consumers from being able to see my adverts, and potentially also making a purchase.

It was only when I noticed that my top-line metrics had changed that I visited the “Edit Campaign” settings and noticed this new tick mark (see screenshot) for the mobile devices box.

Google decides what's best for me – thanks Adwords!

Now, I know Google has a very widely pubclized “Don’t be Evil”, so I wonder if this mantra guided their decision to:

• automatically opt-in all my campaigns so that I did not have a decision on whether I wanted to spend my advertising budget on mobile devices
• not inform me of this option via an email or even notifications in the site
• not give me the choice of being opted in, but assuming that I would want this
• time this “innovation” just before the Christmas period when every dollar/GBP of budget makes a difference
• not breakout the effectiveness of this medium in the dashboard so you can see the impressions, clickthrough rates and conversions by this channel (why not make this transparent?)

Google’s “Don’t be Evil” code claims “it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect.” Not providing a head’s up, nor providing transparency into the change seems to be at odds with their claims.

I can understand that some advertisers would love for their ads to appear on iPhones and mobile devices, but my general feeling is that users on mobile devices today will be less valuable in these early days for online retail sites.

Showing ads for location based offers, information, etc, maybe even some impulse purchases may have some early traction, but typical e-commerce sites may find what we found – that this change will just eat away at budgets and not deliver the sales and conversions we are typically used to from advertising on Google Search as conducted from desktops and laptops.