AdWords Livestream: What You Kinda Shoulda Otta Know Sorta

Google had an important AdWords livestream today, and you can watch the really really long 45 minute video, here.  Unfortunately, it's very long and they talk v e e e e e r r r r r y y y  s l  o o o o  w.  So here's my wrap up.

• Mobile, mobile, mobile.  Google wants everyone to "go mobile," and that includes AdWords. So it's all about mobile these days. Now, whether that works for you is another matter. A lot of these "searches" on mobile are very consumer-oriented, and not particularly in-depth. So if you are in restaurants, auto's or big brands... mobile may be great. If your product is complicated and not phone-friendly, then the phone might not be for you.  Tablets and PC's might be better - but Google has completely and utterly drunk the mobile koolaide, as if "everything" were mobile.  Sorta kinda maybe.
• Apps. Some new stuff is coming out in Apps, including app promotion tools and ads are coming to the Google Play store (there's a beta out there).
• Conversions. Google would like you (and your boss) to realize that AdWords can drive conversions not from the click, but before the click before the click before the click, so new conversion-tracking lets AdWords claim more conversions than ever before! Not to be a total cynic, but they have a marketing study, here, that "proves" that the GDN can drive an increase in total traffic.
• AdWords Changes. AdWords is improving "automated bidding" as well as "dynamic search ads." As for the latter... be careful because if your website doesn't do SEO well, that means it doesn't talk to Google well... so it's hard to see how the Google Spider could do a good job of creating "dynamic search ads." Alternatively, if you ARE doing SEO well, then you already know your keywords, and you can probably do a much better job than the Googlebot. So what's the point there? Oh, and they're toying with allowing more visual, more emotional ads, starting with - wait for it - the big car brands.  Oh, the on the GDN (Google Display Network) ads will no resize.

That's my wrap-up. Here are links to other perspectives - 

• Twitter hashtag #StepInsideAdWords - see what's buzzing at Twitter (and Twitter's own promoted tweet at the top LOL). 
• Search Engine Land's wrap-up. 
• Zyber's Step Inside AdWords wrap-up.
• Larry Kim's 4 big take-aways and his May 7, Webinar, on the topic, here.

Oh, and you can read the official blog post, here, on the official AdWords blog.