Google AdWords is introducing a significant change to its contextual engine, which matches ads to pages based on keywords, through keyword level targeting, bidding and targeting. Through Next-Gen Keywords Contextual Targeting, advertisers can fine-tune the performance of their campaigns down to individual keyword level.

To put that into context, the example the AdWords team give on their blog is:

“Let’s say you’re running display campaigns for a Travel Agency who offers a vacation packages in several Caribbean islands. In the past, you would have created themed ad groups targeting vacations to Turks and Caicos and the Caribbean. Now, with this new keyword level transparency you might realize that the keyword “Turks and Caicos vacations” is 4 times more profitable than the keyword “caribbean vacations”. You can optimize your campaigns to aggressively target these high performing keywords, and be more conservative on “caribbean vacations”.”

The other additions include visualisations which symbolise the reach of your campaigns, and show how much of an impact your campaign has by combining multiple targeting types, such as keywords, placements, topics, interests or remarketing. Also a new display tab network, to be rolled out over the next few weeks, which allows you to bid, target and optimise display campaigns from the one place.