Google’s annual Marketing Live online conference took place recently, with some key updates to the range of digital marketing tools and features in Google Ads the centre of the keynote address.
Google has announced 16 changes and additions to their Ads platform, including advancements in automation, video ad enhancements and a glimpse of some of the technologies in the pipeline.
Video Ads
Video ads will see a number of updates including:
More Ads in YouTube Shorts – video action campaigns and App campaigns will now be available on Shorts globally, with product feeds coming later in the year which will vastly improve shopability for retail ads in particular.
Google Discover will soon include short video ads, adding weight to organic content for a richer marketing experience.
And finally, advertisers will soon be able to use Display and Video 360 to develop seamless TV campaigns to reach affinity, in-market and demographic audiences on YouTube and other ad-capable TV apps.
Automation
In terms of automation, Performance Max campaigns will have a number of updates as the year progresses, including:
- A/B testing
- Expanded campaign management support in Search Ads 360 and the Google Ads mobile app
- Ability to optimize for in-store sales
- New performance data such as attribution, audience and auction insights
- Optimization score and recommendations
On the Insights page, advertisers will now have access to three new reports, including:
- Attribution Insights: See how your ads work together across Google surfaces.
- Budget Insights: Find new opportunities for budget optimization.
- Audience Insights: See show how your customer segments are driving campaign performance.
Responsive search ads will soon have a range of automatically created assets, which will improve ad relevance by generating assets based on content from landing pages and other ad units. This feature will help amateur marketers by giving them access to assets that they previously would have had to make up themselves.
Additionally, Google will display the best-performing combinations of created and automated assets to maximise campaign performance.
There are also updates to responsive display ads including full-screen vertical format, scrolling ads and video ads based on your product feed.
Google’s optimization score is also being expanded to include all campaign types.
Product roadmap
Google’s forward-looking roadmap includes a range of upcoming features designed to make the lives of digital marketers ever more easy and efficient, including:
- Conversion Lift Tests: Measure incremental conversions based on users and geography.
- Search Lift Tests: Measure the impact of your YouTube campaigns on driving organic searches on Google and YouTube.
- Google Tag: The global site tag will become the Google tag and get updated with new capabilities.
- My Ad Center: Google will allow users to select the types of ads they want to see more or less of.
Find out more about Realnet’s digital marketing options to help you develop, engage and monetise your audiences. Contact us today on 01223 550800 or email info@realnet.co.uk.