Google is rebranding some of its advertising products to make it easier for businesses to choose the right solution for them. Google Ads, Marketing Platform, and Ad Manager along with their newest features took center stage at this year’s annual Marketing Innovation Keynote. Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President of Ads and Commerce, introduced the keynote by discussing how changing consumer behavior and increasing expectations have informed their marketing innovations. Even though the consumer mindset has changed, Google continues to create solutions that are valuable, transparent, and trustworthy. Maintaining people’s privacy while helping businesses grow and customers find the things they need is a challenge that Google continues to find balance in through the following new features.
YOUTUBE
Over one billion hours of YouTube videos are consumed daily. Viewers are not only turning to this platform for entertainment purposes but also to do research on what products or services to buy. When a video ad is relevant, consumers pay 3x more attention to it. All three of these new innovations will be supported within Google Ads and the Google Marketing Platform.
TrueView for Reach | Available now
Raises brand awareness among a broad set of customers
TrueView for Action | Available now
Optimized to drive conversions on your website by featuring a branded banner with a call to action. This call to action can be customized and later this year Google will introduce form ads, which makes it easier for target customers to complete the call to action. The banner remains on the YouTube page while and after the video plays.
Maximize Lift Bidding | Available later this year
Uses machine learning to help users reach people who are more likely to consider their brand after being exposed to your ad.
BYE BYE GOOGLE ADWORDS, HELLO GOOGLE ADS
Google announced that they would be rebranding AdWords as Google Ads. Google Ads will give users the ability to use a simple interface to advertise on multiple Google platforms and utilizes machine learning to maximize results.
Responsive Search Ads | Available in English within the next few months. Beta versions in non-English languages will be released through the rest of the year.
More flexible ads that simplify ad creation and the testing process while delivering better results. Google Ads users can plug up to 15 headlines and four descriptions into the system and over time it will mix and match multiple headlines and descriptions to find the best possible combinations for customers based on the context of the search and their intent. Each ad shown will then have three 30 character headlines and two 90 character description lines, which is about 90% more text compared to current search ads.
Landing Page Speed Score | Available now
Ten point scale that shows how fast each page loads on a mobile device. This scale is based on multiple factors including the relationship between page load time and the conversion rate. This data is updated daily.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) | Available now
Increases the website load speed on mobile devices. This tool used in conjunction with the landing page speed score is important because over 50% of mobile users will not make a purchase from a site that takes too long to load.
Cross Device Reporting and Remarketing | Available now
Combines data from people who visit your website multiple times across devices. It only displays aggregated data from people who choose to share it and will not show Individual user data. This will be available in the Analytics platform, allowing users to make more informed product and marketing decisions.
SMALL BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
Over 50% of small businesses do not have a website, which means they are losing opportunities to gain new customers. Google is making an effort to provide simple but effective ways for small business owners to focus on their improving their craft while growing through advertising.
Smart Campaigns | Available later this year
Uses machine learning to optimize ad campaigns. Small businesses are able to set up a campaign in a few minutes. Ads then show up in Search, in local search results, and the websites and apps available through Display. The software will drive results based on your selected business goals which include options like increasing store visits and getting the phone to ring.
Auto Optimized Landing Pages | Available later this year
Google automatically creates and optimizes landing pages so that they are three times better at getting your ads in front of the right audience. This is included as a part of the Smart Campaigns feature and provides data to help you keep track of your progress.
Grow With Google | Available now
Free training to help small businesses grow their online marketing and business development skills. Six million businesses have already been trained through this program.
Google My Business | Available now
Helps businesses attain free listings on Search and Maps that help you make connections with customers. Features like Q&A and messaging help you communicate with customers.
SHOPPING & RETAIL
Over 80% of Americans are shopping for something in any given 48-hour period. Researching products and services before purchasing is now extremely common making it essential for businesses to optimize ads so they appear to the right person at the right time.
Automated Feeds | Available later this year
Automatically builds a product feed for your online inventory
Smart Shopping Campaigns | Available now with some features rolling out in the next few months
Runs shopping ads across major Google platforms and includes Display remarketing. This new campaign type also allows you to integrate data from eCommerce sites to your Google account. For example, if you have a Shopify account you can see inventory data and information collected from Google Ads and Merchant Center in either platform. Increasing store visits and new customer acquisition are being added as new business goals.
Local Campaigns | Available in the next few months
New campaign type that helps you promote your local business to consumers across multiple Google platforms. The goal is to maximize store visits by inputting a few details like uploading your creative and connecting your Google My Business account.
Hotel Campaigns | Available now
Easily group hotels by important attributes such as brand and class. This feature maximizes bookings by using bidding controls and machine learning. You can also plan a campaign based on your business’ ROI goals.
GOOGLE MARKETING PLATFORM
The Google Marketing Platform combines their advertising and analytics platforms to create a more integrated and seamless experience for users who want to plan, buy, measure, and optimize media and consumer experiences. The Google Analytics 360 suite and DoubleClick are now a part of the Marketing Platform.
Search Ads 360 | Available in the next few weeks
Helps you plan, buy, and measure search ads on Google and other search engines. Search Ads 360 is now the new name for the DoubleClick brand.
Display & Video 360 | Available in the next few weeks
Manage your audio, video, TV, and other advertising channels in one place while making it easier for marketing teams to collaborate since everyone has access to the same information. This tool combines features from DoubleClick Bid Manager, Campaign Manager, Studio, and Audience Center. The ads made within this tool are mobile-friendly and variations of the ad can be made for different audience segments. The process of selecting inventory and publishers has also been simplified. Inventory is filtered based on the parameters that have already been entered, the system populates a list of publishers that are ordered based on their historical performance with the brand, and users can send RFPs to several publishers at once.
Integration Center | Available in the next few weeks
Can connect multiple Google products including Display & Video 360, Analytics 360, and Google Ads together. You can also connect to over 100 third party tools to give you access to the best inventory, using the payment options that work best for you, and the measurement options that give you the best insights into your impact.
Instant Reporting | Available in the next few weeks
Easily build custom reports within the UI and the data will populate within seconds. The metrics found within these reports are based on industry standards and gives users the ability to measure their impact while having confidence in the accuracy of the numbers.
Google Measurement Partners | Available in the next few weeks
23 new and existing companies, including Nielsen, MOAT, and comSCORE, that provide several standard industry metrics which can be connected to the Google Marketing Platform.
Among the variety of changes taking place within the portfolio of products, advertisers will find it easier to display optimized ads across Google’s platforms and within mobile. Small businesses and marketing teams will find it less challenging to navigate ad creation while customers will be able to see results that match the context of their search.
You can access the full keynote here.
