The beauty of Google Ads is that it continues to evolve to keep up with how customers interact with brands. Google understands the customer journey, and its goal is to optimize ad campaigns to keep up with consumer behaviors. In an effort to provide new and innovative ways to capture the attention of potential customers, advertisers can look forward to some enhanced features coming their way in the latest Google update. Let’s take a look at these new advertising features and break down how they can help improve your campaign’s performance.
Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max campaigns bring together Google’s automation technology to help advertisers drive better performance across all Google Ad channels. These features include a new customer acquisition goal type, consumer interest insights, and a one-click upgrade too.
#1 Customers Acquisition Goal Type
Previously, the Customer Acquisition Goal was only available to advertisers using Smart Shopping campaigns. Now, this feature will be available for all advertisers looking to generate leads or increase online sales. The customer acquisition goal allows advertisers to do one of two things:
- Bid for more customers that are similar to existing customers
- Focus on optimization on new customers only while maintaining cost-efficiency
You’ll also have more ways to identify new customers, such as providing your own first-party data through customer match lists, conversion tags, and by using Google’s auto-detection method.
That being said, it’s recommended advertisers upload audience lists using the customer match lists so Google can better understand who their newest customers are.
#2 Customer Insights Page
The Customer Insights page will allow advertisers to see search themes that are driving conversions. This is a huge improvement since there were no such insights available in Performance Campaigns previously. This is also a huge time saver in analyzing data through multiple reports in Google Ads. This new Insights Page will make it easier and quicker for advertisers to uncover impactful insights related to their campaign goals.
Asset Audience Insights: With asset audience insights, advertisers can see how their text, image, and video assets resonate with specific audience segments. For example, let’s say you are a makeup retailer running a campaign on lipstick. You may learn that makeup enthusiasts engage more with lifestyle imagery, like people talking to each other while wearing the lipstick compared to a product-only image of the lipstick.
Diagnostic Insights: Once you’ve created a Performance Max campaign, the diagnostic insights will show you any setup issues that can prevent people from seeing your ads. For example, if your ad assets are disapproved, you’ll be directed to fix them to prevent your campaign from running.
#3 One-Click Upgrade Tool
The “one-click” upgrade tool will be available in June 2022 to advertisers using Smart Shopping campaigns. This upgrade tool gives advertisers two options for upgrading their campaigns to Performance Max campaigns: through a bulk upgrade or by selecting specific campaigns to upgrade. Learnings from the old campaign will be applied to their new Performance Max Campaigns to help maintain performance through the transfer. All budgets, settings, and learnings from the previous campaigns will also be transferred over. Google encourages advertisers to upgrade their campaigns as soon as it becomes available.
Responsive Display Ads
Advertisers can look forward to seeing new improvements to responsive display ads. In this update, Google has introduced new creative features to fit different sizes of ad units. These features include new mobile layouts, machine learning capabilities, image un-cropping, and a creative inspiration hub.
#1 Mobile Layout
Google ads are now going vertical for a better mobile experience. New, mobile-first layouts will be available to accommodate any portrait image or video asset to be used. Previous options required a landscape or a square image while using machine learning to fill in the gaps for mobile ads. This new upgrade is a welcomed change since it gives advertisers more control over their mobile appearance.
#2 Machine Learning
Not sure how to format your imagery? No problem. Google will now be incorporating machine learning to enhance your ad design. Advertisers will now be able to upload a few images, videos, and headlines, and Google will automatically create and test visually appealing ad combinations that fit millions of ad placements.
Even if you don’t have the correct dimension asset on hand, Google will use machine learning to adjust your creative to fit automatically. For example, if you uploaded a landscape video but want to vertical ad layout, Google will have the ability to auto-generate a vertical ad to fit your RDA.
#3 Image Uncropping
Google will once again use machine learning to un-crop images in product ads. This update gives Google the ability to expand an image to fill any gaps within the ad. This is a big improvement to the previous option of cropping images to fit, leaving empty white spaces in the ad. This also means no more manual changes are required on the advertiser’s part.
#4 Creative Inspiration Hub
If you’re an advertiser in need of a little inspiration, Google has the tool for you. In this new creative inspiration hub, advertisers will see real-life examples of ads that worked well for businesses across Discovery, Display, Apps, and YouTube Campaigns. It also includes an “ad format” filter option allowing advertisers to view ad creatives based on types. By seeing creative work from around the globe, advertisers can gain inspiration quietly from actual ads that worked well with consumers.
Google Update Final Thoughts
The benefits of Google Ads are endless. They can not only help you rank higher in the search results, but they can also help you stay competitive in your industry. Staying on top of the latest Google updates will help you stay a cut above the rest. If you’re looking to advertise with Google and grab the attention of potential customers, we can help. Contact our team for a free consultation to get started.