Earlier this year, Google held their annual Marketing Livestream, a virtual event where they shared their latest and greatest new advertising features that are set to roll out on Google Ads in the very near future.
From image extensions on the SERP to new Google Analytics capabilities, there are so many updates coming to Google Ads that you need to be aware of.
To help you out, we’ve written this short article, condensing the most important changes into a brief 3-minute read.
Do you use automated bidding?
According to Google, over 80% of their advertisers use automated bidding on Google Ads.
Therefore, there is no surprise they are continuing to push automation more than ever before.
One of the ways they’re aiming to do this is by expanding the ‘Performance Max’ campaign type.
If you haven’t heard of Performance Max before, you’re not alone.
Only a select few advertisers have had access to this automated campaign type, which drives results across Search, Display, YouTube, and Discover, all from a single campaign.
However, Google are now switching things up, by making this widely available to more advertisers worldwide (we’re keeping our fingers crossed).
Alongside this rollout will come a new reporting dashboard built-into Google Ads, which aims to give advertisers an insight into how Performance Max works its automation magic.
And that’s not all… Google are also rolling out the ‘Target ROAS’ bidding strategy to additional channels, such as Discovery and Video.
Google Shopping gets an upgrade.
This year’s Google Marketing Livestream focused heavily on Google Shopping, and how it can enable e-commerce businesses to grow exponentially.
Numerous new features that will benefit e-commerce businesses and advertisers have been announced, all of which will enable retailers to further advertise their products in an efficient, cost-effective way.
One of these new features involves the growing technology of AR, known as Augmented Reality.
In a post-coronavirus world, trying on clothes in the shops seems like a thing of the past… or at least, it will soon be.
Google have recently introduced AR experiences for beauty products from companies such as MAC, which allows consumers to try on the product virtually using the power of Augmented Reality combined with Google Shopping.
This ‘filter-like’ experience has influenced thousands of purchases and has been very successful, which is why Google are deciding to turn things up a level.
They now plan to expand this feature into the wider fashion industry…
This will allow consumers to try on their favourite garments, without even leaving their home!
Privacy is key for Google Ads.
Google have been continuously keen to reiterate they are heavily focused on privacy and are always ensuring they put the user first.
With this comes further privacy adjustments.
Alongside keeping tracking to a minimum, they understand Google Ads still contributes a large part of Google’s overall revenue, and therefore they need to also keep advertisers in mind too.
To keep advertisers happy, they continue to look for ways to get hold of valuable data, without breaching any user’s privacy requests.
Therefore, they have confirmed that custom audiences will roll out to ‘nearly all’ advertisers, a move which sees limitations around who is eligible to use custom audiences fade.
And there’s more…
That’s not all Google announced.
They have also announced plans to roll out image extensions for search ads to all advertisers, introduce new Google Analytics features, and a lot more.
We’ve kept it brief, but if you want to stay up-to-date with the full list of new features, be sure to watch the livestream replay here.
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