It seems like just last year, Google Marketing Live made fewer but bigger announcements. Like responsive search ads in 2018 or top conversion value in 2019. Performance Max could become last year’s eventbut it’s still a rather controversial type of campaign.
But what does all this mean? !
The point is, Google’s list of updates seems to grow every year, and it’s harder to pinpoint what’s really important. That’s why we’ve created serious retrospectives to simplify things and help you figure out what adjustments or preparations you need to make.
Top Google Marketing Live Updates for 2022
As I just mentioned, there are a lot of small features, developments, betas, and tools at this year’s event, but they can be grouped into five core categories:
content
For you big guys, you can see the full list of updates (according to Google) at the bottom.
1. Performance Max update
The Performance Max campaign, released last year, is Google’s latest pride and joy.we will let you Decide if Performance Max is right for youbut please note that this campaign type allows you to run ads across all of Google’s properties in a single campaign.
- Emergencies and in-store goals: These are currently in beta for local campaigns, but will be available in Performance Max soon. In-store goals allow you to optimize for in-store traffic, in-store sales, and other local actions. Burst Campaigns will work in tandem with your in-store goals to help you run short-term campaigns during seasonal peaks for faster results.
- Experimental tools: The experimental tool is currently in beta for Performance Max campaigns without product feeds, and will be generally available for the rest of the year. This feature allows you to measure incremental improvements in performance when you add a Performance Max campaign as a complement to an existing campaign type.
- illustrate: Rather than cross-referencing data across your different reporting tools, this feature will help determine the cause of performance changes within the Google Ads interface. The idea, Google explained, is to add transparency to how automation works in your campaigns.
- Google Ads Recommended and optimization scores Available soon for Performance Max campaigns. Based on your campaign settings and goals, as well as external factors such as search volume and trends, Google recommends that you optimize for targeting, budget, and asset groups.
2. Insights page update
this Google Ads insights page Nor is it a new feature, but Google will soon be adding more data to pages to help you optimize based on campaign performance and broader search trends. There are three new types of insight:
- Attribution: Multi-touch attribution Information to help you understand the conversion paths users take through Google channels is currently available in Google Analytics, but will now have a section on the Insights page.
- Budget: This feature will optimize recommendations based on your budget Campaign budgets are in sync against performance.
- First-party audience: These insights will use your first party data Helps you understand which segments are performing best and feeds Google’s machine learning to optimize campaign performance.
Insights pages are also available for manager accounts.
3. Google Shopping Updates
When it comes to the Google Shopping experience, there’s been a lot of i-words this year — a lot of repetition of “inspiration,” “idea,” “immersive,” and “intuition.”I’ll let you do what you can, but here’s the core shopping update e-commerce business.
- Merchant checkout: Shoppers will soon be able to checkout directly from a listing, which will take them to a checkout page on an advertiser’s website. This started with Shopify and Walmart and will expand to other partners and retailers in the future.
- Immersive shopping experience: For apparel, a “robust, swipeable, visual stream of information” will be rolled out in time for the holiday season. Organic search results and Shopping ads using rich images and descriptions will be integrated into the SERPs, and users can also swipe up on ads to see more product details.
- 3D Augmented Reality: We will soon be able to view 3D models of products in search results.
- Product information on YouTube Shorts and Search: Google talks about the browsing experience and shopping experience becoming more integrated – for example, “a moment of entertainment can instantly become a moment of shopping”, “when you least expect it but really appreciate it” (which may be related to the SERPs for no business Purpose Inquiry, there are now more ads than ever? See our Search Advertising Benchmark Report 🤔 But I digress). As such, product feeds will soon be available on YouTube Shorts and Search as a way to “turn your video mobile campaigns into an actual digital storefront.”
- Product Improvement Suggestions: This tab in Google Ads allows retailers to optimize not only their campaigns, but also their individual products. It will detect and diagnose problems with your product, such as missing information, underbidding, etc.
4. Report Updates
- Transformation modeling update: Improvements in conversion modeling include support for more browsers, enhanced conversion integrations with HubSpot, Tealium, and other platforms, on-device conversion measurement, and lead funnel reporting to see how qualified and converted leads are performing.
- Simplified markup: A single Google tag will replace the global site tag for all Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts. Manage tags centrally without additional code.
- GA4 New Home Experience: Google Analytics 4, set to Replacing Universal Analytics next yearsoon will have a new homepage dashboard that will automatically discover insights and predictions based on where your audience members are in their journey.
5. More Google Ads Updates
- Asset library: The Asset Library in Google Ads will be a “one-stop shop” where advertisers can import, collaborate and share all assets for all campaigns in one place, integrating with Google Drive. You’ll be able to create a video in less than 60 seconds and post it directly to YouTube in your library “faster than I pop a bag of popcorn” (let’s fold popcorn into Performance Max Burst Campaigns to pop up faster, whaddaya says Google?). According to Google, you’ll be able to create ads with just five image, logo, and text assets.
- The message in the ad: Google Business Messages will allow consumers to connect with businesses directly in search ads.
- YouTube Shorts Ad: According to Google, YouTube Shorts now has more than 30 billion average daily views, four times what it was a year ago. Additionally, “75% agree that YouTube enhances the traditional shopping journey by providing unexpected inspiration.” As a result, advertising on YouTube Shorts is now possible.
Full rundown of Google Marketing Live 2022
We’ll go ahead and list all the announcements Google has listed at Google Marketing Live, sorted now and coming soon.
available now
- Immersive Shopping Ads
- Asset library
- GA’s New Home Experience
- Transformation Modeling Update
- DDA as the default (although we think it’s already a thing?)
- On-device conversion measurement
- Visual Product Feed
- AR in Search
- Performance Max (yes, we know, thanks to Google)
coming soon
- Ads on YouTube Shorts
- Discovery Videos (Not to be confused with Discovery campaigns. This refers to the Google Discovery app)
- Google Audience for CTV
- Performance maximum
- Experiments tool (not to be confused with experiments, a feature that applies to other campaign types in Google Ads).
- Insights and explanations
- Search Lift Test
- Conversion lift test
- automatically created assets
- Send a message to a business in an ad
- Insights page
- Attribution Insights
- Budget Insights
- Audience Insights Using First-Party Data
- For manager accounts
- Optimization score for each campaign type
- my ad center
- Privacy-preserving advertising
- MMM improvements
- Google Tab
- More support for enhanced conversions
- Lead Funnel Report
- Visual ad experience in search
- Product Feed in YouTube Shorts & Search
- Store Sales in Performance Max
- Merchant checkout
- Product Improvements in Google AD
- Loyalty benefits on Google
