Google held its annual Marketing Live Stream on July 10th. Didn’t have a chance to see it? Don’t worry. We’ve put together our top 5 takeaways from the event.
#1 Responsive Search Ads
The golden rule for search ads has always been to have three ads running per ad group (at a minimum). This allows Google’s artificial intelligence to properly and efficiently rotate ads and decide on the best performing one to continue to show. Last year Google released Expanded Text Ads, which gave advertisers additional real estate to extend ads by including two headlines and a longer description. Now Google is releasing new text ads: Responsive Search Ads. These are set up to do all the heavy lifting of testing different ad copy without having to build out multiple ads. Marketers will be able to enter multiple headlines, Google recommends five, as well as multiple descriptions. Google’s machine learning technology will then make a variety of ads using the different headlines and descriptions. This will allow Google to test copy combinations without you having to build out dozens of ads. Doesn’t that sound great? What’s even better is that Google will test up to three headlines and multiple descriptions at a time, which will make your previously expanded text ads even more expanded. Responsive search ads will provide 90 percent more text space for ads.
#2 Landing Page Speed Score
When it comes to websites, speed is often overlooked. FirstTracks Marketing works with our clients to ensure their websites are not only functional and appealing but also fast. The faster the better. Google is now giving advertisers a new tool built right into the Google Ads dashboard that shows how your page speed ranks. Page speed plays a role in quality score, which ultimately impacts cost-per-click and ad performance. While there are free third-party tools to check page speed, it’s always been unknown where Google ranks that speed. With this new metric, marketers will be able to see how it is impacting their ads and work to make it faster.
#3 Cross Device Reporting
Attribution marketing and reporting is nothing new, however, the technology is expensive and laborious to implement. While marketers have always been able to target a customer no matter which device they were on, they were never able to report on the customer’s journey between devices. With Google’s new Cross Device Reporting, marketers can tell if an individual customer prefers to search on mobile but purchase on desktop or vice versa. What does this really mean for targeting? You might see a lot of mobile clicks on your ads but no conversions and then see those customers convert later on their desktop. Without this insight you might have bid down on mobile ads. Now you know they are valuable customers with the cross-device report.
#4 Local Campaigns
For retailers with multiple locations, it’s always been time consuming to get local ads up and running. Campaigns had to be built out for each location in order to have control over which areas get more budget and perform better. With Google’s new Local Campaigns, advertisers can quickly set up their store on Google in many different formats and for multiple locations. Time is money! This new feature will give you back some of your time.
#5 Display & Video 360
Setting up creative display ads and video ads has always been difficult. The set up requires a lot of time from graphic designers, photographers, and videographers. Now Google has provided a one-stop shop to build out ads utilizing drag and drop formats so anyone can use them. Choosing where to advertise these ads is even more convenient with a marketplace that is built out to show you the best websites based on your audience and your goals.
Google announced during the Marketing Live Stream that these features will be rolled out to everyone in the next few weeks. FirstTracks will be monitoring Google Ads in anticipation for this launch.
Not sure how you can best leverage these new tools? FirstTracks Marketing can help.
