July 24th 2018 marks the beginning of a new era for Google, as the company has recently announced in its 2018 Marketing Innovations Keynote that it’s rebranding Google AdWords as Google Ads, plus a series of exciting new changes and features coming soon.
If you didn’t watch the keynote live or you don’t have an hour and a half to dedicate to it, we’ve covered the main points you should be aware of and how the upcoming changes could impact your business.
Why Google Ads
Goodbye Google AdWords, Hello Google Ads.
The digital giants announced this rebranding recently which will take place shortly after the new AdWords (or let’s call it Ads now) interface will replace the old version for good, this month.
The change marks the shift from words and Search which used to be one of the main types of advertising in the early years of Google AdWords to encompass the increasingly wider range of advertising options Google offers across its multiple platforms and properties – be it Search, Shopping, Display, Video, Mobile or other.
Advertisers can look forward to advertising solutions which remain committed to Google’s three core principles – valuable, transparent, and trustworthy – but that benefit from recent technological developments such as machine learning and provide advertising formats better suited to current consumer expectations.
New features we’re excited about (and why you should be too)
Here’s some interesting stats from the recent Google Marketing Keynote:
- 91% of smartphone owners bought or plan to buy something after seeing an ad that is relevant
- People pay 3 x more attention to video ads that are relevant to them
The conclusion? Mobile, video and relevant content are leading the way, which is great to see Google introducing new advertising opportunities that revolve around this. For example, new options for YouTube ads that will be launched later this year include:
- TrueView for reach – perfect if you want campaigns optimised to raise brand awareness
- TrueView for action – if your main focus is getting website conversions, this is the right solution for you
- Maximise lift bidding – great for increasing brand consideration by helping you reach people who are more likely to consider your brand after seeing your ads
When it comes to Search campaigns, we can’t wait for the new responsive Search ads to become available universally, with English-language advertisers receiving access over the next few months. Taking advantage of Machine Learning and featuring up to three 30-character headlines and two 90-character description lines, these will offer 90% more text, giving advertisers more space to deliver relevant, engaging content.
We’ve already started testing them on some of the PPC accounts that we’re managing (as a Google Premier Partner, we get early access to certain features), and we have to say the results look promising!
Mobile more important than ever
You’re probably sick of hearing about how important mobile is, but that’s the truth. Google knows this and they’ve been champions of improved mobile experiences for a good few years now. And when we talk about mobile performance, we need to mention speed as a key factor of influence.
To make things easier for businesses struggling with mobile performance, Google have announced the launch of a new tool for measuring the landing page speed score for mobile, to be added to the Ads interface.
Another way to enjoy an improved mobile performance? Consider AMPs aka Accelerated Mobile Pages.
Taking Shopping to the next level
Don’t think Google forgot about Shopping campaigns! On the contrary, the company announced a series of new features coming to this type of online advertising, including:
- Automated feeds
- Integration with certain ecommerce platforms such as Shopify
- Smart Shopping campaigns and new goals for those campaigns such as ‘drive store visits’ and ‘new customer acquisition’
- Local campaigns for businesses looking to promote their brick and mortar stores
- Hotel campaigns for travel companies looking to attract more leads
Want to learn more about how Shopping advertising can work for your business? Ask our PPC experts.
Shopping has always been a great tool for achieving a good ROAS (return on ad spend) and increase online revenue, but with these new features coming soon, its potential will be even greater for businesses who know how to harness it.
A comprehensive enterprise solution
Lastly, Google’s keynote covered the recently announced Google Marketing Platform which will unify advertising and analytics platforms into a single solution, perfect for enterprise users. This will include products such as:
- Analytics 360
- Optimize 360
- Data Studio
- Surveys 360
- Tag Manager 360
- DoubleClick (which will be re-named as Search Ads 360)
- Display & Video 360
The Google Marketing Platform will enable businesses to utilise different Google products under the same roof, helping to improve efficiency and create a more streamlined solution.
That about covers the main points from the keynote and we know there’s a lot of changes to take in. But to celebrate the new Google Ads and this next digital chapter into Paid Search, we’re offering FREE PPC audits during July and August 2018.
Request your free PPC audit by emailing [email protected]. Please read the full T&Cs here.
