Google Marketing Live 2022: The Top 10 Updates You Need to Know

Google Marketing Live 2022: The Top 10 Updates You Need to Know

1. New in Performance Max

Launched last year, the Performance Max event is Google’s latest pride and joy. We’ll let you decide if Performance Max is right for you, but please note that this campaign type allows you to run ads across all of Google’s properties through a single campaign.  

Brick-and-mortar sales reporting and bidding: If you run Performance Max for your brick-and-mortar goals, you’ll be able to optimize brick-and-mortar traffic and brick-and-mortar sales in no time. This feature is currently in beta for local campaigns, but will soon be available in Performance Max in Q3 2022.

   Burst campaigns: This also applies to Performance Max for store-targeted campaigns. Historically, Google has recommended that you run store-targeted campaigns for at least 30 days for optimal reach. This campaign type is designed to help you achieve the same reach in less time (two weeks). It will work in tandem with your in-store goals to drive visits, calls, and direction requests during seasonal peaks like the holidays.

   Experiments: Experiments are 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 performance improvements when you add a Performance Max campaign as a complement to an existing campaign type.

Explanation: Rather than cross-referencing data across your different reporting tools, this feature helps 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 suggestions and optimization scores are coming to 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.

   Search Ads 360 is now available: This announcement may not apply to most of our readers, but just for you: Search Ads 360 is Google’s enterprise-grade platform for managing data across multiple search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) of large search campaigns, Baidu, etc. ) SA360 users will be able to view, create, manage and report on Performance Max campaigns just like in Google Ads.

2. New data from the Insights page

The Google Ads Insights page was released in beta last year. It curates custom insights updated daily based on your account performance and current trends to help you improve your results. On this page, Google announced three new types of insights designed to help you understand why automated decisions are made  

Attribution Insights: The idea behind this update is to help you understand the conversion paths your customers take across your various Google Ads campaigns (Display, Search, YouTube, Shopping, Gmail, etc.). This multi-touch attribution information can help you understand the value of campaigns that indirectly lead to conversions. Google Real-Time Marketing in 2022 – Attribution Analysis Page

   Budget Insights: This feature will suggest budget optimizations based on the cadence of your campaign budget and performance. Google says it will allow you to monitor and act quickly when you’re constrained or about to be constrained by your budget, or reallocate when you expect to have most of your budget left by the end of the month.

   First-party audience insights: These insights will use your first-party data to help you understand which segments are performing best and provide Google’s machine learning signals to optimize campaign performance.

3. Google Shopping Updates

When it comes to the Google Shopping experience, there are a lot of i-words this year — a lot of repetition of “inspiration,” “idea,” “immersive,” and “intuition.” I’ll let you do your best, but here are the core shopping updates that are important to your eCommerce business.

   Merchant Checkout: Shoppers will soon be able to checkout directly from listings, which will take them to a checkout page on an advertiser’s website. This starts 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.

Product feeds on YouTube Shorts and Search: Google talks about browsing and shopping experiences becoming more integrated — for example, “a moment of entertainment can instantly turn into a moment of shopping”, “when you least expect it but appreciate it” ( Could this have something to do with the fact that the SERPs for queries with no commercial purpose now have more ads than ever? See our Search Ads 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 Suggestion: This tab in Google Ads allows retailers to optimize not only their campaigns but their products as well. It will detect and diagnose problems with your product, such as missing information, underbidding, etc.

4. Report Updates

The automation and machine learning updates here are a bit technical, but we’ll keep it simple.  

Search and conversion lift testing: Search lift testing randomly divide your audience into people who have seen your YouTube ads and people who haven’t, so you can see organic searches driven by your YouTube campaigns and any improvement.

   Conversion lift testing: When you create a video action or discovery campaign, Google divides your audience into two groups: people who view your ad and people who would have viewed the ad but then showed the next ad in the auction (so, Basically a competitor’s ad). Google then looks at conversions on your website to see if there’s an increase in conversions for users who watch your video action or discover your ad.

   Simplified tagging: A single Google tag will replace the global site tag for all Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts. Manage tags centrally without additional code.

    New reports: New data such as on-device conversion measurement and lead funnel reports will also be available to understand how your qualified and converted leads are performing.

    GA4 New Home Experience: This is worth noting as GA4 replaces Universal Analytics. Google Analytics 4 will soon have a new homepage dashboard that will automatically discover insights and predictions based on where your audience members are in their journey.

5. Privacy Progress

Google talks a lot about modeling and APIs, but honestly, it’s a lot of really confusing technical stuff. Here are a few things to know:  

Privacy Sandbox API: Google shared that it has been developing several APIs for interest-based advertising and targeting without third-party cookies, and will begin testing them later this year.  

Enhanced conversion improvements: including integration with HubSpot and other CRMs and support for more browsers. What exactly is enhanced conversion, you ask? This is one of Google’s cross-device conversion tracking solutions, which does not require cookies. You send first-party information collected by a user’s conversion on your website (for example, email and phone calls) to Google, and Google will match that information to the Google account in its database and then allow it to link that conversion to a different of Google ads the user interacts with before converting, regardless of device. Since the data is transmitted in a hashed form and then aggregated, it is privacy-safe.

6. Asset Creation Update

Auto-generated responsive search inventory: With this feature (coming later this year), Google will create RSA inventory for you based on your landing page and content from existing ads. Yes, folks, this is automated automation.

    New Asset Library: This will be a “one-stop shop” for advertisers to import, collaborate and share all assets for all campaigns in one place, integrated with Google Drive. According to Google, you’ll be able to create ads with just five images, logos, and text assets. You can also create a video in less than 60 seconds and publish it directly to YouTube in your library, “faster than I can pop a bag of popcorn” (let’s fold popcorn into a Performance Max Burst campaign). to pop up faster, Whaddaya says Google?).

7. Information in Advertisements

Google Business Messages will allow consumers to connect with businesses directly in search ads.

8. 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.

9. Mobile-First Layouts for Responsive Display Ads

These will be full-screen portrait mode ads, as well as scrollable and video ads based on product feeds.

10. Google Audiences for CTV

Google Audiences (including affinity, in-market audiences, and demographic audiences) will soon be available for connected TV campaigns. Connected TV advertising is a form of OTT advertising that has become increasingly popular with the rise of [cable] cord-cutters.