Google is Brewing Up New Changes for Their Ad Platform

Image Source : Google

The Google Marketing Live conference was held earlier this May and some great news came out of the event for all those advertising and digital marketing fanatics out there. Google Ads is set to make massive updates to their algorithm that will lead to some meaningful changes in how digital marketing is done.

What does this mean for business owners? An improved and streamlined digital marketing process can help you net big returns on your marketing investments. With an estimated 2.8 billion users on Facebook, 330 million Tweeters, 77.6 million Instagramers, and almost 5 billion videos seen on YouTube every single day, lacking a digital marketing plan means you’re missing out on that sweet, sweet revenue.

At Cobalt Digital Marketing, we excel at setting up effective digital marketing campaigns for all of our clients through Google Ads and Marketing as part of our Cobalt Formulaᵀᴹ. All this tantalizing news coming from the Google Marketing Live conference has got us eager to perfect your digital marketing strategy so that you can reap all of the rewards from these soon-to-be changes.   

Google Ads Changes and Updates for the Near Future

Perhaps one of the biggest announcements regarding Google products this year is the fact that digital marketers can now run one single campaign through multiple channels. Google has really put a lot of effort into enhancing existing products while creating new, innovating campaigns such as:

• App Campaigns – Implemented in 2015, this system can help advertisers generate more app installations and drive in-app conversions as well. Now, App Campaigns can run through YouTube as well as Search, Google Display Network (GDN), Google Play and AdMob.
• Smart Campaigns – Smart Campaigns was designed to be used by local businesses through Google My Business when it was launched back in 2018. It was optimized to reach the proper audience through behavioral, device, location and other signals. It can help you through ad creation images, location addresses, and other facets. Smart Campaigns helps small businesses that don’t really have the time or resources to run their own digital campaigns by essentially generating it for them.
• Discovery Campaigns – A fresh approach, this new service will allow advertisers to showcase their products to customers through a swipeable image carousel. It can run through YouTube, Gmail Promotions tab, and Google Discovery, which launched a little over a year ago.
• Local Campaigns – This campaign launched last year in an effort to drive foot traffic into local brick and mortar establishments. Now, Google is building upon it, adding support systems designed to help local businesses achieve their goals. It will also generate product information and any special offers the local business may be running. Like some of the other campaigns, it will run across Search, YouTube, Maps, and the GDN.

Other notable channels that will be up for optimization include:

• Showcase Shopping Ads – These multiple image shopping ads were originally executed through Search, but now, they will cross over to Google Images, Discover, and YouTube.
• Smart Shopping and Standard Shopping Campaigns – Shopping ads that run across Google Search, GDN, YouTube, and Gmail. Standard only runs Standard product listing ad formats through Google Images but when combined with Smart Shopping, your campaign can be set to appear in Google Discover and YouTube as well.
• Google Shopping Actions – These retail ads allow users to buy products via Google’s universal checkout through the Shopping Actions program. They were already visible on Google Assistant and Search, but with the expected changes, these ads should be making their way to Images and YouTube, too.

But wait. There’s more.

Gallery Ads

Gallery Ads is looking to take the visual world by storm. This Google service will allow digital marketers to create ads that can catch the attention of a consumer faster. Essentially, Gallery Ads combines images and information to the consumer for an easier, more creative experience.

Its design — a swipeable carousel just like Discovery Ads — may seem a little familiar as inspiration was taken by Facebook and Instagram. These interactive ads will sit on top of the search engine results page (SERP) showcasing compelling imagery with a headline and the URL. It will allow you to pull up a minimum of four to a maximum of eight images and up to 70 characters for each tagline.

Reaching the Right Audience

Google will now be merging its custom affinity and intent features into one service that will be simply known as ‘custom audiences.’

To clarify, a custom affinity audience targets groups that have specific and shared interests in a product. A custom intent audience, on the other hand, will only target a group with a commercial interest for a product. Now, these two will turn into one and will do so through search data.

A new audience expansion tool that will help you reach other potential consumers that are within the same realm and have the same interest as your current custom audience. This new tool can help you grow your potential consumers base, allowing them to be able to see your ads.

Smart Bidding is Seeing Some Improvements

Machine learning is becoming a fundamental tool in the scope of digital marketing. It is essentially the study of algorithms and statistical models that an operating system uses to perform a task without being given explicit instructions; machine learning instead relies on patterns and inferences. The way Google will utilize this is through its advertising properties, more specifically, smart bidding.

Smart Bidding, or auction time bidding, is how Google Ads optimizes your bids for conversions or conversion value through the use of machine learning. It does so through:

1. Campaign-level conversion goals – This generally helps if your business is focusing on one conversion goal, like increasing sales on your website. With this improvement, you can optimize all of your bids throughout your campaign for that goal.
2. Conversion action sets: This improvement optimizes your bids throughout multiple campaigns, enabling a digital marketer to create a set of conversion actions that they want to achieve.
3. Seasonality adjustments: This improvement drastically increases conversion temporarily, working wonders for marketers that are advertising an upcoming sale. Google Ads can optimize these bids for the duration of the sale and then revert back to normal once it has concluded.

Google Ads on the Go? Yes, Please!

As digital marketing pushes heavily towards smartphone optimization, Google Ads app will allow you to finally create and edit search ads all in an improved design.

A new recommendations feature will allow the user to add new or negative keywords, pause keywords that are not performing properly, and opt into all Smart Bidding strategies. The app will also send you notifications when there are new opportunities to improve performance across all of your accounts.

All these new changes and updates for Google Ads are set to launch within the near future and your team of experienced McAllen digital marketers at Cobalt Digital Marketing are excited to utilize these new tools into our successfully proven formula to boost your business and your brand.

Google Ads and Cobalt Digital Marketing go hand-in-hand when it comes to achieving positive results that earn your business money.

While our Cobalt Formulaᵀᴹ revolves around combining our knowledge and experience in all aspects of digital marketing to create the most unparalleled strategies for your company/brand, Google products like Google Ads helps us do it in a more efficient manner, setting up ad campaigns that increase your revenue stream.

If you are ready to invest in your business’ future by taking the plunge into digital marketing, no one does it better than Cobalt Digital Marketing. Our catalysts are eagerly waiting to create the perfect ad campaign that aligns with our award-winning Cobalt Formulaᵀᴹ to net your business real results.

Contact us at 956-303-6555 to get your business started on the path to success today.