Google Marketing Live 2022 Keynote Highlights
So that’s it, another Google Marketing Live event done. Just like last year, there wasn’t anything in here that we shouldn’t have expected. There were many exciting updates & upgrades announced about its existing ad products which all will no doubt be welcomed by consumers & advertisers. I remember the days where advertisers would tune in with dread and anticipation for the announcements of something being overhauled or sunset in Google Ads. These days, as Google attempts to be more transparent with advertisers about what it’s longer term view is for its products & services, we are more in the know than ever about what to expect at Google Marketing Live. We get great insight from these events and today we will give you some of the most notable announcements you need to be focusing on this year.
How did Google Marketing Live 2022 begin?
Reimagine, Results, Resilience. These are the key themes throughout this years Google Marketing Live, and we saw a jam-packed agenda to go with it.
Just like in 2021, Google highlighted how it can help you navigate the rapidly-changing environments that occur for omni-channel consumers. It’s clear that this behaviour is permanent, and those not leveraging Google’s technology are purely not delivering on consumer needs.
Google went into depth about the benefits that ad-supported internet has historically had to offer, but consumers are now demanding a new relationship with the open internet; one that preserves the openness whilst giving users control over their privacy.
Reimagining how we think of Search
Google’s vision for Search in the future is fundamentally about making the experience more natural for consumers; whether it’s through searching with keywords, audio and voice, or by exploring the world with your camera. Google has invested heavily into these experiences, even launching Multisearch allows you to take a photo and search with keywords at the same time.
The search results page is reflecting these changes too. Search is so much more than just text, it has become more visual than ever to help satisfy user curiosity. Its no longer about making sure your ad appears for that keyword; its about surfacing the right information in the right visual way to satisfy user needs. By leveraging it’s automation, technology, and new formats, advertisers can make better decisions over what this should look like, in a privacy-safe way.
More visual ads will be coming this year
Google stressed the need for advertisers to leverage visual assets in Search wherever possible. In Google Ads, you have the asset library to help you manage these at scale across your account for Discovery, App and Performance Max campaigns with YouTube and Shopping coming soon. This should make it easier for advertisers to take advantage of any any other new visual ads available later this year.
Credit: Google Marketing Live 2022
I feel like this has been a long time coming, but Google say that soon you will be able to get 3D models of products using augmented reality. Details of the feature are currently a little sketchy, but it’s believed that merchants will soon have the ability to do this.
Credit: Search Engine Land 2022
Lovely visual update for Shopping is coming which blends organic and paid shopping ads together into a new swipeable visual feed. This will be for apparel searches and coming around September time; just ahead of Q4! Its only available in the US unfortunately for now.
Credit: Google Ads Help 2022
There were a few updates for video at the event, with Video Ads coming into Discovery feeds as a test. I’m sure that this is a welcome addition to anyone currently using Discovery Ads in Google Ads.
Credit: Google Marketing Live 2022
Ads on YouTube Shorts are coming for those advertisers who are currently running video action campaigns and app campaigns. This is being rolled out to advertisers globally. More information to follow.
Credit: Google Ads Help 2022
Delivering Results today with performance-driven advertising
Performance Max got a lot of focus at this year’s event. Google mentioned that on average, they are seeing advertisers deliver up to +13% more total incremental conversions for a similar cost with the campaign type.
Updates to Performance Max included:
- In-Store Goals – Google is moving focus from purely online performance gains to also looking at optimising towards in-store sales, store visits and local actions.
- Burst Campaigns for Seasonal Footfall Traffic – you can now work alongside your in-store conversion goals to set a time-frame against boosting seasonal in-store footfall.
- Support for Google Ads App and Search Ads 360 – finally!
- Optimisation Score will now include PMax. This will be really useful to understand more about how you can improve campaign setup and assets in the context of your wider account.
The biggest challenge with Performance Max for advertisers has been over transparency. It’s still super difficult to see placement reports, search query reports & more from the insight pages. In general, advertisers have been screaming for greater transparency so that they can have more trust in automation and deliver even greater results. Google is listening and is going to give us more…
Experiment tools for Performance Max will be coming. This will work against your existing Google Ads campaigns to show how PMax can deliver you incremental conversions. This will help you prove how effective PMax can be for your objectives.
Credit: Google Marketing Live 2022
To give us greater transparency, we will be seeing new Insights & Explanations to Performance Max in Google Ads via expanded insights. This could include things like consumer, audience and auction insight data. This will be really useful for advertisers to give additional context over performance and to also inform the wider business of any other opportunities.
Credit: Google Marketing Live 2022
How we build the future of privacy & measurement together (resilience for tomorrow)
Measurement has to change. Ways we have measured performance in the past simply won’t work anymore. Google stated that we are expected to see ‘65% coverage of modern privacy regulations by 2023’ similar to that of GDPR globally. To give users even more control than they have today, Google is launching My Ad Center so people can pick less of the types of ads ads they don’t want to see as well as more information on how their data is used across Search, YouTube and Discover.
Credit: Google Ads Help 2022
By giving them more options for control over how their data is used, it should build confidence for consumers in advertising.
We have to rebuild the approach to privacy-safe measurement for advertisers together. We could write a whole blog about this subject alone, and we are all still trying to work out what the future looks like here. Unfortunately there is no silver bullet, and we’ll need to choose tools that we can trust and invest in them to ensure we are properly valuing performance in a privacy-safe way.
To help us, Google is launching Search & Conversion lift tests directly in Google Ads and DV360. In Google Ads, you will be able to see incremental lift in performance. For example, by comparing geo regions where ads are shown vs where they are not shown.
Credit: Google Ads Help 2022
What does this mean for you?
Things are accelerating for consumers, both in terms of how they shop (increasingly and more permanently omni-channel), and in how they search (in more visual and engaging ways). At the same time of these change in habits, we are seeing privacy become key for both consumers and advertisers. For advertisers specifically, we are seeing marketing expanding into more channels with cross-team silos being broken down. All of this is highlighting the urgency for advertisers to leverage even more of these solutions to not only deliver results today, but to prepare your business for tomorrow. You are going to have to change the way you do things if you want to deliver more effective performance.
With more tools & technology from Google at advertiser fingertips, why wouldn’t you make the most of this opportunity to get ahead of the inevitable?
For more information we weren’t able to cover today, you can sign up and find everything you need from Google Marketing Live 2022 as well as from Google Ads Help. We’ll also be diving deeper into certain announcements over the coming weeks.
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