Recent Google Ads Updates-Quick Review

As we move into 2021, the leading search engine in the world continues to evolve to provide a better service for consumers, marketers, and search engine optimization (SEO) professionals. In this article, we’ll explore the top Google Ads updates, looking at the significant changes on the platform over the past year.

Similar Audience and List Sizes:

If you already have remarketing list available, you might be interested to have new customers which should match with this similar search behavior audience you already have in remarketing list.

Campaigns through COVID-19:

As every business got affected during COVID-19. Digital advertisement also needed some changes during this pandemic. In this regard Google itself helped the advertiser by providing enhance knowledge guidelines which they need to take care for managing campaigns through COVID-19. The guideline includes new resources for evaluating your media strategy and adjusting your campaigns based on shifting consumer behavior that can help you to evaluating your campaign and industry trend.

Finding New Customer:

All business owners want to have more quality-oriented customers and Google push them in this path too.  Google have provided few updates which can help in customer acquisition like:

• You can use lead form extensions, which are now available in several countries. Advertisers will have the option to select placements across Search, Display, Discovery and YouTube, with a choice of questions, standard and industry-specific, to include in their forms to qualify the leads they capture
• Google has come up with variety of new features on the Customer Match front. Among them, Google says match rates will be improved. Google will present average match rates for benchmarking to contextualize an advertiser’s match rates,
• Google is updating requirements for offline conversion uploads, dropping the need to provide a GCLID (Google Click Identifier) to match conversions back to click events. How credit is attributed back to your ads and targets, Google will use other signals in the offline conversion data you provide to determine.

New Access Level and Account Ownership:

Security is important in Google ads account. Why everyone should have access to everything if it is of no concern to them. That is why with billing-only role only you can give access to the finance department team. They will be able to view and manage billing but won’t be able to change anything in the campaign.

Moreover, there is now a ownership role. Previously there could be many owners of the account. Now with ownership role there could be only one owner of the Google ads account.

To see your expected reach with new customers, now you will be able to see the results in Audience Manager in Google Ads.

Estimates will be available for Search audience list having more than 20000 users, and for YouTube Audience list having more than 5000 users.  Google is already working on it to expand it in future.

2-Explanations Now Have Target CPA Campaigns on Search

You always have to look shift in campaign performance whenever optimization is done. If some shifts happen in campaigns it will be very difficult and time consuming to diagnose. But with single click you can see the reason of performance change with Explanation in Google Ads. This helps you to spend less time in exploring the reason and more time to do optimization. Google has expanded explanations to search campaigns that use Target CPA.

Now you will be able to see the reason for important changes in cost and conversions for those search campaigns which use Target CPA, for example, you can find with explanation that if your campaign and ad group performance was impacted by changes to bid limits, Target CPA, Budget and more.

While exploring things with explanations. Keep in mind that explanations can only compare two time periods of equal length within 90 days moreover you will only be able to see those campaigns which have significant changes in performance.

Efficient Budget with New Performance Planner Features:

If you have different spending and return on investment levels then Performance Planner helps you in predict the performance.  The new features are introduced in it.

ii. Shared budget Campaigns:

Shared budget can be created, modified and downloaded forecasts are now supported in search campaigns.

ii. Plan Sharing:

You can now share your plan. Anyone in the account can view and edit the plan. In the top right corner of your plan you will find “Share”. Upon clicking this new screen will open and from there you can allow it to share.

 iii. Conversion Lag Report:

In your campaign when you got some conversion sometimes there happened a delay in updating the number. They can sometimes cause CPA to look high and ROAS to look down. So accurate numbers are not available which may result in wrong forecasting. But now with the conversion delay/lag report you can have better account performance forecast. This report is only available for App Campaigns for install, App Campaign for engagement and Search Campaigns.

2A-Google Ads Editor v1.5 Update

Google Ads Editor version 1.5 is rolled out now. In this new release you will have improve ad strength, support for additional recommendations and image extensions.

Remember ad strength gives you idea about to provide the right message to your customers.  It varies from “Incomplete” to “Excellent”, this measure the relevancy, quantity and diversity of your ad copy.  In Google Ads Editor new version you will be able to see ad strength in new column.

Maximize Conversions Bidding in App Campaigns:

You can now build and grow your audience much faster with maximize conversion bidding in App campaigns.  You only have to provide your budget rest with Google machine learning intelligent algorithm you will get maximum install in no time. Either you have come with new game, planning for seasonal campaigns or promoting new content in your app, you should use this option to grow your audience faster. You will not see the results immediately wait for few weeks of running this bid strategy, you will definitely show an effective CPI based on the budget you set and the installs you were able to generate. You may later choose to transition from Maximize conversions to CPI bidding.

You can set maximize conversion bidding as:

• Click to edit the settings for your App campaign for installs
• Select the “Bidding” section
• Uncheck the box for “Set a target cost per install (optional)”
• Save the changes on the campaign

Image Requirements for App Campaigns:

Currently, App campaigns accept more than 30 different sizes and dimensions for image assets. Starting later this year, Google will begin shifting from size-based to ratio-based image specifications. You will only need to upload images in three aspect ratios:

• 1:1 (Square): 200 x 200 (minimum), 1200 x 1200 (recommended)
• 1.91:1 (Landscape): 600 x 314 (minimum), 1200 x 628 (recommended)
• 4:5 (Portrait): 320 x 400 (minimum), 1200 x 1500 (recommended)

Limits?

Increasing the image file size limit from 150KB to 5MB so you can upload higher-quality assets.

Formats?

GIFs will no longer be accepted. The only accepted formats will be .jpg and .png.

Google will send alerts in your Google Ads account to notify you of ad groups that contain unsupported images and remind you to take action when get closer to launch this update.

Help?

To help you make this transition, Google will soon introduce a tool that enables you to crop your images into one or more of the supported dimensions.

Additional Recommendations in Google Ads Editor:

Six additional recommendation types have been added. These will help you improve your responsive search ads, adopt Target ROAS bidding and more.

Support for Image Extension:

This update helps you to expand your ad with additional information like location information, call buttons, website links and more

Other than above mentioned, more features in Google Ads editor include:

• You can filter by account, campaigns, ad groups, or all items with the same label
• You can use short keys to jump to previous types
• Limit error in accounts with improved message.
• 16 new columns added and 4 old columns removed.
• You can check the strength of your responsive search and responsive display ads.
• More detail is added in account recommendations.

Campaign Goal in Optimization Score

Optimization score gives you idea about personalized recommendation based on your campaign goals. Now you will be able to see your campaign goal next to your optimization score.

Campaign goals are derived from your bidding strategy and can be focus on conversions, conversion value, clicks or impression share. Let’s suppose you have set bidding strategy is set to maximize conversions then optimization score will help you to optimize with respect to conversion. In the same way your recommendations will be changed based on that.

Match Lists with Zapier – Automatic Update:

Customer Match lets you use you’re online and offline data to reach and re-engage with your customers across Search, Shopping, Gmail, YouTube, and Display. The information shared by the customer used by customer matches to target the ads accordingly. As a relationship with customer keeps on increasing so keeping the aligned and updated manually is a time-consuming task. That is why Google as collaborated with Zapier to make it easier to work with the Customer Match List. You don’t need to manually upload, remove or sort the list. It will automatically pull from information from your customer relationship management system, marketing automation or ecommerce tool to Google Ads. Your offline conversion data can also automatically updated with Zapier now.

Global Advertiser with App Campaigns For Engagement

You mobile app can engage your honest customers and keep them coming back to you. With app campaigns you can provide your customer fresh and relevant content.

You can capture users’ attention and provoke them to come back to your app by prominence of new content or offers in your ad text, image and video assets.

Optimization Score and Recommendations in Manager Account:

Optimization and recommendations are important. If your account is set up to capture full potential, you can easily manage multiple accounts and identify opportunities for better growth.

You can also click into your optimization score for individual accounts to apply recommendations that help you meet your marketing objectives.

Support for Recommendations & Local Campaigns in Google Ads Editor:

Recommendations and Local campaigns are now in Google Ads Editor V.14.

Recommendations provide customized suggestions to help improve your campaigns’ performance. To make it easier for you to implement these suggestions at scale, you can now review and apply recommendations across accounts in Google Ads Editor V1.4.

You can use Google Merchant Center and Business Data feed to your app campaign for engagement. With feeds your ads may be available all the time with updated products and services.

Remember to have an app campaign for engagement, advertisers must have:

• App conversion tracking and deep linking enabled
• Minimum 250,000 app installs.
• Set up your App campaign for engagement in separate account from your app campaigns for install.

There is another deep link validation feature in Google Ads now, this will help to send user to the right app landing page linked with your ads. When you create your campaign just add your URL.

You can check the type of recommendation to know where and how many recommendations can be applied in your account.

With Local campaigns feature, you can easily search and replace text, move items, and undo or redo changes to your local campaigns in bulk.

Lead Form Extension Update

There is an update now in lead form extensions: an improved way to drive high-quality leads across Search, YouTube, Discovery, and Display ads. It is easier to manage and effective.

Responsive Search Ads with New Features:

Machine learning has made responsive search efficient enough to deliver relevant messages to potential customers. It is observed responsive search ads increase 10% more clicks and conversions.   Following are the updated in features now:

i. Location Insertion:

You can now use location insertion in responsive search ads. It will show your location dynamically where your ads are being shown. Once set up, your ad will automatically include city, state, or country names based on the locations of potential customers or their areas of interest.

You can find Lead Form Extension for YouTube and Discovery campaigns in the ”Extensions” page of Google Ads. Moreover you can now choose from over fifty available questions to customized lead forms according to your business. For example, let’s say you want to drive qualified leads for your car dealership. You can now ask questions like “Which type of vehicle are you interested in?” or “When do you plan on purchasing a vehicle?”

You can use Webhook by yourself or Zapier to automatically link your leads to your CRM.

Discovery Ads to Inspire Customer with Window Shopping in Holiday Season:

There are two layouts available in discovery ads, optimize the mobile canvas on Google’s feeds, which help you to drive actions with consumers.  As the user scrolls, he will be able to see 4:5 portrait aspect ratio layout to showcase your products and services.  You can use lead form extension with discovery ads to directly capture the leads data.

Rich insights for simple audience work flow

Advertisers which use discovery ads along with audience expansion have seen 52% more conversions at comparable cost per acquisition to their default selected audience.  More informed decisions with detail forecasting will also be available to scale your campaign performance.  You can now also set up audience exclusion during campaign creation which really helps you if you are planning to have new customers rather than engaging existing customers as they shop for holidays. Below is the image of audience inclusion and exclusion in discovery ads.

Insights Page to Remain on Top Trends:

Everybody is waiting for new normal and that is why consumer behavior is changed so much. Search queries trends are changing e.g. “Online gift” is increasing year over year 80%.  That is why Google has introduced Insight Page to help you stay on top by following these emerging trends.  These trends are based on your business. Let’s suppose you are online pet store and you are looking for more customers. If you look at the insight page you will see the rising demand of “Dog subscription boxes” and “dog toys”. Based on these trends you can create optimized campaign to target the relevant audience.

You can check with report how many times your ad was shown using location insertion.

ii. Countdown Customizer:

if you want to promote sales or even and want to show count down in your responsive search ads, now it is possible so that you won’t miss out your potential customer.

iii. Suggestion in Ad Writing:

You will find commonly used phrases while writing headlines and descriptions for your responsive search ads, they will help to highlight online availability, shipping and return options for your business. Even you add your final URL, it will make some suggestions from your existing website content and existing ad.

Asset Performing report:

Performance of your assets used in your responsive search ads can be measured now. You can find the prominent insights at the campaign level. Once you’ve determined which assets are performing well, you can apply those learnings to other ads. If assets are performing poorly, you can take action to replace those assets.

You can further go down to see the rising searches and also know the locations where the demand is increasing fast.  E.g. you can find the trend for “Vitamins & Supplements” with growing searches for “vitamin C” in Florida and California.

This reporting data is not real time but it is updated on daily basis. You can find this report on the left menu under Ads and Extensions and then click “Assets”.

Recommendation:

Google Ads introduced a new recommendation to “improve your responsive search ads” when their Ad strength is below ‘Good’. This is an easy way for you to optimize your ads in a more efficient way. When checking your account’s optimization score, look for this recommendation to help you identify opportunities that can improve your responsive search ads at scale.

You can also take advantages of the suggested trends which are currently growing but you are not considering. For example, a grocery store may discover a related trend like “whipped coffee” which may give them prospect upgrade or product development ideas.

The insight page will also have recommendations you can evaluate and apply keyword, budget, and bidding recommendations in just a few clicks.

Smart Shopping Campaigns with More Online Sales:

As time passing by, online shopping is becoming more in demand. That is why smart shopping campaigns are becoming better by offering more visuals and more goals.

Now you can add your conversion value to your new customer.

Showing your images can be more visually attractive Just as Smart Shopping campaigns can optimize your bids and placements, the format in which your products are displayed will also respond to your customers’ needs. Google is adding more visual features to help customers easily discover more retailers, explore options and narrow down who they want to make a purchase with.

Updates in Smart Bidding:

Google has released new features in smart bidding for you that can help you in managing campaign using Smart Bidding with much improvements.

Improvements in Target CPA, Target ROAS and budget simulators:

When it comes to Target CPA, Target ROAS and budget, it is very important to keep an eye on them. Because if not handled with caution, it can have serious impact on your campaign. Simulator will help you understanding how Target CPA and Target ROAS and budget change can affect your performance. Following report is based on 7 days of campaign data. Simulators helps you to see what has happened in the past, but it does mean it is future. Simulators will provide you capability to predict future in Search campaign. You can even date range up to 90 days (3 months) in the future, simulators will help you so you can forecast better, how changing budget or target changes can impact your performance.

When the customer is ready to buy, they may see annotations that can help them make an informed purchase decision. For example, you can highlight free and fast shipping on Google Search (U.S. only).

You can continue to highlight promotions on your products to further convince customers to make the purchase with your business. (U.S., U.K., DE, AU, IN, FR only)

Getting better understanding with reporting improvements:

In bid strategy, Google have introduced new recommendations. Google has introduced new keywords or budget opportunities, it can help you get more results in your campaigns while completing your goals. More recommendations are in pipeline.

Four features from bid strategy report now available to provide more transparency into smart bidding performance:

• Average target CPA and average target ROAS are available on campaigns tab. It will help you see how factors like device bid adjustments, ad group CPA and ROAS targets are optimizing target Smart Bidding and its will change overall CPA and ROAS targets with the passage of time. These recommendations are now accessible Search and Shopping campaigns and soon it will be accessible for App campaigns.
• You can get conversions reports for particular time period from campaigns tab in Search campaigns. Once adjusted conversion delay you can see exact performance of campaign. If you have data of your campaign, you can even get estimation how much conversions are expected in future.

Responsive Display Ads with New Look:

i. New Layout:

Create layouts and automatically generated video introduced in responsive display ads to drive more online sales.  Three different layouts have been rolled out which that uses automated image enhancements including smart image cropping and text overlays.

ii. Add videos quickly and easily:

To make things simpler and faster, Google can automatically create video ads for you by using your existing image and text assets.

Search and Shopping campaigns both have this report. You can access auction insights by following method: click on the Reports icon in the top right corner of Google Ads, navigate to Predefined reports, and select the Auction Insights tab.

Get Insights with Ads Data Hub:

You can have actionable insights across multiple Google platforms like Google Ads, Campaign Manager and Display & Video 360 with the help of Ads Data Hub. For you to unlock these insights in your advertising campaigns even more easily, you can now link your Google Ads account to Ads Data Hub directly in the interface. You can now easily analyze your data with custom reporting and better understanding of impact of your marketing, by just linking your accounts your accounts. You will be able to access detailed, event level data from your Google Ads campaign.

Importing Google Ads Data into Google Sheets:

If you want to build and collaborate on a custom report with others, creating Google Ads reports in Google Sheets can be useful. Earlier, it requires a lot of manual work to import your Google Ads data into Google Sheets. A new Google Ads add-on is now available for Google Sheets to make this process easier and save you time. For custom reports using Google Ads data, you can use this tool.

Maximize Clicks with the Help of Average Daily Budgets:

Google has announced that the target spend setting for Maximize Clicks bid strategies would no longer be available for new campaigns. From January 2021, target spend with the Maximize Clicks bid strategy will use daily campaign budgets for all campaigns and portfolios. For helping you in minimizing this impact of this change, the maximum cost click bid limit may be lowered for strategies that are still using target spend. It will not impact that strategies which are not using target spend.

Report Editor Made Easy to Analyze Performance Data:

Creating reports and identify insights to grow your business can be easily done by Report Editor. Several updates to the Report Editor have introduced to make it easier for you to build reports and analyze your data.

• Google has improved the data selection panel in the following ways:
• The panel is now on the right side of the report editor, giving you more space to work in your report.
• Quickly find data fields for your report with a search function and add or remove them with a drag and drop experience.
• Chart icons have been added to help you visualize, pick and configure the right chart for your report.

Helping you With new Features and Alerts:

Properly setting up your campaign is very important. But this is not always easy to define if your campaign set up is right. That’s why, Google has introduced few improvements. These improvements will help in creating new campaigns more effectively.

iii. Top Products:

With new single-image layout to highlight individual products. You can use different text with your product or logos. Special text e.g “Promotion” or “Best Seller” can be used for better user engagement.

Google Ads Misrepresentation Policy Expansion:

You must avoid your account to be suspended due to misrepresentation in adverting. When a user clicks on an ad, users should not be deceived.

• Google ads new Clickbait policy helps to clarify the types of ads. Google don’t allow and makes it easier for all advertisers to comply with our policies in the future.
• Google has seen an increase in bad actors using pressure tactics, celebrity images, cliffhanger language and graphic content to gain more clicks. In reality, these statements are often not true or are exaggerated and fail to disclose the product or service behind the ad. Additionally, in the case of prominent figures or celebrities, ads will also include their photo, making the content seem more real and further pressure a user to click through.
• Google’s new Clickbait Ads policy will expand Google approach, enabling their teams to prevent this behavior more effectively in the future. Google Ads will continue to look for ways to stop deceptive practices like these on Google’s platform as they prioritize instilling trust in the digital advertising ecosystem and reduce click frauds.You will receive an alert while setting up your campaign, if it has any critical issues. Because of these issues your campaign might underperform e.g. an invalid URL or location overlap.
  • Start again where you left off: It’s easier now to pick up where you left off. Because your progress automatically will be saved in draft campaigns. For example, you are creating a campaign and need additional input on your budget. Now, you will save your campaign in Draft campaign and circle back when you get approval for budget.
  • Create your campaigns easily and see disapproved ads: Create new campaigns much faster from Overview page. Once you are done with creating campaign and if your ad disapproved it will appear on Overview page. It will help you understanding why your ad disapproved, appeal the decision, and change the ad directly. These updates are only available for Search campaigns and will apply to other campaign types in the coming months.
  

   Smart Shopping Campaigns to Respond on Real Time Holiday Demands:

  Get in front of new shoppers:

  Smart shopping campaigns will optimize for new customers as an additional goal to maximize the conversion value through online sales.

  Smart shopping campaigns always remain profitable to customers, Markley a marketing agency has experienced that through smart shopping their sales as increased in dress categories to 13 times.

  Rich Creatives To Highlight Brand:

  85% of Regular online shoppers say that product information and pictures are important in decision making process to buy a product. Now you can engage holiday shoppers by having more persuasive creatives for smart shopping campaigns.  As it was rolled out for dynamic display ads to show top products.

  

  Company name is more prominent along with logo for more brand awareness.  Short headlines are also prominent in different ad sizes.

  Moreover, layout was also introduced that dynamically create carousal of your products.

Manager Accounts in Google Ads Mobile App:

With manager accounts in the app you can now:

• In the overview page you can discover business-wide trends and performance insights for all your accounts.
• Across all your account you can improve performance at scale with optimization score, and prioritize recommendations.
• Across your accounts now you can manage campaigns and compare performance.
• To use all your account, you can have the push notification
• Navigation is improved to move between accounts, campaigns and ad groups

Overview Page Update:

You can’t ignore the Overview Page as it is an easy way for you to view a summary of your account performance and actionable insights. you can now,

• View and apply recommendations from the Overview page. This makes it easier for you to act on your most critical recommendations. Now overview page will directly provide you optimization score to prioritize these recommendations.
• You can create new campaigns at the top of the Overviews page using the ‘New Campaign’ button. You can also add videos to your smart shopping campaigns, if you don’t have videos then video can be auto generated through your product data to add more life to your display ads.
  

  More Insights for full pictures:

  
  
• Overview page and individual cards both can be downloaded. This will make less complicated for you to use this performance data to generate reports, share with others, and more.

Feeds in App Campaigns to Deliver More:

You might have already used feeds in Display, Shopping and Local campaigns to quickly upload and showcase products in your ads. Feeds in App campaigns offer three main benefits:

i. Richer Formats:

Soon, by using Google Merchant Center, retail advertisers can also begin showing image ads in the canvas below YouTube TrueView “in-stream” app promotion ads.

ii. Expanded Query:

How and where your app will be more discoverable can be managed through feeds. If you’re a furniture selling brand with couches in stock, feeds may bring your app ads more frequently when users search for “loveseats for two.” This is a result of feeds giving ads algorithms more signals on which products are available in your app. Rich and more data increases the possibility of your app ad matching with a user query and becoming suitable to serve.

iii. Smoother Onboarding for New Users:

new app user will have a smoother onboarding experience by having different deep linking. -From app install straight to the item they saw in the ad.

There is change in the merchant center as well, now there will be available new report editor. Across your free listing ads, additional metrics like impressions and clicks through rate will be available.

Moreover eligibility criteria for smart shopping campaigns is reducing. Conversion and remarketing tags will still be required.

 By Listing Your Promotion Attract Deal Seekers (U.S. only):

Deal seeking is not new, this year customers are more price conscious. Until gift items are not sale, 58% of US holiday customer will hold their buying gift items. 40% of global customers say they use Google to find the best deal, when they are trying to find for competitively-priced products. You can boost your sale by just simply applying if you are selling your product on Google.

Google is helping advertisers in getting discovered by these deal seekers in holiday season. You can easily upload and edit promotions in the Google Merchant Center and also Google is working on increasing visibility of products that have a promotion or are on-sale.

• Make promotions faster and easily: Getting your promotions in front of deal seeker as early as possible is getting more and more important, because 65% of US holiday customer starting to shop earlier to avoid out-of-stock items. For helping retailers to act as quickly as possible to changing customer behaviors. It’s easy and fast to apply promotions to inventory and easy to edit existing promotions. Additional reporting features will be available for these products.
• Increase your influence among customers: For helping your customers to find promotions more easily, Google has introduced new filter ‘On sale’. This feature is available across mobile and desktop for users browsing the Shopping tab. This filter have product inventory across ads and free listings which product have a promotion or are on sale, improving the discoverability.
• Frequency Reporting for Video Campaigns:In the success any advertising campaign, frequency has a vital role in it. Marketers always try to find the right frequency for their objectives. If marketers have excess frequency can be wasteful and can be irritating for customers and keeping frequency can put campaign at risk. For finding, where you stand? Google has introduced three new metrics: frequency distribution, weekly average frequency and monthly average frequency.Google knows for powerful brand lift and engagement can only be obtained by frequency thresholds. YouTube has enriched insights will enhance the capability for fine tube frequency and you will have multi-channel comparisons.
  

  What is frequency distribution?

  Frequency distribution will tell how many people saw your campaign ad a certain number of times over a selected date range.

  What is weekly and monthly average frequency?

  Average frequency (weekly and monthly) will help you see how frequently your ads are shown to people over a specific period of time, you just have to choose average impression frequency per user (7days or 30 days). By using this metrics you can get better understanding how your weekly and monthly average frequency performance changes over time.

  Get latest Google Ads Products by Tuning into Ads on Air:

  Tune into Ads on air, it is basically a video channel where you can get all the details about Google Ads latest product innovations and also people who created it are representing it. They will also give you insider advice, best practices and stories from advertisers.

  • This channel will help you in:
  • Making ads more clickable with image extensions
  • With Discovery ads will reach up to 3 billion active users per month
  • With Smart Shopping campaigns, you can set up for holiday season
  • Smart campaign can provide you solution for driving small businesses success
  • Build a strong relationship with Customer Match
  • When new products are announced you can immediately learn best practices of it
  • You can watch them on-demand

  Google Ads API can Help You in Managing Accounts at Scale:

  For advertisers and developers Google Ads API is usually available. For supporting your business you can build tools with new capabilities and efficiency updates with these API.

  With Google Ads API, you will see fast results of new features and compatibility updates for tools like recommendations, local campaigns and more. Google is also making current features like Keyword Planner, change history and billing.

  TV in Reach Planner Expanded Countries:

  Discover the right mix of TV, YouTube, and Google video partners and identify opportunities to maximize the reach and improve the frequency of your video campaigns with the help of TV in Reach Planner.

  Google has provided ability to user for planning TV and YouTube together with the help of third party measurement provides and combine it with YouTube forecasts.

  US TV data is already available, powered by Nielsen, and Japan, powered by Intage, Google is going launch that TV data in Reach Planner for Vietnam and more countries will be added soon. Now, advertiser will be able to plan TV and YouTube alongside one another to make sure the enhance ads reach and a balanced frequency across video advertising channels. This update will be available for all Google Ads users.

  YouTube Dynamic Lineups to Scale Contextual Advertising more Effectively:

  Specific context that matter for your brand can be enhance your reach by YouTube’s ability to drive mass. It will make easier for you to get discovered to the content that’s a great fit for your brand. YouTube dynamic lineups has advanced contextual targeting.

  Contextual targeting on YouTube is using next generation advanced contextual. Through Google’s machine learning will help YouTube for understanding each channel better, including analysis of video imagery, sound, speech and text.

  This will allow advertiser to create lineups that can scalable across content based on specific topics, cultural moments or popularity. For example, you will find broad lineups like beauty, and more nuanced choices like “Face, Hair, Nails” and “Luxury Beauty”. That means you can have better access to the unique interest and needs of your audiences.

  Google Ads and Display & Video 360 are using YouTube dynamic lineups and more countries will soon have this feature.

  Expand Your Reach by Using Custom Audiences:

  It is very hard to discover individuals who have interest in items or brands like yours. If you have utilized Google audiences, at that point you might be comfortable with custom affinity and custom intent audience, which help you connect with individuals based on their interests or topics they are effectively exploring. By building audiences dependent on pertinent keywords and websites, you can convey more significant ads to all the more relevant ads accomplish your objectives.

  Google announced that they will provide simple solution in the form of custom audience, which will bring custom affinity and custom intent audience into one simplified solution. All advertisers across Display, YouTube and Discovery campaigns will have this update.

  Personalized advertising will more transparency:

  Google knows advertisers expect ads to be transparent and offer more control. Advertisers also prefer ads that are fulfilling their needs and interest. With the help of tools like Ad Settings allows advertisers to easily update how their ads are personalize. Google is working on finding new methods to improve their transparency, choice and control, providing even greater visibility for the data it used for ads personalization.

  

  Brief intro of custom audiences:

  In custom audience, a single audience can be used for achieving any business goal like brand awareness, consideration or conversions.

  Anyone who has created custom intent or custom affinity audiences, these will be automatically be merged into custom audiences with no extra set-up needed.

  When you create your custom audience you will see estimated reach and after that you can use it across your Display, Discovery and YouTube campaigns.

Increase Your Skills Digitally for Your App Users:

Google has provided learning path to master in App Campaigns by these updated courses you can understand key trends in app behavior, refine campaigns based on your or your client’s goals, use machine learning to your advantage, and take the next step beyond app advertising. There is also one hour session to learn more strategies to apply new principles to adapt new app strategies, knowing best practices to grow beyond an install.

Impression Share Bid Strategy:

It was started a year back few strategies would no longer be available for new campaigns like Target Search Page Location and Target Outranking Share bid strategies, these will be gone. So now these strategies now automatically be moved to Target impression Share strategy. It is a smart bidding strategy which automatically sets bids with the target to show ad on the absolute top of the page, on the top of the page, or anywhere on Google SERP.

Smart Campaigns is Helping you Reach More customers:

Reaching at right time is best to target Google Ads introducing features to help you sign up from any device, stand out on Google Maps, see your results right on Google Search, and control when your ads show.

i. Sign up directly through the mobile app:

Google has made the process easier and quicker, so you can start advertising right away. Now, you can sign up for Smart campaigns and run ads directly from the Google Ads mobile app. This is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, UK, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Japan, with more countries to follow.

ii. Stand out on Google Maps, for free:

Google Maps are used by 1 billion people every month so why not use this as option to show your business.  Promoted pins on Google Maps support your business be noticeable during these moments by displaying a prominent, square-shaped Google Maps pin. This pin can help you highlight specific services such as pickup, delivery, and other unique offerings.

iii. See how your ads perform directly on Google.com:

How your smart campaign going you can instantly see the status with a quick search, how they’re performing, and how your ads look to potential customers. First, sign into the Google account you use for Google Ads. Then search for “My Ads” or “Google Ads” on Google.com.

iv. Control when your ads show:

Keywords are the important thing which helps to show your ads on search results. With keyword themes (formerly “products and services”), you tell Google what your business offers and Google show your ad to potential customers searching for related phrases. With this keyword theme feature your ad will appear to the related searches.

Understand Changes in Conversions with Explanations:

• • If there is a change in conversion volume, it is important to know the reason. However, it can be difficult to identify this issue, the variation could be due to conversion lag, a problem with your conversion tag, or something else. Here comes the explanation that can now request. This makes it easy for you to spend more time focusing on optimization and less time investigating performance issues. Before you get started with explanations, keep the following in mind:
  • Explanations are currently available for manual CPC or eCPC Search campaigns
  • It can compare two time periods of equal length within the last 90 days
  • Explanations may only show for campaigns with significant performance changes
    

Refine Keywords in Keyword Planner:

Keyword Planner makes it easy for you to find keywords that are relevant to your product, service, website, or landing page. If you want to group together ideas based on the attributes of your products and services. For example, let’s say that you’re looking for keywords related to “dry skin.” In the past, you would’ve had to sort through thousands of keyword ideas. Now, you can filter attributes to include or remove keyword ideas related to dry skin, such as ‘face cream for dry skin’, ‘face lotion for dry skin’ and ‘best winter face cream’.

Discovery Ads to get Discover More:

Personalized feeds like news and videos now play a significant role in helping people find inspiration throughout their consumer journey. Initially, discovery campaigns were not available to everyone but now it is available globally.

You can show authentic and relevant ad with discovery campaigns. Customer can take action from either single image or image carousal.

With a discovery campaign, you can analyze your ads reporting based on assets as well.

You can learn more about the discovery campaign and how to set up them by clicking here.

Retail category reporting:

Both search and shopping campaigns report can be found in one place for your product and services. Some of the metrics available for each retail category include:

• Traffic and spend metrics (clicks and cost)
• Campaign level information (campaign type and name)
• Performance metrics (conversions, conversion value, conversion cost)
• Competitive metrics (click share)

For your search and shopping, you can review different factors like brand vs non branded campaigns, best product, location targeting, ad scheduling, audience targeting, and different bid strategies.

Navigating your campaigns through COVID-19:

As Covid-19 has affected almost every industry digital advertisement also faced challenges for businesses. Below are some considerations you can adopt for your ads while navigating your campaign through COVID-19.

i. Assess your ads:

• Double meaning words like “protection,” “checkup,” “prevention,” or “virus” Should be used very carefully. Even you should also aware of the local terms used in any certain countries related to COVID-19 for your international campaigns.
• Your message should have helpful intentions like delivery or in-store pick up. Check shipping settings and estimated delivery time to confirm you accurately reflect current capabilities.
• Evaluate assets thoroughly. For example, brood over the suitability of images and videos that show social gatherings of people or human interaction. Check the quality of your headlines, descriptions, and landing pages.
• Update your business hours properly in your ads so that customer can know when you are opening and closing during this period.

ii. Find your feet to dynamic market conditions:

• Use Google Trend that can help in better understanding of the market.
• Your performance metrics should not be ignored. For example, significant shifts in conversion rate may require attention to your Smart Bidding targets.
• You can pause ad groups or ads after reviewing your products and services that are affected e.g. make change in ad as out of stock/unavailable or when will be again available then resume the ads after sometime.
• Don’t forget some tools like Google Ads mobile app that can help keep you linked to your campaigns.

Moreover due to impact of COVID-19, Google has also announced free shopping listing for the advertisers.

Call Only Ads Are No More Call Only Ads:

Customer always needs ease. To give your customers more comfort in how they connect with your business and services, you can now introduce an optional “Visit website” link with your call-only ads. With this update Google ads Change the name to call only ads to call ads.

Your ad on search results by introducing “Visit website” will have greater visibility. This will help the user to tap on the “Visit website” link in your ad, then he will be taken directly to your website. If your business requires phone calls for new sales, you may be getting fewer accidental calls and more qualified leads. If you already having call ads, add a Final URL in it and become part of those advertiser who are taking advantage of the website link

Requiring advertiser identity verification to improve transparency:

User when see ad he must have idea it is from authentic source. User trust should not be betrayed. That’s why Google is more concerned about. In the past it has happened many misinformation was spread through Google Ads. Now Google Ads launching advertiser identity verification, a policy that requires advertisers to verify their identities for ads served through Google Ads.

Being an advertiser you will get an email from Google for your verification. You will have to provide some documents based on your business type to prove your identity. If you are honest and true you should not be in worry at all it is only to filter out those who are doing fraud through Google ads.

Google knows making an audience strategy is not easy task and but Google will make sure that work pays off for you by showing your ads to more people.

Get Better Understanding of Performance with Ad Destination Report:

As there are many ways of conversions, it getting more complex to customer journey. Sometime current report don’t capture this complexity. Measuring and optimizing performance (especially if you have an app and a website) can be difficult with this complexity. For making it easier to how your customer convert, Google has introduced new ad destination report to Google Ads.

You will be able to see which conversions came from clicks to your app versus clicks to your website with this ad destination report. It will make easy for advertiser to understand where consumers engage the most and how to enhance engagement. Moreover, advertiser will be able to observe if consumers landed on his business profile or got directions to your store for a conversion.

Expand Shopping Campaigns with Performance Planner:

You can plan your budget more effectively with the help of Performance Planner. For providing you help so you can plan and predict future of your campaign even better. Performance Planner currently supporting Shopping campaigns and Smart Shopping campaigns.

With the use of Performance Planner you can plan your Shopping campaign with ease for:

Find the impact on performance with adjust budget and campaign settings.

You could manage multiple accounts and campaigns budgets can be manage.

Seasonal periods can be planned more effectively.

Google Cutting Up to 50% of Marketing Budget:

It is might be possible Google is cutting up to 50% of its marketing budget for the second half of 2020. The cuts to the marketing budget might be to contain reduced advertising earning due to the COVID-19. According to an email Google is instituting cuts the marketing budget across a range of Google divisions. The email stated:

“There are budget cuts and hiring freezes happening across marketing and across Google… We, along with the rest of marketing, have been asked to cut our budget by about half for H2.”

Video creation is now fast:

Videos are becoming part of many businesses to make and maintain connections with customers. Those business who don’t have resources to create videos, Video Builder can help them. It is a free beta tool by using images and text you can create small animations.  You can also create animation with music from library. You can choose from a variety of layouts based on your message and goals, customize colors and font and quickly generate a short YouTube video (6 seconds or 15 seconds). It will be a very good experience for first time users, it can provide an efficient, low-resource way to create videos. If you’re interested in trying the Video Builder beta, you can check here: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/videobuilderbeta/

Google Ads Editor updated with new features:

Google ads introduce new Google Ads Editor v1.3. The new Feature includes support for shared budgets, optimization score and an improved edit pane.

Shared budgets:

Within an editor now you can now create and use shared budget from your shared library.

Optimization score:

Combined, weighted-average optimization score will be available for your selection in account tree section. Optimization score helps you prioritize recommendations for your campaigns so you can quickly improve performance.

Improved edit pane:

Based on feedback to Google, several improvements were made in to this to reduce the time were spend scrolling within the edit pane. You can hide the empty fields now and also resize and position the edit pane by popping it out to separate window.

 

Google Trends:

Now you can see the market changes with Google trends that allows you to see the topics people are or aren’t searching, almost in real time. For example, in March 2020, the search term “virtual birthday party ideas” were high trending in just a few days in the US? Same goes with your business related terms. If you want to make changes in your campaign finding a new keywords by following a trend Google Trend should not be ignored.

Improved Cross-Account insights in Report Editor:

Having Google Ads performance data to visualize and analyze, Report Editor was always an option.  You can access Report Editor by navigating to your “Report” tab in your manager account. It can now let you access 200 accounts directly from browser.

Asset reporting feature for better app campaigns:

There is an update of asset reporting feature to provide you more helpful and actionable insights.

Performance rating provides clear guidance:

“low”, “good”, and “best” asset ratings will appear in the tooltip

Two new columns in asset reporting:

Two new columns introduced, Asset source and Orientation.  So that you can determine which asset was uploaded and what was its orientation

Track performance changes over time:

Performance changes for your assets are important to observe that is why this update is introduced.  You can select different date range and various metrics observe the performances.

Assets Previewing:

When final user will see your ad how it will appear you can check this through Ad Preview. By clicking on “View ad previews” in the asset column of your report, this ad previews tool will show you sample ads assembled from your assets as they might appear in all eligible App campaign placements. Currently you might not find it yet. This feature along with performance charts, will be available in the next few months.

Easier resubmissions and appeals of ad policy issues:

Google ads want to empower every business to get their ads up as soon as possible. So Google ads are launching a new feature that enables you to appeal policy decisions directly in Google Ads.

With this new feature, you can swiftly resubmit an ad after solving the policy issue. If you’ve checked the policy affecting your ad and believe Google ads made an error, you can also appeal the policy decision directly in Google Ads.

Video campaigns with parallel tracking:

Parallel tracking sends customers directly from your ad to your final URL while click measurement happens in the background. Previously it was not available for video campaigns but when it was introduced, the deadline was given March 31, 2020 to every advertiser to use in video campaigns. Then the deadline to adopt parallel tracking for video campaigns extended to June 15, 2020. Google Ads give everyone extra time to indefinitely to make this transition. If you’ve already done with most of the work needed to embrace parallel tracking, you are have time to finish the process.

Use Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value with portfolio bid strategies

If you are having multiple campaigns its performance can be optimized by using Portfolio bid strategies. Previously target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize clicks, and Target impression share was available in Portfolio bid strategies but now smart bidding with search campaigns, Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value ready to use with portfolios.

Attribution Reports New User Experience in Google Ads:

Purchase cycle of the customer is important and this new look will help you in understanding the cycle.  Few reports have been removed and few have been combined to bring better insights. Available reports are:

• Overview
• Top paths
• Path metrics
• Assisted conversions
• Model comparison

 

Moreover you can also check different customers who converted after multiple clicks. Model comparison helps you compare your cost per conversion and return on ad spend for different attribution models, such as last click, rules-based, and data-driven attribution.

Google Ads Mobile App New Features:

Google ads introducing new optimization score features and Dark mode in the app. With Google Ads you can analysis real time data for apps, review high-impact recommendations and take quick action to improve performance.

Fast top recommendations priority:

You can improve the performance from within an app by having an optimization score to prioritize recommendations for your campaigns.

Notification on optimization score changes:

Whenever your optimization score changes you’ll be notified in real-time. You can tap the notification to open your Recommendations page, where you can take action to raise your score and improve performance. On the settings page of the app. you can set to receive these notification.

Dark Mode:

Visual comfort for all the users that is why dark mode is designed it. You can turn on the dark mode on the setting page of the app.

Share remarketing lists:

People who already engaged with your products and services are your loyal customers. Whether your goal is to increase sales or having brand awareness, remarketing to people who have already engaged with your website can always help you grow your business. Now with a manager account, you can share audience lists across accounts. Different steps to sharing remarking list you can follow to do this.

Analyzing campaign changes impact ads performance in Google Ads:

Campaign changes are continuous process so you cannot deny it so understanding the impact of your campaign changes is important, Performance charts can show your campaign changes. For example,   there comes drop in conversions for one of your active campaigns. So you can check from change history report now hover over the markers in the performance chart to get more details about the changes you’ve made over a specific period.

All Google Ads campaigns will now be using improved Standard delivery:

Previously Standard and Accelerated Delivery methods were available. But now Standard delivery will be the only ad delivery method for any new Display, Video, App and Hotel campaigns. Accelerated delivery will no longer be available. Starting in May 2020, all existing Display, Video, App and Hotel campaigns which are using Accelerated delivery will be automatically switched to Standard delivery.

Automate your Google Ads conversion imports with Zapier:

Integrating third party is sometimes difficult if you are not too much technical. But now Google provides you ease on it. It collaborated with Zapier. To help Google Ads integration to pull the data and put into CRM.  Conversion events, formatting the data and upload directly to Google Ads will be possible.

Understand how budget and goal changes may impact Smart Bidding:

Simulators help you understand your performance and potential you could have in achieving the goal at different bid levels. Previously, these simulations have only been available for campaigns using manual bidding or Target CPA. Now for detail insights from a wider variety of campaigns, Google ads adding simulator support for budgets and for the Target ROAS bid strategy.

Find the right target ROAS to achieve your goals:

The Target ROAS simulator shows the relationship between a ROAS target and your key metrics.

Find your ideal budget to maximize performance:

You may need to update your budgets for campaigns that use Maximize clicks or Maximize conversions. By using budget simulator you can check how these changes could have impacted your performance. This makes it easy for you to find your ideal budget allocation across campaigns.

Performance changes with Explanations:

Understanding why your performance changes is critical when optimizing a campaign. To help you understand some performance changes in your campaigns and ad groups faster, you can now request explanations. With explanations, you can view the most likely reasons for impression, click, and cost changes with the click of a button.

For example, let’s say you notice a big week-over-week drop in impressions for one of your campaigns. Rather than diving into multiple reports to find out what happened, you can just click on the “See Explanations” button on your campaign and ad group tables while in time comparison mode.

Before you get started with explanations, keep the following in mind:

• Explanations is currently available for manual CPC or eCPC Search campaigns.
• Explanations can compare two time periods of equal length within the last 90 days.
• Explanations may only show for campaigns with significant performance changes.

 

 

Optimization Score is now included in Display Campaigns:

Just like for Search and Shopping, optimization score for Display campaigns ranges from 0% to 100%, with 100% meaning that your campaigns are set to perform at their full potential. You’ll see separate scores for Search, Shopping, and Display at the campaign level, and one combined score at the account level. Google have also added unique recommendations just for Display, like creating Smart Display campaigns, using targeting expansion, and adding responsive display ads.

Multiple Plans and Plan Sharing in Keyword Planner:

It hasn’t always been easy to share your new keyword plans with everyone who needs to see them. That’s why you can now create, save, and share plans from directly within Keyword Planner.

For Example: Let’s take an example as mentioned by Google, if you are a sports retailer planning to launch three new product lines: running shoes, fitness apparel, and gym accessories. In order to share your keyword plans in the past, you would need to create, download, and email them individually. Now you can create separate plans for each product line and share them directly with others for feedback, all without leaving Keyword Planner.

 

Top Signals – To gain more insights into your bid strategy:

Smart Bidding helps you drive performance while saving you time. To give you more transparency into which factors are driving your performance and provide insights that may inform your broader marketing strategy, you can now view some of your top bidding signals in the bid strategy report. The report might also include combinations of different signals.

For example, the report may show that people are more likely to convert when searching for the keyword “business” in Los Angeles on a Saturday.

Conversion Categories and Reporting are Expanding:

How effectively your ad clicks lead to valuable customer can be identified by Conversion measurement. This is done by creating conversion actions like “online purchase” or “phone calls”. Earlier, you could form these conversions actions into 6 categories. Now on, you can group your conversion actions in 19 different categories such that “add to cart”, “submit lead form”, “book appointment”, and more. Now, it will easier for you to understand conversion funnel metrics based on your marketing objectives with these additional categories.

Create Location Extensions with a Simpler and Faster way:

Since last year, searches for “available near me” have grown globally by more than 100%, before engaging with nearby stores consumers increasingly turn online. Marketers should make it easier for consumers to find business locations and it is very important to understand how your online campaigns are driving offline results. You can add details about your physical locations by using location extensions, you can add details about your physical locations like your address, hours and directions to online across Search, Display and YouTube.

 

YouTube Masthead is now available on Smart TV:

After successful test campaigns in select markets, the YouTube Masthead is now globally available on TV screens for all advertisers to buy on a CPM (Cost-per-mile) basis. It can be purchased as part of a seamless cross-screen buy that runs on mobile, desktop and TV screens or as part of a single-screen only buy that runs just on TV Screens.

Google Ads Editor updates include New campaign types and cross-account features:

Google have introduced Google Ads Editor v1.2. This latest release includes support for new campaign types and updates to multi-account management. Editor now supports

• App Campaigns for Engagement
• Discovery Campaigns
• Shared Negative Keywords list
• Searchable Errors
• Condensed Edit Pane.

 

 

Get your products in front of more shoppers through Merchant Center:

You can expand your global footprint more than ever in shopping campaigns. Start showing your products globally with multi-country feeds, which allow you to target multiple countries that share the same language by using a single feed in that language.

For example, if you upload product information in German for Germany, those products may be automatically available to show in other German-speaking countries, such as Austria and Switzerland.

Elevate your video campaigns with new extensions for YouTube ads:

To help you hit your business goals, Google are improving interactivity on YouTube with new extensions that make it easy for your customers to take action. Building off of our popular extensions on Search, extensions on YouTube give viewer useful and actionable information like store location, interest forms and additional calls-to-action.

 

Lead Form Extensions:

Lead Form Extension capture interest when potential customers are searching for your company, products, or services on Google. A fast, mobile-optimized experience makes form submission easy and eliminates the extra step of navigating to your mobile site lead form.

 

Placements reporting updates

Placements are the locations on the Display Network where your ad appears. Examples include relevant websites and apps that partner with Google to show ads. These metrics will only include manually targeted placements. Previously, the “Placement” column in Report Editor included data for automatically targeted placements. So keep in mind that these new placement numbers won’t reflect all the placements where your ads have shown. To view all placements where an ad has shown use the placement (group) filter in the Report Editor. On your campaigns and ad groups pages, you can use the “Where ads showed” section.

App campaign asset updates:

App campaigns use your text, image, video and HTML5 assets to deliver relevant ads to app-happy users across Google. This will help you make more informed design decisions, particularly as new App ad inventory goes live on Discover and YouTube Search. Advertisers with active App campaigns will automatically adopt these updates, so no action is required from you. While we do not anticipate adverse impact to your App campaigns’ performance, you might see some shifts in your asset reporting metrics.

Advertiser can now use Responsive Search Ads:

Responsive search ads are available to all advertisers in all languages, as well as in Google Ads Editor, the API, and the mobile app.  Get started by adding at least one responsive search ad and two expanded text ads per ad group. This has proven to help advertisers reach new customers while delivering great results.

Understand conversions by time with new columns:

Conversion reporting makes it easy for you to understand the value ads generate for your business. To date, Google Ads has always reported conversions by the date your ad was clicked. So it will help in better understanding of conversions in your campaigns

For example, let’s say your ad was clicked on last week and that traffic converted this week. In this case, both the click and the conversion are attributed to the date of the click. This helps you accurately measure metrics like cost per conversion or return on ad spend–because ad spend is reported based on the time of the click.

Virtual Make-up comes to the YouTube Masthead

Seeing your product in action helps convert customers eager to try before they buy. This is especially true for beauty brands. Now with the help of augmented reality, trying on lipstick, once only possible in-store, can be done virtually on YouTube.

Reach your ideal customer on Google Search

People turn to Google Search for inspiration, to explore interests, and find the things they care about. The improvements are in the audience targeting such as Affinity, in-market audience and etc.

Set conversion actions at the campaign level for video ads

A conversion action is a specific customer action that you’ve defined as valuable to your business, such as a newsletter signup or a purchase. These actions can be included in the “Conversions” column, which is used to evaluate performance and optimize bids. For Search and Display campaigns that have specific budgets for different marketing goals, you can override the default, account-level setting by selecting which conversion actions you want to optimize for at the campaign level. Starting today, this campaign-level setting is now available for Video campaigns.

Google Ads auction-time bidding comes to Search Ads 360

Smart Bidding uses machine learning to set bids at auction-time, factoring in a wide range of signals that help predict performance. Now, the same technology that’s helped advertisers achieve better results is available in Search Ads 360. In fact, during the beta, hundreds of Search Ads 360 advertisers enabled Google Ads auction-time bidding and saw an average conversion increase of 15% to 30% at the same or better ROI.

Turn browsers into buyers with user-generated images in product reviews

To help shoppers feel more confident in their purchases, Google have introduced user-generated images in product reviews on Google Shopping. You can now include review images in your product review feeds, allowing customers to visually connect with what you sell through pictures of previous customers wearing or using your products.

Easier cross-account analysis with Report Editor:

To make it faster and easier for you to analyze this valuable cross-account data, the Manager account’s Report Editor can now slice and dice your data in real time. With this update, you can now analyze and identify cross-account patterns in your data without leaving Google Ads.

Cross-account reporting is currently available for Manager Accounts managing up to ten Google Ads accounts

Improving call quality with a new look for call-only ads:

With Updates in Call-Only Ads now your business name and headline will show directly below your phone number, along with a larger phone icon, to make it more clearly to users what you offer and make the call-to-action more prominent.

 

Get more from Recommendations:

Recommendations help you prioritize your most impactful opportunities to improve account performance. Google ads introduce improved keyword recommendations, a new workflow, and bulk actions in the recommendations to improve your account performance:

Improved keyword recommendations:

New update improve the relevancy and quality of your keyword recommendations. Keyword recommendations can now contain broad match modifiers

Recommendations table view:

To make it easier for you to view your recommendations and their expected impact, Google ads added a new table view format:

This new table format helps you prioritize your recommendations at scale with the following features:

• View and sort your recommendations by largest optimization opportunity
• See how much your optimization score will change if you adopt a recommendation
• See a breakdown of scoring and recommendations by campaign
• Download the table view into Excel

Bulk apply and dismiss for manager accounts:

You can now bulk apply or dismiss recommendations at the manager account level2 with a single click with new update.

Set up conversion measurement as you create a new campaign:

Conversion tracking helps you measure the valuable actions that advertisers take on your website after they click an ad, such as a purchase or brochure download. Setting it up is critical to the success of your campaign.

To make it easier to measure progress towards your defined goals, you can now set up conversion tracking as you create a new campaign.

 

Add store visits to Smart Bidding to drive better omnichannel results:

To maximize Omni channel ROI, store visits in Smart Bidding is now available to all advertisers for Search and Shopping campaigns.

Turn insights into action:

Store visits in your Smart Bidding allows you to optimize for total performance more holistically, helping you drive better results while saving you time.

Flexible testing at the campaign level:

Trying a new bidding strategy at the account level can be challenging, so it’s now possible to test incorporating store visits into your Smart Bidding strategy for select Search and Shopping campaigns. By enabling the campaign-level conversion setting, you can include store visits as an optimizable conversion on a subset of Search campaigns before expanding your omnichannel bidding strategy to your entire account

Optimization score is now available in the Google Ads mobile app:

Optimization score helps you prioritize recommendations for your campaigns so you can achieve your business goals faster and more efficiently. Previously, this score was only available on desktop. Now, you can see and act on your optimization score in the Google Ads mobile app.

Now, you can review and apply recommendations wherever you are, so you won’t miss out on taking critical action just because you’re away from the computer.

A new policy on advertising for speculative and experimental medical treatments:

Google ads announce a new Healthcare and medicines policy to prohibit advertising for unproven or experimental medical techniques such as most stem cell therapy, cellular (non-stem) therapy, and gene therapy. This new policy will prohibit ads selling treatments that have no established biomedical or scientific basis. The new policy also includes treatments that are rooted in basic scientific findings and preliminary clinical experience, but currently have insufficient formal clinical testing to justify widespread clinical use.

Introducing seasonality adjustments for Smart Bidding:

Smart Bidding strategies like Target CPA and Target ROAS use machine learning to automatically set bids at auction time to help improve the performance of your Google Ads campaigns. To provide more control in these rare situations, you can now apply seasonality adjustments for Search and Display campaigns.

 

Search and Shopping campaigns will now be using improved Standard delivery:

Standard delivery will be the only ad delivery method for Search campaigns, shopping campaigns, and shared budgets. Accelerated delivery will no longer be available in Google ads because Accelerated delivery attempts to spend your budget faster than Standard delivery. Standard delivery takes into account expected ad performance throughout the day and is better at maximizing performance within your daily budget. Accelerated delivery method only available for Display campaigns and Video campaigns.

Gallery ads available in 11 languages globally:

Gallery ads are a swipe able, image-based ad format that gives customers the information they need about your products and services right at the top of the search results page. Most of smartphone users expect to get immediate information while using their smartphone. Therefore, Google ads announced the beta for gallery ads at Google Marketing Live. This can help you connect with advertiser before they visit your site.

Gallery ads are now available in 11 languages, including: English, German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Swedish, and Polish.

Easier to use and loaded with new features Google ads Editor new Updates:

Google ads editor with it new updates, it promises will be easier to use and include a host of new features.

According to Google, some of these new features include in Google ads editor.

• IP exclusions can now be copied, added and updated across all campaigns
• Accounts Manager makes managing multiple accounts simple and efficient
• Dark Mode for added viewing comfort
• The image picker will make browsing and choosing ad images from your desktop a breeze

You can quickly promote your chain by creating location extension. Google will also review to make sure the chain is a good match for your business using like its website domain and country. After that you can use location groups to filter for specific locations within that chain.

In Dynamic Market to Reach Local Consumer:

Due to COVID-19, worldwide communities are responding in various stages and according to local ordinances business are reopening or restricting operations. For navigating the changing market and turn the Google for local information like what’s open near them, store safety measures and in-stock inventory. Since last year Google searches for “clothing store open” by 900% and 1000% year-over-year search grew for “restaurants open for”. “Local restaurants open for delivery” and “Restaurants open for carry out near me”.

In these dynamic conditions adjusting your business can be difficult, especially with lower capacity. Google is providing automated support you in open locations and meet customers where they feel comfortable shopping, even as the market changes.

Helping consumers plan their next visit to your business:

Using Google local campaigns, can help you communicate with consumers who are near your locations. As your stores reopen, create ads that share your open status, provide health and safety updates, or highlight in-store shopping options like product inventory, curbside pickup and takeout options, or special promotions all on a store-by-store basis.

Local campaigns can be optimize for store visit indicators like clicks on “directions” and “calls”. This will add more businesses to access Local campaigns. You just have to give your store locations, campaign budget and creative assets and Google’s machine learning technology automatically optimize your campaign to meet business goals. Even you can easily update your goals as local conditions change.

Promote your local inventory and store pickup options:

In COVID, Getting them nearby is often the best option, because consumers are still looking ways to get items they need fast. With shipping delays, you can assure your consumers that they can find what they need locally and collect their purchases safely by showing consumers what fulfillment options you offer. You can promote items that are available in store to pick up.

YouTube Masthead now available with CPM buying:

After successful beta tests in select markets, the YouTube Masthead is now globally available for all advertisers to buy on a CPM basis. Google ads introduced the option to purchase the YouTube Masthead on a cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) basis and use advanced audience solutions to customize who sees it. This is in addition to the option to purchase the Masthead on a cost-per-day basis reaching all visitors to the YouTube Home page.

Drive more conversions with True View for action on Google video partners:

Google ads bringing True View for action to Google video partners to help you drive leads and conversions on high-quality mobile applications and publisher websites beyond YouTube. All of our partners must comply with Google’s Video publisher policy and Ad Mob & AdSense policies, and abide by our Video Ad Safety Promise.

Parallel Tracking will be mandatory for Display ads:

Faster mobile sites mean better user experiences and more conversions. Parallel tracking allows for much faster load times than traditional click tracking. Parallel tracking will become mandatory for all Display campaigns. If you work with a click measurement provider, reach out to them and ensure that they’re ready for this change. This will help ensure that there’s no disruption to your click measurement system.

New audiences search with Increasing transparency for personalized advertising:

Google ads recently announced new tools that provide more visibility into the data used to personalize ads and the companies involved in the process. These are in addition to existing tools like Ad Settings where users can easily update their ads preferences or opt out of ads personalization all together at any time.

New updates for App campaigns help unlock more search inventory on iOS mobile web browsers:

Your App ads are now to show for more searches on iOS mobile web browsers. This means app installs and in-app conversion events from iOS browsers will be included in your campaign reporting. This can help you reach more people who are looking for what your app has to offer and can help you improve campaign performance.

Wrap Up

So, there you have the ultimate list of Google Ads updates. Every year is sure to be full of changes, too, so everyone in PPC advertising should do their best to get familiar with these updates and embrace the new tricks and tools.

Taking a proactive attitude to experimentation is a key ingredient for success with PPC advertising. You can learn more about that in our blog about How to Create An Optimized Search Ad Campaign.