Google Marketing Live 2024 marked a major turning point in the world of digital advertising. This year, the focus was on artificial intelligence (AI) and how it transforms digital advertising strategies. Innovative new features were introduced, promising to optimise ad performance, transform media, and improve Return On Investment (ROI).
What’s new in Performance Max
What Is Performance Max?
Performance Max is an integrated solution that combines AI-based search campaigns to maximise conversions and ROI across all Google channels.
According to Google, advertisers who adopt Performance Max see an average increase of 27% in conversions or value for a similar CPA/ROAS.
Performance Improvement Through AI
Google’s new AI capabilities offer significant improvements for Performance Max campaigns, allowing superior optimisation of conversions and improved ROI across all Google channels.
These ad campaigns combine artificial intelligence with specific industry data to generate significantly improved results.
Ad Creation Through AI-Based Image Editing
The introduction of new tools for ad creation now allows the generation of visually appealing advertising products that captivate users and enhance the customer experience. They use AI to adapt ads to audience preferences, enhancing the impact of each campaign. The personalisation of these creations according to brand guidelines is now easier, offering essential consistency while increasing user engagement.
The upgrade of Google PMax now allows for mass production of AI creative assets, facilitating the faster creation of personalised ads, benefiting from advanced image editing, and automatically displaying product feeds in AI-generated creations.
Google Ads Innovations: Towards a More Immersive Experience
To adapt to new online search habits, Google has introduced new AI-based features.
Ads Integrated Into AI Previews
Google introduces ads in AI previews, providing new opportunities to reach consumers during their moments of exploration. For example, during a search on ‘how to remove wrinkles from clothes’, relevant ads for ironing products or storage tips will appear in AI previews, providing practical and immediate solutions to users. These ads will appear in the ‘Sponsored’ sections of AI previews, creating more opportunities to discover relevant products and services.
Google Lens and Circle to Search now allow the display of Shopping ads at the top of visual search results. This offers advertisers the opportunity to capture consumers’ attention by presenting their products in a more attractive and relevant way. For example, a user who takes a photo of a suitcase via Google Lens will see relevant Shopping ads at the top of the search results, increasing conversion chances. This is called the Power Pair, a combination of Search and Performance Max.
AI-Based Personalised Recommendations
Search network ads can provide interactive AI-based experiences, with personalised recommendations and multimodal inputs. This captures customers’ specific needs and provides relevant solutions.
Search Campaign Optimisation
Google Ads introduces a conversational experience to simplify the creation of optimised campaigns. By simply entering your website URL, Google Ads can suggest the right keywords and broad match elements, simplifying the campaign setup process. Small businesses using this feature are 63% more likely to publish campaigns with ‘Good’ or ‘Excellent’ ad strength (source: Google).
Demand Gen Campaigns: Visual Storytelling and Creativity
Marketing campaigns are not only evaluated by their performance but also by their level of creativity. That’s why Google introduces new tools to better control and share the visual elements of your brand image. Google offers a new section allowing brands to share reference visuals to guide AI in generating images based on these models.
Integrations with Creative Platforms
Recent partnerships with platforms such as Canva, Pencil Pro, and Smartly.io facilitate the creation of optimised advertising assets for Display and their integration into Google Ads, simplifying the management and optimisation of Shopping and other online campaigns.
Video Formats: Visual Storytelling
Generate more engagement with animated illustrated ads for Demand Gen campaigns. Retailers with a Merchant Center account can now run animated illustrated ads on YouTube Shorts in addition to video ads. The visual storytelling strategy now allows targeting customers with vertical videos, stickers, and automatically generated animated illustrated ads.
Retailers can integrate short product videos into their ads, offer virtual try-ons to show how tops fit different body types, and include 3D presentations.
Campaign Tracking and Measurement Improvements
Reporting: Advanced Measurement Tools
Advertisers now benefit from extended features to see exactly where their ads are running, including on platforms like YouTube, and to evaluate the effectiveness of each creative asset to adjust their strategies in real-time.
With the integration of Google Analytics, advertisers now have access to more detailed insights that allow them to track the performance of their ads in real-time, optimising their strategies to achieve optimal results.
Google Ads Data Manager
Now accessible to everyone, you can use Google Ads Data Manager to simplify the process of using your first-party data. With just a few clicks, you can connect to partners such as Salesforce, BigQuery, and Google Cloud Storage to activate solutions such as enhanced conversions or customer targeting.
Increased Control Over Ad Placements
Thanks to improvements in display and placement control on platforms like Search and YouTube, it is possible to better manage where ads appear, ensuring a more consistent experience for customers.
What’s Next for Google Ads?
Google has announced several upcoming innovations in the coming months.
Product Studio
Google has announced the arrival of 2 new features soon in Product Studio. AI will be able to generate visually appealing videos from a product image.
Google has also announced the arrival of the 3D format for your Shopping Ads, allowing users to view products with a 360° view.
Tailored Immersion
Additionally, Google is launching 3 new AI-optimised ad formats connected to short product videos (from the brand and influencers). This will allow customers to interact with videos to see how clothes look when worn, get styling suggestions, and explore complementary products more easily.
Image Modifications in Merchant Center
Google announced that soon, you will be able to edit images, including product images from your Google Merchant Center feed, in Performance Max and other campaign types. You will also have the ability to add and remove objects, extend backgrounds, and adjust images to fit any size, orientation, and aspect ratio.
Conclusion: Google Marketing Live 2024
The Google Marketing Live 2024 demonstrated the transformative power of AI in digital advertising. By adopting these new technologies and features, advertisers can enhance their strategies, maximise conversions, and achieve better ROI. The future of advertising is promising, and it’s time for companies to seize these opportunities to stay competitive in this evolving digital landscape.
