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Google Marketing Live 2022: The Roundup

Along with a lot of PPC’ers out there, we tuned into Google Marketing Live 2022 recently to hear first hand what the latest announcements from Google hold for us all. In case you don’t have a spare 1 hr 11mins to watch the recording, we’ve summarised the key takeaways and our thoughts for you.  

 

1. Performance Max is maximising insights as well as performance

Since we began testing performance max at the beginning of 2022 we’ve seen some really great results for our clients but the one gripe we have is the lack of visibility on what is actually driving results. Well Google have taken this on board and are trying to meet us halfway by rolling out a series of updates over the rest of the year, including A/B testing for Experiments, the ability to optimise for in-store sales (aiming to further bridge the gap between on and offline sales), performance data such as attribution, audiences and auction insights (hallelujah!) and including P. Max within our opti-score results. Google states that improving your optiscore by 10 points drives a median of 14% more conversions. 

Performance Max Campaign

 

2. Insights are getting deeper

Not only is P. Max getting insights but the insights page is getting a glow up. Google is introducing three new reports to the Insights Page, focusing on Attribution, Budgets and Audiences.
- Attribution Insights: We’ll have a better view on which campaigns drove conversions across the account and provide recommendations if a better attribution model is detected. See how your ads work together across Google surfaces.

Multi touch conversion paths
  • Budget Insights: More data provided on budget pacing and forecasting. Google says this will identify opportunities to optimise your spend in line with your goals, not just where spend is capped. 
  • Audience Insights: See show how your customer segments are driving campaign performance, focusing on that all important first party data.


    3. Video is everywhere

    There’s no escaping the importance of Video. Google have been talking about Video and YouTube for years and years and since the huge success of TikTok they’re ramping it up again and users are engaging!
    Video ads are coming to the Discover page, we recommend using eye-catching, bold but simple video to make for a quick engagement with users. Top performing audience segments

video ads

Google are also creating audiences for connected TV’s. This will bring increased visibility to “most” connected TV apps and YouTube through affinity, in-market and demographic audiences. 

Google are also heavily pushing their rival for TikTok Ads with YouTube Shorts. According to Google, 75% of people agree that YouTube enhances their shopping experience and visibility of YouTube shorts is up 4x year on year. Later this year, product feeds will start showing up on YouTube Shorts, making video ads even more shoppable.

youtube shorts

4. Get me to the checkout!

Google is cutting the user journey down even more with their newest Checkout on Merchant button which will take users directly to your store's checkout page. Personally, I'm really intrigued to see how this works out. Will people really be thrilled to have their journey cut down by one of two clicks or will they miss out on valuable information provided by the merchant that actually secures the sale or even a cross sell/upsell opportunity to increase basket value?

cut to checkout

5. Respect our privacy

Google talked a lot about privacy, it's not the most exciting topic and it's pretty confusing but it is super relevant and a big deal as they estimated 65% of users will be covered by GDPR laws by 2023. They’re introducing My Ad Centre where users can control how their data informs ads and can even opt in to see more or fewer ads. 

What do we make of it all?

Some of the features Google announced could make waves for advertisers (Checkout on Merchant and more immersive shopping ads) but some might be more of a ripple (YouTube Shorts). But like every year, time will tell which features make the biggest impact but I think we can all agree that additional insights sounds like a big win for us old time PPC’ers.

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