Newest Google Product Offering: Google Marketing Live 2019

Google's Marketing Live 2019 conference just wrapped up.

Meghan Tooley, Digital Director for Metric runs through the newest products and features announced at this year's conference below. Needless to say, we’re excited to start implementing these for our clients.

Discovery Ads

These ads are designed to get in front of people who are not only looking for something specific but when they are open to finding new products or services. You’ll see these ads on the Google discover feed, on the mobile YouTube feed and in Gmail (under the social and promotions tabs).

This view provides content cards that Google thinks users may be interested in based on your previous online behaviour (such as previous ads that were clicked through, past site visitations, or app downloads). Once campaign creative is uploaded, Google will optimize the best performing combinations using machine learning.

Google released that the Discover feed now reaches 800 million users globally.

Gallery Ads

We’re psyched for these. Gallery ads sit at the top of your mobile search engine results page encouraging you to interact with them. They feature a swipeable 4-8 image carousel that appears directly under your (up to) 70-character text headline. This ad mimics the photo carousels you often see on your Facebook or Instagram feed. The difference? Each image is accompanied by its own tagline. Tapping on the images takes users to the landing page/site.

Google also knows that images drive engagement (enter shopping ads), in Google’s testing of these products these ads received 25% more engagement than your standard text ads.

Get Ready for a New Google Shopping Experience

Shopping ads were first introduced for search and were intended to provide retailers with the opportunity to showcase a curated list of products responsive to non-branded search terms such as “outdoor furniture” or “office chairs”. Now Google has announced improvements to the Google Shopping experience; such as allowing users to make a purchase without leaving the Google Shopping interface. This streamlined checkout will allow users to make purchases via voice assistant (“Ok Google, Buy Huggies”), directly through search from relevant queries, image searches (i.e. If you’re looking for shoes, you can buy it directly from the Google image) and you can purchase products from Youtube (all while a video continues to play).

Furthermore, Google is improving a user’s purchase experience by auto-populating your address and shipping details (unless you tell it otherwise) directly from your Google profile.

And in beta right now, Google’s new “Shopping Campaigns with Partners” is designed for manufacturer & retailer duos. Retailers will have the option to accept additional budget from manufacturers from within the Google Shopping platform. While manufacturers can select and control which products or product categories they want their retailers to promote.

Deep Linking

Advertisers can now use what’s called “Deep Linking,” which allows advertisers to link their ads directly to their apps. Meaning app conversion reporting will become equivalent to what we currently have for web conversion reporting.

Smart Bidding

Google developed new bidding strategies for search campaigns that ultimately allow advertisers more flexibility to optimize for what matters most “maximizing conversion value.” For instance, if you value a certain type of product sale (product with a higher profit margin versus another), you could optimize your budget to focus on the targeting that is driving the conversions you most desire. This bidding strategy can now be applied to in-store visits as well.

YouTube Bumper Machine

The “YouTube Bumper Machine” generates 6-second video ads directly in Google Ads for you. You give Google a link to your YouTube video, the bumper machine scans the ads (and uses machine learning) for key elements; such as voice-overs or a tight focus on humans, logos or products.

Many of these features are first being rolled out in the US first, but we look forward to seeing this roll out in Canada soon.

Machine learning will allow for better user experience, faster purchasing and better analytics to continuously measure your marketing efforts, making for overall, better marketing campaigns.