Tag Archives: AdWords

New ways to put your customers first and achieve your marketing objectives

Life looks very different now for my family than it did earlier this year. From juggling work priorities to managing distance learning for my kids, there never seems to be enough hours in the day. As we adapt, we’re relying on our phones to get things done.

How can brands lend a hand? We believe there are three key ways to put consumers at the core of your strategy: help people quickly get what they want, deliver relevant information and make it easy for your customers to take action.

Today, we’re sharing new ways to put your customers first and achieve your marketing objectives.


Help people get what they want, faster

The stakes are high on mobile. If you don’t give people what they want quickly, they’ll take their business elsewhere. In fact, we recently found that for retail sites, improving your site load time by 0.1s can help you improve conversion rates by 8 percent.

Test My Site has been an important tool for helping diagnose site speed and providing custom tips on how to make it faster. Today, we updated the tool to provide specific recommendations on how you can improve your mobile site—beyond speed—and deliver more personalized and seamless experiences. Key updates include:

  • Aligning speed metrics with Web Vitals, an initiative by Google to provide unified guidance for quality signals that, we believe, are essential to delivering a great user experience on the web. When marketers and developers share the same definition of success, it’s easier to agree on what’s driving results.

  • Customized tips on how to make your site experience relevant and easy to use. For example, learn how to build a one-step checkout and keep customers coming back with relevant push notifications. 

TMS_3.gif

Improve your mobile site to boost your business

To get started, visit Test My Site to see how your site is doing and download your customized report—with sections for both marketers and developers—that you can share with your team.


Deliver more engaging and helpful ad experiences 

Many marketers already use feeds in Display, Shopping and Local campaigns to quickly upload and showcase products in your ads. With more product images directly in your ad, consumers are able to easily and seamlessly find what they’re shopping for. In the coming months, we’ll roll out feeds in App campaigns globally to all customers. According to beta testing, advertisers using feeds saw, on average, 6 percent more installs from Google.com and 17 percent more in-app actions (like log-ins and purchases) on sites and apps in our network.

GML_feeds_channels_mocks_06.16.2020-01 copy.jpg

Surface relevant information about what your app offers

Wish, an e-commerce company, used feeds to display diverse products from its marketplace. Wish also enabled deferred deep linking, which gave new app users a smoother onboarding experience—from app install straight to the item they saw in the ad.

Here’s how it works: if a new user taps on a Wish ad for running shoes, she will be directed to her app store to install the Wish app. After installing and opening the app for the first time, she would automatically land on the running shoes’ product page to learn more or make a purchase.

GML_feeds_DDL_flow (final) copy.jpg

Take new app users directly to the products they want to see with deferred deep linking

Since adopting feeds and deferred deep linking, Wish has seen a 105 percent increase in purchases from its app at a similar CPA. “These features have made our app more discoverable and appealing to customers,” says Krishanth Kathiresan, Wish’s Head of Growth Marketing. “It’s a scalable way for us to drive more lower-funnel user engagement and, most importantly, mobile orders.”

To get started, you can reach out to your account manager to join our beta or learn more.


Make it easier for your customers to take action

Loyal customers stick with brands that make it easy for them to get things done. For customers who already have your app installed, deep linking lets them get to the relevant page in the app without having to log in or re-enter information. 

Last year at Google Marketing Live, we announced app deep linking from Search, Display and Shopping ads. In the coming months, we’ll be rolling out deep linking from YouTube, Hotel, Gmail and Discovery ads. On average, deep linked ad experiences drive 2X the conversion rates.

Let’s say, your customer is watching a cooking video on YouTube and sees a discount for “2-hour grocery delivery.” Once she taps on the ad, she’s taken directly to a page in the store’s app to place an order.  

Deep linking expansion (final).png

Direct customers from your YouTube ad to your app

Rakuten Ichiba, a Japanese e-commerce company, found that enabling deep linking helped its loyal customers take action on ads directly in the brand’s app, resulting in 4X mobile purchases and 3X conversions. 

App deep linking introduces an important and seamless path to conversion. To give you better insight into where consumers are landing and converting from your ads, you can start to use ad destination reporting in Google Ads—available globally starting today.

Ad destination reporting (final).png

See where consumers are landing and converting from your ads

For example, let’s say you’re a retailer with both a website and app. With the ad destination report, you can see in the “App deep link” row that these ads drive a higher conversion rate at a lower cost per conversion.

To get started with reporting for your app, use Google Analytics for Firebase or work with one of our App Attribution Program partners


Learn more

To learn more about how you can be there for your customers while achieving your app and mobile marketing objectives, visit our Advertising Solutions Center.

Source: Google Ads


New ways to put your customers first and achieve your marketing objectives

Life looks very different now for my family than it did earlier this year. From juggling work priorities to managing distance learning for my kids, there never seems to be enough hours in the day. As we adapt, we’re relying on our phones to get things done.

How can brands lend a hand? We believe there are three key ways to put consumers at the core of your strategy: help people quickly get what they want, deliver relevant information and make it easy for your customers to take action.

Today, we’re sharing new ways to put your customers first and achieve your marketing objectives.


Help people get what they want, faster

The stakes are high on mobile. If you don’t give people what they want quickly, they’ll take their business elsewhere. In fact, we recently found that for retail sites, improving your site load time by 0.1s can help you improve conversion rates by 8 percent.

Test My Site has been an important tool for helping diagnose site speed and providing custom tips on how to make it faster. Today, we updated the tool to provide specific recommendations on how you can improve your mobile site—beyond speed—and deliver more personalized and seamless experiences. Key updates include:

  • Aligning speed metrics with Web Vitals, an initiative by Google to provide unified guidance for quality signals that, we believe, are essential to delivering a great user experience on the web. When marketers and developers share the same definition of success, it’s easier to agree on what’s driving results.

  • Customized tips on how to make your site experience relevant and easy to use. For example, learn how to build a one-step checkout and keep customers coming back with relevant push notifications. 

TMS_3.gif

Improve your mobile site to boost your business

To get started, visit Test My Site to see how your site is doing and download your customized report—with sections for both marketers and developers—that you can share with your team.


Deliver more engaging and helpful ad experiences 

Many marketers already use feeds in Display, Shopping and Local campaigns to quickly upload and showcase products in your ads. With more product images directly in your ad, consumers are able to easily and seamlessly find what they’re shopping for. In the coming months, we’ll roll out feeds in App campaigns globally to all customers. According to beta testing, advertisers using feeds saw, on average, 6 percent more installs from Google.com and 17 percent more in-app actions (like log-ins and purchases) on sites and apps in our network.

GML_feeds_channels_mocks_06.16.2020-01 copy.jpg

Surface relevant information about what your app offers

Wish, an e-commerce company, used feeds to display diverse products from its marketplace. Wish also enabled deferred deep linking, which gave new app users a smoother onboarding experience—from app install straight to the item they saw in the ad.

Here’s how it works: if a new user taps on a Wish ad for running shoes, she will be directed to her app store to install the Wish app. After installing and opening the app for the first time, she would automatically land on the running shoes’ product page to learn more or make a purchase.

GML_feeds_DDL_flow (final) copy.jpg

Take new app users directly to the products they want to see with deferred deep linking

Since adopting feeds and deferred deep linking, Wish has seen a 105 percent increase in purchases from its app at a similar CPA. “These features have made our app more discoverable and appealing to customers,” says Krishanth Kathiresan, Wish’s Head of Growth Marketing. “It’s a scalable way for us to drive more lower-funnel user engagement and, most importantly, mobile orders.”

To get started, you can reach out to your account manager to join our beta or learn more.


Make it easier for your customers to take action

Loyal customers stick with brands that make it easy for them to get things done. For customers who already have your app installed, deep linking lets them get to the relevant page in the app without having to log in or re-enter information. 

Last year at Google Marketing Live, we announced app deep linking from Search, Display and Shopping ads. In the coming months, we’ll be rolling out deep linking from YouTube, Hotel, Gmail and Discovery ads. On average, deep linked ad experiences drive 2X the conversion rates.

Let’s say, your customer is watching a cooking video on YouTube and sees a discount for “2-hour grocery delivery.” Once she taps on the ad, she’s taken directly to a page in the store’s app to place an order.  

Deep linking expansion (final).png

Direct customers from your YouTube ad to your app

Rakuten Ichiba, a Japanese e-commerce company, found that enabling deep linking helped its loyal customers take action on ads directly in the brand’s app, resulting in 4X mobile purchases and 3X conversions. 

App deep linking introduces an important and seamless path to conversion. To give you better insight into where consumers are landing and converting from your ads, you can start to use ad destination reporting in Google Ads—available globally starting today.

Ad destination reporting (final).png

See where consumers are landing and converting from your ads

For example, let’s say you’re a retailer with both a website and app. With the ad destination report, you can see in the “App deep link” row that these ads drive a higher conversion rate at a lower cost per conversion.

To get started with reporting for your app, use Google Analytics for Firebase or work with one of our App Attribution Program partners


Learn more

To learn more about how you can be there for your customers while achieving your app and mobile marketing objectives, visit our Advertising Solutions Center.

Source: Google Ads


Drive results with new direct response solutions on YouTube

Prolonged store closures have forced brands around the world to recalibrate their media campaigns to focus on driving online sales. With this shift to digital, it’s become even clearer that every advertiser is a performance advertiser. 

With YouTube, marketers have the flexibility to shift budgets and invest in driving the results that matter most. As businesses begin to reopen, they have an opportunity to use video to drive both online and offline actions on YouTube, where 70 percent of people say they bought a brand as a result of seeing it on our platform.1 That’s why we’ve invested heavily to introduce effective video solutions that drive action. Last year, the number of active advertisers using TrueView for action grew over 260 percent.2 

Today, we’re making it even easier for you to inspire people to take action on YouTube with smarter solutions that make video more shoppable, use automation to drive conversions, and help you better understand attribution.


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Make your video ads your new storefront

Brands are strategically using video ads when merchandising new products. Recently, Aerie needed to simultaneously drive brand love and omnichannel apparel sales for their 2020 spring campaign. They used YouTube as a full funnel solution and connected with audiences with the highest likelihood to purchase. As a result, Aerie saw strong engagement for their brand and achieved a 25 percent higher return on ad spend than the previous year—with nine times more conversions compared to their traditional media mix. 

To help businesses establish a stronger e-commerce presence, we’re experimenting with a new way to make your actionable video ads more shoppable—complementing your ad with browsable product imagery to inspire the next purchase. All you need to do is sync your Google Merchant Center feed to your video ads, and you can visually expand your call-to-action button with the best-sellers you want to feature and drive traffic to the product pages that matter. 

An easier way to drive more conversions

In addition, we know that with limited marketing budgets, it’s become harder to drive reach and convert demand at the same time. Today we’re announcing Video action campaigns, a simple and cost-effective way to drive more conversions across YouTube. It automatically brings video ads that drive action to the YouTube home feed, watch pages, and Google video partners, all within one campaign. To make it even simpler, we’ll include any future inventory that becomes available, like the What to Watch Next feed. This way you can save time to focus on strategic initiatives like crafting the right creative and messaging for your audiences.
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We’ve seen Video action campaigns work for companies of all sizes, including Mos, a startup that helps students find funds for college to avoid large student debts. As a newer company, Mos was excited to test out a solution that could drive results quickly. In the last few months, Mos saw 30 percent more purchases for their service at a third of the cost compared to their previous YouTube benchmarks. 


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Transform your campaign into a lead generation tool

For businesses that rely on new leads to sustain growth, we recommend adding lead forms to your Video campaigns. Lead forms help advertisers capture qualified leads while reducing costs - all without interrupting the viewing experience. Automobile giant Jeep tried this approach with their Korea branch and saw a 13 times increase in completed leads at an 84 percent lower cost per lead. With lead forms, they generated “the most leads at the most efficient cost among all ad platforms,” says Kenny Hwang, Jeep’s Korea Marketing Manager.

Plan for greater impact across different consumer touchpoints 

We often see that people switch between Search and YouTube to find new information that influences what to buy. In order to help you understand where your conversions are coming from and provide more transparency around your customer’s path to purchase, we’ve included YouTube in our Google Ads attribution reports. Attribution reports can provide insight into how budgets can be allocated to maximize impact across YouTube, search and shopping campaigns.

As businesses begin to reopen and enter into a state of recovery, we hope these new solutions will make it even easier for you to find new leads, boost web traffic or drive sales. To get started on any of these new products and features, please reach out to your Google account team and we’ll be ready to help.



1. Google/Talkshoppe, US, whyVideo study, n=2000 A18-64 Genpop video users, Feb 2020.

2. Source: Google data, US, Jan-Dec 2018 vs Jan-Dec 2019. Active advertisers count based on advertisers that had multiple TrueView for action campaigns with nonzero spend throughout the year.

Source: Google Ads


Smart campaigns helps small businesses reach more customers

Small businesses are looking for tools to get their business online and reach the right audience. Smart campaigns, built specifically for small businesses, is an automated tool that helps you promote your business on Google. We recently rolled out Google Ads Smart campaigns to all 150 countries where Google Ads is available. Businesses of all sizes can now get ads up and running in just 15 minutes. Additionally, we’re making Smart campaigns easier to use: there are new features that can 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. 

Sign up directly through the mobile app

Now you can sign up for Smart campaigns and run ads directly from the Google Ads mobile app on Android or iOS. We’ve made the process faster and easier, so you can start advertising right away. In-app signup is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Japan, with more countries to follow. 

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Your ads can be up and running in minutes with the Google Ads app.

Helping you stand out on Google Maps, for free

Every month, over 1 billion people use Google Maps to see what’s around them, search for businesses, and find directions. Promoted pins on Google Maps help your business stand out during these moments by displaying a prominent, square-shaped pin. You can also highlight specific services such as pickup and delivery, or other unique offerings.

As people begin to visit businesses in person again, we want to send more customers your way. Through September 2020, you won't be charged for any clicks, calls or sales from Promoted pins.

We've started rolling out Promoted pins to Smart campaign advertisers with a Google My Business profile and will be fully available in the coming weeks.

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Grab the attention of more potential customers with Promoted pins.

Easily see how your ads perform directly on Google.com

If you want an efficient way of checking your ad status, this feature is for you. We’ve made our reporting features more accessible—with a quick search, you can instantly see the status of your ads, 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” directly on Google.com. This feature will be available to all Smart campaign advertisers in the coming weeks.


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More control over when your ads show

We've heard small businesses want more control over keywords that help them reach potential customers on Google Search. With keyword themes (formerly “products and services”), you tell us what your business offers and we’ll show your ad to potential customers searching for related phrases. This means your ads reach more of the right people and you can save time in the process. You also have the option to modify or remove keyword themes, so you’re always in control. Keyword themes will be fully available to everyone using Smart campaigns in the coming weeks. 

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To use  these new features, sign into your Google Ads account or get started with Smart campaigns.

Source: Google Ads


Helping businesses and nonprofits recover

In the last few months, COVID-19 has impacted businesses in profound ways. Throughout that time, I’ve heard from organizations, large and small, how they’re staying connected with customers through technology. This has always been core to my team’s purpose, but we can do more to help businesses and nonprofits through this crisis.

Today we’re announcing a $200 million increase to our annual Ad Grants commitment, to offer a total of $1 billion to better support nonprofits. This $1 billion helps nonprofits around the world that are tackling pressing issues like COVID-19 response and recovery, especially in developing economies. And we’re doing more.

Typically during this time of year, we gather at Google Marketing Live, our annual event to discuss new products and hear feedback from you. In lieu of our in-person event, throughout this summer we’ll host “virtual product roundtables” with our product managers, announce a number of new products, share new insights and kick off a new weekly video series, The Update on Think with Google, discussing industry trends and best practices. 

Helping businesses and organizations recover is the first topic we'll explore. Today we’re sharing updates for small businesses ahead of a Google-wide initiative, International Small Business Week, taking place June 22-27. This is a week dedicated to celebrating small businesses when we’ll share tips, trainings and products to help them get back on their feet. 


Helping consumers connect with businesses 

As people spend more time at home, we’ve seen searches for local services, like “carpet cleaning” or “air conditioning repair” increase by 50 percent in recent months. We’re now making it easier to book these services directly in Google Search on mobile through Local Services Ads in the U.S. Local Services Ads help people discover and connect with trustworthy, local professionals backed by the Google Guarantee. Later this month, we’re also launching a new mobile site for the U.S. and Canada, to help more people find, compare and book nearby service providers faster. 


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Book local service providers directly on Google Search

As people search for products they urgently need and limit their in-person store interactions, they’re looking for real-time updates on product availability at local stores. Searches for “curbside pickup” and “in stock” have surged by more than 70 percent in recent months. Our goal is to help people find and buy the things they need, quickly and easily. Starting today the Shopping tab will show helpful local store information, including product availability, locations, and fulfillment options like delivery and curbside pickup. This information will show up in all countries where the Shopping tab is available.


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New to the Shopping tab: curbside pickup and more information for local stores

Helping businesses connect with customers

For many small businesses around the world, digital tools have become a lifeline this year. 1 in 3 small business owners say that without digital tools, they would have had to close all or part of their business. With businesses at various stages of digital transformation—some are online, some are halfway there and others have a long way to go—we’re committed  to helping businesses get online and grow with easy-to-use tools.

To help businesses quickly improve their online presence, today we’re introducing Grow My Store to retailers in the U.S. In Europe, Grow My Store has been an effective way for many small retailers to get quick tips on how to improve their online store and understand how they are doing compared to peers in the industry. Businesses just need to enter their website URL into the tool and within minutes they will get a custom report. 

To help make local businesses more discoverable, this week we’re introducing Local Opportunity Finder. Enter the name of your business and Google will provide personalized suggestions on how to make improvements to your Business Profile on Google. For example, ensuring your opening hours are current, adding curbside pickup information, or uploading a photo that represents your business.

Finally, to help small business advertisers easily promote their businesses, we’ve expanded Smart campaigns to 150 countries and now we’re making it easier and faster to sign up using the Google Ads app. You can set up a Smart campaign and create your first ad in just 15 minutes while on the go. And starting today, you can use Smart campaigns to display a prominent, square-shaped Google Maps pin with your business category logo, highlighting specific services that you offer, like curbside pickup or delivery. We’re bringing Promoted pins to Smart campaigns advertisers for free through the end of September. 

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Promoted pins through Smart campaigns help businesses stand out on Google Maps

What’s Next

Upcoming episodes of The Update on Think with Google will provide exclusive access to industry leaders, like George Hanson, Chief Digital Officer at Panera Bread, and Marla Kaplowitz, President and CEO of the 4As. In addition, my team of product leaders will use this series to share upcoming product innovations designed to make it easier to manage your marketing.

We look forward to connecting with you virtually through our virtual roundtables and The Update. Until then follow us on the Google Ads blog for the latest product announcements.

Source: Google Ads


Upcoming update to housing, employment, and credit advertising policies

Our Google Ads policies are written to protect users, advertisers, and publishers, and prohibit advertisers from unlawful behavior like discriminating against users. We also give users control over the kinds of ads they see, including the ability to opt out of seeing any personalized ads. Our ads policies apply to all the ads we serve and if we find ads that violate our policies, we take action.

For over a decade, we’ve also had personalized advertising policies that prohibit advertisers from targeting users on the basis of sensitive categories related to their identity, beliefs, sexuality, or personal hardships. This means we don’t allow advertisers to target ads based on categories such as race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, to name a few. We regularly evaluate and evolve our policies to ensure they are protecting users from behaviors like unlawful discrimination. 

To further improve access to housing, employment, and credit opportunities, we are introducing a new personalized advertising policy for certain types of ads. This policy will prohibit impacted employment, housing, and credit advertisers from targeting or excluding ads based on gender, age, parental status, marital status, or ZIP Code, in addition to our longstanding policies prohibiting personalization based on sensitive categories like race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, national origin or disability. While the changing circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic and business continuity issues for many advertisers make precise timelines difficult, we plan to roll out this update in the U.S. and Canada as soon as possible and, in any event, by the end of this year. We will be providing advertisers with more information about how these changes may impact them in the coming weeks.

We’ve been working closely with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on these changes for some time, and we appreciate their guidance in helping us make progress on these important issues. As part of our effort we’ll provide housing advertisers with additional information about fair housing to help ensure they are acting in ways that support access to housing opportunities. We will also continue to work with HUD, civil rights and housing experts, and the broader advertising industry to address concerns around discrimination in ad targeting. These changes complement our work with businesses, governments, and community organizations to distribute $1 billion we committed for Bay Area housing. In the first six months of this commitment, we’ve helped to create hundreds of new affordable housing units in the Bay Area, including an investment in a development focused on affordable and inclusive housing for adults with disabilities.

Google is committed to working with the broader advertising ecosystem to help set high standards for online advertising, and we will continue to strive to set policies that improve inclusion and access for users.

Source: Google Ads


Inspire new customers in their moments of discovery

Last year we introduced Discovery ads as a new way to help people discover and engage with your brand as they scroll through their favorite content. In April, we made Discovery ads generally available for all advertisers globally. For the first time, you can reach up to 2.9 billion people as they explore their interests and look for inspiration across multiple Google surfaces—all with a single, easy-to-use campaign.

Reach more people as they browse their favorite feeds

More consumers are now finding their next favorite brand or product through a growing variety of touchpoints—in fact, 86 percent of online consumers say they're on the lookout for shopping ideas as they watch videos or explore content across the web. With Discovery ads, you can rely on Google's understanding of consumers' intent across our properties to engage these audiences as they scroll through their favorite Google feeds—no search query needed:


  • YouTube: Showcase your products on the Home and Watch Next feeds in YouTube, where over 90 percent of users say they discover new brands or products.

  • Discover:Reach hundreds of millions of consumers in the feed on the Google Search app as they explore and stay up to date on their interests.

  • Gmail:Show timely offers to shoppers as they check their inbox for the latest products and deals on the Promotions and Social tabs.

Google Discovery - UGG GIF.gif

Example Discovery ads for lifestyle retailer UGG

Drive interest and action with new audiences

Early adopters like Deckers, iProspect and MandM Direct have seen great results driving customer action with Discovery ads alongside their existing media. 

For Deckers' collection of iconic lifestyle brands, inspiring consumers to action through richly visual product experiences is fundamental to its media planning. While Deckers has traditionally relied on social media and video to engage new customers, the company worked with digital agency Jellyfish to expand on its strategy for the UGG brand's 2019 holiday season.

UGG-LOGO_black (1).png

UGG used Discovery ads to promote its holiday gift guide, connecting with fashion-forward shoppers open to trying new products while scrolling through their favorite Google feeds. The global lifestyle brand repurposed high-quality images from social campaigns, featuring popular products like its Classic Short Boot and Men's Neumel Chukka. As a result, UGG saw a strong increase in the quality of its website traffic and a revenue return ten times its original ad spend. Deckers now plans to implement Discovery ads across the rest of its brand portfolio, including HOKA and Teva.

"We're very pleased with our performance on Discovery ads," says Richard Russell, VP Omnichannel Marketing at Deckers. "They've helped us build on our omnichannel strategy—we're driving action with our ideal customer across even more of their purchase journey."


FINAL Logo_Iprospect.png

Digital marketing agency iProspect has also seen Discovery ads deliver success for several large brands looking to connect with new customers, including global retailers. "Since we first began testing in early 2019, Discovery ads have driven results across a wide range of verticals, from retail to education," says Gareth Cleevely, VP Head of Paid Search at iProspect. "We've seen them deliver positive performance further down the funnel with up to 48 percent lower cost-per-action compared to social ads."

Google Discovery  - MandM Direct Quote.png

An example Discovery ad for UK clothing retailer MandM Direct


Get started with Discovery ads

If you're already running media campaigns for social or video, you can get started by bringing your richest creative assets and most engaging messages over to Discovery ads. For help creating your first campaigns, visit the Google Ads Help Center. And be sure to check out our best practices checklist and creative asset guide for more tips on driving better performance with visually inspiring ads.

Source: Google Ads


Inspire new customers in their moments of discovery

Last year we introduced Discovery ads as a new way to help people discover and engage with your brand as they scroll through their favorite content. In April, we made Discovery ads generally available for all advertisers globally. For the first time, you can reach up to 2.9 billion people as they explore their interests and look for inspiration across multiple Google surfaces—all with a single, easy-to-use campaign.

Reach more people as they browse their favorite feeds

More consumers are now finding their next favorite brand or product through a growing variety of touchpoints—in fact, 86 percent of online consumers say they're on the lookout for shopping ideas as they watch videos or explore content across the web. With Discovery ads, you can rely on Google's understanding of consumers' intent across our properties to engage these audiences as they scroll through their favorite Google feeds—no search query needed:


  • YouTube: Showcase your products on the Home and Watch Next feeds in YouTube, where over 90 percent of users say they discover new brands or products.

  • Discover:Reach hundreds of millions of consumers in the feed on the Google Search app as they explore and stay up to date on their interests.

  • Gmail:Show timely offers to shoppers as they check their inbox for the latest products and deals on the Promotions and Social tabs.

Google Discovery - UGG GIF.gif

Example Discovery ads for lifestyle retailer UGG

Drive interest and action with new audiences

Early adopters like Deckers, iProspect and MandM Direct have seen great results driving customer action with Discovery ads alongside their existing media. 

For Deckers' collection of iconic lifestyle brands, inspiring consumers to action through richly visual product experiences is fundamental to its media planning. While Deckers has traditionally relied on social media and video to engage new customers, the company worked with digital agency Jellyfish to expand on its strategy for the UGG brand's 2019 holiday season.

UGG-LOGO_black (1).png

UGG used Discovery ads to promote its holiday gift guide, connecting with fashion-forward shoppers open to trying new products while scrolling through their favorite Google feeds. The global lifestyle brand repurposed high-quality images from social campaigns, featuring popular products like its Classic Short Boot and Men's Neumel Chukka. As a result, UGG saw a strong increase in the quality of its website traffic and a revenue return ten times its original ad spend. Deckers now plans to implement Discovery ads across the rest of its brand portfolio, including HOKA and Teva.

"We're very pleased with our performance on Discovery ads," says Richard Russell, VP Omnichannel Marketing at Deckers. "They've helped us build on our omnichannel strategy—we're driving action with our ideal customer across even more of their purchase journey."


FINAL Logo_Iprospect.png

Digital marketing agency iProspect has also seen Discovery ads deliver success for several large brands looking to connect with new customers, including global retailers. "Since we first began testing in early 2019, Discovery ads have driven results across a wide range of verticals, from retail to education," says Gareth Cleevely, VP Head of Paid Search at iProspect. "We've seen them deliver positive performance further down the funnel with up to 48 percent lower cost-per-action compared to social ads."

Google Discovery  - MandM Direct Quote.png

An example Discovery ad for UK clothing retailer MandM Direct


Get started with Discovery ads

If you're already running media campaigns for social or video, you can get started by bringing your richest creative assets and most engaging messages over to Discovery ads. For help creating your first campaigns, visit the Google Ads Help Center. And be sure to check out our best practices checklist and creative asset guide for more tips on driving better performance with visually inspiring ads.

Source: Google Ads


Navigating the road ahead: The benefits of real-time marketing

Changes in consumer behavior have always resulted in adjustments to marketing strategies. COVID-19 has shown how quickly consumers’ interests, expectations, and purchasing behavior can shift—and with it, an ebb and flow in demand for products and services. Despite these changes, consumer expectations for businesses and brands remain high. In fact, 78 percent of people surveyed say brands should show how they can be helpful in the new everyday life.1

Adjusting your media buying and the way your business shows up in these dynamic conditions is difficult, especially when some businesses are having to manage twice the complexity with half the capacity. Today, we’ll explore the unique role automation can play in helping you respond to the impact of COVID-19 in real time.


Get the most out of your budget

As conditions change, so do auction dynamics. Communities are in various stages of response to COVID-19 and the things people care about are rapidly shifting. This influences things like location, mobile browsing habits, conversions, and other variables that impact ad performance. It’s in this constant sea of change where Smart Bidding can help.

Smart Bidding (also available as Google Ads auction-time bidding in Search Ads 360) uses machine learning to automatically calculate bids for each and every auction. Utilizing signals like location, search query, and conversion data, Smart Bidding can optimize bids in real time to hit your performance goal even as query and conversion volume fluctuates. 

It’s important to note that unpredictable changes in conversion rates, for example: shifts in conversion cycles, cancellation or return rates, are challenging for any bid automation tool. Under these conditions, consider adjusting your cost per acquisition or return on ad spend targets to ensure the best allocation of your budget. For additional flexibility, consider shared budgets and portfolio bid strategies which are effective ways to automatically adjust bids and move spend across campaigns based on performance.


Reach new and existing customers

From flour to at-home workouts to studying at home, the things people are searching for and how they’re searching for them is evolving. It can be difficult to identify where consumers’ attention and demand is shifting while ensuring you have the right query coverage. Dynamic Search Ads are an easy way to reach customers who are searching for exactly what you have to offer. Using the content on your website, Dynamic Search Ads automatically delivers relevant ads with headlines and landing pages that are specific to the user’s query. So as consumer behavior shifts, you can ensure your Search ads are adjusting in real time to meet that demand, all while saving time.

Another way to find keyword opportunities is through the Recommendations page. "Keywords & Targeting" recommendations help you identify new trends that are relevant to your business. In fact, more than 16 million keyword recommendations in Google Ads are based on market trends alone, with new ones added every day. Consider adding keywords that are projected to drive additional traffic beyond your existing ones, or pausing keywords that are performing poorly.

Once you’ve applied the recommendations that make the most sense for your business, keep an eye on your optimization score. Each recommendation comes with a score uplift, and historically we’ve seen that advertisers who have increased their score by 10 points saw a 10 percent increase in conversions on average. You can quickly check for new recommendations using the Google Ads mobile app.


Optimization.gif

Google Ads mobile app

Show up with the right message

COVID-19 has not only disrupted business operations, like inventory and shipping, but has also impacted the way businesses communicate with customers. As conditions change week to week and community to community, it’s critical to adjust how you’re communicating and interacting with your customers at scale.

Responsive search ads and responsive display ads enable you to make updates to your Search and Display ads at scale, respectively. Using multiple creative assets, like headlines and descriptions, responsive search ads and responsive display ads automatically identify the best combination of assets in order to deliver an ad that’s likely to perform best. For responsive search ads, you can also pin critical information like modified support options or updated business hours to ensure it shows with your ads. If you're seeing an increase in call volume, or your business is operating on limited hours or staffing, call ads (formally known as call-only ads) now also include an optional “Visit website” link. This gives your customers more flexibility in how they connect with your business.

When it comes to adjusting the messages in your video ads, time and resources are limiting factors right now. Rather than starting from scratch, consider using Video Builder. It’s a free beta tool that animates static assets—images, text and logos—with music from YouTube’s audio 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.


Know what’s working

As the world moves from responding to recovering from this crisis, it’s important you have the right tools available to understand the impact of COVID-19 on your business. Over the past few weeks, we’ve introduced improvements to attribution in Google Ads to help you understand your Google media better.

A new look for attribution reports helps you quickly see how customers are engaging with your ads so you can select the right attribution model for your business. One model, data-driven attribution, uses machine learning to determine how much credit to assign to each click along the customer journey. This ensures your media strategy is accounting for changes in consumer behavior during times of crisis. And with more people turning to YouTube during this pandemic, you can use cross-network reports (currently in beta) to understand how customers interact with your Search, Shopping, and YouTube ads—including clicks and video engagements—before converting.


Helpful resources for managing your campaigns

We’ve created a single destination for product guidance and business considerations when managing your campaigns through COVID-19. You can find the full list of guides and checklists here. We’ll continue updating and adding more through the rest of the year.

In early June, we’ll also be launching The Update on Think with Google: a new video series to share the latest insights, news, best practices, and products. Enjoy this sneak peek, and stay tuned.


1.  Kantar, COVID-19 Barometer Global Report, Wave2, 50 countries, n=9,815, fielded 27th-30th March

Source: Google Ads


Make the best of YouTube yours with YouTube Select

Helping you connect with your audience is our top priority. This is especially important as digital takes precedence in how we interact, communicate and stay connected.

To make this even easier for your brand, today we’re announcing a new global content solution called YouTube Select—a reimagination and unification of solutions like Google Preferred and prime packs. It offers more flexibility to reach the audiences you can’t find elsewhere in the content and places they choose to watch—with the confidence that your buy is brand-safe.  


More content for greater relevance at scale

Viewers say YouTube offers the most extensive video library.1 To help you find the right content for your brand, YouTube Select surfaces a diverse mix of content packages called lineups—each tailored to globally and locally relevant needs like beauty & fashion, entertainment, technology, sports and everything in between.

This year, we’re introducing a new offering called emerging lineups in the U.S. Emerging lineups provide an easy way to efficiently extend the reach of your campaigns among up and coming or niche channels, with the added benefit of brand suitability controls. 

Beyond our lineups offerings, YouTube Select can now help advertisers reach new audiences across top YouTube apps and verticals like YouTube Kids, Sports, Music and Originals with sponsorships and programs. Across markets, advertisers should work with their local teams to customize the right YouTube Select plan for their needs.


More capabilities for the TV screen, and how you buy

Around the world, people are turning more and more to YouTube on the biggest screen in their home. This shift in viewing behavior means lineups contain more TV screen inventory than ever before.

For example in the U.S., over 100 million people watch YouTube and YouTube TV on their TV screen each month.2  And according to Comscore, YouTube has a higher household reach and share of watch time than the next 3 ad-supported streaming services combined.3  

That’s why we’re introducing a dedicated streaming TV lineup as part of YouTube Select in the U.S. to help brands reach their audiences where they are watching. Streaming TV combines the best of YouTube TV and lineups content, both on TV screens. That means being able to easily reach your audience with a single, scalable offering on the big screen across the best content, including popular creators, YouTube Originals, live sports, feature length movies, timely news and more.

We also recently announced Brand Lift measurement on TV screens, which will be available globally for the YouTube app and coming soon for YouTube TV, to better help brands measure their results.

In addition to more capabilities on the TV screen, we are also bringing more choice to how you buy. Many countries, including most across Europe and Asia-Pacific, are making certain YouTube Select lineups available via Google Ads, Display & Video 360 and reservation. Connect with your Google sales team to learn more about the buying methods available in your region.


More certainty in your campaigns

With YouTube Select, you can be confident that your ad buys are brand-safe. You’ll have access to advanced brand suitability controls, as well as the option to only serve ads on videos that have been machine classified and human-verified across all lineups (lineup/market dependent).


Harriet Perry, General Manager at OMG Digital says "For Omnicom Media Group UK, the ability to build relevant and customized content plans to support the unique needs of each of our clients is critical. The YouTube Select product will allow us to achieve this, and will also provide us added controls like human verification and brand measurement. Additionally, we are excited about YouTube Select’s audience and scale on OTT/connected TV devices, which will be a core part of our overall connected TV strategy."

With more content, capabilities and certainty, YouTube Select offers an easier way for you to authentically connect with your audience at scale. Most importantly, YouTube Select helps drive real results for your business. In 2019, global lineups delivered an average awareness lift of 13 percent and an average purchase intent lift of 9 percent.4 And in an MMM meta-analysis we commissioned with Nielsen in the U.S., YouTube Select lineups had greater ROI than TV in 73 percent of MMMs that measured YouTube Select lineups, Other Digital, and TV in 2016-2018.5


Make the best of YouTube yours with YouTube Select. 

Explore YouTube Select programming on our website. Connect with your Google sales team to learn more about YouTube Select offerings and rollout timing in your region.



1. Google/Talkshoppe, US, whyVideo study, n=2000 A18-64 Genpop video users, Feb 2020

2. YouTube Internal Data, US, March 2020

3. Comscore OTT Intelligence, Oct. 2019, US

4. YouTube Select Brand Lift (formerly Google Preferred lineups), 2019, Global

5. Commissioned Nielsen MMM Meta-Analysis, 2016-2018. Base: a list of studies selected and compiled by Nielsen, consisting of all available CPG studies completed in 2016-2018 that contain YouTube Select Lineups (formerly Google Preferred), Other Digital, and TV results. This list includes 45 studies for US Brands across all CPG categories. ROI is “Retail ROI,” defined as total incremental sales divided by total media spend. Incremental offline retail sales measured for TV represents average across all TV broadcasters.

Source: Google Ads