Ad Week Sees New Campaign Types & Insights Launching

Google has been a busy beaver ahead of Advertising Week, in the US, and announced a series of updates that will provide richer insights for marketers as well as a snazzy new campaign type, built on lashings of machine learning, called "Performance Max".

Google has also now begun the process of rolling out Video Action Campaigns, announced in June, over the coming weeks to all advertisers.       

At the time, video action campaigns were touted as a "simple and cost-effective way to drive more conversions across YouTube". Automatically bringing video ads that drive action to the YouTube home feed, watch pages, and Google video partners, all within one campaign.

Google's new Video action campaigns build on a similar base to YouTube's Video Reach campaigns announced in 2019, leveraging YouTube's machine learning for targeting, creative and delivery.

Stay Ahead with Google Ads Insights

Due to COVID, home fitness products and indoor entertainment items like puzzles are more popular than ever before. It is with this in mind, that the new Insights page in Google Ads has been designed to help brands stay ahead of shifting demand and needs driven by the global health crisis.

The beta, for the upgraded Insights, will be rolled out over the next few months, and over time Google will build in more information, like audience and forecasting insights.

Google says the Insights page will be useful for brands and marketers because it should allow them to take advantage of rising demands for certain products, while also being more prepared for any growth areas that might occur in the future.

Jerry Dischler, Vice President / General Manager, Google Ads

"The Insights page will feature a trends section that shows current and emerging search demand for the products or services most relevant to your business.

"Explore these trends to uncover opportunities for categories you already promote in your campaigns, as well as for new, related areas you could tap into."

Businesses and marketers will also be able to deep dive into what customers are searching for and where they're searching from.

Go Deeper with Google Recommendations

Marketing insights are great, but if they're not actionable, they're mostly a waste of time and a distraction. Thankfully, this won't be the case with Google Ads' new Insights features, since they are tied in with Google Recommendations.

When you integrate Insights with Google Recommendations, you'll be able to 'activate keyword, budget and bidding optimisations in a few steps' to unlock learnings and discover information that can lead to new product lines or promotions.

As well as the upgraded, uptooled and powered up Google Insights feature, we also have Performance Max. Google's newest automated campaign type and 'a new way to buy Google ads across all our inventory.'

Jerry Dischler, Vice President / General Manager, Google Ads

"Google Ads currently offers fully-automated campaigns for app marketers, retailers, and businesses with physical locations to drive results across Google's surfaces.

"Performance Max campaigns will build on learnings from those campaigns to deliver a comprehensive solution that works for all advertisers across a wider range of marketing objectives."

Performance Max looks like it could be a useful tool in the armoury since it runs across all Google ad inventory, unlike other automated ad campaigns, and will be eligible to serve on Search, Discover, Display Network, Gmail and YouTube.

Potentially saving time and money.

Maximum Performance

Performance Max will allow brands and marketers to set up a campaign, supply text, images, audio and video as normal. But, then, that one campaign will be served across every Google-owned property – rather than forcing marketers to create a new campaign for each platform.

Users will be able to fine-tune the machine by inputting data that informs it as to which audiences are more likely to convert, while conversions are easily accessible.

According to Google, Performance Max comes with four significant benefits:

1. Customer reach: Complement keyword-based Search campaigns.
2. Performance towards your business goals: Drive new leads across Google from one campaign, define conversion goals with increased ease.
3. New reporting and insights: Get a deeper understanding of how machine learning is working for your business.
4. New campaign inputs: Speed up the campaign learning process by specifying which audiences are most likely to convert.

That said, Performance Max is still in testing and unlikely to be live before the holiday season commences, so probably more somehting for 2021.