With recent changes to Google’s advertising policies, newly available platforms and the loss of some longstanding tools, there are some big changes you need to know about when it comes to marketing on Google this quarter.
1. No more expanded text ads
Google will no longer support expanded text ads, which means that responsive search ads are now the only ad type available for standard search campaigns. This raises concerns as relying on the more automated system of responsive search ads may not meet advertisers’ pre-existing standards.
A great preparation tool to regain some of that specificity is the pinning feature, which allows you to preview how headlines and descriptions will be used in responsive search ads. Similarly, you can refine ad messaging by using ad variation features to test different versions of assets.
2. Improve ad relevance with automatically created assets for responsive search ads
Later this year, Google will roll out automatically created assets for responsive search ads. Meaning that if you choose to opt-in, Google will create assets based on content from both landing pages and existing ads, giving you a combination of the best-performing assets to make your ads more relevant.
3. YouTube shorts
Ads on YouTube shorts are gradually becoming available to all advertisers, granting a new platform to utilise. Display & Video 360 will also be bringing Google audiences to connected TVs – meaning in a few months’ time you’ll be able to run connected TV campaigns with the affinity, in-market and demographic audiences you’ve been using for your digital ads.
4. Driving business results with automation
New experimentation tools are being introduced such as A/B testing within Performance Max, to see how that drives conversion. This comes with new insights and explanations as to the factors behind your campaigns, including attribution, audience and auction insights to let you know what’s actually driving performance.
5. Conversion and search lift tests
Google is also introducing the ability to run search and conversion lift tests directly within Google Ads and Display & Video 360. This will enable advertisers to see an incremental lift in their performance against the key goals of their campaigns.
6. Launching My Ad Centre
My Ad Centre launches later this year and will give users the power to take more control over what ads they see, such as being able to choose more or fewer ads on different platforms. Though this may initially seem like troubling news for advertisers, this can be a positive, as it ensures your remaining audience has elected to see your ads and as such are more relevant and engaged.
7. New tagging
The new Google tag’s capabilities will simplify tagging greatly, as advertisers worldwide will now be able to use a single tag across google ads and google analytics. This means no additional code is longer required to combine tags, reuse tags or manage tag settings.
8. Expanded optimization score
The optimisation score seen across selected Google ads will now cover every single campaign type within Google ads.
9. Insights page
Three new reports have been added to the insights page on Google ads.
–Attribution Insights will show how your ads are working together across Google surfaces such as Search, Display and YouTube to drive conversions.
–Budget Insights finds new opportunities for budget optimisation and shows how your spending is pacing against your budget goals.
–Audience Insights use first-party data to show how your customer segments, like those created with Customer Match, are driving campaign performance.
10. Updates to advertising policies
On June 1st, 2022, Google will update their Inappropriate Content policy to prohibit content that promotes financial fraud, identity theft, harmful direct contact or harassment. In addition, they will also be introducing a 3-strike policy rule in June 2022, the violations the strike system will flag are:
-Compensated sexual acts
-Mail-order brides
-Clickbait
-Misleading ad design
-Bail bond services
-Call directories forwarding services
-Credit repair services, binary options and personal loans
-Enabling dishonest behaviour
-Healthcare and medicine
-Dangerous products or services
For accounts that receive strikes, the first and second strikes will invoke a temporary hold on the account, and the third strike will result in the suspension of the account. Strikes will be on an individual account level and not the manager account level.
