Google Marketing Live 2019 took place this week and there are some big changes coming to Paid Search. We want to make you aware of this exciting news and the potential impact these updates might have on your Paid Search campaigns.
Make purchases within the shopping interface
Changes – Your customers will soon have the option to make a purchase straight from a shopping ad rather than clicking through to the website. However, they will still have the option should they wish to. Your purchase will also be backed by a ‘Google Guarantee’ if you’re not happy with the product.
Impact – This could have an impact on your average order value as customers are more likely to add only one item to their cart prior to purchase. However, if the intent to buy more than one item is there, then they can of course still click through to the website. On the plus side, it may boost the conversion rate from shopping ads. We can provide more details on this update when they are released by Google.
Custom Affinity & Custom Intent become one
Changes – These two audience types for display were used to target ads to people interested in certain categories or who had certain behaviours i.e. Shoppers etc. They are being combined into one audience, The Custom Audience.
Impact – They will give us the ability to target potential customers to businesses based on their interests and previous search behaviour. They will be similar to a Facebook Custom Audience but Google has the advantage of having direct access to search data. We will be able to utilise this new audience which will target more qualified prospective customers as they will have shown previous intent.
Audience Expansion Tool developed for lookalikes
Changes – A new tool to create a lookalike audience based on a Custom Audience which is working well.
Impact – These Custom Audiences are a ‘Similar To Audience’ for display as they will reach potential customers who have similar interests and behave like people within the Custom Audience. Again, they will enable us to target more qualified prospective customers who are not yet aware of business’ brands.
Discovery Ads are being delivered as a new format
Changes – This new ad format will be rolled out to advertisers later this year and are a new way to reach people across Google Properties such as Gmail & YouTube, see below:
Impact – They will use machine learning to deliver the best ad to a prospect at the time they are most open to discovering something new. This means that you are likely to attract people who have yet to interact with your brand.