For digital marketers, Google’s annual Marketing Livestream is a chance to learn about the company’s latest innovations in advertising and audience measurement.
This year, that list includes a wider rollout of Google’s Performance Max campaigns, new analytics capabilities and some cool features for retailers and ecommerce businesses.
The Informatics team was among the thousands tuning into the late May event (available for rewatching here). Below are a few of our notes and thoughts on the most exciting announcements from Google Marketing Livestream 2021.
Performance Max closer to launch
In perhaps some of the biggest news of the day, Google’s Performance Max campaign beta is now available to more advertisers, with a full launch coming by the end of 2021.
Performance Max allows marketers to serve up dynamic ads across the company’s entire inventory, including display and search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps and Google Discover, all from a single location. Much like the company’s other automated campaign offerings, Performance Max will select advertisers’ copy, image and video assets to combine in responsive ads across its network, based on specific marketing or conversion goals.
We’re excited about the possibilities of Performance Max, which promises to help advertisers find more converting customers across all of Google’s properties without managing multiple campaigns. It will likely also open doors for better testing of marketing messages. You can find more background about Performance Max campaigns here.
New Google Ads insights
Google continues to refine its new Insights page in Google Ads, with additional insights and analytics set to roll out in the coming months, according to the company.
Among those are demand forecasts, which will use modeling and machine learning to predict changes in audience search behavior over the next 90 days. The goal is to help advertisers plan for future campaigns and identify new opportunities in the market.
Google is also adding deeper insights focused around consumer interest themes and cross-channel performance; new insights specifically geared toward Performance Max campaign; and an optimization score designed to let users quickly assess how well they’re meeting their advertising objectives.
In today’s competitive marketing landscape, more insights are always welcome. We're excited to see how we can put these new data points to work for our clients.
New Google Merchant perks
With the pandemic accelerating the ongoing shift toward online shopping, Google continues to roll out new ecommerce tools and tweaks to help its merchant members capitalize on the opportunity.
Among the biggest announcements at the Marketing Livestream was an expanded integration with Shopify, the Canadian ecommerce platform preferred by many small and mid-sized businesses. The change will allow Shopify’s 1.7 million merchants to display their products across Google’s ad network, including in Image search and on YouTube.
Customers buying from Shopify merchants on Google will now also be able to pay through the platform’s Shop Pay service, which accelerates checkouts and stores payment information. The platform processed more than $130 million in sales last year, according to Shopify.
Google merchants will also receive some new tools for attracting and retaining customers. Those include the ability to:
- Showcase their top products alongside Video action campaigns and Discovery ads for an immersive, integrated shopping experience
- Tag products that are available for immediate in-store and curbside pickup, so customers can see that information directly in the search results
- Display their loyalty program pricing and benefits directly to search users
Understanding how all of these new innovations and offerings fit together to form a cohesive marketing strategy can be difficult, but that's what we do! Reach out to our digital marketing experts today with your questions and ideas for taking your digital marketing efforts on Google to the next level.
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