Google recently made a number of announcements and updates to its platform [1]. Here we provide a snapshot of the key updates which demonstrate why Google is an exciting place to be for small businesses.

Updates to the Google Ads mobile app

You can do more on the go with the new Google Ads mobile app. Users will now be able to create and edit search ads directly on the mobile app, meaning that you can create and amend your plans around your daily routine. New enhanced notifications will update users on new keywords, pause poor performing keywords and flag new opportunities to improve you 

Most people do research on their mobile device before heading to a bricks and mortar store. To capitalise upon the growth of this trend, local campaigns will now be available to small businesses, meaning that once you have set your store locations, you can participate in ad campaigns that promote your stores across Search, Maps, Display and YouTube, in order to drive footfall to your local 

After re branding their news feed ‘Discover’, Google have launched a new way to advertise on it. Discovery ads provide another avenue for advertisers to engage consumers with a carousel ad where users can swipe and click for deeper detail and 

Like Discovery ads, Gallery ads exist in the carousel format and allow consumers to seamlessly swipe through image creative. They are designed to sit at the top of the search results page to capitalise upon the precise moment that a user searches on a particular keyword offering the potential customer a virtual shop window and gateway to find out more information and connect with your business. These types of ads are becoming popular for a reason as they have been enjoying growing success on both the Facebook and Instagram platforms for some time.

Google is merging custom affinity audiences and custom intent audiences to create custom audiences, meaning that you will be able to target potential customers on both their interests and behaviours at the same time. This offers advertisers a powerful tool, given Google’s direct access to search data.

If you find that one of your custom audiences is working particularly well, you can use the brand new audience expansion tool to reach consumers who look and behave similarly to the people within that custom audience. If this sounds familiar to you—it’s practically the same as a Facebook’s lookalike audience tool [2].

Given the popularity of automatic bidding, there have been 3 key improvements to its Smart Bidding tool to account for the changing needs of advertisers.

• Campaign-level conversion setting – Advertisers will now be able to map relevant conversion goals at the campaign level. This will be especially useful for accounts that have clearly differentiated campaign goals (e.g. campaigns representing different lines of business or distinct marketing budgets).
• Seasonality adjustments – Smart Bidding will now contain greater flexibility with seasonality adjustments to allow advertisers to account for adhoc events or one time promotions.
• Maximise conversion value – Up until now, bidding strategies around conversion value have been largely focused on efficiency e.g. ROAS (return on advertising spend), however businesses like to look at number of measures such as volume or growth. Maximise conversion value allows an advertiser to set a number of different conversion values within a specified budget.

YouTube bumper ads

Due to the success achieved with the launch of 6 second bumper ads, Google are building upon these foundations with the introduction of their new tool, Bumper Machine. Many small businesses may want to participate in bumper ads, but don’t have the skills, knowledge or budget to create 6 second ads. The new Bumper Machine tool will, via machine learning, be able to spot the key moments in longer videos to create a series of bumper ads for any business. It will include a suite of editing tools, meaning that the advertiser can tweak as necessary, giving total control over your own ads. Watch out for its introduction to the Google Ads interface very soon!

For all the detailed announcements from this year’s Google Marketing Live visit https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9341751?hl=en-GB

1. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9341751?hl=en-GB
2. https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2019/05/14/google-marketing-liveut