We know the world around us is not slowing down and the way we search is continually evolving. Search is more complex and convoluted than ever before, with more touch points, more formats and greater expectations from consumers to find what they want, fast. From visual search and “circle to search”, to using YouTube as a way to discover new brands, consumer journeys and the marketing landscape are changing and so as advertisers, we need solutions to help us address that.  

We were lucky enough to attend Google Marketing live, Google’s annual event where they unveil ad innovations and the latest product roadmap. The content outlined below highlights the key areas discussed which we feel will make the difference to your Google marketing strategies, this year and beyond. 

So, what can brands do to stay ahead?

Search & Display: collaboration is key

As search becomes more visual, the way search and display work together has become more fluid and so it’s exciting to hear that Google’s product roadmap will be bringing Demand Gen to DV360 in the coming months. Demand Gen allows users to capture engagement and action across YouTube, Discover and Gmail. Google are going all in for demand gen, looking to make YouTube the no.1 social platform. New ad features reflect this change as Google introduce increased gestures & stickers on YouTube shorts, to further mirror that social environment look & feel and maximise engagement for our brands. Other exciting creative betas available very soon include partnership ads which better enable brands to collaborate with, and promote, creator content. With 87% of YouTube viewers agreeing that YouTube creators give recommendations they can trust*, brands can further leverage partner led content to build trust at scale via YouTube.   

Despite the growing capabilities for paid formats across YouTube, this development does prompt us to think about how Demand Gen fits into our wider YouTube strategy.  How do we determine whether it should run natively in Google ads or should be activated via DV360? Ultimately there isn’t a "one size fits all” answer, this will need to be determined on an individual basis, taking into consideration existing digital strategy, KPIs & current platform usage. We are already working with our clients to understand their unique requirements to get the most from Google’s AI driven products and compliment existing strategies. For example, a campaign focused on consideration and branding may be better placed with DV360, while a single channel campaign aiming to capture demand and conversion could suit Search. In some cases, they could even work well in tandem, Google confirmed in the room that a YouTube ID wouldn’t be entered into an auction more than once in a certain time period to help reduce overlap. However, we are very much reliant on leaning into YouTube’s black-box automation, fuelled by Google’s AI, when utilising these emerging formats. Advertisers will need to test and monitor to determine the best approach for each activation.

Supercharge campaigns leaning into AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) may feel like the buzzword of the moment, frequently bandied about with accompanying futuristic visuals, but we are already feeling the reality of AI shaping industries and transforming businesses. At Google Marketing Live, a key takeaway was that ‘it’s not too late to be early adopters of AI’. The here and now is an opportune moment for businesses to leverage AI technologies, e.g Gemini AI to power instant asset generation, to gain a competitive edge. However, it’s crucial to understand that the effectiveness of AI hinges on the quality and strength of the data that feeds it.

As we move to become more reliant on probabilistic modelling, we need to ensure the data sets that feed those models are as rich and durable as possible. Consented data will be key to allow for the sustainable and privacy preserved use of first party data to improve the addressability of your data. A positive takeaway, for those advertisers with less first party data, was that the seed data needed to fuel algorithms is lessening in size. E.g. the requirement for lookalike audiences will be reducing from 1000 to 100. Smaller seed audience requirements means we can layer in these audiences earlier on in a campaign to maximise the addressability of advertiser’s data or better segment first party data to allow for increased personalisation to better tailor the individual ad experience. Lean into the available tools within platform, test against your current strategies and determine which drives the best results for your campaigns.

Shift your focus from volume to value

Measurement has always been a tenet of performance marketing, and even in the face of the cookie-demise this hasn’t changed for 2024. Google’s focus has merely shifted from conversion volume to business value, particularly how advertisers can use their first party data to understand the impact of the increasingly messy search journey and drive business impact. Key feature launches were: 

• Profit centric bid strategies: new profit goals in Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns to help deliver higher profits to your business. 
• Google Ads Data Manager: a solution to easily & securely integrate your first party data with your Google campaigns, “marketers [who] effectively use their 1P data can generate 1.5x the incremental revenue from a single ad placement”. 
• An open source MMM solution, Meridian: Marketing Mix Modelling isn’t new but this is Google’s first time sharing an established framework that enables marketers to set up their own in-house models which is great for accessibility.  

Digital marketers should continue to set measurable KPIs to define campaign success, these new features from Google just enable us to increasingly tie these back to business objectives. By integrating business data with our optimization we can drive real business value rather than just marketing objectives; we used a value based bidding strategy with Direct Line Group which sought to optimize towards customer lifetime value rather than just quotes, this change in strategy actually led to a 14% increase in quotes but importantly a 19% increase in sales. By integrating 1P data we can also deliver more personalized ads and experience to drive high value engagement and repeated value from existing customers and focusing on efficient acquisition of new customers. This is important as it helps us mirror business goals and therefore demonstrate business impact, essential when engaging non-digital focused stakeholders who are often key decision makers! If you need some support in how to most effectively do this, we have a best-in-class media analytics team who can support!

Conclusion

The rapid evolution of tech has led to the need to be adaptable across channels and platforms with agility proving key both for Google and for advertisers. We can capitalise on the benefits of utilising emerging ad tech, but this comes with a need for collaboration across channels and a willingness to have a test and learn mindset as these new technologies are within their infancy.

*Source: Google/Talk Shoppe, Shopping at the Speed of Culture Study, 24 markets (U.S., IN, JP, KR, ID, AU, TH, VN, PH, NZ, DE, U.K., FR, IT, ES, NL, SE, UAE, BR MX, AR, CL, CO, PE), n=48,000 A18-64 GenPop video users, survey in field, Aug. 20, 2021–Feb. 19, 2022.