Unsurprisingly, AI took center stage during the various announcements made today at Google Marketing Live 2024.
Updates also focused on creatives, data and giving the consumer what they want straight from the Search results. Now is the time to start paying closer attention to your impression levels.
Here’s a recap of everything you need to know from Google Marketing Live, with links to our full coverage of each major announcement.
Google PMax upgrade allows mass AI creative asset production
You can now produce high-quality creative assets rapidly and at scale for Performance max campaigns.
With Generative AI, will be able to create ads a lot faster, have brand customized ads, advanced image editing and automatic showcasing of product feeds in AI-generated creatives
New reporting functionalities have also been rolled out for Youtube and creative assets.
Google rolls out immersive, AI-powered Shopping Ads
Video and virtual ad types come for Shopping Ads advertisers.
Retailers can integrate short-form product videos into ads, virtual try on allows shoppers to see how tops fit different body types, and 3D show spins.
Allowing consumers to engage with your creative and products (virtually) before landing on your page.
Google visual storytelling advances for YouTube, Discover, Gmail
You can now target your potential customers with vertical videos, stickers, and automatically generated animated image ads.
These video ads are now available across the 3 billion users across YouTube, Discover and Gmail through Demand Gen campaigns.
More variety for your Demand Gen campaigns.
Google starts testing ads in AI overviews
Your relevant Search and Shopping ads will appear in “sponsored” sections within AI-generated overview boxes on the SERP.
No need for you to do anything – existing Search, PMax and Shopping campaigns will be eligible.
How to make it not eligible – that is unknown as of now.
Google’s first-party data unification Ads Data Manager available to all
Centralize and activate your first-party data for more effective AI-powered campaigns with Google’s Data Manager Tool now available to everyone.
Use it for data integration (consolidates disparate first-party data sources into a unified analytics hub) and audience insights and targeting.
Google gives merchants new brand profiles, AI branding tools
New tools have been released to better showcase your brands and create visual content.
You can create a brand profile to highlight key merchant information on Search, featuring brand imagery, videos, customer reviews, deals, and more.
Product Studio now includes brand alignment features that let you use uploaded images to inspire your AI-generated ad and the ability to create videos from a single product photo.
Google tests AI-powered ads for complex purchases
Google is testing giving consumers an interactive experience upon getting their search results.
AI will be used to provide tailored advice and recommendations based on user needs and context.
The aim is to improve user experience on the SERP and provide a ready to convert consumer when they reach the brand landing page.
But what will this do to search traffic to brand sites? Time will tell.
Why we care. A lot of updates this year focused on less effort for a consumer to click through the site. So it will be interesting to see what that leads to for driving traffic. Still, there are several functionalities that have been introduced that have been long awaited (like reporting) and allow brands to better showcase their creativity.