Tag Archives: Display Ads

3 ways to keep audiences engaged in a content-driven world

Consumers navigate a widening variety of digital content from text to image to video—and they choose to spend their time in the experiences that feel most natural and intuitive for them. Working with Ipsos, we've identified three ways to keep your audience engaged across platforms throughout the holiday season, plus new retail-ready formats and creative tools to help you drive growth into the new year.

A carousel that shows three research insights about consumer behavior in Google feeds
Source: Google/Ipsos, Consumer Feed Behavior Research, August 2022
A carousel that shows three research insights about consumer behavior in Google feeds
Source: Google/Ipsos, Consumer Feed Behavior Research, August 2022
A carousel that shows three research insights about consumer behavior in Google feeds
Source: Google/Ipsos, Consumer Feed Behavior Research, August 2022

1. Create more tailored experiences for deeper engagement

Over half of mobile consumers use Google and YouTube alongside other platforms when researching products or brands to try,[722e02]and 91% say they took action immediately after discovering new products or brands.[b8e752]Once they do, consumers also expect brands to deliver experiences that are relevant and helpful. In fact, two in five say they enjoy exploring Google feeds for shopping ideas because they are more personalized.[1fe581]

With product feeds for Discovery ads now available in beta, advertisers can show shoppers items based on their interests and intent. Specifically, individual retailers can now use lifestyle images and short text with their Google Merchant Center catalog to deliver more relevant ad experiences. For example, a consumer interested in fitness and fashion might see sneakers in a variety of colors and styles from a new brand in their content feed on YouTube or the Google app.

An example of ads for Puma across YouTube, Discover, and Gmail.

Puma switched to product feeds from standard Discovery ads to promote its catalog during key seasons, and saw a +46% increase in return-on-ad-spend while lowering costs by 19%. “Product feeds for Discovery ads offered more ways to expand our social-style assets across new platforms,” says Ashley Anderson, Senior Director of Digital Marketing at Puma. “Personalization and great performance made it easy to efficiently scale our spend.”

For tips to help you craft engaging Discovery ads with product feeds, see our creative best practices.

2. Take an asset-first approach for bigger creative impact

Keeping today's consumer engaged across platforms requires creative finesse at scale—and a multi-asset approach for campaigns like social and video to enable more visual and authentic storytelling. Nearly half of consumers say they are more likely to purchase a new product or brand they see in a video ad.[1adffc]

You can now scale your assets to Shorts, YouTube's new short-form video experience, to drive visual momentum with consumers watching everything from workout clips to recipe walkthroughs. You can make the most of this mobile canvas by bringing your best vertical video and image assets to the Shorts experience with Video action and now Discovery campaigns for images.

We've seen this asset-first creative approach across campaigns drive better results: more than 60% of advertisers who combine Video action campaigns with Discovery ads see incremental conversions at or below their original cost-per-action.[e34b92]

An image that shows the research insight about consumers’ preference for authentic and diverse creative

Source: Google/Ipsos, Consumer Feed Behavior Research, August 2022

3. Upgrade your storytelling with authentic and diverse representation

And last, but not least: building assets to scale doesn't have to mean relying on stock photos and generic visuals. 43% of consumers say that they are more likely to click on ads featuring people from a variety of backgrounds,[bd5d5d]and over half say that they are more likely to click on ads that feature people using a product.[094bee]For the biggest impact with your audience, frame your visuals and calls to action around the wide variety of consumers who reflect your market.

We're committed to helping you build more helpful and relevant ads that help consumers engage with your business. Check out our latest tools and resources below to learn how you can:

Build compelling creative variations at scale with Ads Creative Studio.
Adapt your existing assets for YouTube Shorts with our video creation and enhancement tools available in the Asset Library.
Finally, get richer creative insights to help you optimize your assets for better performance with asset reporting and audience asset insights.

We hope these insights and creative tools help you drive growth now and in the new year with more effective, engaging ads.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Magic in the making: The 4 pillars of great creative

Consumers report that helpfulness is their top expectation of brands since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 78% saying a brand's advertising should show how they can be helpful in everyday life.¹ This means businesses need to quickly engage audiences with meaningful messages, using immersive storytelling to bring their brand and products to life.

To help you build visually-rich ad experiences that easily drive consumers to action, we've brought together our top creative guidance across Google Ads solutions in a single guide. Learn to craft stronger calls-to-action, engaging ad copy and striking visual assets — plus, get the latest insights from our team of creative and data scientists at Creative Works. You can also explore tips by marketing objective in order to craft more impactful creative to meet your business goals.

An image of two phones featuring natural soap products.

Dr. Squatch using a clear call-to-action, engaging copy and rich product visuals with Google Ads.

The 4 pillars of compelling creative

Lead with a clear call-to-action:Personalized descriptions perform up to two times better for their campaign goal versus non-personalized descriptions.² This means businesses need to help consumers immediately see what they have to offer by including words like "you" to draw attention, and adding their product or brand name in headlines and descriptions.

Connect more authentically with a wide variety of assets:Audiences take action faster if they can relate to your message — 64% of consumers said they took some sort of action after seeing an ad that they considered to be diverse or inclusive.³ And images that feature people perform over 30% better for their campaign goal versus images that don’t.⁴ Given the variety of consumers looking online for new products to try, brands should show a wide range of people using their products or services to resonate with audiences.

Build for smaller screens: Images with no overlaid text, or overlaid text under 20 characters, perform up to 1.2X better for their campaign goal versus images with longer overlaid text.⁵ With people spending more time on a broad range of small devices, businesses should consider how and where consumers are seeing their ads and provide visual assets that clearly communicate their call-to-action.

Give your creatives time to test: We've seen that waiting 2-3 weeks between changes to ad creative minimizes performance fluctuations, allowing the Google Ads system time to learn and adapt to your most effective assets. Review Ad strength and asset reporting to better understand which assets resonate best and help you make the call on which to remove or replace.

An image of two phones featuring beauty products.

Beauty brand COSMEDIX using a variety of image assets in multiple aspect ratios with Google Ads.

Get help with building better assets

Consumers expect businesses of all sizes to offer more helpful brand experiences. Stand out with more relevant, engaging offers with help from our new guide to building better creative. And for more support with developing new creative assets or campaign strategies, check out our approved creative production agencies to find the right partner to help you achieve your business goals.

^{1. Kantar, COVID-19 Barometer Global Report, Wave2, runs across 50 countries, n=9,815, fielded 27th-30th March 2020.}

^{2. Google internal data based on an aggregate study of median performance of campaign goals for Responsive display ads (CTR), Discovery ads (CTR, CVR), Video action campaigns (VTR) and Video discovery ads (VTR) across 78K assets for Media & Entertainment, Retail, and Finance verticals. Global. January 2020 - June 2021.}

^{3. Google/Ipsos, U.S., Inclusive Marketing Study, n of 2,987 U.S. consumers ages 13–54 who access the internet at least monthly, Aug. 2019.}

^{4. Google internal data based on an aggregate study of median performance of campaign goals for Discovery ads (CTR, CVR), Video action campaigns (VTR), Video discovery ads (VTR), App campaigns for installs (IPM), and App campaigns for engagement (EPM) for Media & Entertainment, Retail, and Finance verticals. Global. January 2020 - June 2021.}

^{5. Google internal data based on an aggregate study of median performance of campaign goals for Discovery ads (CTR, CVR), and Responsive display ads (CTR) across 78K assets for Media & Entertainment, Retail, and Finance verticals. Global. January 2020 - June 2021.}

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Magic in the making: The 4 pillars of great creative

Dr. Squatch using a clear call-to-action, engaging copy and rich product visuals with Google Ads.

The 4 pillars of compelling creative

Beauty brand COSMEDIX using a variety of image assets in multiple aspect ratios with Google Ads.

Get help with building better assets

^{1. Kantar, COVID-19 Barometer Global Report, Wave2, runs across 50 countries, n=9,815, fielded 27th-30th March 2020.}

^{3. Google/Ipsos, U.S., Inclusive Marketing Study, n of 2,987 U.S. consumers ages 13–54 who access the internet at least monthly, Aug. 2019.}

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Display campaigns made easy

Helping you connect with customers is core to the Google Ads mission, and we're always working to make that as easy as possible through our products. That’s why, starting this month, we’re bringing the flexibility of standard Display campaigns and the automation of Smart Display campaigns into a single Display campaign.

We introduced Smart Display campaigns four years ago to create a simple way to reach your audience across millions of sites and apps. Smart Display campaigns have helped make it easier to reach your goals — using automation to find new and existing customers, tailor your creative and set optimal bids.

Then we brought the best of this automation to standard Display campaigns, powering features like responsive display ads and automated bidding — even the option to pay only for the conversions your ads drive. We’ve seen these lead to better business outcomes for advertisers; but we’ve also heard that your priorities can change, and you want greater flexibility to test new features.

In this new Display campaign experience, you’ll have all of the reach and performance you’re used to, with the ability to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding, creatives and audiences. A smooth setup process will allow you to choose between automation or control up front, and you’ll have the flexibility to change your automation choices at any time — without creating a new campaign.

A video introducing Display ads and explaining how they can help your business reach customers online

Whether you choose an automatic or customized experience, Display ads are designed to help you meet your customers in the moments that matter. With that in mind, we've also introduced optimized targeting to Display campaigns to replicate the effortless experience of automatic audience targeting previously available only on Smart Display campaigns. This is an easier option for reaching new and relevant audiences — driving impressions, clicks or conversions to help you meet your goals.

A screenshot showing the new Display campaign setup process in Google Ads. It features a notification that says “Optimized targeting is set up for you”, and an optional button to “add targeting.”

Optimized targeting in the new Display campaign creator

Advanced advertisers can continue to add the manual audience-finding options from standard Display campaigns for more control, or use these audiences in combination with optimized targeting. Optimized targeting will treat audience settings as signals, looking more broadly to find customers that can improve your campaign performance and deliver a better ad experience.

Our top priority is helping you reach your customers with more relevant ads. And with one simplified Display campaign, we’re making it easier than ever.

Keep up to date with the latest Display campaign innovations in the Help Center.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Display campaigns made easy

Optimized targeting in the new Display campaign creator

Our top priority is helping you reach your customers with more relevant ads. And with one simplified Display campaign, we’re making it easier than ever.

Keep up to date with the latest Display campaign innovations in the Help Center.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Make every marketing dollar count with attribution and lift measurement

Understanding how each media touchpoint contributes to your goals can mean the difference between marketing that drives business growth and marketing that fails to deliver. To make every dollar count, you need tools that help you learn how people are responding to your ads, so you can take action to improve your results.

Today, we're announcing improvements to Attribution in Google Ads including coverage for YouTube ads and a significant expansion in the availability of data-driven attribution. We're also sharing updates to our lift measurement solutions including a new way to measure incremental conversions and an accelerated time frame so you get results even faster.

Measure more of your Google media

Attribution in Google Ads helps you understand the paths people take to complete conversions. It awards credit for conversions to different ads, clicks, and factors along the way, so you can focus your investments on the media having the biggest impact on results.

Earlier this year, we launched a new look for attribution reports to help you get important insights faster. And with more people turning to YouTube as we spend more time at home, we added YouTube to attribution reports, to help you better understand the role video plays in your customer’s path to purchase.

fuboTV, a live TV streaming platform that includes sports, news, network television and movies, used attribution reports to understand how customers interact with their YouTube and Search ads before converting. They saw that for every conversion YouTube drove directly, it assisted 2 more conversions on Search. “These insights helped us see the full value of video. This enabled us to start thinking about YouTube and Search media in one view and take into account blended cost-per-acquisition goals that more accurately reflect the total impact of our ads at driving conversions,” said Antonio Armenino, Search and Display Lead at fuboTV.

YouTube ads in attribution reports is now in beta. Eligible advertisers will be able to opt-in within the Measurement > Attribution section of Google Ads to see YouTube ads in the Top Paths, Assisted Conversions and Path Metrics reports, alongside Search and Shopping ads. And to give advertisers a more holistic view of Google media, we’re also adding Display ads to attribution reports in the coming months.

Data-driven attribution is now available to more advertisers

Data-driven attribution (DDA) is a type of attribution model that uses Google’s machine learning to determine how much credit to assign to each ad interaction along the consumer journey. Trained on and validated against incrementality experiments, data-driven attribution gives credit based on the incremental impact of your ads. It continuously analyzes unique conversion patterns, comparing the paths of customers who completed a desired action against those who did not, to determine the most effective touchpoints for each business. DDA is our recommended attribution model because the constantly updating, machine learning-based approach ensures you are always getting accurate results that account for the latest changes in consumer behavior.

DDA requires a certain volume of data in order for us to build a precise model, but to make DDA available to more advertisers, we’re lowering the data requirements for eligibility. With this change, each conversion action in your Google Ads account that has at least 3,000 ad interactions and at least 300 conversions within 30 days will be eligible for DDA. This is possible due to ongoing improvements to the machine learning algorithms we use to train data-driven attribution models, so we can do more with less data without sacrificing precision.

Use full-funnel lift measurement to validate and implement findings

Attribution is best for day-to-day, always-on measurement and is effective for setting ad budgets and informing bid strategies on a campaign or channel level. Businesses that are prepared to move beyond DDA can use randomized controlled experiments—also known as incrementality or lift—to set channel-level budgets or to optimize future campaigns.

For years, marketers have used Brand Lift and Search Lift to measure the impact of YouTube ads on perceptions and behaviors throughout the consumer journey, from brand awareness to purchase intent, and lift in organic searches on Google and YouTube. Today, we're announcing that Conversion Lift is now available in beta. Conversion Lift measures the impact of your YouTube ads on driving user actions, such as website visits, sign ups, purchases and other types of conversions.

Each of Google’s lift measurement tools use best-in-class methodology to ensure accuracy and precision, and that no additional costs are incurred to run these experiments. In addition to delivering accurate, full-funnel measurement, we’re making changes to our lift measurement tools so you get results even faster.

For Brand Lift, we recently launched accelerated flights so you can get the brand perception metrics you care about sooner, with the ability to re-measure over time. We’re also reporting Search Lift and Conversion Lift results as soon as they become available, with flexible study durations and integrated daily reporting, so you can see changes more frequently and over time. Last, you can now run Brand Lift, Search Lift and Conversion Lift measurement on the same campaign, so you can get fast, actionable results across the entire consumer journey.

Fiverr, one of the world’s largest marketplaces for freelance services, wanted to drive both consideration and website engagement. They ran YouTube ads to reach audiences throughout the funnel, and used Brand Lift, Search Lift and Conversion Lift to measure full-funnel impact. They saw that their first test delivered strong relative lift, with a 10 percent lift in consideration, 62 percent lift in searches on Google and YouTube, and 30 percent lift in new users. “We received excellent insights from this campaign. Now that we’ve seen success in reaching first-time users throughout the funnel, our next step is to develop messaging for user retention,” said Tal Moravkin, Creative Manager at Fiverr.

We look forward to seeing these insights help you understand how people interact with your marketing throughout the consumer journey. Looking ahead, we’re working to bring more channels and formats into attribution and lift measurement, so you can get better insights to make every marketing dollar count.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Tap into intent to generate leads

Consumers are more engaged with businesses who can meet their needs from home right now–and they’re more willing to move on to those who can. In June, a Google/Ipsos survey showed that 32 percent of U.S. consumers shopped online with a brand they hadn't before COVID-19.¹ This is an opportunity for businesses to connect with new customers, but it’s also a challenge—especially if you’re dealing with shifts in your day-to-day operations, or bandwidth limitations that may slow you down.

Our goal is to help you find and connect with your best leads, faster. Today, we’re sharing ways to help you do that on Search and beyond—with foundational tools that tap into the power of intent, ad formats that help you find qualified leads, and measurement solutions that optimize for lead value.

Focus on the fundamentals

It can be difficult to identify where consumer demand is shifting while making sure you have the right query coverage. In the past three months, we’ve seen Search interest surge for terms like “small business loans,” “video conference” and “online learning.” To help you respond to these changes in consumer behavior, start by refreshing the fundamentals:

Tap into intent: Pair broad match keywords with Smart Bidding. By evaluating billions of combinations of signals in real time, these tools help you make the most of changing trends while meeting your goals.
Inspire new audiences across Google: Reach up to 3 billion people with Discovery ads as they explore YouTube, Discover and Gmail. This reach, alongside Google's machine learning and unique understanding of intent, makes it easier to generate qualified leads at scale.
Follow Google’s creative best practices: Write ads that clearly articulate your value to people researching new brands. Start with messaging that includes your unique user benefit, a strong call to action, and a variety of ad extensions.
Uncover new opportunities: Use optimization score and Performance Planner. As the market evolves, you may find that your campaigns, bids and budgets aren’t set up to meet shifting demand.

Find qualified leads

Consumers now prefer to use more varied methods to communicate with a business. In fact, our research from March shows that one in three shoppers would rather buy from a company that provides a wide range of ways to reach them—like web forms and calls.² To help people connect with your business in more ways, we’ve built lead-focused ad formats that span the Google ecosystem, including call ads and lead form extensions.

With new lead form extensions in Google Ads, you can now show a lead form directly in your ad, giving people an easy way to share information as they search, discover and watch relevant content. This seamless flow can help you find high-quality leads in a more efficient way. Right now, this works with ads on Search, YouTube and Discovery and is available globally. Later this year, we’ll begin rolling these out across Display campaigns.

Using a lead form on YouTube during a video

Jeep used lead form extensions with their Korea branch and saw completed leads increase more than tenfold. According to Jeep, this extension also generated leads at the most efficient cost among all ad platforms.

Call ads are designed for any business that relies on phone calls to drive leads. These ads encourage people to call you for more information, and can appear on any device that makes phone calls. And by including the optional “Visit website” link with your ads, it’s easier for people to learn more about your business before calling you. This can help you get higher-quality calls and more qualified leads.

half phone_02 - call first with website - lowercase.png — Call ad featuring an optional “Visit website” link

Optimize for lead value

Ultimately, your goal isn’t just to drive leads—it’s to turn those leads into sales. To optimize for this goal in Google Ads, you need to connect your converted leads to your online campaigns. To help you do that, we’re making it easier to import offline conversions just by using the information people already give you in your lead form. As a result, it will take less time to integrate with your customer relationship management (CRM) system. Look for this feature to roll out later this year.

ZenBusiness, a startup that helps other businesses, imported offline conversions and used that data with Smart Bidding to acquire more high-intent customers. As a result, the brand saw a 400 percent increase in customer acquisition year-over-year. This also freed up time for the brand to focus on more strategic initiatives. As Zach Rippstein, VP of Marketing for ZenBusiness, said: “We're now able to devote our time to more impactful areas like ad copy testing, conversion optimization, and growing new channels.”

While lead data can help you optimize campaigns, it can also be used to nurture leads with Customer Match. Whether it’s creating an online connection with an offline customer, or enhancing existing relationships with a custom message, Customer Match makes it easy to continue the conversation with your best customers. Over the last few months, we’ve made Customer Match easier to use, and rolled out several other updates:

You can now create similar audiences based on Customer Match lists. This helps you find more potential customers.
Match rates have been improved and will now update in real time. This makes it easier for you to troubleshoot your list and connect with more of your customers.

CM Match Rate Cropped.png — New “match rate” interface for Customer Match

We’re also collaborating with Zapier to develop a Google Ads integration that makes it easier to work with your data. This solution automatically imports and exports data between Google Ads and your CRM system. It currently supports lead form extensions, offline conversion imports and Customer Match. Learn about how Google handles data privacy on our Help Center.

Resources to help you generate quality leads

Businesses now have to be better at both generating and managing their leads. In addition to today’s announcements, we’re sharing a collection of lead generation resources on our Advertising Solutions Center. There, you’ll hear more about our latest updates and learn from other businesses who made the shift to digital. We’ll continue to roll out new videos about our products on the Advertising Solutions Center in the coming weeks.

^{1. Google commissioned Ipsos COVID-19 tracker, US n=1000 online consumers 18+ per market. June 18-21.}

^{2. Google/Ipsos, Shopping Tracker, Mar 2020, Online survey, Americans 18+ who conducted shopping activities in past two days: n=1000.}

Source: The Official Google Blog

Tap into intent to generate leads

Focus on the fundamentals

Tap into intent: Pair broad match keywords with Smart Bidding. By evaluating billions of combinations of signals in real time, these tools help you make the most of changing trends while meeting your goals.
Inspire new audiences across Google: Reach up to 3 billion people with Discovery ads as they explore YouTube, Discover and Gmail. This reach, alongside Google's machine learning and unique understanding of intent, makes it easier to generate qualified leads at scale.
Follow Google’s creative best practices: Write ads that clearly articulate your value to people researching new brands. Start with messaging that includes your unique user benefit, a strong call to action, and a variety of ad extensions.
Uncover new opportunities: Use optimization score and Performance Planner. As the market evolves, you may find that your campaigns, bids and budgets aren’t set up to meet shifting demand.

Find qualified leads

Optimize for lead value

You can now create similar audiences based on Customer Match lists. This helps you find more potential customers.
Match rates have been improved and will now update in real time. This makes it easier for you to troubleshoot your list and connect with more of your customers.

Resources to help you generate quality leads

^{1. Google commissioned Ipsos COVID-19 tracker, US n=1000 online consumers 18+ per market. June 18-21.}

^{2. Google/Ipsos, Shopping Tracker, Mar 2020, Online survey, Americans 18+ who conducted shopping activities in past two days: n=1000.}

Source: The Official Google Blog

Decoding decisions to grow online sales

With more consumers sheltering at home, digital adoption has rapidly accelerated and changed consumer shopping behavior globally. Consumers are looking for new and delightful products related to the home; for example, searches for “planter box” grew 200 percent year over year globally. They’re finding ways to celebrate from afar, with global searches for “online gift” increasing by over 100 percent year over year, and we saw 600 percent more searches for “click and collect” year over year, indicating shoppers around the world are keen to skip delivery and get what they need right now.

With so much information and choice available online, the space between the purchase trigger and the purchase itself has become incredibly complex. Through the lens of behavioral science, our latest Decoding Decisions research reveals how shoppers manage this complexity—we call it the “messy middle”—and codifies behavior into two mental modes: exploration (an expansive activity) and evaluation (a reductive activity). Discoveries made in the “messy middle” often determine the outcome, so it’s a critical space for businesses to connect with shoppers and win brand favor.

We’re focused on helping you influence the hundreds of millions of shoppers who come to Google every day. Today, we’re adding new ways to showcase and augment your brand and products visually to spark action across Search, Shopping, and Display ads; optimize and grow your customer acquisition volume; and amplify your e-Commerce experience.

Rich, personalized creatives across Search, Shopping, and Display ads

Rich ad creatives are the key to engaging shoppers as they navigate the “messy middle.” Of people who shop online, 85 percent say product information and pictures are important to them when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from. Recently, we shared how Discovery ads can help you visually inspire shoppers scrolling their feeds on YouTube, Discover, and Gmail as well as how you can make your videos shoppable on YouTube. Today, we’re bringing the same rich product experience to Search, Shopping, and Display ads.

To help you grow online sales with your Search ads, we’re launching an image extensions beta program. You can easily add high-quality, rich assets, so shoppers can quickly see products to consider and take action faster. With image extensions, you can upload relevant images or automatically curate them from your website with machine learning. Hugo Boss used image extensions with responsive search ads and saw a 2.5x improvement in ROI and 5 percent bump in clickthrough rates.

Image Extensions.png — New image extension beta on Google Search to visually represent your brand and products

In addition to rich image assets, we’re introducing new ways to further personalize and curate your responsive search ads for today’s shoppers. You can now dynamically highlight sales or time-sensitive deals with a countdown and get suggestions on how to promote online availability, shipping, and returns.

RSA no carousel.png — New responsive search ad features to highlight your sales, promotions and shipping offerings

For retailers, we’re offering more visual ways to stand out from the competition with Smart Shopping campaigns.¹ Beginning today in the U.S., you can now highlight features like free and fast shipping, which has shown to increase average conversion rates by 9 percent. Later this year, you’ll be able to better differentiate with a dynamically curated carousel of your most relevant products in a new immersive, browsable shopping experience plus include video content in your Display ads.

SSC no carousel.png — New visual shopping formats in the United States through Smart Shopping campaigns with free and fast shipping annotations; an immersive, browsable shopping experience; and videos on Display ads

Building on the innovation from Search and Shopping ads, we’re updating the look and feel for responsive display ads so you can better engage shoppers as they browse millions of sites and apps with your Display campaigns. Starting today, you have new creative layouts, automatically generated video ads, and updated dynamic ads—which can now display your business name alongside your logo, emphasize your latest promotions, and even spotlight a single product.

Updated look and feel of dynamic display ads, featuring beauty brand COSMEDIX

Automated bidding to find the right shopper

Smart Bidding evaluates over 1 million combinations of relevant contextual signals present during the auction like time of day, device type, or operating system. This means you’ll reach the right customers at the right time to drive more online sales—even when consumer demand fluctuates across Google—in real-time.

Last week, we shared several new tools like portfolio bid strategies and bid strategy reports to get more performance out of every dollar. Building on that, as of today, you’ll be able to optimize your Smart Shopping campaign to grow online sales specifically from new customers.¹ Retailers who participated in early testing for new customer acquisition are already seeing great results. IT Cosmetics, a makeup and skincare brand, added the new customer acquisition goal to their Smart Shopping campaign and saw a 188 percent increase in revenue from new customers.

New Customer Acquisition_.png — Smart Shopping campaigns’ new customer acquisition value

Resources and tools to achieve a fast, frictionless e-Commerce experience

The need for a fast, frictionless e-Commerce experience, particularly on mobile, has never been more prevalent. Businesses who embrace digital, particularly in our current environment, are able to engage consumers like never before.

“[Digital and e-Commerce] has allowed us over the pandemic to reach people where they are absolutely unequivocally spending the most of their time, which is online on screen.”
- Christina Tosi, owner of Milk Bar

Today, we’re sharing a new collection of Online Sales resources on our Advertising Solutions Center. You’ll find our latest customer research that delves deeper into the “messy middle,” hear from businesses who pivoted to digital, and learn about our newest product innovations and resources to improve your e-Commerce experience. We’ll continue to roll out more videos about our new products on the Advertising Solutions Center in the coming weeks.

Advertising Solutions Center.png — New collection of Online Sales resources on the Advertising Solutions Center

We hope these latest updates will help businesses capture online shopping demand and achieve their marketing objectives.

^{1. In Europe, Smart Shopping campaigns can be used with any Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) you work with. The ads will show on general search results pages and on any other surfaces the CSS has opted in to.}

Source: The Official Google Blog

Inspire new customers in their moments of discovery

Last year we introduced Discovery ads as a new way to help people discover and engage with your brand as they scroll through their favorite content. In April, we made Discovery ads generally available for all advertisers globally. For the first time, you can reach up to 2.9 billion people as they explore their interests and look for inspiration across multiple Google surfaces—all with a single, easy-to-use campaign.

Reach more people as they browse their favorite feeds

More consumers are now finding their next favorite brand or product through a growing variety of touchpoints—in fact, 86 percent of online consumers say they're on the lookout for shopping ideas as they watch videos or explore content across the web. With Discovery ads, you can rely on Google's understanding of consumers' intent across our properties to engage these audiences as they scroll through their favorite Google feeds—no search query needed:

YouTube: Showcase your products on the Home and Watch Next feeds in YouTube, where over 90 percent of users say they discover new brands or products.
Discover:Reach hundreds of millions of consumers in the feed on the Google Search app as they explore and stay up to date on their interests.
Gmail:Show timely offers to shoppers as they check their inbox for the latest products and deals on the Promotions and Social tabs.

Google Discovery - UGG GIF.gif — Example Discovery ads for lifestyle retailer UGG

Drive interest and action with new audiences

Early adopters like Deckers, iProspect and MandM Direct have seen great results driving customer action with Discovery ads alongside their existing media.

For Deckers' collection of iconic lifestyle brands, inspiring consumers to action through richly visual product experiences is fundamental to its media planning. While Deckers has traditionally relied on social media and video to engage new customers, the company worked with digital agency Jellyfish to expand on its strategy for the UGG brand's 2019 holiday season.

UGG used Discovery ads to promote its holiday gift guide, connecting with fashion-forward shoppers open to trying new products while scrolling through their favorite Google feeds. The global lifestyle brand repurposed high-quality images from social campaigns, featuring popular products like its Classic Short Boot and Men's Neumel Chukka. As a result, UGG saw a strong increase in the quality of its website traffic and a revenue return ten times its original ad spend. Deckers now plans to implement Discovery ads across the rest of its brand portfolio, including HOKA and Teva.

"We're very pleased with our performance on Discovery ads," says Richard Russell, VP Omnichannel Marketing at Deckers. "They've helped us build on our omnichannel strategy—we're driving action with our ideal customer across even more of their purchase journey."

Digital marketing agency iProspect has also seen Discovery ads deliver success for several large brands looking to connect with new customers, including global retailers. "Since we first began testing in early 2019, Discovery ads have driven results across a wide range of verticals, from retail to education," says Gareth Cleevely, VP Head of Paid Search at iProspect. "We've seen them deliver positive performance further down the funnel with up to 48 percent lower cost-per-action compared to social ads."

Google Discovery - MandM Direct Quote.png — An example Discovery ad for UK clothing retailer MandM Direct

Get started with Discovery ads

If you're already running media campaigns for social or video, you can get started by bringing your richest creative assets and most engaging messages over to Discovery ads. For help creating your first campaigns, visit the Google Ads Help Center. And be sure to check out our best practices checklist and creative asset guide for more tips on driving better performance with visually inspiring ads.