Tag Archives: Google Ads

Tools and partnerships to help travel recover and thrive

The travel industry is beginning to show promising signs of recovery as parts of the world reopen and vaccinations continue. We see from Google searches that people want to travel, provided they feel safe to do so: Global searches for “where to travel,” “can I travel” and “covid travel restrictions” are near all-time highs. Google is working hard to listen to customer feedback and ensure travel businesses and tourism officials have the information needed to continue recovery.

That’s why last December, we began testing Travel Insights with Google in the Asia Pacific region; it’s a set of tools providing powerful insights into real-time travel demand based on global Google Search data. Today we’re launching Travel Insights with Google in the United States, in partnership with Destinations International and Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI). Together, we’ll bring these tools to the travel industry in the U.S. and around the world with training materials customized specifically for destination organizations and hospitality marketing professionals.

Consumer insights to help
accelerate recovery

There are two free tools available within Travel Insights with Google that provide rich data and actionable insights. 

Destination Insights gives travel businesses, governments, and tourism boards a clear picture of top sources of demand per destination. This can help users understand where potential travelers may be coming from and adjust marketing campaigns accordingly. The second tool, Hotel Insights, helps hoteliers analyze search trends so they can understand where interest is coming from and attract new guests by creating a stronger digital presence.

Screenshot of the Travel Insights tool landing page, showing cards for Destination Insights, Hotel Insights, and Travel Analytics Center

Travel Insights tool landing page

Since we began piloting these tools last year, they’ve helped government tourism officials in places like Singapore and Indonesia answer critical questions as they make decisions about border reopenings. As part of our ongoing global expansion, we recently launched localized versions of Travel Insights with Google in countries across Asia and Europe, including Spain, Greece, France, Italy, Croatia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

“As we enter into the recovery phase after the pandemic, relevant and timely data will be essential for destination organizations around the world as they will be required to respond intelligently and proactively on behalf of their communities. We are thrilled to partner with Google for this type of information that will help make our members successful.”
—Don Welsh, President and CEO of Destinations International.

“Partnering with Google on this initiative reinforces that what industry professionals need are insights, not just information. HSMAI members that are inspiring marketing will benefit greatly by having access to the exclusive expertise that Google provides on what today’s traveler is searching for as the recovery picks up across travel and tourism.” 
—Robert A. Gilbert, CHME, CHBA, President and CEO of HSMAI

More actionable features 

Based on feedback we’ve heard from our pilot partners, today we’re also introducing new, helpful features within the Destination Insights tool. 

Focusing Facts will allow users who visit Destination Insights to view a set of quick insights such as “Fastest growing destination globally,” “Country with the most inbound interest” and “Top city in demand.” Focusing Facts are based on the previous 84 days of data which provides a well-rounded vantage point. 

Screenshot of the Focusing Facts tool within Destination Insights, showing trending destinations

Focusing Facts tool within Destination Insights

The Demand Sizing Tool is a new section with distinct filters to compare inbound and outbound interest between one primary country and up to ten comparison countries.

Screenshot of the Demand Sizing tool within Destination Insights, showing inbound and outbound interest of countries.

Demand Sizing tool within Destination Insights

Responsibly reinvigorating the tourism sector will take ingenuity and effort across the industry. We want to support travel and tourism professionals with the tools and insights they need to connect with people searching for travel. As we make progress toward recovery, we’ll continue to seek to find new ways to support the global travel and tourism sector by sharing data and insights that can help the industry rebound.

New ways to grow your games business sustainably

Mobile gaming has been a popular outlet for people to stay entertained while spending more time at home. A recent Google Play study of mobile gamers shows that 45% of existing players have discovered more games to play in the past year than the year before — and developers need the right tools and insights to capture this opportunity and drive sustainable growth. At the Google for Games Developer Summit, we’re announcing new solutions to help you unlock more growth and navigate privacy changes effectively. 

Grow an active player base for your games 

With more players in your game, keeping them active can help you capture more value. Last year we introduced App campaigns for engagement (ACe) in Google Ads to help you re-engage existing players. Soon, you’ll be able to use target return on ad spend (tROAS) bidding for ACe campaigns on Android. You can adjust bids dynamically based on the value each returning player is likely to create when they take in-game actions. This allows your ACe campaigns to maximize profitability by keeping your most valuable players loyal and active. This feature is currently available as a closed beta.

A product screenshot that shows you how to setup re-engagement ads with tROAS bidding

Capture more value from existing players with tROAS bidding for ACe

Along with tROAS for ACe, we’re announcing more features to help you find and retain a valuable player base: 

  • Deep-link free option for ACe (coming soon): Run re-engagement ads easily on Android without having to implement deep links with a new feature that automatically directs existing users to your app’s loading screen.
  • tROAS optimizing for ads revenue (in closed beta): Optimize your bids to acquire new players  who are likely to engage with in-app ads to earn more ads revenue. 
  • Re-install exclusion (closed beta): Spend ad budgets more efficiently by suppressing app ads from being shown to Android users who have previously uninstalled your game. 

Earn more from your games

Not only are people discovering more games, but also they are spending more time playing games. Our recent study also shows that 70% of existing players are playing longer sessions compared to before the pandemic. AdMob monetization solutions can help you leverage the momentum to earn more from your games.

Open Bidding, the real-time bidding solution from AdMob, hosts a fair and real-time auction for participating demand sources to compete for every ad impression. This ensures you always get the most value for your inventory. 

An animation that explains how AdMob’s real-time bidding solution works to help you earn more revenue from ads

Maximize ads revenue with AdMob bidding

We’re introducing new changes to Open Bidding that will give you more control and transparency on how you want to work with access to 200+ real-time bidders. Soon, you’ll be able to customize the policy setup for each bidder to adjust how they spend on your inventory. And we’re continuing to add more buyers such as Snap and InMobi to increase competition and help you earn even more. With this expansion, we are announcing that Open Bidding is now generally available to all app developers. This technology represents such a fundamental improvement to how developers monetize that we are updating the product name to simply be AdMob bidding.


IGG, the creator behind popular strategy games like Lords Mobile, was looking for a monetization platform to help diversify revenue streams beyond in-app purchases. After moving to the AdMob platform and implementing bidding across all of their new casual games, the team saw their ads ARPDAU double. 

Stay informed about relevant regulatory changes 

While we’ve seen many positive trends in mobile gaming, developers also face new challenges as they work to navigate the changing environment for privacy. The latest enhancements to the Privacy & messaging tab in AdMob can help you easily understand regulations that may impact your business, and discover tools to help with your compliance strategy. For example, you’ll be able to find EU User consent settings under the GDPR card to configure ad serving for users in these regions. The new updates are now available to all. 

A product screenshot about the Privacy & messaging tab in AdMob that shows you how to view relevant regulations and the actions you can take to stay compliant

Navigate privacy regulations easily with the Privacy & messaging tab

To hear more about how these solutions can help you drive lasting growth for your games business, watch the Ads keynote session and check out other sessions at the Google for Games Developer Summit livestream.  

A new destination for creative and media collaboration

Captivating creatives remind us that great advertising is an art form and a competitive advantage for brands. Technology is fundamental to the creative process, but designers, agencies, brands and media planners are looking for better ways to work together to create beautiful ads and effective campaigns. 

We’re introducing Ads Creative Studio, a unified home for Google’s creative advertising tools, to help you build compelling experiences for video, display and audio ads. Ads Creative Studio will allow creative teams to build and innovate together while increasing productivity and simplifying the overall process to bring a great ad to life. 

A unified home for creative tools

In the past, you may have had to work with multiple Google teams and products to get the creative tools you need. Now, Ads Creative Studio will bring together a number of creative tools previously found across products like YouTube, Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360. 

Specific features include:

  • Director Mix, previously available to a limited group of advertisers, will allow you to customize your creative for different audiences by building out multiple versions of a YouTube video ad with swappable elements.

  • Dynamic display and HTML5 are tools that allow you to generate customized and interactive creatives for Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360.

  • Audio Mixer and the recently announced dynamic audio offering allow you to build tailored audio ads for Display & Video 360 quickly and efficiently at scale.

Over time we’ll continue to add additional creative capabilities.

Creating one process across display, video and audio

Ads Creative Studio aims to streamline the many processes creative teams are accustomed to when building out different ad types. We’re introducing a new project library that centralizes creative asset construction and management. From the project library, you can create and manage video, display and, soon, audio creatives. You can collaboratively organize and use assets of all types from the asset library, allowing one team to maintain the creatives while another utilizes them in display and video campaigns. 

Four squares representing different brand campaigns across display and video in the Ads Creative Studio Project Library

Project Library in Ads Creative Studio

We’ve also redesigned the process to build creatives across ad types, so you can easily generate variations that are customized to your audience. In this new unified workflow, you’ll specify which creative elements within your ad should be customized, and then adapt the message of each element to be relevant for each audience. This means you can use a common workflow across video, display and audio ads to easily create tailored messages.

Improving collaboration across teams

Ads Creative Studio can improve collaboration across and within media and creative teams. To make it easier for creative teams, multiple users can now work together on the same project. Your team can collaborate on template creation, design rules for matching ads with the right audiences, and finalize a project through review and QA, all within the same tool. The template and asset libraries also allow multiple creative users to reuse resources across projects.

10 squares that showcase different assets that creative teams can choose from in their asset library when designing creative

 Ads Creative Studio Asset Library

Once the creative process is complete and you are ready to hand off the assets to the media team, the export flow minimizes complexities and errors that can occur with these large-scale projects. Ads Creative Studio allows you to export to all relevant Google advertising products: Google Ads, Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360. 

An example of a project being exported successfully to Display & Video 360 from Ads Creative Studio

An export example from Ads Creative Studio to Display & Video 360

Mitchell Pok, Director, Creative Services & Technology at MightyHive and an early tester said, “The initial experience with Ads Creative Studio has been really promising; the potential for the platform to make creative production across teams and formats seamless and efficient is a game changer.”

For brands, Ads Creative Studio allows you to consolidate and collaborate across creative and media teams while giving them control over what content and campaign data is shared. For creative partners, it’s a one-stop-shop to discover, build and iterate on innovative display, audio and video formats. And for all customers our goal is to help improve operational efficiency, reduce barriers and make it easier to scale ads across channels.

Ads Creative Studio will be available in beta to Display & Video 360 customers at the end of July and to select YouTube Ads customers in September. Additional features will be made available to a wider group of users over the following months.

Building creative solutions that work for you

In addition to Ads Creative Studio, we are also providing inspiration and resources to help to make your creative more powerful. Create with Google has merged with Think with Google, to become Think with Google’s new destination for creativity. This new destination brings you the creative insight, inspiration, and tools you need to make effective creative work — all in one place. 

With Ads Creative Studio and Create with Google, we hope to provide your creative teams inspiration and help them work better together. We look forward to seeing what you as creators dream up, imagine and design for your next creative masterpiece.

The new WWW: Helping accelerate the retail recovery

The web has been a lifeline during lockdown. Digital tools have helped us stay connected — families with each other, teachers with students and businesses with customers. There has never been a time when technology could be more helpful to people, communities and countries.

Unsurprisingly, as a result of the pandemic, our use of technology has leapt forward five to ten years in as many months — accelerating trends that we were already experiencing in the retail sector and beyond.

Trends: the new WWW

When browsing in a store became impossible, people didn’t stop looking for inspiration. Instead, window shopping went virtual. Searches for “ideas” surged on both Google Search and Google Images, with shoppers seeking inspiration when they didn’t have a specific product in mind. For retailers to capture those customers, visibility is crucial: More than 60% of shoppers we surveyed said they ordered from a brand after seeing it on YouTube.

The increased need for online shopping has led to a final convergence of online and offline shopping. Customers like to have the same inspiration and advice that they could get in store — but now, they want it from home. And those same customers are demanding more when they do shop. Searches for terms like “best” and “promo code” continue to rise, and customers expect doorstep delivery service across more and more categories. “WWW” no longer only stands for the worldwide web: it’s now what we want, when and where we want it. 

Finally, we know that today’s shoppers value their privacy. They want to have control of their data, they need to give permission for it, and they deserve to know how it is being used.

At Google, we’re working with retailers to ensure that every online interaction is an opportunity. Online can be just as valuable as in-person for building direct relationships with customers, strengthening trust and building loyalty. Retailers just need to use the right insights and tools to get them there.

Trainings: Using digital tools and skills to weather the pandemic 

Even before the pandemic, many retailers — large and small — had been embracing digital to find new opportunities. Those who went into the pandemic behind found themselves quickly learning new skills — so much so that the Connected Commerce Council found that 75% of European small businesses in the retail industry increased their use of digital tools during the pandemic, building a “digital safety net” for their businesses.

Take Maison des Sœurs Macarons, a famed dessert shop in Nancy, France. The owner Nicolas saw store sales drop by 90%, and decided to attend our Google Digital Workshop training program. After learning how to reach customers online with Google Ads and e-commerce, he saw the volume of online orders and customers double.

Since the start of the pandemic, our Grow with Google programme has trained more than three million individuals and businesses like Nicolas’ across Europe, equipping them with the digital skills they need to recover from the pandemic. And to help turn those newfound skills into action, we’ve launched more than 200 features since March 2020, helping businesses connect with their customers in this shifting landscape. With the holiday season ahead, we now have the pleasure of announcing a few more.

This was a group effort and digital tools made it all so much easier and more affordable than any of us were expecting. Ahmet Taskan, Honingwinkel. Utrecht, Netherlands.

Tools: What you need to give your customers the experience they deserve

More than ever, businesses need to be discoverable in more places than the high street. To help retailers stand out, we’re launching tailored recommendations for every business with our new tool, Local Opportunity Finder. Retailers can simply enter the name of their business into the easy-to-use tool, and we’ll provide customised solutions on how to improve their presence on Google Search and Maps — all in under five minutes. The impact can be huge: in Germany, for example, complete Business Profiles receive an average of over five times more calls compared to an incomplete profile.

In June, we’ll be rolling this tool out in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain with more countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa to follow in the coming months. 

To make it even easier for retailers to manage their online presence, we’re also simplifying the process, allowing businesses to directly manage their contact information, opening hours and updates from Search and Maps.

Local opportunity finder screenshot

In addition, we help retailers with their existing e-commerce providers. We’ve built new, simplified integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, helping retailers quickly get their product inventory live on Google — making sure more customers know what they sell and where to reach them.

Doing our part

We know that the tech-celeration we’ve seen can be tricky to keep up with. None of us know exactly how the next six months will unfold, but the resilience and creativity of small and medium-sized businesses over the last year deserves celebrating.

We’ll work hard  to help support the retail industry recover in the region — delivering the digital tools and skills you need, the insights you want, and the partnership you deserve.

10:25

Get discovered and build your brand on Google

There are now over one billion shopping sessions happening across Google every day. More consumers are shopping online than ever before, and they’re meeting a brand-new generation of digital-first retailers, each with their own unique products, stories and values to share. At Google, we’re working on more ways to bridge the connection between retailers and consumers, so that retailers can build direct and lasting relationships with their customers. 

Last week at Google I/O, we announced a new Shopify integration, and today, we’re sharing that retailers on WooCommerce, GoDaddy and Square will soon be able to integrate with Google easily and for free. This open ecosystem approach means that retailers will have even more ways to get discovered across Google, and shoppers will have even more choice.

As this generational shift to e-commerce accelerates, having a digital presence is just the minimum — it’s now imperative for you as a retailer to stand out and speak directly to your customers. That’s why today at Google Marketing Livestream, we’re introducing new tools that will help tell your unique brand story, from the point of discovery to checkout.

Build your brand and highlight what makes you unique

We’re reimagining entirely new ways to help you connect with your customer at decision making points in the journey - across Search, Shopping, Images, Maps and YouTube. Soon, you’ll have the ability to curate how your brand appears on Google through videos, rich lifestyle imagery and interactive story formats, for free.

An animation showing the LUUI natural skincare brand, featuring a woman using their products, a list of their most popular products and a news article.

This past year has made consumers more aware than ever that who they buy from shapes the world they live in. 71% of consumers want to identify and buy from companies aligned to the values that matter most to them, according to a recent study by 5WPR. We’ve listened to this feedback, and following the successful launch of a Black-owned business attribute earlier this year, we’ll launch new identity attributes, including a women-led attribute, soon.

An animation showing a search for planter stands and a store that identifies as Black-owned in the shopping tab results.

Nine in 10 shoppers say they spend more or the same on beauty products online than before the pandemic, according to a PowerReviews Survey. What if you could use digital to offer the kinds of “hands-on” experiences that inspire consumers in real life? We launched an AR (augmented reality) makeup kit try-on experience for lipstick and eyeshadow, and soon consumers will be able to find that perfectly matching foundation, from brands like L'Oreal and Estee Lauder.  

Consumers also want to visualize how clothing will look on them. We’re rolling out a new AR apparel experience to show shoppers how different tops appear on people like them. 

AR makeup feature

Once you’ve attracted a new customer by highlighting your unique benefits, you have the opportunity to turn them into a loyal customer. We’re piloting a merchant loyalty program integration that lets customers see your special loyalty pricing and benefits — including free shipping — when they first start shopping on Google. 


If a consumer has a loyalty account with you, they will be able to instantly link it. If a consumer doesn’t, they’ll be able to easily join your loyalty program with a click of the “Create Account” button. You can see how it works in the Sephora Beauty Insider example below.

An animation showing how to create a Sephora beauty insider account on Google.


The power of branding has never been more important, but we also know sometimes consumers are just looking for a good deal. Searches for “discount code” have increased 50% since last year, and these searches are great moments for you to drive more sales. 

Later this year we’ll make it easier for shoppers to discover your brand’s promotions, just in time for seasonal shopping. We’ll launch a deals results page on Search and the Shopping tab. New real-time, deal optimization reporting is also coming to Merchant Center.

These are just a few examples of how we’re innovating to help you differentiate and make a deeper connection with consumers shopping across Google channels billions of times each day. 

An animation showing Black Friday deals on Google Shopping

Attract customers by offering flexible checkout options

The bar is high for consumers who now expect more buying options than ever before. Over the past year, “available near me” and “curbside pickup” searches surged, and searches for "in stock" have grown globally by over 800% year over year. 

That’s why we’re offering new ways to show consumers all the buying options you offer — online, in-store and across Google. Your local inventory ads can now show products that are available for immediate store pick up, curbside pickup or pick up later. 

Curbside pickup and in-store shopping labels are now extending to YouTube and Maps local ads, to help you reach even more nearby shoppers, in more places.

From left to right: An image showing curbside pick up, and pick up later options, for a classic toaster. An image showing In-store shopping and curbside pickup labels for YouTube local ads. An image showing In-store shopping and curbside pickup labels for Maps local ads
text

We’re also building a new free experience that will help you show your customers all the ways they can buy products from you. When a customer discovers your products on Google, they’ll see a summary of all the buying options you offer in one place.  Whether it’s your e-commerce site, nearby store, or Google’s native checkout flow, this new cohesive format will make shopping easier for customers who expect convenience, and help you neatly showcase your brand’s expanded omni channel offerings. Coming soon, merchants will have the option to enable Shop Pay as a buying option, giving their customers more options for an easy checkout experience. 

We’re currently testing this new buying experience on Search and the Shopping tab, and plan to bring it to YouTube and Images later this year.

Together, we’re building a better future for e-commerce: a future where your brand’s unique products, services, stories and values are front and center to the consumer. We’re incredibly excited to deliver these features to you throughout the year. Learn more about these product updates today at Google Marketing Livestream. Check out our keynote at g.co/gml2021.

Building for the future to help you prepare for what’s next

The COVID-19 recovery process will vary by country, region and business sector, but the transformation will have an impact on all of us. Google is committed to providing economic relief and supporting the pandemic recovery efforts, which is why we’re working to provide accurate vaccine information and increasing vaccine access to people around the world, with a particular focus on countries that are continuing to experience the pandemic most intensely.

We’ve also been focused on how our products can help make things easier for people during this difficult time. Last year, we revamped our roadmap with simple, helpful solutions like curbside pickup for Local Inventory Ads and booking services directly in Search results through Local Services Ads. In 2021 we’re continuing to fine-tune our products to help advertisers connect with consumers even as the world around us keeps changing.

Join us today at Google Marketing Livestream 2021 at 8 a.m. PT / 11 a.m. ET to learn more — including a deep dive into our latest innovations across privacy, measurement and automation.

Developing privacy-safe advertising technology

Time spent with digital media increased 15% last year, according to eMarketer, as people turned to devices like smartphones, connected TVs and computers. As they use digital tools to manage more aspects of their lives, people want to know that their privacy is protected and we expect these concerns will only increase in the future.

A healthy ads ecosystem is critical to keeping the internet open and accessible for everyone, but we must also ensure that people feel safe when they are online. Now is the time for our industry to rethink our practices and take bold action to regain people’s trust. That’s a key reason why we announced earlier this year that we won’t build alternate identifiers once third-party cookies are phased out. 

The good news is that it’s possible to improve privacy while still delivering business results. We’re collaborating with the web community to build solutions like those in the Privacy Sandbox. It’s an open-source initiative to develop new technologies centered on privacy techniques like anonymization, aggregation and on-device processing designed to support key advertising use cases such as interest-based ads, measurement and more.

Navigating new measurement and
audience strategies

Accurate measurement of your marketing is especially critical so that you know where to invest to drive the most impact. But the tools advertisers have historically relied on to measure results — such as cookies and other identifiers — are rapidly changing. We're focused on ensuring privacy-safe measurement is accessible to businesses and brands of all sizes. 

We're investing across our products to help unlock insights into consumer behavior and purchasing decisions using machine learning. For example, we’ll soon be including Display and YouTube, as well as in-app conversions, in all Google Ads attribution models, including data-driven attribution powered by Google’s machine learning. These changes will help you properly value the impact of all your Google Ads campaigns.

We recently shared how we're making it possible for you to use your consented first-party data to preserve accurate measurement, even when fewer cookies are available. First-party data can also help you connect with more of the right people for your business. We're now expanding the availability of Customer Match to nearly all advertisers to reach and re-engage customers across ad types. As we look to the future, you can expect to see more innovations like these to help with your transition to a privacy-first world.

Improving automation with better performance

As the recovery continues, advertisers can automatically tap new pockets of growth by using products that dynamically respond to the market conditions most relevant to their business. Today, advertisers are applying automation to more aspects of their campaigns than ever before — from automatically assembling and selecting the best-performing creatives with responsive search ads, to finding more search queries that perform using broad match keywords, and setting the right bid for every auction by factoring in a wide range of signals that predict performance using Smart Bidding. In fact, we’ve seen that automation products are even better together. For example, companies that switch from phrase match keywords to broad match keywords in campaigns that use Target CPA bidding see 25% more conversions.

Text says: Broad match finds new, high-performing queries and emerging trends. Smart Bidding delivers the right creative for each query at the right price. Responsive search ads automatically assembles the most relevant creative

Combining our automated products creates a multiplicative effect for driving growth — starting with keywords, bidding, and creative

Since automation is delivering strong results for advertisers, we want to help you use it in more places. Today more than 80% of advertisers use automated bidding to take the guesswork out of setting bids and to achieve their performance goals. For example, advertisers who want to optimize their campaigns based on return on ad spend use Target Return on Ad Spend (Target ROAS) Smart Bidding strategies to automatically optimize bids and maximize revenue. Now we’re expanding Target ROAS to work across even more of Google’s channels, including Discovery ads and Video action campaigns.

Just like with automation, you get more efficiency and better results when our advertising tools work together. So we've made it easy for retailers to connect your Google Merchant Center feed to Discovery ads and Video action campaigns. This will help you use images and video to drive product discovery and purchases for your full product catalog. In March, when we compared more than 900 Video action campaigns, we found advertisers that added product feeds drove 60% more conversions at a lower cost, compared to advertisers that didn't add product feeds.

Demonstration of a product feed added to Video action campaigns

 Product feed added to Video action campaigns

Bringing the full value of automation to more advertisers 

Last year we shared that we were testing a new type of campaign called Performance Max. It brings together the best of Google’s automation to help advertisers drive better results across all of Google’s channels: YouTube, Display, Search, Discover and more. Starting today, Performance Max campaigns are expanding to thousands of additional advertisers, with general availability coming later this year (visit the Google Ads Help Center for more details and complete this interest form if you’d like to join the beta).

We’re also adding support for Performance Max campaigns on the Insights page. We heard beta testers tell us they wanted more transparency into how automation is working and what’s driving performance changes. With this update, you’ll be able to see things like which audiences are converting, top-performing creatives, auction insights and trending search categories. You can also preview how your best ads are showing up on each channel.

Screenshot of Insights Page in Google Ads

Insights page showing “Top assets” for Performance Max campaigns

vodafone logo

We’ve seen great results during early beta testing. Vodafone Turkey, part of the Vodafone Group, a leading telecommunications company in Europe and Africa, adopted Performance Max with the goal of scaling lead generation for its phone plans across all of Google’s channels to reach more potential customers. During testing, Performance Max campaigns drove an 18% increase in leads at a 70% lower cost per acquisition compared to their Search campaigns. As a result, Vodafone Turkey adopted Performance Max campaigns as its main lead generation campaign on top of its standard keyword-based Search campaigns. Visit the Advertising Solutions Center to see more Performance Max success stories from companies like Neo4j and MoneyMe.

“We're always keen on adopting new advertising technologies that create sales growth with lower costs. Performance Max aligns with our business objectives and helps us acquire new customers without cannibalizing sales between campaigns.”
Ayda Yorukoglu - Digital Marketing Product Owner, Vodafone Turkey

Grab a (virtual) front row seat at Google Marketing Livestream

We’re continuing to learn from you to understand how we can make Google’s products better for the future. Tune in to Google Marketing Livestream today at 8 a.m. PT / 11 a.m. ET to hear about these innovations and much more.

Thank you for your partnership, and we look forward to seeing you soon at Google Marketing Livestream.

Join us for Google for Games Developer Summit 2021

With a surge of new gamers and an increase in time spent playing games in the last year, it’s more important than ever for game developers to delight and engage players. To help developers with this opportunity, the games teams at Google are back to announce the return of the Google for Games Developer Summit 2021on July 12th-13th. 

Hear from experts across Google about new game solutions they’re building to make it easier for you to continue creating great games, connecting with players and scaling your business.  Registration is free and open to all game developers.

Register for the free online event at g.co/gamedevsummit to get more details in the coming weeks.  We can’t wait to share our latest innovations with the developer community.

New ways to grow your app business and connect with users

Apps have transformed the way billions of people engage with the world — making it more convenient to play your favorite game, stay connected with loved ones and buy everyday essentials. In fact, our new research shows that 63% of consumers will continue to seek out the best app experiences even once stores reopen. 

But as the demand for apps grows, it's increasingly challenging for developers to get their app discovered and convert new users into loyal customers. That’s why today, we’re sharing new ways to reach more people, activate insights to help improve performance and keep your valuable users coming back.

Connect with more users where
they are 

App campaigns make it easy for you to reach new app users across Search, YouTube, Google Play, Discover and over three million other sites and apps. 

People are increasingly moving across multiple devices to get stuff done. Even as mobile usage continues to surge, worldwide, 46% of total time on websites is spent on desktop, and we want to help you meet consumers where they are. Starting in June, we are expanding the reach of App campaigns on Android to users in the desktop versions of Google.com and the Google Display Network. 

If a user clicks on your app ad in her desktop browser, she will be directed to the Google Play Store desktop website. From there, she can choose to install your app directly onto any Android device linked to her Play account.

User clicks app ad in the Google.com interface on desktop. User is directed to the Play Store on desktop to install the app. User selects the Android device linked to the Play Store account. The app is automatically installed on the mobile device.

Reach users on desktop with App campaigns on Android.

No additional action is required if you are already running App campaigns on Android today. Desktop traffic and performance for your app ads will automatically show under “Computers” in your campaign reports.

Activate insights to help improve performance

Connecting with new users is a critical first step in the life cycle of growing your app business. But it’s important to understand what happens after the first install by measuring the right in-app events. 

With the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK, you can measure events that matter to your business and get important insights about how your users engage with your app. Previously, both coding and an app update were required if you wanted to create a custom in-app event, like logging a “purchase” when users reach your confirmation screen. We’re now introducing event creation and modification directly from the Analytics interface so you can configure the right in-app events based on your marketing objectives — without requiring any code updates.

Google Analytics interface where you can make changes to event name or parameters, or create new ones.

Make changes to events directly in the Google Analytics interface.

Now, you can change an event name or parameters, or create new ones without any developer resources required. With the ability to quickly make adjustments to your event schema, you can ensure you always capture the most relevant conversion events for your app.

Once you’re measuring all the right events, you can improve performance by bidding on your Analytics conversions in App campaigns. According to internal data, we found that the median campaign that switched to using Google Analytics for Firebase conversions for bidding saw a 13% increase in installs and a 20% increase in in-app events, with no significant change to cost per conversion.  

And we’re seeing success across the industry — Just Eat Takeaway.com, a leading global online food delivery marketplace, saw a 20% increase in app orders and a 15% decrease in cost per order after migrating to Google Analytics for Firebase for bidding. 

Left icon is a shopping basket with text below it saying "20% increase in app orders." Right icon is a dollar sign and down arrow saying "15% decrease in cost per order."

To learn more about new capabilities with the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK, watch our Google I/O technical session.

Keep your valuable customers coming back

Loyal customers stick with brands that make it easy for them to get things done. Deep linking brings users into specific places in your app to make it easier for them to find what they’re looking for, whether it’s buying a new product, booking a trip or jumping back into their favorite game. This helps improve your ad performance — on average, deep linked ad experiences drive two times the conversion rates. 

Shopee, a Singaporean e-commerce company, boosted their checkouts by 126% by using deep links to send traffic to the app if customers already had it installed.

Two phone screens featured, one with an ad and one with the app’s home page. Deep linking takes users directly to your app when they click on your ad.

Take app users directly to the products they want to see with deep linking.

But we’ve heard that getting started with deep linking isn’t easy — it takes collaboration with technical teams to create joint KPIs and to prioritize key updates. 

To make it easier for you to work with your developers, this week we announced adeep link validator and impact calculator at Google I/O. 

Marketers can use these tools in Google Ads to see which types of deep links they have, how to fix ones that aren’t working and estimate the ROI opportunity of implementing deep links. For a deep dive into each tool, visit our Google I/O technical session.

Deep link impact calculator interface where you can see how implementing deep links influences your ROI

See how implementing deep links can boost your ROI.

App deep linking directs customers to the right content in your app to take action, often leading to more conversions. But the path is not always linear — people search across various sites and apps before taking action, which makes it harder to pinpoint which ad drove a conversion. That's why we're introducing data-driven attribution (DDA) for deep linked campaigns to help you understand which channels and ad interactions are most influential to driving conversions.

For example, let's say you're a retailer and you want to see what led your customer to buy a pair of sandals from your app. Now you can identify which specific mobile web ad clicks led your customer into your app to complete the purchase. This helps you make bidding for your web campaigns more effective by giving it a more complete understanding of performance that includes in-app conversions.

Google Ads interface where you can assign credit to the actions that drove your conversions across web and apps.

Assign credit to the actions that drove your conversions across web and apps.

To get started, you can reach out to your account manager to sign up for the beta or visit our Help Center.

To learn more about how you can reach more people, activate insights to help improve performance and keep your valuable users coming back, visit our Advertising Solutions Center.

Future-proof your measurement with privacy-safe solutions

Getting the most out of your marketing investments requires a clear understanding of what actions people take after interacting with your ads. In today’s evolving privacy landscape, growing your business calls for new approaches to measurement that preserve advertising performance and also put the user first. 

Now’s the time to adopt new privacy-safe techniques to ensure your measurement remains accurate and actionable. And while this can seem daunting, we’re here to help you succeed in a world with fewer cookies and other identifiers with new ways to respect user consent, measure conversions and unlock granular insights from your sites and apps. 

Here's a preview of some of the product launches we'll be sharing at Google Marketing Livestream on May 27th.

Easier options for working with consented data

Getting started with privacy-safe measurement requires building a foundation of first-party data. Investing in a strong tagging infrastructure helps you make the most of the data your consumers share with you and lets you accurately measure your campaign performance.

As consumers seek increased control over how their data is used, your methods for respecting their consent choices will also need to evolve. For advertisers operating in the European Economic Area and the U.K., Consent Mode helps you achieve this by adjusting how Google tags operate based on user consent choices for ads cookies or analytics cookies. When users don't consent to cookies, Consent Mode will use conversion modeling to recover, on average, more than 70% of ad-click-to-conversion journeys, ensuring that you continue to measure the complete performance of your media in a privacy-safe way.

To make it easier for your website to integrate with Consent Mode, we'll soon enable implementation directly from your Google Tag Manager account, where you’ll be able to modify and customize tag behavior in response to users' consent preferences. Accurate measurement that accounts for people's consent choices doesn’t have to be complicated, and our new solutions make sure that it isn’t.

More first-party conversion data means better measurement

A strong sitewide tagging and first-party data foundation enables measurement solutions to work together to collectively provide you with the most comprehensive reporting and optimization. Building on this foundation, we've developed an additional privacy-safe way to help you preserve accurate measurement when fewer cookies are available.

Enhanced conversions allow tags to use consented, first-party data to give you a more accurate view of how users convert after engaging with your ads. You'll also be able to get the data you need to unlock performance insights, like conversion lift, and improve measurement in cases when your ad is shown on one device and the user converts on another. Your first-party data is hashed to protect user privacy and ensure security, and you’ll receive aggregated and anonymized conversion reporting. 

Advertisers currently testing enhanced conversions are already seeing positive results. U.K.-based retailer ASOS set up enhanced conversions across Search and YouTube to help them close measurement gaps due to browser restrictions and cross-device behavior. This enabled them to measure conversions that would otherwise not have been captured and improved return on ad spend (ROAS) with a recorded sales uplift of 8.6% in Search and 31% in YouTube.

Enhanced conversions helped establish a strong measurement foundation, off of which we can better measure the impact of our YouTube buys. Carolina Vicente
Media Investment Director, ASOS

Machine learning unlocks new insights in Google Analytics

In addition to using modeling for more complete conversion measurement and optimization, modeling can also help you get deeper customer insights from your behavioral analytics data. Last year we announced the new Google Analytics, which uses machine learning to surface relevant marketing insights, such as a significant change in your campaign performance or the likelihood of your customers making a purchase. 

Soon, we'll extend Google’s advanced machine learning models to behavioral reporting in Analytics. For example, if there is incomplete data in your User Acquisition report due to cookies not being available, we’ll now use modeling to help fill gaps for a more complete view of the number of new users your campaigns have acquired. With or without cookies, you’ll be able to enhance your understanding of the customer journey across your app and website and use those insights to improve your marketing. 

Coming next

We’re continuing to invest in next-generation privacy solutions to help advertisers navigate ongoing industry changes and preserve accurate conversion measurement. 

You can find out the latest information about these new privacy-safe measurement solutions at Google Marketing Livestream 2021 on Thursday, May 27 at 8:00 a.m. PT / 11:00 a.m. ET. 

Register for Google Marketing Livestream

Did you know searches for corsages and boutonnières are one of the top trending categories this month in the U.S.? Meanwhile in Italy, one of the top growing categories of searches this month is charms and pendants. And in Japan, searches in the drawing and painting kits category have grown over 100% in the past month.1 

People around the world turn to Google to be inspired, discover new brands and find what they need. Consumer behavior is changing rapidly, so we’ve been busy building products to help you be ready for what’s next. 

Register now for Google Marketing Livestream on Thursday, May 27 at 8 a.m. PT. You’ll be the first to learn about Google’s new products, the latest trends, and actionable best practices. You’ll also hear from many industry leaders, including:

Speaker bios: Jim Farley (President and Chief Executive Officer of Ford Motor Company), Kory Marchisotto (Chief Marketing Officer, e.l.f. Beauty and President, Keys Soulcare), Alicia Keys (Founder, Key's Soulcare), Emmanuel Acho (NYT Bestselling Author and Host, Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man), Harley Finkelstein (President, Shopify), William White (SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Walmart U.S.)

1. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/category-trends/us/year/en as of May 10, 2021