Tag Archives: Google Ads

A Google Ads expert uses her skills to support nonprofits

Lauriane Giuranna is a Google Ads specialist, working with advertisers to make the best out of Google’s digital marketing tools. When she had the chance to use her skills to help gender equity nonprofits boost their visibility online, she immediately raised her hand. As part of a Google’s rotation program (an opportunity for employees to take a temporary role within a different team), Lauriane worked full-time for three months providing digital marketing support to select nonprofits. We chatted with her to hear more about the experience.

Tell us a little bit more about yourself.

In September 2019 — just after college — I joined Google in Dublin, Ireland as a Google Ads Specialist for the French Market. Outside of work, social impact has always been close to my heart. Before moving to Ireland I was volunteering to provide services to homeless and underserved communities in my hometown, Paris.

How have you used your role at Google to continue focusing on social impact?

One of the reasons I joined Google was its intrinsic commitment to social impact. Still, it surprised me to see the amount of opportunities I had to get involved in side projects that mattered to me and to have managers encouraging me to take them on. When the pandemic hit and domestic abuse reached new heights, I started supporting a French nonprofit that assists gender-based violence victims with their Google Ad Grants account, a program that donates ads on Google Search to eligible nonprofits.

Lauriane, the interviewee, sitting on a swing and holding the swing ropes with two hands

Lauriane at the Google office in Dublin

Tell us more about the 3-month rotation and why it was focused on gender equity.

Gender equity is a matter of human rights and global prosperity and over time, we’ve seen a growing interest in the topic on Google Search. Last year, Google.org announced the 34 recipients of the $25 million Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls. Google realized the need to help gender equality organizations promote online content and boost their visibility to help people in need find trusted information. Google.org worked with a few select Impact Challenge recipients to provide additional support on Google Ad Grants.

What was your day-to-day work like during the rotation?

I focused on 10 women and girls organizations. I set up campaigns and looked into metrics to improve and optimize performances. I also hosted office hours and delivered more than 15 hours of product training for 20 nonprofits professionals to use Google Ad Grants. I wanted to make sure the nonprofits could continue to use the product successfully.

Can you share an example?

I worked with Girls Inc. of NYC, an Impact Challenge recipient on a mission to deliver life transforming programs so that girls and women can thrive. When I first met with Lily Chang, chief development officer, we defined the marketing plan and set some measurable goals, like increasing newsletter sign-ups. Girls Inc. of NYC had never used Ad Grants before and leveraged our Google technical team to implement conversion tracking. We then built and tested several campaigns to reach more supporters across the U.S. The impact is tangible — the website traffic has doubled and almost 20% of newsletter sign-ups and 9% of donations now come after a click on an ad.

You accomplished a lot in three months! What was the personal impact on you?

I developed skills that gave me a good steer on my career growth. I would love to continue working with nonprofits and I now feel much more prepared.

To learn more about Google’s product giving and Google.org, visit google.com/nonprofits and google.org.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Easier ways for brands to manage suitability across Google

With the rise of streaming, content creation is more diverse than ever before and consumers have more choice than ever on what to watch. In a content-rich world, we want to make it easier for advertisers to feel confident in the environments where their brands appear, to reach new consumers and grow their businesses. That's why we're excited to launch a new content suitability center in Google Ads, bringing together everything you need to manage our best-in-class suitability settings, for all campaigns on YouTube and the Google Display Network.

Evolving with your brand suitability needs

Teams across YouTube and Google spent the past two years working directly with brands to better understand their needs and preferences as it relates to suitability. We consistently found that when advertisers knew how to better navigate suitability controls, they experienced performance benefits — ranging from increased reach and view-through rates to decreased cost-per-view. We’ve used this information to further advance our suitability offering.

Through streamlined controls, the new content suitability center will take out the guesswork for brands in curating the environments that align with their values.

Streamlining how you manage controls

Previously, managing suitability settings was done in multiple, segregated sections of Google Ads and the experience differed across Google platforms. This led to a time-consuming and cumbersome implementation process, along with misconceptions and misuse of the controls. While exclusions can be helpful tools, brands also want to be mindful of the types of content they choose to exclude. Over-exclusion can negatively impact your cost and reach. It can also unintentionally exclude great, brand-safe content or content relevant to diverse communities.

Now, you’ll find all suitability controls under a single point-of-entry, making it faster and easier to set your preferences.

Image of content suitability page available under the Tools and Settings tab in Google Ads

Use the content suitability center to easily set your suitability preferences for inventory modes and exclusions across YouTube and the Google Display Network

When you enter the suitability center, you may select one of the three inventory modes that’s right for your brand. Inventory modes cater to your preferences for various sensitive themes, such as profanity, sexual suggestiveness and violence.

From there, if you have more nuanced needs, you can fine-tune additional exclusions. For example, a body-positive brand may prefer to exclude diet regimens or weight-loss content, while a luxury brand may prefer not to appear alongside content about sales or bargain hauls.

Once you have designated your preferences at the account level, Google Ads will now automatically apply these settings to your future campaigns. It removes the need to repeat the process for each new campaign. This update is designed to reduce human error when launching campaigns.

Bringing increased efficiency across Google

Our multi-year investments in policies, advertiser guidelines and product features are based on our commitment to protect our viewers, creators and advertisers. When YouTube became the first digital platform to receive content-level brand safety accreditation from the Media Rating Council (MRC), it was a testament to the investments we’ve made in responsibility, YouTube's top priority.

We have ensured that YouTube advertising meets 99% effectiveness for brand safety across in-stream, livestream, Shorts and Watch Next & Home feed content.[576b88]We automatically exclude content not aligned with our requirements from appearing alongside ads. Our progress in brand safety has positioned us to now double down with increased investments in our gold-standard suitability offerings — not just for YouTube, but across Google.

Suitability settings work on top of our brand safety systems to give you more control over the content surrounding your ads — content that, while in compliance with our policies, may not resonate with your unique brand values.

“Giving advertisers and agencies control over where their ads show up has been a tangible goal for all of us in GARM (the Global Alliance for Responsible Media),” says Robert Rakowitz, Initiative Lead, GARM. “These new first-party features really help ad buyers in that they are aligned with industry standards, they bring in more formats across all of Google, and make suitability control management easier to manage across markets and brands. We’re excited to see the broader Google organization introduce these new features which add increased transparency and control.”

The content suitability center is the first of many improvements to come, allowing advertisers to more easily control the environments they want to be in and to reap the benefits of improved campaign performance. We’ll have more to share in the coming months to help you continue to align with what works best for your brand identity and navigate the growing landscape of content.

Source: The Official Google Blog

3 new ways to help attraction and tour operators reach more travelers

Traveling can be a source of joy and excitement, especially when meaningful experiences are involved. In the last year, we’ve seen searches for “fun activities” reach an all-time high in the U.S. That’s why we’re continuing to make it easier for people to discover things to do on Google, and for businesses to connect with these new potential customers as they plan their trips.

Compare ticket prices on Google Maps

Last year, we began showing ticket booking links on Search when people look for attractions, like the Boston Tea Party Museum, to help them quickly compare admissions prices across different partners. Now, this ticket information is available on Google Maps as well, where travelers often plan their itinerary for the day.

Two phone mocks showing ticket information in Maps. The first shows Tickets in the Overview tab. The second shows the Tickets tab.

Compare ticket prices right in Google Maps.

We’re also starting to show booking links for experiences connected to a particular attraction, like a combined Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour. This feature is currently available on Search and will also be available soon on Maps.

Screenshot of a search for "Boston Tea Party Ship &...". The Experiences section shows various options including a trolley tour and a self-guided tour.

We are also starting to show booking links for experiences connected to a particular attraction.

In the near future, we’ll also begin displaying booking links for tour and activity operators on their Search and Maps listings when people query their business name, like “John’s London Bike Tours.”

Edit ticket prices directly through Google Business Profile

Attraction, tour, and activity operators can work with an approved connectivity partner to provide travelers with the most up-to-date pricing information through a feed integration. Beginning today, attraction owners can also directly edit their ticket prices on Search and Maps through their Business Profile, and this functionality will soon be available for tour and activity operators as well.

Attraction owners can directly edit their ticket prices through their Business Profile.

Help even more customers find you

Last year we introduced a new ad format on Search that helps advertisers stand out and drive more revenue by showing details like pricing, images and reviews when people search for things to do. Now, this ad unit has expanded coverage to include more countries and languages and is eligible to appear on individual attraction listings on mobile Search. These ads can be set up using the same data feeds that power the free ticket booking links on Search and Maps, so it’s easy to get started.

Two phone mocks showing ads. The first shows a search for "Things to do in boston" with Tickets & tours ads in the results. The second shows a search for "Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum" with the specific "Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum" location showing in the results and an ad for a tour above it.

Ads expanded coverage to appear on even more search results.

Register here for our Travel on Air Webinar to learn about these new tools and more to help you connect with potential customers.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

3 new ways to help attraction and tour operators reach more travelers

Compare ticket prices on Google Maps

Compare ticket prices right in Google Maps.

We are also starting to show booking links for experiences connected to a particular attraction.

Edit ticket prices directly through Google Business Profile

Attraction owners can directly edit their ticket prices through their Business Profile.

Help even more customers find you

Ads expanded coverage to appear on even more search results.

Register here for our Travel on Air Webinar to learn about these new tools and more to help you connect with potential customers.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Strengthening measurement with new tagging capabilities

Sitewide tags are the building blocks of a strong measurement foundation. They help advertisers understand how customers are interacting with their website and ads. But, it’s historically been difficult to set up and manage tags without technical expertise or a tag management platform like Google Tag Manager. To address this, we recently rolled out a single, reusable Google tag so you can do more across different Google products and accounts without changing your website code. Now we’re unveiling another set of capabilities that provide more visibility into your site’s measurement coverage and simplify the setup.

Whether it’s through the Google tag or Google Tag Manager, proper sitewide tagging is essential to successfully measure and act on your data. One company that has shown measurement excellence through tagging is The North Face, a retail brand that’s advancing exploration through innovative thinking, design, and technology. Using our enterprise tag management solution, Google Tag Manager 360, the brand has been able to unlock customer insights that influence everything from future campaigns to product offerings and website design. “Tagging is the backbone of our consumer experience. Rather than forecasting by putting a finger to the wind, we can make data-driven decisions using real-time and historical data.” shares Sarah Kleinman, VP of Digital Experiences.

Increase your measurement accuracy

As your digital presence grows, it can be easy to miss pages or overlook new site sections. With the new Tag coverage summary, you can quickly determine whether your Google tag has been implemented on all of your website pages.

Use the Tag coverage summary to see which pages of your website have the Google tag installed and quickly identify pages that are not tagged

You’ll see where your tags are implemented in suggested pages, which can be added to your summary to understand your tag coverage on these pages later. And, if the suggestions don’t include all of your website pages, quickly add the URLs by entering them or uploading a CSV file. You can also click the Tag Assistant icon next to each page to investigate whether your tags are implemented properly.

Simplify setup with less code

In the coming weeks, we'll be integrating the Google tag into the account setup and conversion setup flows in Google Ads and Google Analytics — product interfaces you’re already familiar with — for a more centralized and intuitive experience. These new features will make it faster and easier to set up conversion measurement. You won’t need to add more code to your website, which often relies on technical expertise or assistance from other departments.

Screenshot of the Google Ads setup flow showing the step when a user is directed to install or reuse a Google tag

You’ll be directed to set up the Google tag or reuse an existing one during account setup

For customers using popular content management systems or website builders, you’ll now be able to install a new Google tag across your website without making manual changes to the site code. You can also now reuse your existing gtag.js implementation or create a new Google tag to deploy without making changes to your website code. You can do this directly in your CMS within the Ads and Analytics account setup flows. CMS instructions are shown on your installation screen for the following platforms that are integrated with the Google tag.

Screenshot of step-by-step setup instructions for advertisers using a content management system

Advertisers using a content management system can set up a Google tag without making changes to their website code

If you’re still using Universal Analytics, we recently shared that now it’s time to make the move to Google Analytics 4. If you have gtag.js for Google Ads or Universal Analytics on your website, you will be able to do this directly in the setup assistant in Google Analytics by choosing an existing Google tag. If you don't have a Google tag on your site or are using an analytics.js tag, you’ll need to create a new tag before you can get started, which you can do within the same, simplified workflow.

Animated screenshots of the Google Analytics setup assistant showing advertisers choices to use a Google tag found on their website, use a different Google tag, or create a new Google tag

Set up your Google tag directly in the Google Analytics setup assistant

With so much at stake when it comes to performance and privacy, it’s more important than ever to ensure you have a strong measurement foundation. We’re with you every step of the way and these new features make it easier to set up and manage your tagging infrastructure within the product interfaces you’re already familiar with.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Unlocking the full value of Consent Mode

Data is at the core of important marketing decisions and privacy is at the forefront of consumer trust. As people exercise more control over how their data is collected and used, advertisers are turning to solutions that can capture valuable insights while protecting user privacy.

Cookie consent banners give people greater control over how their data is used for advertising or analytics. Up to 64 percent of global consumers agree that they accept all cookie permissions when prompted but rates vary by region, falling as low as 38% in Denmark, according to YouGov’s global consumer study. Without conversion data from cookies, though, advertisers may have a hard time understanding campaign effectiveness and how to allocate and optimize their budgets.

To make privacy-safe measurement easier, we’re rolling out new features to help you set up and troubleshoot Consent Mode, along with a new certified partner program for additional support with implementation and technical challenges. Proper implementation enables you to fully take advantage of conversion modeling, solving for unknowns in the data and unlocking more comprehensive reporting and optimization.

Since its launch, Consent Mode has helped advertisers gain more accurate, privacy-safe insights through conversion modeling. Air France, assisted by their media agency Performics, experienced a 9% conversion uplift after implementation across their European markets and a 4% increase just within France. “Thanks to Consent Mode, we’re able to optimize our campaigns while ensuring users’ privacy choices.” says Cédric Ibanez, Head of Search & Metasearch at Air France.

Access Consent Mode status and diagnostics

To help marketers confidently set up Consent Mode, we've built new support and troubleshooting features in Google Ads, bringing clear guidance right to your screen. You can also refer to the Google Tag Assistant troubleshooting guide, which covers possible causes and solutions when Consent Mode is not detected or consent rate is lower than expected.

On your conversion summary page in Google Ads, the status column will indicate whether Consent Mode is properly implemented. It will also let you access diagnostics directly from there or on the conversion action settings page. To better understand whether your implementation is correct and you are receiving modeled conversions (minimum thresholds apply), you can find the status of your Consent Mode setup on the Google Ads conversion diagnostics tab.

Preview of the new conversion diagnostics tab in Google Ads

Access conversion diagnostics to validate that Consent Mode is working and see your modeling uplift after initial implementation

In coming months, you’ll be able to view troubleshooting alerts in your diagnostics tabs and see domain-level insights about your tagging and consent rate. You’ll also be able to download a list of URLs and access Google Tag Assistant’s consent debugging tools to help you fix issues with your setup.

Soon, we’ll be surfacing troubleshooting recommendations in the diagnostics tab. In the meantime, you can access the recommendations tab to ensure Consent Mode is properly set up and that you’re receiving the full benefits of conversion modeling.

Preview of the recommendations tab in Google Ads, which will soon be available in the diagnostics tab

View your recommendations to properly set up Consent Mode

Activate with partner support

To provide advertisers with even more ways to activate Consent Mode, we’ve expanded our partnerships with Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) and are launching a new CMP Partner program featuring the following partners:

CMP partners are integrated with Consent Mode and Google Tag Manager, ensuring seamless implementation and helping to address technical challenges. If you’re working with a CMP or considering doing so, they’ll help manage cookie consent banners and direct the consent management process which begins when a user lands on your website and makes a consent choice on a CMP banner. The CMP then communicates that choice to the Google tag via Consent Mode, and the tag adjusts its behavior accordingly. With our CMP partnerships, using Consent Mode is now easier than ever.

With new regulations taking shape around the world it’s vital for robust, privacy-centric measurement solutions to be available for marketers everywhere. We’re excited for the opportunities ahead and will continue to improve usability and expand our partnerships to help you grow your business in today’s privacy-first landscape.

Source: The Official Google Blog

New tools to create more engaging ads

Today's consumer has much higher expectations for the platforms they engage with online. They expect content that's rich, visual, and allows for quick access to what they're looking for – and that applies to the ads they see, too. Ad extensions such as sitelinks and image extensions have been key to meeting this expectation quickly and at scale. Powered by Google’s machine learning, they make it easier for you to automatically give consumers more relevant and engaging ways to interact with your business.

We’ve seen that this works: on average, advertisers see a 20% increase in clickthrough rate when 4 sitelinks show with their Search ads,[94d3c7]and a 10% increase in clickthrough rate when image extensions show with their mobile Search ads.[140e41]

Our goal is to make it easy for you to deliver more engaging ads and provide you with helpful, actionable information about their performance. That’s why we’re rolling out new workflows and reports that bring ad extensions and assets together. As a result of this change, ad extensions will now be called assets to better align with this evolved identity.

Streamline how you manage ads

Previously, managing ads and assets like sitelinks were done in separate steps of the campaign creation process. Now, you’ll find them in the same step when you create a Search or Performance Max campaign – making it easy to set your ads up for success from the start.

Apply assets like sitelinks as you create a responsive search ad

As you create assets and apply them to your campaign, the preview tool will automatically update so you can see them in the context of your ad. In addition, Google Ads will now recommend assets based on your chosen campaign goal. For example, if you’ve selected “Leads” as your campaign objective, we’ll automatically recommend that you add a lead form asset. Any assets you create as part of this new workflow will also be available when you work on other campaigns and ad groups. This update will be rolling out in the coming weeks.

The new assets workflow makes it easier for us to create and manage sitelinks and other assets in our Performance Max campaigns. In addition, we can now view and customize the holistic messaging of our ad. Michelle Moore
Director of Marketing, Tradovate

Get helpful, actionable information about your creative

In the new "Ads & assets" menu, the “Assets” page will provide reporting for all of the assets across your account. You’ll see headlines and descriptions in the “Asset” table view, while the “Association” table view will show assets like images and prices. As you review associations, you’ll be able to see how your creative assets perform at the account, campaign and ad group levels. To make it easier to understand performance, you can quickly filter reports by clicking an asset type at the top of the page.

Unified performance reporting for assets

When you review the combinations report, you’ll be able to see assets like sitelinks, callouts, and images alongside your headlines and descriptions. With this view, it will be easier to review and make informed decisions about your creative as a whole.

Combinations report showing assets

Unified reporting in the "Assets" page will roll out over the coming weeks for all campaign types that previously supported ad extensions and the updated combinations report will roll out in the next few months. Any existing ad extensions will automatically transition to assets while maintaining their associations at the account, campaign and ad group levels. Learn more about this update in the Google Ads Help Center and check out our best practices guide for more ways to create effective assets.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

Turn curiosity into customers this holiday season

The holiday season is the most beautiful time of the year and, for retailers, it’s also the busiest. This year has been particularly challenging for retailers and shoppers, alike, with the presence of global uncertainties like supply chain disruptions. Still, holiday shopping is poised to surge and retailers can turn to Google to drive sales.

This past holiday season, 54% of shoppers used five or more channels, like video and social media, to shop over a two-day period.[209121]With Google's full range of promotional channels, retailers can show up across the shopping journey and stay top-of-mind for consumers. Here are a few tips to set you up for success this holiday season.

For more holiday insights, tune into Think Retail on Air at 10 a.m. PDT later today and check out in-depth recommendations in our Holiday Best Practices guide.

Show up to the party early

The countdown is officially on as holiday shopping kicks off earlier in the year. In May, we found that, on average, 17% of consumers in surveyed markets have started their holiday shopping and more than a third (36%) say they already have ideas for gifts they are going to buy.[b6dc7b]Get ready to reach these shoppers with the following Google Ads insights and tools.

Make your grand entrance with demand forecasts on the Insights page. This predicts upcoming trends relevant to your business so you can adjust your budget and bidding strategy to capture growing demand. Additionally, use Performance Planner to understand how these changes to your advertising spend will impact your predicted clicks, conversions and conversion values.

Beyond optimizing your campaign settings, you’ll also need to get your product feed in shape. Product-specific insights are now at your disposal at the account level in the Google Ads products tab. These insights let you spot underperforming offers, identify products with missing feed attributes and compare your bidding strategy with your top competitors’.

Desktop UI of product-specific insights on the Google Ads products tab

Review product-specific insights on the products tab in Google Ads

Make the rounds

With more ways to shop than ever, it can be difficult to keep up with complex purchasing journeys. Last holiday, we saw that shoppers who used at least five channels to inform their decisions and complete their holiday shopping reported making two times more purchases and spending twice as much, on average, compared to those who just used one or two channels.[c8c668]With the best of Google automation at your fingertips, you can stand out to shoppers across the full range of Google Ads channels.

It starts with Search where people conduct billions of searches every day.[d6b18a]Maximize your reach by showing your ads to shoppers who search for terms related to your keywords using broad match and Smart Bidding. Then use responsive search ads to tailor your messaging based on shoppers’ search terms.

But Search is just one part of the equation. Complement keyword-based Search campaigns with Performance Max, which finds even more converting customers across channels like YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps.[84e8c1]As the next generation of Smart Shopping and Local campaigns, Performance Max connects with your product feed to drive sales both online and in-store. Keep an eye out for seasonal templates launching this fall. They’ll help you create video ads in a matter of minutes for Performance Max campaigns.

Round off your advertising strategy by inspiring shoppers when they least expect it. For example, 60 percent of people say they often or sometimes get prompted to buy something even when they weren’t actively shopping.[184b9b]You can now harness the power of your Google Merchant Center product feed with YouTube Video action campaigns and Discovery ads, which present new shoppable opportunities for your brand in moments of inspiration and discovery.

Finally, don’t forget about your mobile-first shoppers. In the next 2-3 years, 68% of retail marketers anticipate increasing apps use as a primary means of increasing customer loyalty.[8e7b4e]Promote your app to shoppers across Google’s largest properties such as Search, Google Play, YouTube and more with App campaigns and give users a seamless web-to-app purchase experience by setting up deep links.

Be scroll-stopping

Give shoppers a reason to turn from browsers to buyers wherever they may be. More than half a million online businesses use Google Merchant Center to show their products for free across Google websites and apps.[99e10e]Join them by listing your products on Google to unlock access to different levers that can make your products shine during the holidays.

More than half (55%) of holiday shoppers across surveyed countries are planning to hold off on buying gift items until they are on sale.[a90cb9]Fuel demand by adding your sales and promotions early. The Content API is also now available to make it even easier for you to upload and manage your deals at scale.

Like last year, shoppers are still anxious about getting what they need in time where 3 in 10 consumers are shopping for things they don’t need until later because of stock concerns.[828740]Keep stockings stuffed by adding estimated delivery times such as “Get it by 12/20”, and help shoppers stay worry-free by highlighting your flexible return policies like “Free 90-day returns.”

Mobile UI of sales price annotations and shipping and return options (US example)

View sales price annotations and shipping and return options (US example)

Take it offline

Your audience won’t just be shopping online. In-store shopping has made a big comeback this year, as searches for "store open" have grown globally by over 400% YoY.[a8c784]Offering a seamless experience between brick-and-mortar and online shopping will be key to winning shoppers.

Make it easy for shoppers to find you by updating your Business Profile with store hours, location and images. Then grow in-store foot traffic and sales by promoting your location to online shoppers in the area with Performance Max campaigns for store goals, such as in-store promotions or seasonal specials. You now have more control over your Smart Bidding to meet your store visits or store sales goals this holiday season.

And for last-minute shoppers or shoppers who prefer to browse in-person, you can use local inventory ads to promote your in-store inventory online and convenient curbside or in-store pickup options.

Join the conversation at Think Retail on Air

We’re here for you this season to help you hit your holiday milestones, so make Think Retail on Air your next stop to get more insights. We will be going live today at 10 a.m. PDT. For more recommendations, visit the Holiday Best Practices guide.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Simplifying measurement with the Google tag

Measurement is the bedrock of digital advertising. Accurate measurement relies on robust tagging to help you reach people who have visited your website or app. It also serves as the foundation of a privacy-centric measurement strategy revolving around information people agree to share with you, so-called consented, first party and modeled data. It’s critical that advertisers have durable, sitewide tagging in place as legacy identifiers such as third-party cookies are phased out. Tagging will help you strengthen user privacy, keep up with rapidly changing regulations and continue measuring performance and modeling insights.

Evolving with your measurement needs

To help you keep pace with industry changes, we've centralized our tagging solutions with Google Tag Manager, an enterprise tag management system, and the global site tag (gtag.js), which lets advertisers send event data to Google Analytics, Google Ads and Google Marketing Platform. But we’ve heard from you that tagging is still cumbersome.

Today, we’re further improving the tagging experience with the new Google tag — a single, reusable tag built on top of your existing gtag.js implementations that helps you confidently measure impact and preserve user trust. Starting today and rolling out over the next week, the Google tag will unlock new capabilities to help you do more, improve data quality and adopt new features — without requiring more code. As we’ve previously recommended with the global site tag, the Google tag should be installed on all pages of your website.

For customers using Google Tag Manager, you will not experience any changes to your setup today. But, stay tuned for future updates on tighter integration and upgrade paths between the Google tag and Google Tag Manager.

Centralized sitewide tagging

Advertisers with multiple instances of gtag.js can now combine those tags and centrally manage their settings in the Google tag screens in Google Ads and Google Analytics. Since it’ll be easier to set up sitewide tagging and combine or reuse tags, you can easily increase the number of tagged pages with consistent configuration. This helps improve measurement, leading to better-quality customer insights. You can also now manage user access to your tag settings across products in one dedicated place, giving you more control over who has access to critical measurement settings. Rest assured, your existing gtag.js implementations will continue to work and will automatically become the Google tag.

Easily access your Google tag settings in Google Ads and Analytics

Combine your tags and manage your settings centrally without additional code

Faster and easier setup

In the coming months, you’ll also be able to use your existing Google tag installation when setting up another Google product or account or creating new conversion actions, instead of configuring additional code each time. We’ve simplified complex workflows for a simple and quick setup experience that works across Google Ads and Google Analytics, within the product interfaces that you’re already familiar with.

And, for customers using popular content management systems like HubSpot, Squarespace or Wix, you’ll be able to install a new Google tag without any code at all.

Preparing today for the future

The Google tag is a new centralized approach to tagging, integrated with many of our other privacy solutions to give advertisers more control and ease of use. As with your existing gtag.js and Google Tag Manager implementations, the Google tag continues to work well with solutions such as Consent Mode and Server-Side Tagging.

The Google tag is the first of many improvements to come and we’ll have more to share in coming months so you can better prepare today for the future.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce

New ways to diversify your games revenue

With more than 3 billion people playing games across platforms, the games industry continues to evolve rapidly. Still, one thing remains unchanged: developers need to grow revenue and profitability from their mobile games for long term success. This week, at the Think with Google Gaming Day in China, we shared new ways to help developers like you earn more revenue and attract high-value players.

Strengthen your monetization strategies

The right metrics can make a huge difference to your game’s success by enhancing transparency and clarity in your ads performance. AdMob’s updated Ads Activity report contains new measurement dimensions to help you do just that. Easily analyze earnings including those from third-party ad sources with dimensions like “hour of delivery,” “app version” or “ad source.” Publishers can also better monitor and understand the impact of privacy changes on revenue with report dimensions indicating publisher and user response to the iOS privacy framework.

Screengrab of Google Ads user interface, featuring the ads activity report dimensions and metrics in table format

The Ads Activity report contains new dimensions to help you understand your ads performance

Along with the Ads Activity report, we announced more features to help you diversify and grow your revenue for the long-term:

Google Mobile Ads Software Developer Kit (GMA SDK): Implement the latest GMA SDK version to stay updated on new feature releases such as the same app key that delivers more relevant and personalized ads for your apps on iOS.
H5 Games Ads (beta): Grow your earnings by easily showing interstitial and rewarded ads in your HTML5 (H5) games today.
New bidding partner: Access demand from Pangle, now available on AdMob in addition to more than 200 demand partners competing in real-time for your inventory.

Drive deeper engagement and revenue performance

To drive sustainable growth for your game, you’ll need more than just a strong monetization strategy. It is also important to have the right tools to effectively attract quality players. Now, with the ability to add an audience signal to your Android App campaigns, we’re making this even easier. You’ll be able to use your existing knowledge on the types of players you believe your campaigns would be most successful with to help guide our models to find similar new players who are more likely to convert. This will be available in beta in the coming months.

Add an audience signal to help you find new players who are more likely to convert

As the industry moves away from individual identifiers like device IDs, measuring your campaign performance accurately — along with acting on your conversion data — is critical. That’s why earlier this year, we introduced on-device conversion measurement. With on-device conversion measurement, user interactions with app ads can be matched to app conversions in a way that prevents user-identifying information from leaving a user's device. This helps you to prioritize privacy standards without compromising performance. Explore our developer guide to learn how you can implement this solution for your iOS App campaigns.

We are also releasing other new features to help you grow engagement and performance:

New audience lists: Re-engage high-value players with automatically generated lists of past purchasers based on your apps’ play data. This feature is now generally available through App campaigns for engagement.
Creative testing for video: Easily run experiments to understand the impact your video creative has on your App campaign performance. This will be available in beta in the coming months.
Target return on ad spend (tROAS) for ad revenue: Acquire players who are more likely to engage with ads shown in-app. In the coming months, all developers can send ad revenue from monetization platforms to Google Analytics to improve tROAS bidding in Google Ads.

Scale your reach to third-party app inventory

Lastly, advertisers now have the opportunity to extend their App campaign reach to more users. Advertisers using Google Ads and Display & Video 360 will have the opportunity to participate in real-time bidding integrations with third-party monetization platforms AppLovin (MAX), DT FairBid and Helium by Chartboost.

Also, developers who use third-party platforms will now have easy access to competitive real-time bids from advertisers using Google Ads and Display & Video 360. The program is currently in closed beta and these buying tools will be available as a bidder for approved publishers on these third-party real-time bidding monetization platforms at this time.

Watch the full Ads keynote to hear more about how these solutions can help you drive revenue and profitability for your games business.