00:00:00
we do our best to cover any
00:00:02
announcements from the ad platforms
00:00:04
whenever there's a new feature or
00:00:07
updates to an old one but quite frankly
00:00:09
there are so many changes that it's hard
00:00:11
to keep up with so since the end of the
00:00:13
year everybody loves a recap post so in
00:00:16
this one we're going to cover what we
00:00:18
believe are the biggest changes to the
00:00:20
Google ads platform in
00:00:22
2024 the good news for us is that Google
00:00:25
likes to also boast about all the
00:00:26
different updates that they've made and
00:00:28
for this video we're going to be working
00:00:30
off of this list of all of the updates
00:00:32
they made to each of these different
00:00:34
areas now as I mentioned in the intro
00:00:36
I'm only going to be covering the things
00:00:38
that we think are big adjustments to the
00:00:41
platform and that's really just based on
00:00:43
our day-to-day I'm going to get ahead of
00:00:45
it I'm not going to talk about apps and
00:00:47
I'm not going to talk about retail and
00:00:49
commerce those sections just aren't
00:00:51
things that impact us on a day-to-day
00:00:53
basis and within each of these different
00:00:55
areas we will talk about measurement we
00:00:57
will talk about search but a lot of
00:00:59
those changes just don't make sense for
00:01:01
us and don't feel like the bigger
00:01:03
adjustments moral of the story is we're
00:01:05
going to put the link to this blog post
00:01:07
in the description down below so if you
00:01:09
want to read through all the updates
00:01:10
yourself and check those out definitely
00:01:12
do that because this video is just going
00:01:14
to give you what we think are the
00:01:16
biggest updates don't come for me
00:01:18
because I skipped something that you
00:01:19
really wanted to hear about I'm only
00:01:21
going to talk about what I feel
00:01:22
comfortable talking about so in that
00:01:24
vein let's just go ahead and start going
00:01:25
down the list and covering the topics
00:01:27
that we think are important so if we
00:01:29
scroll down here first thing we're going
00:01:31
to come across is measurement now there
00:01:33
are a few different things that you can
00:01:35
see in here so let's go ahead and scroll
00:01:37
down to the bullet points of some of the
00:01:38
biggest pieces and effectively the two
00:01:41
biggest updates that we think happened
00:01:43
in Google ads for this that are going to
00:01:45
impact your daytoday are going to be
00:01:47
this first one and then the third one
00:01:49
and the cool part is they both are in
00:01:51
the same portion of the interface in
00:01:53
Google ads so this first update is that
00:01:55
now you can simplify how you can connect
00:01:57
all of your first party data with with
00:02:00
your third party platforms so getting
00:02:02
all of that first-party user information
00:02:04
into Google ads just got a bit easier so
00:02:07
let's hop into a Google ads account and
00:02:09
then to find this new area of the
00:02:11
account let's H over to tools we're
00:02:13
going to go to data manager as you can
00:02:15
see here we've got information about the
00:02:16
Google tag all of the connected products
00:02:18
that we already have for our Google ads
00:02:21
account and then right down here below
00:02:22
you can see all of the third party
00:02:24
Integrations that can be added to a
00:02:26
Google ads account this section here
00:02:28
makes it so much easier to see what's
00:02:30
added what's not what needs to be
00:02:31
connected and then to actually get those
00:02:33
set up if you wanted to set up a
00:02:34
Salesforce integration just click the
00:02:36
button here and you'll get started on
00:02:37
your way but the other piece that's in
00:02:40
that article let's hop back to it is
00:02:41
going to be this third adjustment down
00:02:43
here and that's tag Diagnostics to help
00:02:45
you understand how well your Google tags
00:02:48
are set up and to flag any potential
00:02:51
issues this also lives directly in data
00:02:54
manager in Google ads you just need to
00:02:56
come to your Google tag section up here
00:02:58
at the top click the manage button so
00:03:00
for this account you can see that the
00:03:02
tag quality needs attention and
00:03:03
depending on what your issues are you
00:03:06
can just come over here to view issues
00:03:08
this account has two so if I click this
00:03:10
button it now shows that some of the
00:03:12
pages are not tagged and there are
00:03:14
additional domains detected in the
00:03:16
configuration you can then check which
00:03:18
those pages are what the domains are and
00:03:21
get your domains configured properly you
00:03:23
can get that done right within the tag
00:03:25
quality section no need to go searching
00:03:27
for what's wrong guess and check all
00:03:29
that good stuff it's all right here and
00:03:31
to me that's a great Improvement if
00:03:33
you're trying to make sure that all of
00:03:34
your tagging is up to Snuff now
00:03:36
Additionally the third update that I
00:03:38
like in here is that confidential
00:03:39
matching is a little bit easier with
00:03:41
your first party data now anytime you
00:03:43
upload an audience into Google ads any
00:03:46
of your customer lists will use
00:03:48
additional security measures to make
00:03:49
sure that that data is passed into
00:03:51
Google securely and safely but this
00:03:54
isn't anything you necessarily do it
00:03:56
just happens when you upload a customer
00:03:57
list not a huge day-to-day impact but
00:04:00
still will have an impact on your
00:04:01
account and that's it for the
00:04:02
measurement section there are a couple
00:04:03
other updates but we're not talking
00:04:05
about those now let's start to shift
00:04:06
into the search ads section there's a
00:04:09
couple of quick updates up here at the
00:04:11
top that mostly talk about how users
00:04:13
engage with ads that ads are now in the
00:04:15
AI overview you can use Google lens for
00:04:18
your different ads but personally those
00:04:20
don't make a huge impact on me on a
00:04:22
day-to-day basis the pieces that I want
00:04:24
to talk about are going to be these four
00:04:26
options down here at the bottom so the
00:04:28
first two are going to be around your
00:04:30
brand and how search and brand campaigns
00:04:33
can work together there are two
00:04:34
different ways that you can apply Brands
00:04:36
to your campaign can be brand inclusion
00:04:38
or brand exclusions to talk about those
00:04:41
let's go ahead and jump into an account
00:04:43
real quick I'm just in our paid media
00:04:45
Pros Google ads account and I've got a
00:04:47
search campaign pulled up so if I go to
00:04:49
the gear icon to get to campaign
00:04:51
settings I come down to additional
00:04:53
settings and I scroll all the way to the
00:04:55
bottom you can see that there's a brand
00:04:57
section down here this is where these
00:04:58
two things will apply so brand
00:05:01
inclusions by applying a brand list as
00:05:04
an inclusion it means that your ads will
00:05:06
match for the intended brand terms that
00:05:09
you're trying to go after this can be
00:05:10
applied to all search campaigns nothing
00:05:13
else is going to be adjusted in this but
00:05:16
if your brand has a similar name to
00:05:18
others or gets commonly misspelled
00:05:20
anything like that these brand inclusion
00:05:22
lists can help you focus on only your
00:05:25
brand or family of Brands rather than
00:05:27
getting more expansive here now can see
00:05:30
down below to use brand inclusions you
00:05:32
have to use a conversion or conversion
00:05:34
value based bidding strategy that means
00:05:37
that you need to use either maximize
00:05:38
conversions maximize conversion value or
00:05:42
their subsequent variance Target CPA or
00:05:45
Target row as you will not be able to
00:05:47
use brand inclusions for manual CPC
00:05:49
maximize clicks Target impression share
00:05:52
any of that stuff so just keep that in
00:05:53
mind now the last thing to know for
00:05:55
brand inclusions is that even though it
00:05:57
doesn't say it on this page app applying
00:06:00
brand inclusions to your search
00:06:02
campaigns will automatically opt you
00:06:04
into the broad match setting for your
00:06:06
campaigns as you can see here apply
00:06:09
brand inclusions to search campaigns
00:06:11
then this button down here below to turn
00:06:12
on brand inclusions you'll need your
00:06:14
campaign to have the broad match
00:06:16
campaign setting turned on in the
00:06:18
campaign setting section that's going to
00:06:20
be up here open this up and you have to
00:06:22
use broad match keywords for the entire
00:06:25
campaign again we have to switch to a
00:06:27
conversion or conversion value based
00:06:29
bidding strategy but if you followed
00:06:31
many of our videos you probably know
00:06:33
that we don't love this broad match
00:06:35
keyword section it means that you don't
00:06:38
get to have exact or phrase match
00:06:40
keywords in a campaign only broad so if
00:06:43
your brand campaign is doing well and
00:06:45
you want to use brand inclusion lists to
00:06:47
focus only on your brand and its
00:06:49
subsequent products or Services you will
00:06:51
have to opt into the broad match keyword
00:06:54
setting just keep that in mind this is a
00:06:56
cool update but it requires a little bit
00:06:59
of control to be given back to Google
00:07:01
ads with broad match keywords and the
00:07:04
second option down here below does not
00:07:05
have any of these restrictions and
00:07:07
that's going to be to use brand
00:07:09
exclusions this is where your ads won't
00:07:11
show for searches that mention the brand
00:07:14
or its related products and services
00:07:16
this is great if you want to keep your
00:07:17
non-brand campaigns strictly non-brand
00:07:20
and you don't want to keep applying your
00:07:21
brand names and products and services as
00:07:24
negative keywords to all of your search
00:07:26
campaigns you can easily just use a
00:07:27
brand exclusion and you'll be all set
00:07:29
speaking of keywords two more updates
00:07:32
for these search campaigns have to do
00:07:34
with misspellings is the thing that they
00:07:36
have in common first is going to be
00:07:38
around negative keywords up until just
00:07:41
this year negative keywords only used
00:07:43
the exact spelling that you used as the
00:07:45
negative keyword now they include
00:07:48
misspellings of terms this is going to
00:07:50
save a ton of negative keyword space
00:07:53
which can be really useful considering
00:07:55
that there's a limitation on how many
00:07:57
negative keywords you can use but as you
00:07:59
can see here there are 1.5 million
00:08:01
variations of the word YouTube that can
00:08:04
be misspelled so with adding just
00:08:06
YouTube to the negative keywords you'll
00:08:08
be able to exclude that as a misspelling
00:08:10
we do have another video that walks
00:08:12
through this update and shows some
00:08:14
specific examples you can check that out
00:08:15
at the top of the screen right now but
00:08:17
this is a really helpful update the
00:08:19
second adjustment to misspellings is
00:08:20
going to have to do with your search
00:08:22
query reports rather than reporting on
00:08:25
each search query and its misspelled
00:08:27
variants in separate line items now
00:08:29
Google is going to combine all of the
00:08:31
misspelled versions of your search
00:08:33
queries into one single line item which
00:08:35
is okay because now the negative
00:08:37
keywords you would apply for that single
00:08:39
line item spelled correctly will also
00:08:42
apply to the misspellings so you're not
00:08:43
missing out on any negative keywords or
00:08:45
anything but what this does is it's
00:08:47
going to give you data back in your
00:08:49
search terms report rather than having
00:08:51
more data in that other column due to
00:08:54
misspellings you're going to get more
00:08:55
data back up into the line items of the
00:08:57
search query report and on on average
00:08:59
Google says about 9% of Search terms
00:09:02
will be reallocated from that other line
00:09:04
item up into the regular Search terms
00:09:07
report now 9% might not seem huge but
00:09:09
just like in the accounts themselves
00:09:11
each account has some differing
00:09:13
percentage of Search terms that are
00:09:14
hidden anyway so odds are there are
00:09:16
going to be some accounts where they get
00:09:17
a couple of percentage points back but
00:09:19
my guess is there going to be some
00:09:20
accounts that just with these
00:09:21
misspellings are going to get anywhere
00:09:23
from 10 to maybe 20% of Search terms
00:09:25
back in the report just due to
00:09:27
misspellings overall these misspellings
00:09:29
are a great update because we're going
00:09:30
to get some data back in this last one
00:09:32
and we're not going to have to work as
00:09:34
hard and fill out as many negative
00:09:35
keywords for this update definitely a
00:09:37
couple of wins in my book let's keep
00:09:39
moving on down the list now we're going
00:09:41
to get into some of the performance Max
00:09:43
updates and there were quite a few that
00:09:46
came out this year so the first is that
00:09:48
we're going to have better insights into
00:09:50
the performance for performance Max
00:09:53
campaigns now we're not going to talk
00:09:54
about each of these because it's going
00:09:56
to be tough to go through them
00:09:57
individually but effective
00:09:59
whether it's looking at your impression
00:10:01
share understanding campaign
00:10:03
fluctuations seeing how your budget is
00:10:05
pacing understanding how your campaigns
00:10:08
are performing with different detailed
00:10:10
demographics or which assets are
00:10:12
performing you're going to be able to
00:10:14
see more information with updated
00:10:16
reporting in 2025 since launch
00:10:19
performance Max has been kind of a black
00:10:22
box we've gotten a ton more controls
00:10:25
we'll talk about some of those here in
00:10:26
just a minute but all of this additional
00:10:28
Insight is only going to help help you
00:10:29
make your performance Max campaigns that
00:10:31
much better because you'll have some
00:10:33
understanding of what's performing well
00:10:34
what's not performing as well and be
00:10:36
able to adjust now speaking of that
00:10:38
final URL expansion is one of the tools
00:10:41
that in my experience Google really
00:10:43
wants you to have enabled so that it can
00:10:45
use any page on your website as a
00:10:48
landing page for your performance Max
00:10:49
ads and by turning it off you really
00:10:52
kill any of the volume coming through
00:10:54
that's at least my experience but a lot
00:10:56
of advertisers are hesitant to give that
00:10:58
type of control to Google Now you can
00:11:00
set up an experiment to test whether
00:11:02
final URL expansion can work for you and
00:11:04
to see how it would actually work so
00:11:06
that you can convince your clients or
00:11:09
put them at ease that this is going to
00:11:10
be a decent option for them just to make
00:11:12
sure performance Max can work as well as
00:11:14
it should if we keep scrolling down here
00:11:16
we now also have more insight into brand
00:11:20
suitability we can use the content
00:11:21
suitability Center to limit which types
00:11:25
of content performance Max ads will run
00:11:27
on so if we're in a Google account
00:11:30
content suitability is going to be over
00:11:31
in tools and in this section here and
00:11:34
here we can select the inventory type
00:11:36
whether we want it to be expanded
00:11:37
standard or limited inventory and then
00:11:39
the other update if we scroll down a
00:11:41
little bit further we now have excluded
00:11:44
placements these are going to be account
00:11:46
level excluded placements that can work
00:11:48
for YouTube different website placements
00:11:51
around the Google Display Network as
00:11:52
well as different website URLs that will
00:11:55
work for search partners for the search
00:11:56
component of performance Max that's
00:11:58
going to be that last update here at the
00:12:00
bottom we'll be able to exclude
00:12:01
placements to make sure that our ads are
00:12:03
not showing on crap placements around
00:12:06
the search partner Network and that
00:12:07
we're getting the best performance we
00:12:08
possibly can out of the campaigns now
00:12:10
the next update I want to talk about is
00:12:12
a pretty short one the one that I like
00:12:14
the best is down here they're rolling
00:12:16
out new options to the AI asset Builder
00:12:19
within Google ads so that for the assets
00:12:22
they create for you you can now add
00:12:24
brand guidelines so this means your
00:12:27
fonts as well as custom colors to make
00:12:29
sure any new assets they create for you
00:12:32
are within your brand guidelines one of
00:12:34
the biggest push backs we get on any
00:12:36
sort of AI creative or any sort of
00:12:39
automated ad asset for us is that it
00:12:42
doesn't match the brand look and feel so
00:12:44
by having these additional controls we
00:12:46
can make sure that all of the ads for
00:12:48
performance Max campaigns adhere to
00:12:50
those guidelines and everybody's going
00:12:52
to be happy with the final product if we
00:12:54
keep moving down for demand gen there's
00:12:56
really just one update that I'm a big
00:12:58
fan of and that's pitting video assets
00:13:00
into specific areas based on the
00:13:03
creative that you're using in the image
00:13:05
here shows you about as well as anything
00:13:07
you can see that there are three videos
00:13:08
applied one is a vertical video it's got
00:13:12
the girl holding out the flower the
00:13:13
second one looks like a square and the
00:13:15
one down below looks like it's a
00:13:17
horizontal orientation in this little
00:13:19
drop down you can see that you can
00:13:21
choose to prioritize which locations
00:13:24
those videos will show in you can choose
00:13:26
from instream shorts or infeed based on
00:13:28
the dimensions of your video to make
00:13:30
sure that you're only showing the proper
00:13:33
dimension video in its respective
00:13:35
location again this is a great option to
00:13:37
make sure that you've got some brand
00:13:39
safety and controls and your ads don't
00:13:41
look really stupid across the demand gen
00:13:43
placements since there are lots of
00:13:45
different locations that your ads can
00:13:46
show up in now as I mentioned we're
00:13:48
going to skip retail and commerce
00:13:50
because we don't do a lot with that same
00:13:52
with apps and I'm sure that there are
00:13:54
some additional helpers there but for
00:13:56
the most part we're going to focus on
00:13:58
creative Solutions next now overall
00:14:01
there were a ton of updates when it
00:14:03
comes to different Creative Solutions
00:14:05
for the accounts the one that you see
00:14:06
the image of that's rotating through at
00:14:09
least the video means that when you're
00:14:10
creating new assets you can supply
00:14:13
reference images so that Google knows
00:14:16
what the type of look feel and Vibe is
00:14:18
of your brand so when it generates new
00:14:20
assets those AI images can look very
00:14:23
similar to your reference images while
00:14:25
still also leaning into the text that
00:14:27
you provided this is just another way
00:14:29
that we can start to use Google's AI to
00:14:32
generate new creative but also make sure
00:14:34
that it meets our brand guidelines and
00:14:36
looks the way that we need it to when
00:14:38
we're trying to create new ads now
00:14:40
additionally there's other options down
00:14:42
here below there's going to be new
00:14:44
editing capabilities you can make
00:14:46
adjustments to your videos that sort of
00:14:48
thing as you can see down here you can
00:14:50
use video enhancements and in this
00:14:52
example they show you a horizontal video
00:14:54
that's turned into vertical a will say
00:14:56
as Joe has pointed out many times
00:14:58
they've given given you a really good
00:15:00
example that's an easy video to
00:15:02
transition from this horizontal
00:15:04
landscape into vertical but if you have
00:15:06
a video that has really heavy focus on
00:15:09
one side of the frame or the other
00:15:11
probably not going to be as easily
00:15:12
cropped to fit into this vertical space
00:15:14
so this is definitely something to test
00:15:16
out for your videos but make sure that
00:15:18
you're always checking it because it
00:15:20
might not always enhance quote unquote
00:15:23
enhance your video the way that you want
00:15:24
it to which again is why those controls
00:15:27
for the demand gen campaign and the
00:15:29
placements of your video is really a key
00:15:32
option that we have that came out in
00:15:33
2024 now continuing with creative the
00:15:36
last thing that I really like here is
00:15:38
the option to bring in creatives from
00:15:40
other design platforms like canva type
00:15:42
face any of those additional platforms
00:15:44
if you create all of your different
00:15:46
Assets in something like canva and
00:15:48
that's what your design team uses you
00:15:50
can import those directly to Google ads
00:15:52
now no need to download upload all that
00:15:54
good stuff it's super helpful and it
00:15:57
also makes it a lot easier for you to
00:15:59
make really good creatives because I
00:16:01
can't speak for smartly pencil or typ
00:16:03
face but we use canva we love it and
00:16:05
they give you a lot of really great
00:16:07
ideas and templates that you can use to
00:16:08
make sure that your creative looks
00:16:10
excellent when you upload it to Google
00:16:11
ads we're coming to the end of the
00:16:13
article there is a display section but
00:16:15
we're not going to talk about it and
00:16:16
we're only going to talk about a few
00:16:17
quick things in the YouTube section so
00:16:20
down here one of the things that I like
00:16:21
the best is that we now we'll be able to
00:16:24
use branded QR codes for connected TV
00:16:27
Joe has talked a long time about how to
00:16:29
get people to take an actual action on
00:16:32
YouTube with connected TV QR codes are
00:16:35
one of the easiest ways when do you
00:16:36
watch TV without your phone right next
00:16:38
to you if you like something enough and
00:16:40
you're interested in it they pop up a QR
00:16:42
code all you got to do is open up your
00:16:44
camera app and you're immediately taken
00:16:46
to the right landing page now certainly
00:16:48
we can't expect these to have the same
00:16:50
type of Engagement that you would for
00:16:52
somebody on a laptop or a mobile device
00:16:55
watching YouTube directly on YouTube but
00:16:57
it at least gives you some way to have a
00:16:59
next step for a user to take other than
00:17:01
heading to Google and trying to
00:17:03
hopefully remember your brand name or
00:17:05
product whatever they saw in that ad
00:17:07
creative on their connected TV platform
00:17:09
and then the last option was called out
00:17:11
a few other places in here but I wanted
00:17:13
to talk about it mostly through the
00:17:15
YouTube section is that now you're going
00:17:16
to have a little more insight into where
00:17:18
your ads show around YouTube by having
00:17:21
additional reports on the type of
00:17:23
content your ads are running next to and
00:17:25
that includes shorts by being able to
00:17:27
see different ad placements cross
00:17:29
campaign types like I said this works
00:17:31
for YouTube but because other campaign
00:17:33
types like performance Max run on
00:17:35
YouTube You'll also be able to see this
00:17:37
information for performance Max
00:17:38
campaigns as well so again just another
00:17:40
way that we have more insight into where
00:17:43
our ads are showing and then we'll be
00:17:45
able to add additional placement
00:17:46
controls to make sure that we're not
00:17:48
showing on content that's not safe for
00:17:50
our brand 2024 was a huge year for
00:17:53
updates to Google ads and as you can
00:17:55
tell by the fact that I pretty much
00:17:57
skipped over at least three entire
00:17:59
sections here and then we only paid
00:18:01
attention to maybe 50% of each of the
00:18:04
sections that I did Cover there's a ton
00:18:07
that isn't recapped in this video again
00:18:10
link is in the description check it out
00:18:11
if you want to learn more about any of
00:18:13
these individual updates but overall I
00:18:15
think 2024 was a pretty good year I know
00:18:17
sometimes we've had match types go away
00:18:19
performance Max felt like a step back in
00:18:21
terms of control but as you can tell in
00:18:23
the updates that they made over the
00:18:25
course of this calendar year there have
00:18:27
been a lot of updates into how we can
00:18:29
control our performance Max campaigns
00:18:31
make sure any of the assets are brand
00:18:33
safe and gain insights into what's
00:18:36
performing and what's not so you can
00:18:37
make it better my guess about 2025 is
00:18:40
that sure there's going to be more
00:18:42
automation that comes out and gets
00:18:43
included in the Google ads platform but
00:18:45
I think there's also probably going to
00:18:47
be more controls that can help offset
00:18:49
some of that as well I think we're going
00:18:50
to continue to get more insights into
00:18:52
things and more brand safe controls to
00:18:54
make sure that whatever we're
00:18:55
advertising on the Google ads platform
00:18:58
is in line with what we want for our
00:18:59
companies if you have any additional
00:19:01
questions about any of these updates
00:19:02
from 2024 any thoughts about what's
00:19:05
going to happen in 2025 or just any
00:19:07
other questions about Google ads in
00:19:09
general leave us a note in the comments
00:19:10
below thanks for watching our video we
00:19:13
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00:19:14
give us a thumbs up below if you really
00:19:16
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00:19:20
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