The Google Marketing Live Keynote (2022)
Google remains the world’s largest (and smartest) search engine. In their 2022 Marketing Live Keynote, Google unveiled a whole host of new features and intelligence for search that will help businesses to reach and engage customers in more diverse ways than ever.
Anyone trying to grow a business or manage a PPC campaign will understand how quickly online search is changing, and with it, we are seeing customers display constantly evolving methods of finding information that both engages and informs. For this reason, Google are adding more varied ways for customers to search and find all the content that they’re looking for in a single solution. They’re creating opportunities for brands to create an instant impact with their advertising campaigns while making the whole process simple for users.
More Than A Simple Search
What’s new from Google for SEM’s and Search?
Google is focusing on creating new and exciting ways to experience search — and it’s all about visualisation. For businesses, this means being able to appear for more than just simple search keywords or phrases. It creates an ecosystem where rich visuals can provide everything your potential customer needs.
In the last two years, Google has reported an increase in daily video watch time by a huge 34%. Your potential customers are consuming their media differently and with this shift, advertisers must also adapt to grow businesses on new and visually rich channels.
Impacting your customer’s journey is no longer about simple keywords and search boxes, it’s about expansive visual results that provide value in any and every format, and it allows searchers to fully explore a topic of interest, by clicking through and zooming into and out of the details of a subject.
SEMs are able to craft rounded and visually rich campaigns that create meaningful and lasting relationships with customers, whilst using insights to optimise campaigns and capture those all important sales & conversions.
Advanced Technology & Search
Google’s core functionality is adaptable and intelligent. Search works with advances in AI technology such as natural language recognition and computer vision to create consuming and engaging experiences outside just text responses and basic ads. Experienced PPC managers are able to utilise these advances to create experience-driven campaigns that appeal to customers and create a lasting impact.
Answering Real Questions
Google Search matches real questions with deep and meaningful answers. Multi-search will allow you to combine taking a photo and asking a question to give accurate, data-driven results. Results solve queries and help searchers find the businesses/information they’re looking for without any additional barriers.
Play The Song That Goes…
Voice search is increasingly popular, and with smart home technology and voice assistance it’s become more common in our daily lives. With improved search functionality on Google, you can now hum forgotten tunes into the search app and pull up the results that you’re looking for. Try it! You might just be impressed.
Video on Discovery
Google are testing video ads in the Discovery feed to create a more engaging experience for users. This will generate natural connections between businesses and users by integrating fitting content into places where people are looking for inspiration.
The Future of Ads and Paid Search
What’s new for advertisers and businesses in the Google Ads platform?
Visual Advertising
With this shift to visual search, of course, advertising will quickly follow. Google are making it easier for brands to manage and distribute paid ads and visual assets into this diverse and visual search network.
With the arrival of the TicTok generation, Google are seeing YouTube Shorts, the short form video connected to the YouTube network, rack up 30 billion daily views. Short form video is growing more and more popular, so it’s no surprise that businesses want to take advantage of the visual boom. YouTube Shorts and Discovery will both be rolling out ads.
Accessible Assets
Google are helping advertisers to adapt to this new visual-first search environment by creating an asset library that is both functional and accessible. Teams will be able to upload branding and imagery and use them across multiple campaigns with ease. It will even be possible to create videos for upload to YouTube directly from the asset library.
Google Audiences
With all of the focus on video and the sharp increase in video consumption, potential customers are using connected TVs and video apps to consume their media. With this in mind, Google are creating opportunities for intelligent businesses to reach ad space on some of the most popular video apps on the market with Display and Video 360, thanks to Google Audiences.
Google Business Messaging
Businesses will be able to receive messages, questions and queries from potential customers directly from ads. This allows us to identify common pain points and remove additional barriers between conversions and sales.
Performance Max Campaigns
Google are further leaning into AI-driven advertising with the continued success and rollout of Performance Max campaigns. Google’s intention is to create more immersive advertising experiences and to merge Google properties and smart shopping campaigns into Performance Max to help create these experiences for customers. Advertisers that use Performance Max, on average, see 13% more total incremental conversions.
Performance Max is becoming more transparent and with this is offering new experimental tools to help campaign managers better understand and impact ad metrics. A/B testing will allow further optimisation of these AI-driven campaigns, and create more opportunity for learning and adapting to help businesses achieve the most with their ad spend.
Insights will provide data to inform optimisation and simplify reporting, and the support of the campaigns in Search Ads 360 and the Ads mobile app make accessing this key data even easier.
Search and Conversion Lift Tests
In a world that is taking digital privacy increasingly seriously, advertisers will need to adapt, and Google are creating ways to mould positive change in what we see from digital search advertising in a way that benefits users and creates tailored opportunities for businesses.
Advertisers will be able to run geo-experiments along with search lift tests and conversion lift tests to leverage performance data and create better campaigns that work for both the advertiser and the user.
Where to Go With Paid Search
It’s quite clear that the world of marketing is heading in a very visual and content-driven direction. Early adopters will see a big impact on campaigns and conversions as the market continues to evolve towards a visual and vibrant future. Experienced PPC managers will have even more tools at their disposal to be able to create well-rounded and impactful digital campaigns.
If you are a business owner and would like the help of experts during your PPC journey, then you can get in touch with our experts today. Equally, if you are a Digital Agency that would like to expand your PPC offerings, check out the information on our White Label Services. Alternatively, book in for a free PPC Account Audit.