How GOOGLE ADS Works in 2024

Summary

This video script discusses the evolution of Google Ads and the shift from traditional PPC strategies to Performance Max (pMax), a goal-based AI-driven advertising solution. It highlights the benefits of pMax, responsive search ads, and dynamic search ads, offering insights on optimizing campaigns for conversions and reaching potential customers across various ad inventories. The script also provides practical tips on budget allocation, audience targeting, and the importance of quality ad creatives, emphasizing the need to test new formats and refresh ad content for better performance.

Takeaways

• 🚀 Performance Max (PMax) is a goal-based AI-driven advertising solution that can access all of Google's ad inventory, including display, video, search, Gmail, and Maps, to find new potential customers at different stages of the funnel.
• 📈 PMax has shown great results, with some campaigns achieving a 1300% return on ad spend, by optimizing campaigns for conversions using AI across bidding, budget optimization, audience targeting, and creative attributions.
• 💡 PMax campaigns require sufficient budget and time to collect data for optimization, with a recommendation to avoid running campaigns below 3K spend per month for adequate data collection.
• 🔍 It's important not to give PMax too narrow of an audience signal, as broader targeting can lead to better performance, with the option to refine the audience if irrelevant impressions or low-quality conversions occur.
• ⚠️ Ensure proper conversion tracking is set up for PMax to optimize effectively, including deep conversion tracking and offline conversion tracking to provide comprehensive data on customer conversions.
• 🎥 High-quality video assets are crucial for PMax campaigns, as auto-generated videos rarely outperform professionally created content that aligns with the marketer's understanding of their audience.
• 🛍️ PMax allows setting rules for customer acquisition focus, such as targeting only new customers or a mix of new and existing customers, which can affect campaign performance and cost.
• 📝 Responsive search ads use multiple headlines and descriptions to dynamically test combinations that resonate best with searchers, aiming to increase click-through rates by 10-15% compared to standard text ads.
• 📑 Dynamic search ads leverage website content to target keywords that may not have been included in campaigns, using images and text from the site to generate ads, which can be beneficial for large e-commerce sites with extensive inventory.
• 📉 A potential risk with dynamic search ads is the use of poorly structured website content, which can lead to ineffective ads if the site's headlines and copy are not compelling.
• 🔄 The script emphasizes the importance of testing new ad formats, considering wide audience targeting for PMax, and consolidating funnel campaigns into a single PMax campaign to provide AI with sufficient data to optimize effectively.

Q & A

What significant changes have occurred in Google Ads recently that affect PPC strategies?

Google Ads has undergone significant changes, making many old PPC strategies less effective. The introduction of Performance Max (pMax) and other AI-driven advertising types have shifted the focus towards more automated and goal-based approaches.

What is Performance Max (pMax) and how does it differ from traditional Google Ads campaigns?

Performance Max (pMax) is a goal-based AI-driven advertising type that provides access to all of Google's ad inventory across display, video, search, Gmail, and Maps. It differs from traditional campaigns by using AI for bidding, budget optimization, audience targeting, and more, aiming to find new potential customers at different stages of the funnel.

What are some of the key advantages of using Performance Max for a marketing campaign?

Performance Max offers the advantage of targeting visitors at different stages of the funnel with a single campaign, optimizing for conversions, and adapting the right message to the right person at the right time. It allows marketers to focus their budget in one campaign rather than spreading it across multiple campaigns.

What are some caveats or considerations when running Performance Max campaigns?

Some considerations include giving the campaign enough budget and time to collect data for optimization, avoiding overly specific audience signals initially, ensuring proper conversion tracking is set up, and providing high-quality ad creatives, especially videos, as auto-generated videos may not perform as well as professionally created ones.

How can businesses ensure they are getting the most out of Performance Max campaigns?

Businesses should start by testing and moving ads from old formats to new ones, considering wide audience targeting for pMax campaigns, consolidating different funnel campaigns into one pMax campaign, and not forgetting the basics of advertising such as refreshing ad copy and creative regularly.

What is the recommended approach for setting up audience targeting in Performance Max campaigns?

It is recommended to start with a fairly broad audience and allow Performance Max to choose from it. Overly specific audience signals can limit the AI's ability to optimize effectively. Refining the audience can be done later if irrelevant impressions or low-quality conversions are observed.

Why is conversion tracking crucial for Performance Max campaigns?

Conversion tracking is crucial because Performance Max is optimizing for conversions. Without proper tracking, the AI may optimize for conversions that do not have business value, leading to wasted ad spend and ineffective campaigns.

What are responsive search ads and how do they work?

Responsive search ads are a type of ad where Google is given multiple headlines and descriptions. Google then shows searchers different combinations of these to determine which perform best. The goal is to show the right combination to potential customers at the right time.

How can businesses benefit from using responsive search ads?

Businesses can benefit from responsive search ads by allowing Google to test different combinations of headlines and descriptions, potentially increasing click-through rates and conversions. It also provides valuable customer feedback and insights into which messages resonate most with customers.

What are dynamic search ads and how do they differ from responsive search ads?

Dynamic search ads analyze a website's content and inventory to target keywords that may not have been included in the campaign. They differ from responsive search ads by using the website's images and text copy to generate ads based on the pages' content, making them ideal for large websites with many products or categories.

What are some potential drawbacks of using dynamic search ads for a business?

Potential drawbacks include the risk of poor ad quality if the website is not well-structured or if the headlines and copy are not compelling. Dynamic search ads will use the existing website content, which could lead to low click-through rates and ineffective ads if the content is not optimized for advertising.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Maximizing Google Ads with Performance Max

The first paragraph discusses the evolution of Google Ads and the shift from traditional PPC strategies to the use of Performance Max (PMax), an AI-driven advertising solution. PMax allows advertisers to access a wide range of Google's ad inventory, aiming to identify and target potential customers at various stages of the funnel. The speaker emphasizes the importance of providing PMax with sufficient budget and time to gather data for optimization. Additionally, the paragraph highlights the need for broad audience targeting to allow PMax to effectively choose the best audience. It also stresses the importance of proper conversion tracking and the use of high-quality ad creatives for optimal results. Lastly, it touches on the ability to set rules for customer acquisition focus, whether it's new customers only or a mix of new and existing ones.

05:00

🔍 Responsive Search Ads and Dynamic Search Ads Insights

The second paragraph delves into the specifics of Responsive Search Ads and Dynamic Search Ads. Responsive Search Ads enable Google to test various combinations of up to 15 headlines and descriptions to find the most effective mix for different searchers. The speaker advises on the importance of having distinct headlines to allow Google to conduct meaningful split tests and discusses the potential insights that can be gained from the performance data. Pinning headlines or descriptions is also covered, with a recommendation against it unless necessary for legal reasons. Dynamic Search Ads are then introduced as a tool for targeting keywords based on website content, which can be particularly useful for large e-commerce sites. The paragraph concludes with a caution about the potential downsides of using Dynamic Search Ads if the website's content is not up to par.

10:03

🛠️ Strategies for Leveraging Google Ad Technologies

The final paragraph offers strategic advice on how to utilize the new Google Ad technologies for improved performance. It suggests testing the transition from older ad formats to new ones, such as moving from Smart Shopping or Expanded Text Ads to Performance Max. The speaker also recommends using wide audience targeting for Performance Max campaigns and consolidating different funnel campaigns into a single Performance Max campaign to provide Google's AI with ample data. The paragraph reminds viewers of the enduring importance of advertising basics, such as refreshing ad copy and creatives and focusing on the quality of the offer, website, and product, rather than just tweaking targeting strategies within Google Ads.

Keywords

💡PPC

PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. In the context of the video, PPC refers to the traditional methods of managing Google ads campaigns that are now being replaced by newer strategies and technologies like Performance Max.

💡Performance Max (pmax)

Performance Max, or pmax, is an AI-driven advertising solution in Google Ads that automates campaign management across various Google ad networks. It is designed to help marketers find new potential customers and optimize for conversions. The video discusses how pmax can deliver significant returns on ad spend but requires sufficient budget and time to optimize effectively.

💡Responsive Search Ads

Responsive Search Ads are a type of ad format in Google Ads that allows the system to test different combinations of up to 15 headlines and multiple descriptions to determine which performs best. The video mentions that these ads can provide insights into customer preferences and potentially increase click-through rates.

💡Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic Search Ads automatically generate ads based on the content of a website, using the site's images and text to target relevant search queries. The video script explains that these ads are particularly useful for large websites with many pages or products, as they can save time in creating individual ads.

💡AI Optimization

AI Optimization refers to the use of artificial intelligence to improve the performance of ad campaigns by analyzing data and making decisions about bidding, budget allocation, audience targeting, and more. The video emphasizes the importance of AI in Performance Max campaigns for optimizing conversions.

💡Conversion Tracking

Conversion Tracking is the process of monitoring and measuring the actions visitors take on a website after clicking an ad. In the video, it is stressed that having accurate conversion tracking set up is crucial for Performance Max campaigns to ensure that the AI is optimizing for valuable conversions.

💡Audience Signal

An Audience Signal is a hint or guideline given to an automated advertising system about the type of audience to target. The video suggests that while it might be tempting to be very specific, broader audience signals often allow Performance Max to perform better by exploring a wider range of potential customers.

💡Ad Creative

Ad Creative refers to the visual and textual content of an advertisement, including headlines, descriptions, images, and videos. The video script highlights the importance of high-quality ad creatives, especially videos, as they can significantly impact the performance of Performance Max campaigns.

💡Customer Acquisition Cost

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost of acquiring a new customer, including advertising and marketing expenses. The video discusses how focusing solely on new customer acquisition can increase CAC, as it may involve targeting more competitive or less familiar audiences.

💡Remarketing

Remarketing is a strategy where ads are shown to people who have previously visited a website or interacted with a brand. The video mentions that while remarketing can lead to cheaper conversions, it might be less focused on acquiring new customers compared to Performance Max campaigns.

💡Branded Search

Branded Search refers to search queries that include a company's name or brand. The video script points out that targeting branded searches can lead to cheaper conversions but may not be as effective in acquiring new customers as Performance Max campaigns that focus on broader audience targeting.

Highlights

The recent changes in Google Ads have rendered many traditional PPC strategies less effective.

Performance Max (pMax) is a goal-based AI-driven advertising solution that can access all of Google's ad inventory.

pMax optimizes campaigns for conversions across display, video, search, Gmail, and Maps.

AI in pMax is utilized for bidding, budget optimization, audience targeting, and creative attributions.

Performance Max campaigns require sufficient budget and time to collect data for optimization.

Broad audience targeting is recommended for pMax to allow AI to select the best options.

Conversion tracking is crucial for pMax to optimize effectively.

High-quality ad creatives, especially videos, are important for better pMax performance.

pMax allows setting rules for customer acquisition focus, such as new customers only.

Responsive search ads use multiple headlines and descriptions to find the best performing combinations.

Headlines in responsive search ads should be distinct to allow Google to effectively split test them.

Pinning headlines or descriptions can be useful for legal disclaimers but is generally not recommended.

Dynamic search ads use website content to target keywords and show in search results.

Dynamic search ads are beneficial for large websites with numerous products or categories.

Poor website structure or copy can negatively impact the performance of dynamic search ads.

Testing new ad formats and consolidating campaigns can improve performance in Google Ads.

Wide audience targeting is suggested for pMax campaigns to avoid irrelevant conversions.

Refreshing ad copy and creative is essential even with AI-driven ad technologies.

The quality of the offer, website, and product is more critical than minor targeting adjustments in ad strategies.

Transcripts

Google ads has changed a lot recently

meaning that a lot of the old PPC

strategies that marketers are clinging

onto from the olden days aren't so

useful today and trust me I've been

running Google ads since 2008. so I know

what the olden days look like so here

are some of the biggest changes and how

your business can get the most out of

Google ads in the next 12 months the

current state of Google ads all right

let's talk about performance Max or pmax

as we fondly call it feelings in the

marketing Community are divided but at

exposure ninja we've seen some great

results with it with a couple of caveats

that I'll come back to in a minute we've

had ad campaigns get almost 1300 return

on ad spend using performance Max yes

1300 Ross

responsive search ads and dynamic search

ads can also be great tools so we're

going to talk about them in a bit as

well all right so you probably know

performance Max but if you don't it's a

goal-based AI driven advertising type

that you can use in Google ads to

basically get access to all of Google's

ad inventory across things like display

video search Gmail and even Maps but the

goal for us marketers of pmax is that we

can find new potential customers across

all of these different ad inventories at

different stages of the funnel and

Google's AI can optimize our campaigns

to basically get more of the conversions

that we want now pmax uses AI across

bidding budget optimization audience

targeting creative attributions and more

depending on your ad objective which is

usually conversions and it uses your

creative assets like copy imagery

audience signals and other data feeds to

put your ads in front of potential

customers us hopefully at the right time

and the dream is that someone who's at

the bottom of the funnel who's ready to

convert is going to see the appropriate

ad to drive that conversion and what's

great about pmax is that the same

campaigns can Target visitors at the

middle and the bottom of the funnel so

you've got the same campaign building

awareness and driving sales adapting the

right message to the right person of

course for you as a marketer this means

that you can focus your budget in one

campaign rather than trying to spread it

thinly across different campaigns

targeting different stages of the funnel

now a couple of caveats here firstly

performance Max campaigns like any

automated campaign takes a while to find

its fee it's looking at the data that's

coming from the performance of these

different ads so you need to give it

enough budget and enough time for it to

collect enough data to be able to

optimize at exposure ninja we don't

typically run that many ad campaigns

below say 3K spend per month most of

them much higher than this and it's

important that you are putting enough

budget into your campaigns to give

performance Max the day data it needs to

be able to optimize if you're just

giving performance Max relatively small

budget and a very small time window it's

just not going to have enough insight to

work out what the best combinations of

ads audience targeting and placement are

going to be to get you the results that

you need we'd also suggest not giving

performance Max too much of an audience

signal this is where you give the tool

some indication of the audience that you

want to start off with targeting now it

can feel intuitive to try and give a

very specific audience signal but

actually we found that performance tends

to be better when we're fairly broad

with the audience that we allow

performance Max to choose from of course

if you're seeing loads of irrelevant

Impressions or low quality conversions

then you might want to go and refine

that audience a little bit more a couple

more caveats firstly because performance

Max is optimizing for conversions it's

really important that you've got

conversion tracking set up properly

worst thing possible will be having all

of performance Max optimizing for

conversions that actually don't have any

business value to you whatsoever that's

not really any so make sure you've got

conversion tracking set up and if

possible really deep conversion tracking

including things like offline conversion

tracking so that you're giving it as

much data possible about the types of

visitors that are turning into good

customers for you it's also key that

your feeding performance Max some good

quality ad created particularly video

yes the headlines say that pmax can

create its own video but although it can

do this automatically created videos

rarely outperform really good quality

videos put together by a professional

marketer who really understands their

stuff so if you can then feed

performance Max with really good quality

video assets and you'll tend to get

better results the final thing we're

going to cover on performance Max is

that you can set rules for the customer

acquisition that you want performance

Max to focus on I you can say I just

want you to focus on getting me new

customers don't worry about people

who've purchased before now whilst that

sounds like the best option one thing to

consider is that that campaign is like

likely to appear to perform worse

because obviously there are a lot of

cheap conversions to be had by targeting

branded search or running remarketing

ads if you're just going after new

customers then your customer acquisition

cost is going to look a bit higher on

the flip side if you ask performance Max

to bring you new customers and existing

customers or repeat customers you have

to be aware that it may Target branded

search so people that potentially could

have clicked on a branded campaign that

you've already got or even just gone

through to your site organically and

it's also going to be running

remarketing ads for people who've

already been on your site maybe even

have been through your checkout process

so whilst the performance of a new and

existing customer acquisition

performance Max campaign is going to

look higher you've got to be aware that

some of that is going to be you're

paying a lot more for new customers and

you're paying a lot less for existing

customers and in that type of campaign

you're getting a mix of both types and

by the way if you're struggling with

Google ads or you're thinking maybe I

could get a bit more out of my campaigns

then request a free website and

marketing review from the teammate

exposure ninja just go to

exposureninja.com forward slash review

once you've had your free website and

marketing review we can also do you a

special bespoke pay-per-click review

where we analyze your Google ad

campaigns and the performance across

your different channels just mention it

to the person that does your review for

you and will be happy to get this

arranged okay next up we have responsive

search ads these are ads where you feed

Google multiple headlines up to 15 and

multiple descriptions and it then shows

Searchers different combinations of

these headlines and descriptions working

out which are the best performing over

time the goal is that potential

customers see the right combination for

them at the right time okay so what are

the details here well usually Google

will show three headlines and a couple

of descriptions to searches it really

depends on the screen size that they're

using if someone's using a very large

screen for example a desktop and the

search results aren't that competitive

then of course they'll see the three

headlines whereas if they're searching

on a mobile and it's a very congested

search results page they might see two

or even potentially only one headline

and a couple of lines of description now

one consideration here is that your

headlines need to be sufficiently

different you may be tempted to think oh

this would be a great opportunity to

split test the difference between say 50

now and save 50 today this isn't the

place to do that Google wants

sufficiently different headline options

to show Searchers so what's actually

more useful is using very different USPS

or features or benefits of your products

and allowing Google to split test the

results when showing these this can also

give you some really interesting

customer feedback for example let's say

that you're a b Corp and you offer vegan

products and you offer next day delivery

well you might be assuming that your B

Corp status is the thing that everybody

wants whereas actually when you look at

the responsive search ad data that

Google gives you you notice actually

it's the vegan and next day delivery

messages that resonate most with your

customers and get the best click-through

rate and conversion rate that might

influence your future marketing another

consideration here is that you can also

pin headlines or descriptions basically

telling Google that you always want that

headline or that description to show and

you can even pin these headlines in

different positions in your ads

generally we recommend against this

because whilst it can be tempting to

think ah that headline's definitely a

winner actually we tend to get the best

results when we let Google choose

between the different headlines of

course the caveat here is that if you

have some sort of regular tree

requirement to include a legal

disclaimer or some sort of legal notice

then you would definitely going to want

to pin those in your ads so they're

always shown but if you've been used to

running standard text ads then running

responsive search ads is a great test

because we tend to find they perform

better Google's own stats I think show a

10 to 15 increase in click-through rate

with responsive search ads versus

regular old Google ads next up Dynamic

search ads these ads look at your

website and inventory to Target keywords

that you may not have thought to include

in your campaigns this can be great for

large websites for example e-commerce

sites that may not have the time and

energy to go through creating search ads

for every single one of their products

or categories Dynamic search ads use

images and text copy from your pages to

show in the search results now with

Dynamic search ads you tell Google which

Pages you want the ads to run against

you can say you want all of the pages on

your website although if you do that you

do want to take out things like your

privacy policy your terms and conditions

probably about us and contact us Pages

or you can tell Google that you want to

run Dynamic ads to specific pages on

your site or you can say we want to run

Dynamic ads to specific categories of

pages on the site Google will then

generate the ads based on the copy and

the headlines on those pages now now

this comes the risk if your website is

poorly structured or is difficult to

find certain pages or if you're how do I

say this if your headlines and copies

suck then definitely don't use Dynamic

search ads because it's going to use

those terrible headlines and that awful

copy in the ads although if you're

running ads to terrible headlines and

copy you actually probably don't want

people clicking on those ads so a bad

click-through rate might be a good thing

because it will reduce your ad spend

anyway you shouldn't really be running

ads if you've got terrible headlines and

copy okay so there you have it three

Google ad Technologies to take your

performance to the next level in the

next year what do you do with this stuff

now the first thing is to test moving

ads from old formats to these new

formats if you've been running smart

shopping or expanded text ads these new

formats should see you get a performance

lift don't forget to consider using wide

audience targeting for your performance

Max campaigns so long as you're not

getting some rubbish conversions and

also consider consolidating top of

funnel middle of funnel and bottom of

funnel campaigns into the same

performance Max campaign so you're

giving Google's AI enough data to work

with and even though these fancy

Technologies use AI to test different

options don't forget the basics of

advertising still apply every so often

you're going to need to refresh your ad

copy and your creative if you see a drop

in conversions and don't forget that

your ad performance is much more down to

the offer that you have the quality of

your website and your product than it is

fiddling with little bits of targeting

inside Google ad strategies the best

offer will win and advertising is just

there to give the most coverage possible

to your fantastic offer hope you found

this video useful like And subscribe

drop us a comment see you next week