TPE #4: top 3 Google Ads news week 28

Welcome back to the PPC Edge!

It was another vibrant week in our little PPC world.

To serve you and my clients in the best way possible, I stay up to date with the most recent news and test all of Google Ads’ latest features.

In this newsletter, I’m sharing what I’ve learned, so you don’t have spend countless hours looking for the latest insights.

Here’s a roundup of this week’s most important news.

Let’s dig in!

Here’s the TLDR summary:

No time to read? Get headline-smart!

1. Google launches Ads Creative Studio
2. Google announces new features in Performance Max
3. Concerns grow about TikTok overtaking Google as #1 Search Engine

Let’s briefly dive into this week’s news roundup!

1: Google launches Ads Creative Studio

This is one of those announcements that I’m extremely excited about!

With everything that’s happening in the market (the disruption that is Performance Max), a huge emphasis is going to be on creatives.

However, many brands struggle to create strong creatives that can actually convert because it can cost a lot of money and time.

Google has listened and is now launching Ads Creative Studio: a tool to make the creative production process easier and more efficient.

An inside look at Ads Creative Studio:

• Get inspired by templates
• Quickly create image and video ads
• Personalize ads with various text overlays
• Optimize for different languages with auto-translated copy

I think this tool is going to be a gamechanger for smaller brands without a large content team and I can’t wait to start testing new creatives.

Watch the full announcement here on YouTube

2: Google announces new features in Performance Max

My feelings about this are double: on the one hand I’m happy that we’re getting new features in Performance Max.

On the other hand: it feels like Google has been holding these back intentionally, to give us the idea we’re getting more insights…

But I feel like these are basic insights that we should’ve had from the beginning.

Oh well… I guess we shouldn’t complain in this market, right? New insights and features are always welcome.

So what are we getting in PMax?

1. Optiscore

Yay, Optiscore! We all love to hate it, right? This is the feature I’m least excited about getting.

Sure, it’s helpful, but PMax is so basic already anyway that I feel like there’s not going to be a lot of VERY useful recommendations.

2. Advanced bid management controls

I don’t know if you can even call it bid management anymore, but that’s just how I still call it. The most important thing here is that we’re getting some advanced controls like:

• Advanced location targeting controls

Google has done a great job in glorifying something that is actually extremely basic:

You can now distinguish between people who are present or interested in your targeted locations. Well sure, it’s great, but we’ve already had this option in all of our other campaigns since… Forever -_-

• Seasonality bid adjustments & data exclusions

This is actually a big one. You can use seasonality adjustments whenever you expect a significant (at LEAST +30%) increase or decrease in conversion rate for a few days.

The algorithm will use this to proactively increase/decrease your bids for that period.

The benefits are twofold:

1. Push harder during peak moments
2. Reduce harder after those peak moments (to ensure you don’t overspend)

I have used seasonality bid adjustments heavily over the last 3 years for all of my clients (especially during peak moments around Black Friday, Father’s/Mother’s Day, Christmas etc.)

And then there are data exclusions, which tell the algorithm to ignore data from specific dates. This is especially helpful if you have issues with data quality for a specific range of time.

Be careful: if you overuse these two advanced controls your performance might actually suffer.

They’re a bit hidden. To find them go to Tools & Settings > Bid Strategies > Advanced Controls.

3: Concerns grow about TikTok overtaking Google as #1 Search Engine

"Younger users are often using social media apps like TikTok to search for information"

According to Senior VP Prabhakar Raghavan (who runs Google’s Knowledge & Information organization), younger users (especially Gen Z) are often using social media apps like TikTok and Instagram to search for information, instead of Google Search.

For anyone that’s not Gen Z, this might sound crazy. Who doesn’t use Google Search to look for information, right?

But just watch closely in your own family. Ask your 10 year old daughter or 12 year old nephew how they look for information.

My niece wanted to know how to cut a watermelon, so she typed in “how to cut a watermelon”… On TikTok!

After searching, you see 6 top videos (and hundreds more) on how to properly cut a watermelon.

Pretty easy right?! (anyone craving some watermelon right now?!)

Read the full article about this development on Tech Crunch

That’s it for today’s weekly roundup.

I’m sure we’ll have lots more to cover next week.

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