Earlier this month, Google held their annual Marketing Innovations Keynote, where they unveiled their latest Ads, Analytics & Platform Innovations.

Here are some interesting things that you should look out for:

Highlights from Google’s 2018 Marketing Innovations Keynote

#1 – Endless Testing Opportunities with Responsive Search Ads
With Google’s official announcement, the ads (which were in Beta Testing till now) have been officially pushed to the new interface. These responsive ads will allow advertisers to have more real estate with 3 headlines & 2 description lines while saving them from the pain of creating multiple ad variants.

Advertisers have an option to set up as many as 15 headlines and 4 descriptions in a responsive search ad. The other fields remain the same as expanded text ads. So collectively, these headlines and descriptions can be arranged in 43,680 different permutations, which allows endless possibilities for ad testing!

#2 – Smart Conversion Tracking with Cross-Device Reporting & Remarketing
The biggest challenge in this technology-driven world was that analytics platforms were unable to identify the correlation when a user would browse through the website from different devices. The reason for this was that platforms were tracking devices and not users.
With Google’s Cross-Device Reporting, you can make use of the client-id parameter to identify users browsing from different devices & understand their behaviour on different devices.

This is an extremely cool feature! Isn’t it?

Also Read: 4 Essential Qualities You Need to Begin Your Career in Marketing

#3 – Growth with Smart Campaigns for Small Businesses
Simplification of its products is one of the main reasons for the rebranding of Google’s Ads. Hence they have implemented a new campaign type called smart campaigns which have been specially built for small & local businesses that may not have a website as well.

With Google’s Smart Campaigns, users can create campaigns in minutes which will be served across the entire range of Google properties (Just like universal app campaigns). The call to actions can be configured for getting phone calls, sending visitors to the website & bringing customers to the stores.

While this innovation might be the end of small digital agencies, it definitely opens up a new spectrum for small businesses.

#4 – Ease for eCommerce with Smart Google Shopping
We already know that Google Shopping Campaigns work great for eCommerce companies. But with the latest innovation from Google, shopping campaigns will now not just be restricted to search.

Smart Shopping campaigns allow advertisers to showcase their products across various inventories available with Google including Search, Display, YouTube & Gmail. To help businesses get the best value from each ad, Google has also provisioned ad placement and bidding automation to maximize conversions for a given budget.

This new campaign is a must try for e-commerce businesses.

#5 – Branding meets Performance – Youtube Trueview for Action
YouTube has always been considered as an awareness creation channel by advertisers and media planners and hence advertisements on YouTube are never expected to directly generate sales or inquiries. However, with the growing user base of YouTube, it was becoming more and more important to configure YouTube for conversions.

Using this video campaign subtype, advertisers can help customers explore their product or service, fill their contact details, and take other actions valuable to businesses.

The biggest advantage of this campaign type is that they are designed specifically to drive audiences into taking an action.
This makes it extremely appealing for ROI driven advertisers.

With all the interesting things lined up for 2018, Google is going all in to become the platform for 360° marketing. Hope these pointers help you sharpen your digital marketing activities. Do post your questions in the comments section below.

Ciao!