Google Ads Updates

Q3 Roundup

July - September 2023

My YouTube vid, rounding up all the key Google Ads updates from Q3...

Demand Gen Campaigns

August 2023

On the way - and open for BETA applications at time of writing - Google's latest campiagn type. Taking over from Discovery campaigns, to which Demand Gen ads a few bells and whistles...

Brand Term Restrictions

June 2023

A little misleadingly named... This new setting - available for use with broad match keywords - seeks to keep your search terms limited to those 'relevant to your brand' - i.e. the brand or brands you select in the accompanying list.

Makes Broad Match a little safer if you're using it with brand terms.

Attribution Model Cull

April 2023

Google will be removing all of the 'rule based' attribution models apart from 'Last Click' from Google Ads and GA4 'Starting in June 2023'.

Last Click and the (now default) Data-Driven Attribution models remain.

PMax improvements

February 2023

Announced in Feb - still mostly yet to be seen at time of writing - a raft of new feautureds for PMax that should genuinely improve our optimisation levers. 

Highlights: brand exclusions; page feeds and asset-group-level reporting

Similar Audiences on the way out

November 2022 

From May 2023, similar audiences will be no more... and (despite the framing of it in the official announcement linked below) there is no replacement. Another sacrifice made in the name of Privacy 🙄.

Automatically-created assets for RSAs

August 2022 

Announced back in May at Marketing Live, automatically-created assets are now available as an option under campaign settings (it's the equivalent of automated ad suggestions we had for ETAs, but should be a bit better...)

Universal Analytics to Sunset July 2023

March 2022 

Universal Analytics, the version of GA that almost all of use know and use… will no longer operate after July 2023. Time to get serious about GA4.

Ad Extensions on multiple levels to show together

February 2022 

While previously extensions applied at the most granular level (ad group / campaign) overrode any applied at a higher level (campaign/account)... from mid March 2022, they will all be eligible to show together

Image Extensions Coming to Desktop

December 2021 

This is well worth noting, as image extensions have generally moved the CTR needle when in use on mobile, and may have even more of the surprise factor when appearing on desktop search results…

Zapier - Google Ads Integration

October 2021 

Zapier <-> Google Ads integration is now available directly from the GAds interface.

Major use-cases include lead form extension data export, offline conversion import and (perhaps most usefully) set up and management of Customer Match audiences 

Changes to Ad Extensions

October 2021 

A few scheduling options are being pulled from certain extension types but - the bigger news - extensions can now be paused and resumed... 

Expanded Text Ads to end

August 2021 

As of the end of June 2022, it will no longer be possible to create new Expanded Text Ads (leaving RSAs as the only option for standard search campaigns).

Existing ETAs will remain available for pausing and enabling, but it will not be possible to edit them or create new ones.

Enhanced Conversions

August 2021 

(actually it's been around for a little longer, but has just become more accessible).

Enhanced conversions is a new feature that promises to improve the accuracy of conversion measurement.

It pulls in user-specific information on the conversion page (e.g. the email that the user enters) - hashes it for privacy - and checks it against logged in Google accounts to attribute conversions more comprehensively.

The idea is that this should close measurement gaps due to browser restrictions and cross-device behavior… Crucially, it doesn’t rely on cookies, which is likely to become a bigger deal as time goes on.

Exact Match Now Takes Precedence

April 2021 

When a search exactly matches an exact match keyword, that keyword will now take precedence in generating the impression, regardless of any other eligible keywords you have - and regardless of their ad rank.

This tidies things up (previously exact match had no special advantage, it was a straight internal competition for ad rank).

Not much noise about this one... Go to 11:20 on the linked video to skip straight to the announcement.

Target CPA and Target ROAS on the way out

March 2021 

A piece of news that was picked up from a low-key post on the Google Ads Developers Blog: tCPA and tROAS are for the chop...

Reasurringly, the same functionality will become available as optional 'target' settings in Max Conversions and Max Conversion Value strategies. 

RSAs become the default ad type

February 2021 

Responsive Search Ads are now the default when you create a new ad. (Expanded text ads are still available). 

See lesson 4.4 for the pros and cons of each type of ad.

Lead forms openable by headline click

February 2021 

A new feature to allow a headline click to open a lead form within the search results.

Removal of BMM / updated Phrase Match

February 2021 

Broad Match Modifier is being retired, with existing BMM keywords converted to the new, more rapacious phrase match. My blog post on this.

Data exclusion tool

January 2021 

New control to remove chunks of conversion data from the input to smart bidding algorithms.

Smart Bidding performance simulators

November 2020 

New tool showing estimated changes in cost / clicks / conversions / revenue from a given change in CPA or ROAS target

Enhanced Auction Insights reports

November 2020 

Auction insights reports in the reporting section. Far superior to the default Auction Insights report, showing, e.g. competition changes over time.

Seasonality Adjustments

Old but important 

Controls allowing adjustments to the smart bidding algorithm's 'estimated conversion rates. See my blog post for why I think this is an underrated and important tool