Digital Marketing News: Google Marketing Live Recap

Every week we’re collecting a host of links, videos, and assorted analysis on the ever-changing world of digital marketing. We invite you to skim, share, analyze, argue, and refute – just so long as you don’t get embarrassed at the water cooler again. Here are the latest digital marketing news and trends for the week of July 13, 2018.

Google Marketing Live Pushes Automation

Google’s annual event for advertisers took place in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, and the search engine giant appears ready to further integrate automation and machine learning into its campaign offerings.  Here’s a brief rundown of a few of the initiatives introduced at the event’s keynote.

Responsive Search Ads: This new ad type provides an opportunity for advertisers to claim more real estate if they play by Google’s rules. Google asks advertisers to provide as many as 15 headlines and four, 90-character descriptions to their ad groups. Google’s algorithm will then automatically serve the combination most relevant to the user query. As many as three headlines and two descriptions will be displayed in Responsive search ads.

Local Campaigns: Google continues its focus on the store visits metric with Local campaigns – a new campaign type that seeks to drive in-store traffic from ads. Machine learning and automation enables ads to be served across all Google properties, including search, Maps, YouTube, and apps within its network.

YouTube Maximize Lift: YouTube continues to see increases in ad conversions, inspiring its latest product, Maximize Lift. This strategy optimizes YouTube campaigns to deliver ads to users most likely to evaluate a brand after watching a video.

Facebook Introduces Augmented Reality Ads

Following Snapchat’s lead, Facebook has introduced online ads that can be tried on, so to speak. Facebook has begun testing ads in their users’ News Feeds that allow users to use their phone’s camera to project an augmented reality. For example, a user may see an ad for earrings. Using their phone, the user can see how the earrings would look on their ears as seen through their camera.

These ads are not just for wearable products. They also can be used to see how furniture would fit within their homes. Facebook has reportedly tested ads with Michael Kors, Pottery Barn, Sephora, and more. Facebook officials did not specify if or when these ads could be introduced to Instagram, but experts expect their arrival soon.

Google Introduces Mobile Speed Score

Google is providing another tool for evaluating the speed of mobile pages. The Mobile Speed Score is based on a scale of one to ten and is integrated into Google Ads. It’s important to remember that these scores are not just loading time but also how page speed interacts with conversion rates.

Google has reminded us in the past that mobile page speed is not just a fun metric to observe and compare. A low score is a potential roadblock for consumers trying to visit your site. In fact, “more than half of visits are abandoned if a mobile page takes more than three seconds to load.” You can check your mobile page score on the “Landing pages” page in Google Ads.