5 Google Ads Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2022
Google Ads
Google Ads is changing so fast it can be difficult to keep up. We’re seeing the advertising platform shift toward a far greater emphasis on machine learning and automation. It’s time for digital marketers to lean into these new Google Ads capabilities. Let the machines do what they do best (bidding, testing, and optimization around data points), so you can do what you do best (research, customer insights, creative, competitive analysis, and strategy).
However, while continued Google and YouTube dominance are all but inevitable in 2022, that’s not to say that there aren’t some critical trends that could potentially define an entire year of digital marketing
Performance Max Campaigns
Every Google Ads campaign you have ever run had the same targeting options that you, the marketer, defined. You could either choose a list of keywords you wanted to bid on or a set of placements (i.e., sites) you wanted your ads to appear on, and that was that.
Such a strategy doesn’t have any flaws for experienced advertisers, but that’s not the case for the inexperienced, such as small business owners. In recent years, Google has started to develop new features to allow for a fully automated advertising experience that takes care of almost everything from the advertisers.
New Local Campaigns Formats
Local campaigns have been the top promotional option local businesses use to bring more potential customers to visit their stores. Traditionally, local Google Ads campaigns were based on search queries such as “Joe’s Pizza,” “best pizza Los Angeles” or “best pizza 90017.”
In the last twelve months, Google has added three new methods to promote a business on Google Maps. The most popular navigation app for smartphone users.Auto-suggest ads show a store in the auto-suggest results when a user searches for a business near their location.Navigational ads show a business on Maps results based on the user’s location as they navigate close by, regardless of the destination.Similar places ads allow a business to show their business location to users searching on Maps for similar companies nearby.
Target ROAS Bidding for Video Action and Discovery Ads Campaigns
Google offers several different bidding strategies for different campaign formats. Target ROAS (also known as “tROAS”) was available for most campaign types, except Video Action and Discovery Ads campaigns. But that’s about to change, as Google has announced they will allow tROAS bidding for these campaign formats.
There are two requisites that your campaigns must meet to leverage tROAS bidding:
- You’ll need to set values for the conversions you’re tracking. (You could use the average ROAS from your existing Google Ads campaigns as a starting point).
- A Video Action campaign will need to have generated at least 15 conversions in the past 30 days. While a Discovery campaign will need at least 75 conversions in the past 30 days (10 of these conversions must have occurred in the past 7 days).
Product Feeds for Video Action Campaigns
If you use video ads to promote your e-commerce business, you will be happy to know that Google has recently added product feeds to Video Action campaigns.
Let’s say a user sees a video ad that promotes one of your products. After a few seconds, YouTube will show a panel below the ad that showcases your products. (note that this only happens when the user’s phone is in portrait mode). When users select a product, they will go to the product’s landing page for more information:
Conversion Modeling via Consent Mode
The publication of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has forced online businesses to adopt more robust data privacy policies, Google being no exception.
In September 2020, Google introduced Consent Mode. A method that adjusts how Google tags behave based on the consent status of a website’s visitors.Google states that this new feature recovers an average of more than 70% of ad-click-to-conversion journeys.The new feature is perfect for advertisers who operate in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom and who are required to implement Consent Mode.