10 Key Takeaways from Google Marketing Live 2024

Google Marketing Live is one of the key events which Google organises to announce about the upcoming developments across products such as Google Ads etc. and ongoing innovations at their core. This years event was no different than last year. The GML keynote was a fast and furious hour and a half. Here are the biggest announcements from the event.

• AI Powered Performance Max Campaigns: Most retailers advertising with Google are already using Performance Max and seeing great results. And beyond retail, advertisers who adopt Performance Max see an average increase of 27% more conversions or value at a similar CPA/ROAS. Google introduced new innovations that give advertisers more control over ads in Performance Max, and more transparency into where they appear and how they're performing. Google's latest creative tools also make it possible to exponentially scale ones assets and their variety, while staying true to ones brand.
• Advanced image generation technology in Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns: Google Ads would now have generative AI tools that are purpose-built for advertising. Advertisers data, together with Google’s data, are the core ingredients to help us generate high-quality, performant assets. These improved capabilities will start rolling out in the coming months.
• Create high-performing ads that meet your brand standards: Advertisers will be able to provide Google AI with your brand guidelines, including your brand colors and font, in order to serve more on-brand ads to customers across different formats and channels. We’ll also see options to upload example images as a reference point for generative AI to create new images that match your visual style. And if we already have assets we know perform well, create additional on-brand variants using the “Generate more like this” feature

• Automatic ad placements in AI overviews: Google is testing automatically placed Search, PMax, and Shopping ads in AI Overview boxes. The ads will show up in a block labeled “Sponsored” to separate them from the organic and AI-derived content. These ads will show up automatically when they match the intent of both the query and the AI Overview; advertisers don’t need to take any action to target those placements.

• AI-powered, personalized recommendations and advice: Google is using AI to speed along shoppers’ decision-making process for large or complicated purchases by offering personalized product recommendations. Google used the example of someone shopping for storage space. The user would search for “short-term storage” and click on a relevant ad. They would then enter a guided shopping experience where they could answer questions and provide a photo of what they wanted to store.
• AI-enhanced Shopping Ads: Shopping Ads got another layer of AI treatment with several upgrades to create a more immersive shopping experience.

Virtual try-on for apparel:- Google is expanding its virtual try-on (VTO) experience to apparel ads. Beginning with men’s and women’s tops, users will be able to see how individual styles look on different body types.

3D product images:- Using Adidas brand sneakers as an example, Google showed off new 360-degree shoe views that can be featured in ads. Google generates the 3D images using images provided by the seller.

In-ad, short-form product videos:- Advertisers can now incorporate short product videos—created by the brand or by influencers—into ads. The videos will be clickable and interactive, letting shoppers view related products and get styling suggestions.

• New visually immersive ad formats and features: Google shared that it’s expanding its demand-gen video ad campaigns by adding new options for advertisers. These features include: Clickable stickers created from existing image assets, ability for users to swipe left to a branded YouTube landing page, AI-generated animations based on static images. To create a more helpful?experience, over the next few months Shopping ads will start showing at the top of visual search results when consumers use Google Lens3 or Circle to Search4. This new ad experience in visual search results will allow you to showcase your products when they’re relevant to the photos and screenshots that people search with.

• Ads Data Manager platform: Google announced that its Ads Data Manager platform is coming out of beta testing and is now widely available. Ads Data Manager lets advertisers aggregate first-party data from sources like YouTube, Google Ads, HubSpot, and Shopify to make it more visible and actionable. The platform also acts as a “check engine light” to help make sure marketers are using data safely and responsibly.
• Visual brand profiles on search: Sellers can now create a brand profile for Search, including branded imagery, product deals, videos, and more. Brand profiles will also include reviews pulled from Product Listing Ads. It remains to be seen how much control advertisers have over which reviews are shown.
• New profit optimization goals in PMax: Advertisers will be able to optimize ads for profit goals in Performance Max campaigns. Google says advertisers using the new profit goals saw a 15% uplift in campaign profit compared to revenue-only goals.
• Make your apps more shoppable: Showcase your products on Discover inventory with App campaigns.Create more relevant, tailored ads for App campaigns. To make it easier for everyone to create tightly-themed ad groups with more relevant and tailored ads, we’re rolling out ad group feed filtering capabilities in the Google Ads UI over the next few weeks.

Although a lot of anticipation was lurking around announcements for B2B-specific products or features and no case studies this time.

What's Next

Well, Google is investing heavily in AI across the board. We get the feeling that not all users are quite as excited about AI as Google is, and regardless, there are bound to be some hiccups, as with any new technology. What are your thoughts on these upcoming developments. Do Share in the comments below.