Competing For The New Consumer Journey Google Marketing Live 2019 POV

Going into my second Google Marketing Live I had two equally important thoughts. One was how Google’s narrative would stand up to the evolving way we perceive their role in shaping user behaviour. Secondly I hoped there would be breakfast burritos.

The easiest way to describe the keynote is thusly: if you took a drink for every time “privacy” and “machine learning” was mentioned you’d have been rushed to Zuckerberg San Francisco General. I tried to keep a rolling count, but gave up the endeavor when we hit double digits for both phrases.

Private Eyes, They’re Watching You

So to tick the social responsibility box Google went very hard after privacy noting that all tools – from Google Analytics 360 to Ads Data Hub - are designed with privacy in mind. Not to downplay the importance of user privacy and the ethical collection of their data, but I couldn’t help but feel it didn’t get completely to the root of the issues we now face when so much of our attention is monopolized by a handful of companies. Privacy seems like table stakes with the value exchange of data for access more or less widely understood by the internet population. We don’t need Google to remind us that the free and open internet rests on this exchange, and tech companies will be increasingly (and rightly) legislated in this regard. Indeed last month, at F8, Facebook proclaimed that the “future is private.”

Apple was first out of the gate on privacy issues, with Facebook and Google playing catch up. However, the three companies have drastically different incentives. Too much of Google’s value is tied up in modeling human behavior for targeting purposes for it to be an authentic paragon of privacy. It may be a more effective laddering strategy to pivot on other issues. 

Digital spaces like Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are now for all intents and purposes our public square to organize and share ideas. However in an effort to compete with each other for our attention, they’ve created algorithms to mine and extract that attention. This has a lot of unintended consequences when the emotions and ideas that drive engagement and capture attention are not necessarily healthy to public discourse. In the machine’s eye, something like outrage keeps you on the platform longer, so it’s going to show you content that ramps up that potential outrage by increments. Research has shown that before his content was banned from YouTube, notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was recommended 15 billion times. As was mentioned later in the keynote, YouTube has 2 billion signed in users.

As Google moves more into feed-based ad formats with its GML announcements, the long-term viability rests on their ability to balance ad targeting with proper social responsibility. What is safer and healthier for society writ large is most certainly safer and healthier for brands. However this subject was unfortunately never broached. 

Embarking on Discovery

This is all the more relevant as the biggest product announcement was Discovery Ads. This new campaign type will combine inventory from the YouTube home feed, Gmail and the Google Discover Feed. If the last one isn’t instantly recognizable Google Discover is a feed of recommended content to users based on their interests that can be found within the Google App below the search bar. No Canadian stats, but the feature is touted to get 800 million monthly users globally.  

This pits YouTube and Discover squarely against Facebook’s ad offerings and time will tell how well Google competes. A no hold bars cage match between algorithms and content recommendations makes the need for a healthy discourse on how those algorithms mine human attention sorely needed.  The machines will indeed learn how to target better, but Google needs an articulated strategy for combating the more troubling aspects of algorithm driven feeds and recommendations. In the absence of such a plan this product may fall victim to the same ills that have plagued Facebook.

Shopping For A New Layout

Another large announcement also pits Google against another one of its tech rivals – Amazon. Google sited the increasingly visual nature of shopping search as the basis to announce an overhaul of its shopping experience. We haven’t seen a large scale re-engineering of the search engine results page in a while, so I search-nerded out about this one. Not only will the organic results more prominently feature product images and their reviews, consumers will also be able to purchase products directly from YouTube and Image search. 

Furthermore fulfilment will be either directly through Google in addition to linking to eRetailer websites and nearby locations. This opens up a lot of new tactics and inventory – chiefly google image search which has been strangely spared from monetization thus far. With Discovery campaigns aimed squarely at Facebook dollars, Google’s revamped shopping experience is its answer to Amazon’s domination of the lower funnel.

A lot of this new functionality will be centered on Google Shopping Actions so that’s a good place to get ready for the new changes. With the updated shopping experience the ceiling of opportunity on shopping formats like Showcase Ads and Local Inventory Ads are raised considerably. Showcase ads no longer being confined to just text search – now showing across image results – will make this format even more of a staple for performance retail. Expanded fulfillment types mean that Local ads can speak to a wider audience and convert more effectively.

Automatic Updates

Outside of the Discovery and Shopping changes there was a litany of other updates announced for Google Ads which mostly centered on increased automation within the platform. My favorite is a feature dubbed “Bumper Machine” that automatically cuts 6 second spots from longer ads. Nothing harkens the rise of the machines than their ability to automatically create content. This in no way supplants creatives as you need to have existing video assets to cut down. In addition only hands-on experience will tell if the ads of the Bumper Machine are, you know, any good. However this is a cute feature update and potential powerful tool to round out a video investment on YouTube. 

Now we’re going to get into the real weeds of this POV. Google is making a lot of updates to the way it handles conversion tracking and automated bidding in a way that I think strikes a decent balance between flexibility and performance. Namely, Google Ads will allow a lot more flexibility on the way it tracks conversions, which in turn will make automated bidding smarter as advertisers can account for nuance in their respective businesses. Individual conversions can now be set at the campaign level, instead of the account level, meaning one can now optimize to multiple relevant goals simultaneously. On top of that, Google is introducing what it’s calling “value rules” which will allow advertisers to weight values based on things like location, device and audience align closer to advertiser business goals.  

Last thing I want to dive into is the update to allow for App Deep Linking in Search, Display, and Shopping Ads. With this update, if the user has the advertiser’s app installed we can link mobile users to the relevant product page within that app instead of the mobile site. This removes a lot of friction from mobile checkout as the user’s information is likely already saved within the app. Google’s early testing confirms this. On average, deep linked ad experiences drove double the conversion rates of driving to the mobile site. This is an ingenious update, as it increases the value of another Google product – Universal App Campaigns – and plugs a hole in a lot of ecommerce campaigns – low mobile ecommerce conversion rate. Combined with the announcement that Firebase will be more directly integrated with Google Analytics 360 means that apps are even more central to a successful ecommerce strategy.

Wrapping It Up

Google Marketing Live had a lot of product announcements, one hour long Katy Perry set, and a large focus on user privacy. Google is taking its ad platform in interesting directions as it positions itself to continue to compete with Facebook and Amazon for attention and ad dollars. However I’m not convinced they are fully prepared to take responsibility of the impact of their platforms on society writ large. The thing that gives me hope about that is the thing I always enjoy most about GML – being able to talk to the people that make the products. I’ve always found them earnestly interested in how we use their products, and how they can make them better.

Plus they did indeed have breakfast burritos, so there’s that.