The Latest in Google Ads: New Updates to Know About
Google Ads is always evolving. The downside to Google Ads' ever-changing nature is that it can often feel like it’s impossible for a business to become a true expert on the platform. But the benefit is that those constant changes mean Google Ads creates a level playing field for all advertisers across businesses of all sizes, even if Google Ads isn’t their expertise. It’s important to stay up to date on the latest updates to understand how they might help or hurt your business goals in the future, so Avenue has gathered the latest updates in Google Ads to keep you in the know.
Google rolls out optimization score for all manager accounts
According to Google, “Optimization score is an estimate of how well your Google Ads account is set to perform. Optimization score runs from 0% to 100%, with 100% meaning that your account can perform at its full potential.” The optimization score feature allows you to see how optimized your campaigns are based on its assessment of your keywords, use of sitelink extensions, ad copy, account structure, and more.
The optimization score feature has many perks. It allows Google Ads managers to ensure that all the best practices have been met, and it is always reassessing its score based on the performance of that campaign. On the other hand, be sure to pay close attention to the recommendations the optimization score makes before applying. Because it is operated by machine learning, the recommendations put forth by Google are not always in the best interest of your campaigns. For example, Google may offer up related keywords that it recommends rotating into your account. It’s on the manager to determine whether or not that keyword is relevant to the business.
New features for responsive search ads
Responsive search ads are highly recommended to adopt in your Google Ads campaigns as they afford you the possibility to reach more searchers with ads better tailored to their query. Google has added several new features to further customize the capabilities of RSAs.
Location insertion: Location insertion lets you tailor your responsive search ad text to your customers location or area of interest.The benefit of location insertion is the ability to automate location based messaging across your RSAs. For many businesses, location is a key selling point. Location insertion is highly efficient as now you can utilize a line of code rather than several thousands of rows to manage an ad customizer file.
Improved suggestions: When writing ad copy, it’s necessary to share the most important information with the limited characters available for search ads. The current responsive search ads upload interface gives suggestions about improving headlines and descriptions based on your keywords. Now there are new features that offer further recommendations for your ad copy based on online availability, products or services, and shipping and returns.
Cross-campaign asset reporting: this new reporting features allows you to review your ad’s assets at once and assess their effectiveness.
Stay up to date on this new Avenue series for all the latest news in Google Ads. Avenue will continue to share our expertise and provide context for these updates and what they mean for advertisers.
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