Google Marketing Next 2017: What have you missed?

You can be excused if you have missed the live stream of the Innovations Keynote at “Google Marketing Next” for 2017 in San Francisco given that it was close to midnight over here in Asia. Here are some of the new advertising features, initiatives, and integrations which Google announced:

Audience targeting:

1. In-market audience targeting for Search: This was previously only available on the Google Display Network. This feature allows advertisers to bid on individual searchers whose past activity and real-time behaviour indicate they are actively researching or comparing products or services.

2. YouTube and Gmail ads can now target segments based on “Consumer Patterns” and “Life Events” including graduating, moving and marriage, leveraging Google’s audience data and intent rich signals.

Measurement:

1. Store Sales Measurement: Later this year, Google will allow advertisers to import transaction data into Adwords to measure store sales and revenue at a device and campaign level across their Search and Shopping campaigns. This is particularly good news for retail advertisers, providing measurement on the affect digital marketing has on in-store purchases.

2. Unique reach: Unique reach is now available in AdWords and will be available in DoubleClick within the next few months. This data is based on Google ID information, so it doesn’t double-count users who are exposed to a brand’s ads across multiple devices.

3. Google Attribution: This product unifies existing attribution features in Adwords, Google Analytics and DoubleClick. With the data joint together, advertisers can leverage their conversion data and Google’s machine learning to move to a data driven attribution model, away from last click to improve media efficiency. (See also "Google uses AI to offer free cross-channel, multi-platform attribution tools on analytics".)

4. Surveys 360: By connecting Adwords to Surveys 360, advertisers can launch surveys targeting their Adwords Remarketing List to reach users who have clicked on their ads. This new connection allows advertisers to gather insights in just a few days and revise messaging to optimise performance on the flight. Unfortunately this is only available in the US and Canada for now.

Although not all the features are immediately available in APAC and many are still in beta, there are some new features which you can already start testing for your campaigns including In-market audience targeting for Search, ‘Life Events’ targeting on YouTube and Unique Reach reporting in Adwords.

In conclusion, it was great to see Google continues to align feature sets across its channels, tools, and platforms and beginning to open up machine learning, which Google utilises extensively behind the scenes, to marketers.

To those who are keen to recap the full event, here is the video link:

Saron Leung is head of business development & strategy at iProspect Hong Kong