Google Marketing Live 2018: Democratising machine learning adtech

Advertisers and agencies will be able to access machine learning based marketing tools to personalise ads across search and YouTube while measuring brand lift and boost sales

Presented at Google Marketing Live 2018 by Sridhar Ramaswamy, SVP of Ads and Commerce at Google, the seven product updates concern the optimisation of search creative, real-time YouTube ad tweaking for specific goals, driving footfall, booking maximization, and cross-device reporting.

The updates also include a ten-point scale that will offer advertisers and agencies a page speed score for landing pages and a list of measurement partners around viewability, safety, and brand lift.

Responsive Search Ads

Machine learning will inform a campaign manager which headlines and description combinations have the highest likelihood to resonate with the targeted buyer or audience, eliminating the need for persistent A/B testing.

Maximise lift on YouTube

As the only Google product demanding high upfronts from advertisers and agencies, YouTube has been positioned as the destination for premium brand buys. While the platform's effectiveness has predominantly been measured through conversions and views through rates, Google has repositioned the world's largest video search engine to reflect the brand equity side of the marketer's role. This includes a measurement parameter for brand lift and determining salience. An update allows advertisers and agencies to bid strategy for KPIs that are not sales related.

Local campaigns for footfall

This feature will self-generate recommended creative elements for store owners and branch managers to drive footfall, with ads aimed at people in the vicinity that happen to be looking at Google Maps. The effectiveness will be measured in the dashboard of Google Smart Shopping campaigns, with tags allowing advertisers and agencies to track new visitors and new customers. The feature is currently in beta mode and will launch globally by the end of 2018.