Google Makes Changes to its Ad Offerings, Launches New Ad Extension to Increase Advertising ROI

 

New York: After almost two decades, it is goodbye to the familiar Google Ad Exchanger, DBM (DoubleClick Bid Manager), DCM (DoubleClick Campaign Manager) and DFP (DoubleClick for Publishers) – for many advertisers, large and small! This week, Google announced that it is rebranding its advertising product portfolio to offer advertisers a more streamlined set of products. Also, it is launching Google Ads Click Identifier to offer advertisers a more expansive view of their prospective customers to maximize their advertising ROI.

What are the Changes?

Google is rebranding its products under three groups: Google Ads for SMBs (formerly known as Google AdWords), Google Marketing Platform for enterprises (combines DoubleClick Digital Marketing and Google Analytics) and Google Ad Manager for large publishers (combines Google’s monetization tools for publishers into one platform).

According to Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior VP Google, this consolidation is ‘the solution to assuage the consistent feedback from advertisers over the past few years about the confusing plethora of ad products and brands’. He added, “This is primarily a name change, but it is indicative of where we have been directing the product and where we want the product to go.” Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords) will serve as “the front door for advertisers to buy on all Google surfaces.”

Ashley Fletcher, VP of Marketing at AI search intelligence platform Adthena, who was also a Product Manager at Google for 5 years shared this response to the move: “This is a move to bring the Google ad stack under one universe. Sunsetting established brands like DoubleClick and AdWords takes time. The choice of name for AdWords is particularly interesting. It’s bringing search into the wider digital ‘ad’ universe. This is good for companies like ours as search sits in the center of everything Google is building products off from programmatic to YouTube, and beyond.”

Who will benefit from the changes?

Google Ads for Small and Medium Businesses is meant to help SMBs in two major ways: Smart Campaigns and Click Identifier.

Smart Campaigns involves creating real-time AI-powered ad campaigns for the users (SMBs) based on their business goals, like increasing store footfall, increased website visitors, more phone calls from customers etc. Smart campaigns fine-tune the ads and the content to ensure that owners meet their business goals faster and easier.

The newly introduced ad extension named Google Ads Click Identifier will enable B2B advertisersOpens a new window to get detailed access to contact information about the businesses that have clicked on their ad campaigns. This will contain lead information like business name, key employee contact details, email information and those that are viewed over last 12 months. For B2C advertisersOpens a new window , the extension will identify the exact keywords and ads that were clicked by visitors. Advertisers will now have a broader view of their prospective customers across search, display ads, YouTube videos, app ads in Google Play, location listings in Google Maps or anywhere else.

• Google Marketing Platform for Enterprises

This combination of Google ad products is focused to benefit enterprises by connecting Google Analytics 360 to its demand-side platformOpens a new window , campaign, creative and audience management tools. It enables users to combine ads and analytics to get a fuller and more comprehensive view of the customer journey across platforms and devices; and to create/ construct better ad campaigns with improved customer experiences.

According to Dan Taylor, MD Platforms for Google, “Google Marketing Platform is a set of tools that are meant to work together across paid and owned media –  a double-digit percentage of customers already connect Google’s buying and measurement tools.” Moreover, marketers can still use non-Google products within the marketing platform, as Ramaswamy confirmed, “The interoperability, whether it’s with other exchanges or other measurement providers, that will not change. You can take what you want.”

 

• Google Ad Manager for Large Publishers

This is a unification between the ad server (formerly known as DFP) and the ad exchangeOpens a new window (formerly known as AdX), wherein DFP will act as the user interface for publishers – and the Google Ad Exchange functionality will be moved within its ad server. According to Jonathan Bellack, Director Product Management for Google, this single platform will streamline publishers’ way of doing business. He further added that, “Publishers are bringing programmaticOpens a new window sales teams and programmatic yield teams together. We are bringing the technologies together, so one unified sales team can work with one unified ad manager tool.” Google Ad Manager brings the entire process of ad delivery, measurement and optimization across varied inventory types – be it display, connected Tv or mobile, under one single roof, providing better control over ad spend and ROI to large publishers.  

 

Why the Change?

As customers are exposed to multiple digital mediums and channels – they quickly switch from searching products to watching videos; from playing mobile games to browsing content. This provides marketers an opportunity to reach customers across many channels, formats, and screens (omnichannel). The process is appealing and complex at the same time. Google has been in the business of enabling marketers to connect with customers while shaping their journey across search, text, display, video and more.

As the number of platforms, channels and formats to engage with customers get more complex, it is only practical that Google is moving to streamline, consolidate and simplify its diverse (and often confusing) ad products and brands (that it assembled mostly through acquisitions) into simpler brands and solutions. The strategy here is to help advertisers and marketers of varying size and target market choose the apt solution to reach and connect with their respective customers.

The key objective behind the re-branding of Google Ad StackOpens a new window is to help advertisers optimize their online marketing efforts by simplifying the processes of creating relevant ad campaigns. This will not only reduce the guesswork in advertising but will also aid marketers to entirely redesign their ad strategy based on real-time data, customer insights, and their purchase journey.