Google websites remain the leader in terms of traffic they receive in the UK. This means paid media agencies like us can redirect the traffic from these sources to our clients’ websites and deliver results for them. So, it makes sense to stay informed about the Google world. On this occasion we are exploring AI and how we use it in our day-to-day work.
In one of our past articles we noted how AI has been helping advertisers with creating ads in Responsive Search & Display campaigns and that more recently AI has also backed Performance Max campaigns.
An example of AI being used in Search ads could be when a user searches for ‘skin care for dry sensitive skin’, in this case AI can use the advertiser’s landing page content and existing text ads to create a new headline that matches more closely with the search query in order to increase potential engagement with the ad e.g. a headline such as ‘Soothe Your Dry, Sensitive Skin.’
Earlier this year, Google announced two new campaigns powered by AI technology, Demand Gen and Video View campaigns.
Demand Gen campaigns use the video and image assets across some of Google’s properties including YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Discover as well as Gmail. Google internal data from 2020 shows these platforms reached over 3 billion monthly users.
Google also introduced lookalike segments with variable reach (from ‘Narrow’ at 2.5% to ‘Broad’ at 10%) that assists strategy for targeting people similar to your campaigns’ audience lists.
Video View campaigns allow for the ads to be served to users across in-stream, in-feed and YouTube Shorts. Google internal data from earlier this year showed that Video View campaigns achieved about 40% more views compared to in-stream skippable campaigns.
Samsung Germany was amongst the first to test the Video View campaign and achieved increased views and reach across their paid media activation.
We continue to use new campaigns and features powered by AI in all our digital media advertising campaigns. However, given the nature of the technology involved and knowing that it becomes smarter as time goes by, we always implement these experiments with relatively small tests before introducing new features and campaigns at scale across our paid media accounts. This is to make sure there will be a balance between creativity and innovation and continuous generation of results for our clients through their paid media investment.