Paid Media News & Opinion #104

Google Ads updates ad requirements to unify YouTube and Demand Gen

Source

> What’s happening

With Video Action Campaigns on Google Ads moving over to Demand Gen (announced earlier this year), Google have informed advertisers that Demand Gen (formerly Discover) ad requirements will now be consolidated under those for YouTube.

This will affect the ad requirements around policy and quality, such as prohibited items, improper content in ads, applicable to image, video and text assets within the ad. Demand Gen placements include YouTube’s home feed as well as Discover feed and Gmail.

Failure to adhere to the ad requirements will result in ad disapproval but numerous egregious offences may lead to account suspension. The changes take place from January 2025.

> Why we care

Advertisers should be aware of the policy update in case they are using assets that test the boundaries of allowed vs. disallowed assets, or if they are in a sensitive area such as health, finance, dating, and gambling.

It’s unlikely that this will be of any real concern but we recommend keeping an eye on your Demand Gen campaign ads in early January.

TikTok releases 5 updates to its ads manager video editor

> What’s happening

TikTok has released a few new updates to their video editor in ads manager to improve the editing experience:

• A new “narration” tab which merges the original “caption” and “scripts” tabs. In here you can remove existing captions; generate new captions based on the existing voiceover; add a new script and transform it into captions; add a voiceover

• 6 new languages added for caption generation and script & voiceover translation

• Precise alignment lines added into video preview for smoother editing

• Seasonal assets for stickers and music

• Local music upload is now possible directly from your local storage

> Why we care

The quality of your creative is crucial in paid ads, and perhaps even more so when it comes to TikTok. These new features give advertisers even more creative control to tweak and adjust their creative to make it as user-friendly and impactful as possible, which should increase the chances of achieving even better results from the channel.

Google Ads Creative Studio to sunset in early 2025

Source

> What’s happening

Google is phasing out Creative Studio in the first quarter of 2025, with plans to shift its focus to other growth areas and deepen their collaboration with creative partners instead. Those who use Ads Creative Studio for YouTube and Display ad customisations will need to transition their workflows to 3rd party creative partners or tools.

No new accounts can be created right now, and from January 17th 2025 no new projects will be able to be created. It will then be fully sunset as of the end of March 2025.

> Why we care

For those who utilise this tool, it’s important to plan and prioritise your alternatives immediately. There’s only 6 - 8 weeks until you will be unable to create new projects, so you’ll want to have researched and tested an alternative well before this date to make sure you don’t experience any interruption to your future creative and campaigns.

What else we've been talking about:

• Google Search CTR Data Reveals Shifting Industry Trends

• Meta Shares Threads Growth Stats to Counter Reports of Bluesky’s Growth

• Google’s Removing Elements From Hotel Search Results in EU to Comply With the DMA

• DOJ Says Google Controls 91% Of Ad Market; Google Says 10%

• LinkedIn Reveals Data-Backed Formula For B2B Ad Success