Paid Media News & Opinion #118

New features for LinkedIn Ads’ Predictive Audiences targeting

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> What’s happening

LinkedIn Ads have rolled out the ability to utilise company lists and retargeting audiences to create Predictive Audiences, a relatively new audience targeting feature.

Predictive Audiences replaced Lookalike Audiences and are a powerful, AI-powered method of finding relevant audiences similar to those within your source data, based on their likelihood of taking action.

To create a Predictive Audience, you need a match of 300+ users and are limited to 100 Predictive Audiences per ad account. Audience expansion is not available while using them, and you also can’t share them across accounts.

LinkedIn claim that advertisers “using Predictive Audiences for lead gen objectives saw a 21% reduction in cost-per-lead”.

> Why we care

For B2B advertisers who have a solid target company list or retargeting audience with lots of great data, they can now use these audiences to reach more users in a relevant, powerful way. This opens the doors for scaling and driving more leads.

Because Predictive Audiences are modelled on user action, rather than their general demographics (such as location, seniority, or job function), the system should help reach the right users and in the right purchase decision stage.

Google Ads increases negative keyword limit for Performance Max campaigns

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> What’s happening

Google Ads is making a significant change to Performance Max (PMax) campaigns by increasing the negative keyword limit from 100 to 10,000 per campaign. This update brings PMax campaigns in line with Search campaigns, offering advertisers greater control over ad placements.

This update should be rolling out over the next few weeks for all PMax advertisers.

The increased limit allows for greater flexibility while ensuring the system remains effective. Google recommends advertisers use negative keywords strategically to avoid restricting conversions. This update initially does not include the ability to apply negative keyword lists to PMax campaigns, but Google has indicated this is on the road map for the near future.

> Why we care

Advertisers have long voiced frustration over the previous 100-keyword limit, which restricted their ability to prevent ads from appearing on irrelevant searches. With the new cap, they now have greater control over brand safety and targeting, while still maintaining campaign effectiveness.

This update represents a major step toward improving Performance Max campaigns, giving advertisers the tools they need to fine-tune their targeting strategies to drive better campaign performance.

Although support for negative keyword lists still remains a gap, Google plans to introduce this to Performance Max later this year.

Google expands its Search Max beta to more advertisers

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> What’s happening

​Google is expanding its AI-driven match type, Search Max, to more advertiser accounts. This feature broadens search term matching beyond existing keywords by analysing landing pages, headlines, and descriptions to identify new relevant searches.

It will also dynamically select the most relevant landing pages, pairing them with dynamically produced headlines and descriptions, in a bid to drive additional and tailored ad results.

> Why we care

While Search Max offers potential benefits in reaching new audiences with minimal manual effort, the risk is a further reduction of control for advertisers. In theory advertisers can already look further than their existing keywords by simply using broad match keywords; the power here comes more from the dynamic selection of landing pages, headlines and descriptions.

The question to be answered is how on-brand and reliable will this be, and what levers will advertisers retain that they can pull to ensure budget is spent efficiently?

Watch this space for now and we will follow up once we’ve had a chance to experiment with it first hand!

What else we've been talking about:

• Google upgrades Display & Video 360 for CTV advertisers

• Google Ads Editor 2.9 brings 8 new features for advertisers

• Meta wants its advertisers to connect to Google Analytics

• Google Shopping now shows ‘Price at Checkout’

• Google expands Message asset to Performance Max

• Microsoft adds “Why This Ad?” feature to Bing search results