Paid Media News & Opinion #120

Google adds full search terms insights to Performance Max

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> What’s happening

Long-overdue and being rolled out across accounts globally, Performance Max campaigns on Google Ads are finally getting a full search term report, allowing advertisers to analyse exact searches and metrics.

This replaces the original tool which groups search terms together and offers limited metrics against a limited date range, which remains the only option for some accounts pending the update.

> Why we care

This update is another big step forward with transparency for Performance Max, helping advertisers understand what’s driving impressions and clicks through to conversions.

This data is particularly helpful for those wanting to run a supporting pure search campaign by using Performance Max as ‘nursery’ for exact match keywords.

While search terms insights is helpful in the original format, it lacked a lot of the normal features found in report tables, making exporting data difficult and often obfuscating lower volume values. This update represents a big quality of life improvement for many.

TikTok’s latest eCommerce updates

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> What’s happening

TikTok has unveiled a series of new updates aimed at eCommerce providers within the app. One of the key updates is an expansion of its AI-powered Smart+ catalog ads, now incorporating both website and app promotions within a single campaign.

Smart+, which was first introduced last year, is an automated ad solution that leverages AI to optimize ad placements based on uploaded catalog data, ensuring that products are showcased to the right audience at the right time.

TikTok is also introducing the Traffic objective for Smart+ campaigns, enabling brands to leverage AI-powered automation to drive customer acquisition. TikTok is also expanding its search ads to the Shop tab, making it easier for businesses to reach users who are actively searching for products. The platform is also improving its Symphony AI-powered ad creation tools, offering an automated product-to-video tool that quickly transforms brand details into TikTok-ready content.

> Why we care

The expansion of Smart+ catalog ads provides advertisers with an improved ability to target customers more effectively by integrating website and app conversions into a single campaign. This means advertisers can streamline their marketing efforts while benefiting from AI-optimized ad placements that improve engagement and conversion rates.

These eCommerce focussed updates signal a continued push toward AI-driven advertising solutions, which could have a significant impact on brands looking to maximize their reach and efficiency.

As TikTok continues to refine and improve its eCommerce ecosystem, advertisers utilising these AI-driven tools and automation features will likely see greater efficiency and improved performance in their advertising campaigns. With in-stream shopping becoming an increasingly dominant revenue stream for the platform, advertisers who adapt to these changes early will be well-positioned to capitalize on TikTok’s growing influence in the digital commerce space.

LinkedIn Ads rolls out Media Planner and dynamic UTM tracking

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> What’s happening

LinkedIn Ads has rolled out some more updates to Campaign Manager, including:

• A Media Planner tool, so that advertisers can forecast the expected results from campaigns before launch

• The ability to easily duplicate ads across different campaigns and accounts

• Dynamic UTM tracking

• Some updated dashboard overview displays showing key KPI’s, additional measurement insights, and an AI-driven campaign performance summary

> Why we care

These features are widely available across most ad platforms, so it’s positive that LinkedIn is now rolling these out. The lack of dynamic UTM tracking previously was a particular time-drain previously, as was the process to duplicate ads across other campaigns - both of which should be simple actions that were overcomplicated.

Previously LinkedIn would give some simple estimates of performance during campaign creation, but moving these to a dedicated Campaign Planner makes a lot of sense and improves the campaign planning process. The additional overview and KPI summaries are less exciting, but still good additions.

Overall it’s positive how many updates we have seen from LinkedIn in recent weeks and months. Historically they’ve been slow to make changes and improvements to their ad platform, so these are welcome changes to improve the LinkedIn advertising experience.

What else we've been talking about:

• Google Merchant Center to align click reporting with Google Ads

• How to expand from Meta Ads into Google Ads

• YouTube’s changing the way it measures Shorts views

• Meta could look to offer UK users an ad-free subscription

• Ads on YouTube now support sitelinks on desktop

• Demand Gen conversion columns live in Google Ads