Paid Media News & Opinion #96

We've rebranded!

Missed us recently? We were busy evolving...

Paid Media News & Opinion is now brought to you by Advantage Paid Media (formerly Dodo Digital).

Why the change? In short:

1. We're embracing the privacy-first world with the introduction of Media Mix Modelling

2. We're elevating client success with expanded paid media services, including a consultancy service for in-house teams and are doubling down on our experience in programmatic advertising

3. With the above, we felt it was time to transition to a mature name and brand, reflective of how far we've come over the past 5 years and what we've evolved into.

New name, same commitment to excellence

Curious about the full story? Check out our recent LinkedIn post for all the details on our transformation and check out the new site.

Now, let's dive into this week's paid media news:

AI image enhancing tool by Pinterest just launched

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> What’s happening

Pinterest has introduced AI tools designed to enhance product imagery. The tool transforms basic product images with plain backgrounds into vibrant lifestyle scenes, helping to boost engagement. Early results are promising—Walgreens reported a 55% increase in CTR and a 13% decrease in CPC using AI-enhanced backgrounds. Pinterest have also announced they are introducing the ability to optimise for the highest value, instead of just clicks or conversion volume.

> Why we care

We are fans of efficiency. The ability to generate more imagery without creative back and forth can save time, while delivering stronger results. With these tools, paid media teams can create more ads for testing, reduce costs, and increase return on ad spend,​ all without having to brief new creative!

Google rolls out Shopping Ads as part of Google Lens

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> What’s happening

Google has started rolling out Shopping Ads in Google Lens results. Google Lens is the product which allows you to look up what you can see quickly, by taking a photo or long-pressing on an image when browsing. Google says that there are nearly 20bn visual searches each month, with about 20% of those being shopping-related.

Now shopping ads will become a part of this, allowing users to view product details like price comparisons, reviews, and purchase options. It will be initially focused on key holiday categories such as toys, electronics, and beauty.

> Why we care

This is a good expansion for shopping ads, because there’s clearly some strong intent in this action. If you’re using Google Lens to search deeper for something, it’s almost certainly because you like what you see and you’re interested to know exactly what it is, so it makes sense to have shopping ads alongside this, as it could be a key commercial opportunity to tap into that capitalises on new AI features and functionality. 

Advertisers don’t need to do anything to activate this, it will become an automatic opportunity within Google Shopping.

Google AI overview ads launch on mobile in the US

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> What’s happening

AI Overview ads are finally being launched in the US, specifically to mobile users initially. Google first teased this opportunity back at Google Marketing Live in May, but 5 months on we are just now seeing them come into effect.

Ads will appear below the organic AI Overview, so will require a little bit of scrolling for ads to be visible to the searcher. There’s no action required by advertisers to opt-in, these ads will become a standard placement opportunity.

> Why we care

We’re interested to see how performance pans out for these searches. Given the AI overviews are a lot more aligned with informational searches, it doesn’t feel like an immediate fit for ads. Sadly, there will be no segments that allow advertisers to see how these ads are performing and there’s no way to actually opt out. 

The key will be monitoring your search terms reports closely, to see if there’s a sharp rise or consistent amount of searches that are longer, more informational in length, that you can optimise for/exclude if required.

What else we've been talking about:

• Could Perplexity AI be about to step up the AI search advertising game?

• PMax and other updates for October from Microsoft Ads

• The rise in branded CPC’s in some industries

• TikTok releases new “Flip Stories” format