Paid Media News & Opinion #98

Google Shopping is getting an AI makeover

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> What’s happening

Google's new AI-powered Shopping update includes personalised home feeds, dynamic filters, and virtual try-ons. AI-generated shopping briefs will enhance product searches, while a ‘new deals’ page will help users find offers. The new Google Shopping homepage features a personalised feed that displays products and videos tailored to individual preferences and past shopping behaviour, allowing users to seamlessly continue their shopping journey from where they last left off.

> Why we care

A personalised experience is a better one. The addition of virtual try-ons and deal-finding features opens up fresh opportunities for product presentation, allowing brands to engage with shoppers more effectively and generate higher-quality leads and sales. This update is to be rolled out in the US first and then we expect to see it roll out quickly to the UK.

Google updates auction dynamics between PMax and Standard Shopping

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> What’s happening

Previously when an account has both a standard shopping campaign and a Performance Max campaign competing for the same products, the PMax campaign would automatically trump standard shopping campaigns in the rankings. However, this is now changing, and the highest Ad Rank will now determine which ad serves for overlapping campaigns.

> Why we care

Although there is technically no immediate action required, this is something to be aware of. Google expects the performance to either be unaffected or improve, with very little chance of there being a negative impact. Which stands to reason, as allowing the highest ad rank to serve shouldn’t really lead to worse results.

The main thing to be mindful of is around campaign budget allocation, as this may impact which campaigns are delivering the strongest performance, so you may wish to monitor your budgets and performance closely.

Google releases new experiment tool to A/B test video ads

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> What’s happening

Google has released a new video ad experiment tool to improve the ease of testing creative variants. Experiments can be created quickly and easily with just a few clicks, with the choice to flex confidence intervals and easily add or remove assets to compare performance.

Confidence intervals can reach up to 95% statistical significance, and you can choose from a variety of success metrics, including Brand Lift, CTR, CVR, CPA, CPC, CPM, CPV and View Rate. The feature is available for Video Reach and Video View campaigns.

> Why we care

Quality and performance on video creative is a huge factor in how successful your video ads will perform. Of course targeting is important too, but when serving video ads you’re most likely trying to capture a new audience towards the top of the funnel, so your video performance is absolutely crucial.

Having a quick and easy way to scientifically test performance and figure out what resonates most with your potential audience is an important tool to have at your disposal, so make sure you test and engage with it.

What else we've been talking about:

• LinkedIn is expanding its video ad options

• Reddit introduces AI-powered keyword targeting features

• Google is testing expandable product ads carousel

• Google cracks down on ad policy violators

• Google Ads announces 11-year data retention policy