September 29 – October 8, 2020 was Advertising Week 2020 (AW2020), an event spanning six global markets in which leading experts from cutting-edge agencies, brands, media, and tech companies offered innovative ideas, strategies, tools, and product launches for the future of advertising.
This year during Advertising Week, Google had two important announcements that could have a major impact on online retailers and your profitability during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Specifically, Google announced a new Insights page in Google Ads to help businesses and marketers gain information about rapidly changing customer behavior. They also announced an expansion to their “Performance Max” automated campaigns.
As we’re about to enter the Holiday season – what’s often one of the most revenue-generating times of the year for retailers – but during a highly unusual year of economic downturn and continued social distancing, you might want to consider how these new Google offerings could make a significant difference for your sales.
The New Insights Page for Google Ads 
During our age of accelerating digital and technological development, customer desires and needs are constantly evolving. The COVID-19 global pandemic suddenly sped up this already rapid rate of change, as almost overnight people everywhere shifted to the “new normal” of social distancing and spending more time at home.
The businesses that have thrived during this time of chaos are those who have been able to quickly see and respond to the changes in demand.
For example, Zazzle, a company providing a digital marketplace for customized products, kept on the pulse of changing Google Search trends and was able to identify and serve a rising interest in outdoor games and puzzles when customers needed stay-at-home activities.
In order to help more businesses stay ahead of the curve of changes in consumer demand, Google is now introducing a new Insights page in Google Ads that will provide audience and forecasting information specific to your business.
The new Insights page has a “trends section” that displays graphs and information regarding search demand for products and services related to your business. For example, if you sell outdoor activity goods and services, you’ll be notified that this Fall there’s been a trending interest in “tents” and that “skiing” is predicted to increase this November.
You’ll also be able to do a deeper dive into trends to see what specific queries people are typing into Google Search in addition to the geographic locations for searches. In addition, you’ll be able to integrate this data with Recommendations on Google Ads to help you improve your bidding, keywords, and budget spend.
Automated “Performance Max” Campaigns 
It’s not enough to just have your finger on the pulse of changes in customer interests, your business also needs to be able to respond in real-time. This is what Google’s new automated “Performance Max” campaigns will help you achieve.
Building on Google Ad’s current campaign capabilities, Performance Max campaigns have been designed to help your business in four key ways:
- Reaching more customers – Performance Max campaigns will complement keyword search campaigns to help you utilize the full power of Google’s data.
- Optimizing for your most valuable customers – You’ll be able to use one Performance Max campaign across Google and choose your marketing objective (new leads, online sales, physical location sales, etc.)
- Offering insights on campaign performance drivers – Performance Max campaigns will be integrated with the new Insights page to let you see, for example, which audiences or advertising assets are performing best for you.
- Combining machine learning with human learning information – You’ll be able to supply your own customer knowledge and insights to improve the machine learning performance and determine which conversions will matter most for your business.
Want to stay on the leading edge of new developments in Google Ads? As a recognized Google Premier Partner, our expert team here at JXT Group can help make sure your business is making the most of everything the Google Ads platform has to offer.
You can get in touch with us by calling 718-690-7302 or through our online contact form.
