The Update: Digital Advertising Industry

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People around the world have felt the impact of the COVID-19 crisis,

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and over the past few weeks

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we’ve grieved together as the Black community has endured more senseless acts of violence.

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At Google, we stand against racial injustice.

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We believe that equality is a basic human right,

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and that everyone should be heated treated equally, regardless of background or race.

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We’re working to listen to your perspectives, and we’re learning from businesses large and small.

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We’re committed to helping you in your recovery.

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And more than ever, we’re now investing in organizations and nonprofits fighting racial injustice around the world.

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The past few months have been incredibly challenging, and we still have a long road ahead of us.

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We want to express our thanks to all of you as partners,

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whether brands or agencies—thank you for being a part of our community.

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We’re here to help as we all plan for a better future together.

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My name is Jerry and I lead product development for Google’s ad products.

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I’ve learned a lot from meeting with customers and partners around the world,

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virtually of course,

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to hear about how COVID has impacted their businesses.

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It’s clear that there are things that we can do to help, and we want to help,

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and so the focus of my role and my team’s role has really shifted since the break of COVID-19,

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to identify new product ideas and best practices

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to help our customers get back on their feet.

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In this episode, Jerry Dischler talks to me about

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the recent changes we made to Google Ads in response to COVID-19.

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As it comes to the business, Jerry, can you let us know about what you see

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about businesses coping with COVID?

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If you take a look from the consumer perspective, interests are shifting.

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One beauty brand is now focusing on skin care rather than makeup,

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which was historically their most popular category.

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Or, real estate companies are now offering extensive virtual tours

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because they can’t bring people directly into homes.

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Now, a lot of businesses particularly in the retail sector are finding that online is not an optional side business,

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but an important focal point for their business.

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And at times like these, those with strong online presences are doing really well

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relative to the competition.

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And how have you and your team have been thinking about responding to COVID?

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What we did was we identified three high-level principles for the product roadmap

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in terms of how to respond.

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The first is to build for what customers need right now.

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So we took a look at our product roadmap and said,

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“How can we make resources available in order to respond during a time of crisis?”

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We wanted to make an investment in automation tools

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to help customers who now have less time and resources

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to invest in creative design and targeting and things of this nature.

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We thought it inappropriate to ask advertisers to do heavy lifting,

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like doing migrations or campaign overhauls at this time.

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Building for customers now let us to pull forward our plans to open up inventory

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on shopping.google.com for more products and customers.

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On not asking for heavy lifting, we had some migrations scheduled

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and then finally, in investing in automation tools like responsive search ads,

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Smart Bidding and data-driven attribution.

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These are areas of the product roadmap where we invested more resources.

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Do you have any favorite tools to help understand how companies can be helpful

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and respond to their customers’ needs?

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So I’ve been a big fan of Google Trends for a long time,

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and we have released a new data interactive on Think with Google.

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What that does is it shares insights on what people are searching for

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during this time of need.

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Although your brick and mortar location may be closed,

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your customers who are sheltering in place haven’t stopped shopping

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—they’re just looking for different things.

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We’re seeing in some cases rapid spikes and sharp declines in consumer demand

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for various products and services.

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So we want you to help uncover pockets of opportunity by highlighting categories of

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products and services with high volumes of queries that are also growing at a fast rate.

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Can you talk about bringing free listings to Google Shopping?

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The retail sector has been heavily affected by coronavirus,

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and without physical stores,

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digital commerce has become a lifeline for businesses.

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Consumers are searching beyond essentials

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for things like toys, and apparel and home goods et cetera,

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and this is an opportunity for businesses to reconnect with consumers,

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but many can’t afford to do so at scale.

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So in light of these challenges, we have made it free for merchants to sell on Google,

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via the Google Shopping property.

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For shoppers, it means that they get broader selection

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at a time when it’s often hard to find products in stock.

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For advertisers, this means additional traffic beyond what you can get from your paid campaigns.

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But if you’re an existing Merchant Center and Shopping ads user,

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not only do you not have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings,

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but you also are getting a boost on top of the very high effectiveness that you’re already getting

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from your shopping investments.

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For new users of Merchant Center, we’ll continue to work to streamline the onboarding process

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over the coming weeks and months.

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But if you’d like, you can sign up now and start taking advantage of this additional free traffic.

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Tell me about updates to local inventory ads?

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Partially due to COVID, curbside pickup has become an emerging behavior.

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Consumers are limiting their time in stores, and want contactless store pickup experiences.

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Merchants who have local inventory, and use our local inventory ads product,

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can already highlight whether a product is available for store pickup.

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Soon, retailers will be able to indicate that they can offer

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curbside as a store pickup option, right in Shopping ads.

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So can you talk about automation?

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How does it help to deliver results, especially for people who are short on time?

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I can absolutely empathize.

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We have two young kids at home who are not in school right now.

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And so it’s a constant struggle.

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So what I would recommend is that you use Google’s automation tools.

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As search behavior changes and evolves in rapid cycles, Smart Bidding is built to handle that

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If your volume is changing

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and your conversion rates are relatively consistent to what you’ve seen historically,

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you can use Performance PlannerM or budget and target simulators

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to understand your potential.

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But try not to forecast too far beyond seven days though,

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and reassess often because of the

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constantly changing environment.

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If your conversion rates are changing,

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monitor how quickly they’re changing.

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Our automation handles gradual changes well,

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but sudden drops in conversion rate may necessitate new performance targets,

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just like if you were changing bids manually.

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Remember to use top signals

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for maximum insights into your performance.

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Smart Bidding delivers insights that you can use

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elsewhere in your campaigns.

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It’s also possible to use automation

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to guide you through times of turbulence like this,

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with your automated creative strategy.

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Like in responsive search ads,

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or even your App campaigns

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where these adjustments are handled automatically

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in order for you to achieve your business objective.

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Also because businesses of all sizes are strapped for time and resources,

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and in-person video is no longer practical, we’ve also been investing in Video Builder.

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For businesses who don’t have resources to create videos from scratch,

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Video Builder can help by animating static assets—images, text, and logos—

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with music from YouTube’s library.

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And you can quickly generate a short video of 6 or 15 seconds.

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For example, Havenly, an online platform that offers interior design services,

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has been using Video Builder.

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And free tools like this help them continue to create new and fresh content at a time

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where they can’t film professional content.

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Well, thank you Jerry for all the insights and inspiration.

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Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share with us?

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This is a really difficult time for all of us, and I really understand that.

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And at Google, we’re committed to helping you and your business

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weather the storm and then thrive and succeed.

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First, we would love to hear your input, and your help.

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We would love to magnify the creativity that you have in dealing with these situations,

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and so we would love to hear what the new use cases are that we can support.

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The second way that we’re here to help is by making it easier for you to make

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advertising investments that allow you to achieve your business goals.

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So taking a look at our automation, our planning tools, our insights and things like that

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is really important.

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And then finally, I hope that all of you stay healthy and safe, and I hope to see you soon.

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