Goodbye, AdWords. Hello Google Ads

by Brett Harper

Would a rose by any other call still odor as sweet if said rose became synonymous with an entire industry and accounted for most of the sales generated through the arena’s most popular search engine?

We’re about to find out.

Google has decided to consolidate its overwhelming abundance of ad products under three ultra-modern umbrellas: Google Ads, Google Marketing Platform, and Google Ads Manager. Behold, logos!

As is the case with culture, an alternate cannot arise without casualties. For this purpose, we’re announcing goodbye to the digital advertising world’s preferred portmanteau: AdWords.

Google Ads

You didn’t misread. Google is, in reality, sunsetting AdWords; however, it is in name alone. To the best degree, this massive announcement was probably instigated by cellular proliferation and the shift toward a target audience-centric attitude. More possibilities to reach extra people throughout greater channels are infinitely easier to take advantage of when all-to-be-had answers live within the equal region.

This and a slew of other shakeups (more consolidation! Smart Campaigns!) were announced by Google’s Senior VP of Ads and Commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, only a week before Google Marketing Next blanks will truely be filled in.

In this newsletter, we’ll demystify the statement and explain:

Before we observe how Google’s shocking logo overhaul will affect advertisers and businesses moving forward, a bit more on exactly what’s going on.

Introducing Google Ads…

From our attitude, the most important piece of this declaration is the elimination of AdWords (the emblem) and the introduction of a new emblem: Google Ads. Per our advert-tastic overlords, Google Ads “represents the entire range of marketing competencies [Google] gives nowadays… to help marketers hook up with the billions of humans finding answers on Search, looking at movies on YouTube, exploring new places on Google Maps, discovering apps on Google Play, surfing content material throughout the internet, and greater.”

Along with other channels, formats, and placements, GDN, YouTube, and Shopping (most of which had been obtained but are now not built internally) have been referred to as AdWords domestic for a minute. Unfortunately, AdWords is synonymous with search. Having extra channels folded into the same interface has confused oldsters for years. I don’t recognize approximately you, but I’ve come across clients who’ve no concept their video, banner, and search innovation are all served from an equal platform.

Google desires that this new, easier call will herald understanding and open the door to amplify advertising options without confusion in the future.

Built atop existing integration among the formerly disparate systems, the second new emblem borne of consolidation, the Google Marketing Platform will permit enterprise marketers (and the organizations that carrier them) to marry advert innovation and analytics in a single area. This will make it less complicated for each event to “plan, purchase, measure, and optimize digital media and patron reviews in one area.”

As part of the Google Marketing Platform, Google has released a new feature called Display & Video 360. This device allows “creative, organization, and media groups to collaborate and execute advert campaigns end-to-lead to a single location.” This collaborative sandbox state of affairs sounds similar to Facebook’s Creative Hub, that is, as the kids might say, hella beneficial.

The bottom line: It’s pretty neat if you’ve been given a reason to use it (but if you’re not Adidas or La Croix or a few luxurious SUV producers, it could as properly no longer exist), and Google Ad Manager. Finally, we come to Ad Manager, Google’s vibrant new programmatic platform.

A mashup of DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange (with a buzzword-worthy logo besides!), Google Ad Manager is the search titan’s “entire and unified programmatic platform,” designed to “do even more for [Google’s] partners—income them more money, more effectively, wherever people are looking motion pictures, playing games or engaging with content, and however, advertisers are trying to work with them.”

Overhauling Brand Architecture in the Name of Simplicity

As I mentioned earlier, those sizeable rebranding efforts are fueled by a growing need for simplicity in online marketing. Conceptually, AdWords was constructed for a computer-first global, one where someone gets home from work, has a smoke, retires to their chambers, and surfs the net for what might also have been the first time that day. If you’re younger than me, you won’t even remember such an area existed.

Today, we live in a mobile-first world. We make initial phone queries, conduct research from a three-screen setup at the office, watch product motion pictures on YouTube, and fork over our credit score card facts through the form of voice voice-powered Aigle, which can help advertisers reach prospects at every level of this funnel. This reality certainly isn’t conveyed through “AdWords.” Google Ads, however…

In reality, Google Ads (all 3 new names) are succinct enough to make it clear what cost enterprise can derive from the platform and wide enough to accommodate future Google acquisitions without inciting additional confusion. Win-win.

This simplicity is not restrained to naming conventions: One new(ish) feature that exemplifies Google’s striving toward simplicity is the brand-new Smart Campaigns.

How Smart are “Smart Campaigns”?

Built atop the same tech that powered AdWords Express, Smart Campaigns are tailor-made for busy small enterprise proprietors with little within the manner of paid seek information and little within the way of time. The characteristic allows busy advertisers to “create advertisements in mins and force real consequences—like making your cellphone ring, sending results in your internet site, or bringing clients for your shop.”

That sounds neat; however, will they paint?

If you keep in mind, AdWords Express, though speedy, was no longer mainly effective for plenty of agencies because it stripped manipulation from advertisers and put it inside the fingers of system learning. Smart Campaigare constructed on the basis that maximum small businesses want to power calls, store visits, and conversions and don’t have the time or understanding to discover ways to use AdWords (uhh, Google Ads), so why no longer place your finances in Google’s machine learning-enabled palms.

Fast? Totally. But that doesn’t mean it understands the ins and outs of your commercial enterprise, and that’s a problem. Ultimately, it comes down to an easy question: do the simplified product’s time savings and outcomes generate a net win for your commercial enterprise? If you’re smart campaigns, it is probably a decent choice if you spend a few hundred dollars a month on advertising and marketing. Smart Cather hand is a distinctive story if the nth-to-month budget has a comma (or two, or 3)ory.

Embracing Audiences Over Keywords

Complexity throughout Google’s marketing systems has created a desire for simple answers. In the past, we’ve speculated about Google transitioning away from key phrases in favor of target audience-centric targeting, much like what you would possibly find in paid social channels like Facebook and LinkedIn (and we aren’t the only ones!).

By stripping “words” from the name of its ever-evolving advertising platform, Google has started the process of transferring advertiser notions far away from keyword motive (the name of the game sauce that searches queries so rattling treasured as an advertising device) and to an international wherein our attention shifts towards audiences.

While search will always remain a motive-centric and, accordingly, keyword-reliant area (augmented with audiences through equipment like RLSA, in-market, and so on), the rollout of Google Ads makes taking a holistic approach to online marketing (investing in channels that don’t immediately result in conversions) extra palatable for many small agencies.

Implications for Agencies (and SaaS Companies)

Naturally, if you’re a business enterprise or in-residence SaaS marketer, there are a few changes you will want to account for. For one, any paid and natural initiatives that formerly hinged on “AdWords” or ancillary keywords related to it must be tweaked. If you’re an AdWords agency, you will want to discern how to guide your customers through the adjustments.

The right component is “AdWords,” a term and concept that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Campaigns leveraging it received’t all of a sudden drops off the web page. Still, it’ll be an excellent concept to screen paid and naturally seek volumes around “Google advertisements” and “Adwords” as you move approximately, making page updates and bid changes.

Google Ads: A Brave New World? So. In the end, what’s changing right here? Are you looking at large campaign overhauls? No, possibly now not. Google’s new brands can be rolled out steadily over the following month. Given its dedication to transparency, you may anticipate day-to-day marketing campaign operations to remain greater or less the same. In impact, Google has streamlined its adveradvertisingadvertising enjoys a growingly complicated panorama of digital advertising apps, gear, and software; that’s a move we can get on board with.

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