Last Tuesday, in what feels like a watershed moment, Google announced significant changes to their advertising and analytics platforms.
The over-arching theme was that a mobile-first world requires a mobile-first Google. The team at Google revealed data that proves beyond doubt that mobile is where the growth is and that harnessing intent and context for mobile users is the next big digital marketing opportunity. And when it comes to mobile context this is more often than not tied to location.
All of the changes detailed below should be seen in the context of Google seizing huge opportunities in consumer behavioural changes while heading off existential threats to their dominant position in the world of advertising.
During the talk, they revealed some fascinating insights, such as the fact that smartphone searches linked to location are growing 50% faster than other mobile searches and that 9/10 transactions (in the US) still happen in a physical location.
The most significant developments to be aware of, are:
- Local Search Ads – Google now officially monetising location – ads within the maps unit are now out of beta and promoted pins are coming soon. The latter will mean significant stand-out amongst local search and maps with advertisers able to bid higher for local users.
- Mobile users have been seen to respond 20% better to longer text ads in search. This means we will be able to use two headlines and an 80 character description. This is in BETA at the moment and will be fully launched later this year.
- Google are returning to dedicated, separate mobile and tablet bids with the relaunch of the Adwords platform later this month.
- Google again ran through the Analytics 360 Suite – their full media mix and audience insight stack for enterprise clients. We at DAC can talk you through the opportunity here and if it’s right for you.
- Google bringing affinity audiences or lookalike targeting to Adwords – this is a huge development and brings them in line with Facebook’s audience offering.
My colleague, Scott Ensign in North America has done a great job on outlining the implications for the coming years and he and I joined Brett Fritz and Nasser Sahlool for a transatlantic panel discussion on this topic, which you can listen to and download here:
As ever, should you want to know more, please get in touch.
