Below you find the news from Google Ads week 26.
Consult pop-up
Louis Riat-Bonello – Google Ads Expert saw this pop-up for the first time in his account for a US client.
In this pop-up, Google is pushing advertisers to schedule a call with an Ads Expert.
Switch to the new menu
Google Ads is giving advertisers two pop-ups the book an appointment with Google for the upgrade to GA4. This one is already on for a few weeks but now Google is also showing users that they can switch to the new menu.
Update policy
Google has announced an update for Ads Platform policies and Google Publisher Policies with this vague email.
GA4 Audience API
You can now create an audience list of users, and use the API to retrieve the users in the audience.
AMP support GA4
AMP is now supported in GA4.
Vehicle ads Virginia
Vehicle ads are now eligible to show for both new and used cars in the state of Virginia.
Vehicle ads are a focused lower funnel ad format, which allows auto advertisers to promote their entire inventory of vehicles on Google.
Click tracking service update
In August 2023, Google is updating the Google Ads restricted Ad Formats and features policy relating to the usage of click tracker services.
From 28 August, you can only use certified click trackers in the tracking template feature. If you don’t use a certified tracker your ads may be disapproved.
Advertisers who have used click trackers before August 28 can continue to them without these restrictions.
Recommending importing GA4 conversions
GA4 now recommends importing GA4 conversions to Google Ads if you have linked a Google Ads account.
New CTA local Ads
It looks like Google has a new CTA for Local Ads because I have never seen this CTA before.
Google Ads Scam
This week Google Ads has been accused that a big part of Google’s video-ad placements are on third-party sites that violate promised standards.
Adalytics, the analytics company observed campaigns from more than 1,100 brands that ran over the past three years.
They uncovered that some campaigns saw 42-75 percent of TrueView spend allocated to GVP sites.
According to Adalytics, brands are paying for the service when their ads are actually running in small, muted videos to the side of main content, on sites that do not meet Google’s monetization standards.
In the latest blog from Google Ads, they said that these are extremely inaccurate claims about the Google Video Partner (GVP) network.
They say that the report wrongly implies that most campaign spending runs on GVP rather than YouTube.
For more information from the side of Google check this article.
For the accusation read.
Local ads with merchant pictures
Google has now sent an e-mail where they explain that your Google Business Profile pictures may be used for your local Ads.
Goodby Buy on Google
Tiago Goncalves got this mail that told him that Buy on Google will stop in the US on September 26, 2023.
Google is dropping Buy on Google to create a new streamlined buying journey for shoppers that makes it easier for retailers to sell on Google and YouTube.
Google explained that Buy on Google was a small feature that was used by a limited number of merchants.
The new checkout pilot allows shoppers to go directly from Google to the checkout flow on a website.
Merchants can already register for a new checkout pilot (US only).
Brand exclusion and broad match rollout
Google is now rolling out brand exclusion and broad match only for the Performance Max campaign set-up. Before these were in beta.
Similar Audiences
Google is sending again e-mails that similar audiences will go away. From August 1 these audiences will be removed. Optimized targeting will replace this audience.
Looker Studio Update
Looker Studio released some new features! In the picture from Mehdi Oudjida you see how some changes affect the charts.
Improvements to Bar and Combo Charts:
– Configurable options for bar charts and combo charts
– Choose between different label types for stacked bar charts and combo charts with stacked bars
– Customize the position of bar labels relative to the bars or columns
– Define custom spacing between bars and groups of multiple bars
– Select a custom color for bar or column borders.
Audit Logging for Team Workspaces:
– View Team Workspace log events in the Admin Console (Security Investigation Tool)
– Filter log events by selecting Team Workspace as the asset type.
Firewall and Database IP Address Change:
– Looker Studio has changed the IP addresses for connecting to the following databases: Amazon Redshift, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server 2017
– New IP addresses to use: 142.251.74.0/23 and 2001:4860:4807::/48 (optional for IPv6-supported platforms)
– Previously listed addresses can be closed as they are no longer used by Looker Studio.
2 warnings
In Google Ads, you now get 2 warnings in the audience section.
The first warning is that from July 1 Google will stop adding new users for the UA audiences.
The second warning is that similar segments will be removed on August 1.
New demand gen campaigns pilot
This week some Google Ads users got an invitation for the new demand gen campaigns pilot.
The form that was sent has to be filled in before 7/7. If you don’t got the mail you can always ask a rep if he can put you on the list.
With demand-gen campaigns, you can advertise on:
– YouTube Shorts
– YouTube in-stream
– YouTube in-feed
– Discover
– Gmail placements.
You can also use lookalike audiences, use A/B experiments and set the campaign up with previews.
For optimizing and measuring. You can bid on conversion, value-based, or choose MaxClicks bidding.
Use generative AI to optimize your feed
Feedgen is now online and available on GitHub. With this tool, you can optimize your feed with generative AI. For more information check this link.
New SEO metric Merchant Center
Tony Zara found out that there is a new SEO metric in the Merchant Center where you can check paid vs organic product traffic. Besides this, you can also see the non-product website results.
In Merchant Center Next this report should already be live because Google shared this screenshot with us a couple of weeks ago.
Ad Blockers
Google is running an experiment where they tell users to turn off ad blockers or try YouTube Premium.
UA still processing data
Floris de Schrijver & Geert Groot sent me this message that UA is still processing data! Later Google admitted that it can take some time before UA stops gathering data.
Link Tracking Protection test
Link Tracking Protection (LTP) is a new iOS feature set to launch in September/October 2023 alongside the release of iOS 17.
LTP aims to enhance user privacy by removing marketing parameters commonly used to track individual users’ behaviors across different websites.
By default, these parameters will be eliminated from URLs.
With the introduction of iOS 17, LTP will be active in several applications, including Messages, Apple Mail, and Safari Private Browsing.
In standard browsing mode, it will be available as an opt-in feature.
Peter Jakus conducted comprehensive tests using the iOS 17 Developer Beta to gain insights into how LTP functions.
His experiments focused on three types of parameters: user-level tracking parameters (such as gclid, fbclid, wbraid, and mc_eid), UTM parameters, and the replacement of “?” with “#” in the URL.
Based on his findings, the following conclusions were drawn:
– Apple removes user-level parameters from URLs specifically for certain vendor parameters (e.g., Google gclid, Facebook fbclid), while it does not target less-known or more personalized parameters (e.g., customer-id, customer-number).
– UTM parameters, which are commonly used for tracking marketing campaigns, are not stripped from URLs.
– Apple does not remove parameters if the “#” symbol is used in the URL.
It’s important to note that, as of now, LTP is not overly aggressive. However, since the tests were conducted during the beta phase, changes are possible. LTP is expected to evolve and become more refined and selective in the future.
Large image test again
Anthony Higman found out that Google Ads is again testing with the larger images in the SERP.