September PPC news

Google introduces video in Shopping Ads

These new formats, brought in ahead of the Christmas season, should draw a higher number of customers. When a customer clicks such an ad, they land on a page hosted by Google. That page carries promotions on selected products. After the click the video plays at the top of the page. These ads are available to advertisers already running shopping ads in their accounts (not in Slovakia yet).

A new Instagram shopping channel

Instagram has decided to offer users shopping options in the Explore section, tailored to the user depending on what they follow and which brands they interact with — so individual products will be matched to the user's style and taste. This new shopping channel is still in testing for now, but will probably launch worldwide in the coming weeks.

Google adds Smart Bidding for partners

If conversion tracking is set up, smart bidding can be used in place of smart pricing. Google claims that smart bidding can deliver better performance, because it takes more contextual signals into account when optimising bids for each auction.

Bids are optimised automatically on search partner sites, using the same signals as smart pricing along with attributes relating to prospective customers. Bids may be lowered, for instance, if a prospect is on an audience list that has historically had a lower conversion rate.

The aim is to maximise conversions on search partner sites at a cost per conversion similar to search on Google. Smart bidding may bid lower on a search partner site if, for example, you have a lower conversion rate on that site.

The change is available from this month.

Beta Google Search Console gains new features

Google has added a new manual actions section and a URL inspection tool that works in real time. This beta is available after more than a year of testing. Over the course of the year Google sent the beta invitation to all users and moved features from the older Google Search Console to the new version.

The URL inspection tool now lets you run live tests on your live site. Google said: "This is useful when fixing and troubleshooting problems on a page, or confirming whether a reported problem on a page still exists. If the problem is fixed on the live version of the page, you can test the page again."

Live Test – testing a page

An upgrade for Canvas ads on Facebook

Canvas ads were recently renamed "Instant Experience", and new options come with the name. These include several newly available templates with new features:

1) Instant Form – will work on a similar principle to lead forms and will let users fill in a form and learn more about your company.

2) Instant Storefront – will allow products to be shown in a grid format, making buying simpler and easier

3) Instant Lookbook – will make it easier for companies to show use cases for a product

4) Instant Customer Acquisition - favours driving specific actions through clear CTA elements and the presentation of various offers

Responsive display ads in Google (RDA)

Google has announced that over the next few months responsive display ads (RDA) will be shown to all advertisers.

As with responsive search ads, advertisers supply a set of information about the company — up to 15 images, 5 headlines, 5 descriptions and 5 logos. Google uses machine learning to test various combinations and serve the most suitable ads. You can view ad performance by clicking "Ads & extensions" in the Google Ads interface and then "View asset details". The performance column shows a rating — Learning, Low, Good or Best — based on performance.

The formats of these ads will look like the picture below. Google touts the advantages of responsive ads as time-saving and delivering greater reach, because the ads can resize to fit.

This format supports dynamic remarketing too. To set up dynamic remarketing, you simply add a feed to your RDA campaign. Google can automatically display labels such as "new", "sale" or "best seller" based on the feed.