🔍 Google Ads turns 20: The changes that will inform the next 20

Oct 27, 2020

Good morning Search Marketer, Google Ads has been around for 20 years.

Two decades in and Google Ads has become a $135 billion business with millions of advertisers. We don't have to look all the way back to see drastic changes. A review of the big changes of the past 5 years alone point to dramatic shifts and trends that will inform where search advertising heads next. Here are the biggies:

Rise of audiences: I realize audiences seem obvious, but in addition to new capabilities — including new GA4-powered predictive audiences — in 2017, Google connected YouTube and Search signals for targeting that have been instrumental in deepening Google Ads' audience capabilities. Privacy restrictions and regulations will mean Google will use more modeling for audience targeting in the coming years.

Decline of keywords and match types. We know the fuzzying of close variants story, now with Google limiting the search queries advertisers can see for privacy reasons, keyword management is even harder. Queries are still a powerful (and profitable) intent signal, it's just that Google is increasingly confident its algorithms can do a better job of intent matching at scale than search marketers can on their own.

Automated campaigns and ads. 2018 ushered in the transition to fully-automated campaigns and ad formats, with Smart campaigns, Local campaigns, Smart Shopping and responsive search ads all coming on the scene that year. Machine learning is embedded in every aspect of how these features work.

Surfaces across Google. This is technically the name of the option that allows merchants to show their products for free on Google Shopping, Google Images, Google Lens and Google Search, but it captures a broader theme. And that is the extension of campaigns across multiple properties and ads running on more surfaces such as the Discover feed, auto-suggest results in Maps and more.

Online-to-offline capabilities. Google has invested heavily in supporting offline business discovery, ad measurement and more. Maps, Google My Business and local feeds in Merchant Center factor heavily as do store visits and store sales measurement. Local accounts for a significant portion of Google's search traffic and local commerce capabilities are a key differentiator over Amazon.

Anything we missed? Let me know: gmarvin@thirddoormedia.com.

Ginny Marvin,
Editor-In-Chief

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