It’s been an interesting week at Google This Week with new attributes in Google Ads to get you ready for the holidays. Google is also saying goodbye to Expanded Text Ads and the page experience update has now rolled out. There are new updates to Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360 with new metrics and more.
ICYMI, here’s what happened at Google This Week.
- Display & Video 360 Updates Coming Soon
- Google Ads Allows Back Respirator Masks
- Say Goodbye to Expanded Text Ads
- New Attributes in Google Ads
- Missing Data from 23-24 Aug Gone Forever in GSC
- Simplified Video Campaign Setup and New Metrics in Campaign Manager 360
- Page Experience Update Now Rolled Out
Display & Video 360 Updates Coming Soon
Over the next few weeks, Google will be making certain improvements to Display & Video 360 including a better way to view reports with pivot tables in Report Builder and you can now create Custom Bidding algorithms through goals that will allow for simple creation of ROAS or weighted conversion algorithms. Insertion order and line item tables will soon be powered by the Combined view.
Google is also upgrading TrueView for action campaigns to Video action campaigns in Display & Video 360 which may allow you to reach more customers in high-performing places on and off YouTube, all within one line item. Programmatic TV will also be deprecated at the end of the year. Read more about these changes here.
Google Ads Allows Back Respirator Masks
Last year, respirator masks were blocked from being advertised across Google properties to preserve the healthcare worker supply. Now N95 masks in the US and a selection of approved N95-adjacent masks globally are able to be listed on Shopping ads and free listings. Project N95 will approve N95 mask offers for listing in the US while LegitScript will approve N95-adjacent masks for listing globally.
Say Goodbye to Expanded Text Ads
Starting June 30, 2022, responsive search ads will be the only Search ad type you can create or edit in standard Search campaigns. After this date, you will no longer be able to create or edit expanded text ads.
Your existing expanded text ads will continue to serve and you’ll still see reports on their performance. You’ll be able to pause and resume or remove them, as needed. You’ll still be able to create and edit call ads and Dynamic Search Ads.
To prepare, we recommend having at least one responsive search ad in every ad group in your Search campaigns by June 30, 2022.
New Attributes in Google Ads
You can now highlight your shipping and return policy directly in your ads listings with new shipping and return annotations in Google Search and Shopping results, across free and paid listings.
- You can show when orders will arrive with annotations like “Free delivery by Fri, Dec 24” or “Get it by Dec 24” plus Fast & Free badging for products that ship for free in 5 business days or less.
- With synchronised shipping data, you can also calculate custom shipping speeds for customers. Use the shipping attribute in your feed to specify each product’s shipping cost and speed.
- You can also show extended holiday return windows with return annotations such as “90-day returns” or “Free returns until Jan 31”.
- Earlier this year Google announced Black-owned business identity attributes, now they’re adding two new attributes: Women-owned and Veteran-owned for those in the US.
Missing Data from 23-24 Aug Gone Forever in GSC
Last week, we reported that the performance report in Google Search Console was missing data for the 23rd and 24th of August. We had hoped that Google would be able to retrieve and backfill the missing data, however, it looks like the data is lost for good. Google’s John Mueller stated “it looks like this is really data loss and won’t be back-filled.”
Sometimes we can rebuild it, sometimes there’s just data loss. From the wording on the annotation, it looks like this is really data loss and won’t be back-filled. In the past we’ve looked at just adding interpolated data, but imo that’s iffy (especially with keywords, etc).
— ? John ? (@JohnMu) August 31, 2021
Simplified Video Campaign Setup and New Metrics in Campaign Manager 360
Google is updating Campaign Manager 360 with automated workflows.
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- The publisher eligibility tool validates the uploaded creative to ensure its attributes meet the minimum requirements for specific publishers.
- Campaign Manager 360 will now automatically set video transcodes for each placement on your media buy and convert your video files to match each publisher’s creative specifications.
- In addition, video default ads now support multiple video creatives with different lengths and orientations.
- You can now also get two new metrics in Campaign Manager 360: engaged views and engaged view conversions to help you determine which video impressions and inventory sources are the most valuable.
- You can now also set custom viewability metrics on YouTube inventory so you can consistently measure viewability across different inventory.
Page Experience Update Now Rolled Out
Google completed the page experience update rollout yesterday, September 2, 2021. The rollout includes the updates to the Top Stories carousel on mobile search, however, the Google News app changes won’t be rolled out for another week. Google began the rollout on June 15th.
You should not see a big ranking change with the release. This was a slow rollout and Google confirmed they did not expect drastic changes. “While this update is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences, page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account… Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes.”
The page experience rollout is complete now, including updates to Top Stories mobile carousel. Changes to Google News app have started to rollout as well and will be complete in a week or so.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) September 2, 2021
Thank You for Reading
Have you noticed any changes from Google this week?
Check back next Friday for the latest from Google This Week.
