Google Ads news in 2022

Google is constantly working on new features in its interfaces. In 2021, Performance Max campaigns arrived, and now in 2022, undergoing processing, they are gaining new features. The departure of enhanced Search ads was not to be missed. Google saw and decided to exploit the potential of hotel campaigns. More news and details  in the text below. 

New Performance Max functionalities

Some of the most important changes include the new capabilities provided by, Performance Max campaigns (introduced in 2021). Marketers increasingly feel obliged not only to respond to current customer needs, but also to stay ahead of rapidly changing consumer trends. More advanced campaign automation in Google’s ecosystem fosters these aspirations. A user’s path to purchase often involves interacting with a product more than a dozen times across different channels and devices, and highly automated campaigns are increasingly able to track the consumer’s path. Along with campaign execution, Performance Max is tasked with finding the best possible combination of advertising assets and formats, thereby influencing better campaign execution.

Google Ads gives you the ability to easily and quickly migrate your product campaigns to Performance Max. After  migrating from a PLA campaign to Performance Max, all you need to do is complete the campaign resources and campaign targeting.

Performance Max campaigns are designed to reach new customers more effectively. You can set higher rates for new users or focus only on new users. Identifying them will be done with customer targeting lists, conversion tag configuration or through Google’s automatic detection.

Campaign statistics provide an opportunity to understand the correlation between campaign resources and  particular customer segments, e.g.: do users respond better to an ad in which we see clothing on a model or to an ad that shows only clothing; similarly, in the case of sports stores – statistics will make it possible to indicate whether, for example: most users respond better to creatives that show tennis players or to those that show only equipment.

At the end of March, Google introduced the ability to support Performance Max campaigns through Google Ads Editor, so it is now easy to create and edit campaigns directly in this helpful tool for marketers.

End of expanded search ads

For a year now, Google has been preparing us to turn off expanded text ads. As of June 30, 2022, flexible search ads are the only format with the ability to create and edit. Expanded ads will not disappear from accounts, we still have the ability to pause and resume them, but without the ability to edit and create new ones.

In the flexible campaigns that remain after the extended ones have been disabled, it is worth combining keywords in approximate matching with intelligent rate setting, which Google assures has a positive effect on increasing the number of conversions in the campaigns.

Travel products

Travel, an important component of life, has been spotted by Google as a potential development direction, after noting a boom in travel products in 2022 versus 2019. Google’s news will make it easier to connect hotel information with Google, thanks to the Giant’s support of industry-standard protocols. The hotel will be able to easily display online availability information, as well as advertising rates and resources. The processes for implementing rates and availability into Google’s profile have been simplified. There are also changes coming to the Google Ads panel. A new campaign type is now present: hotel ads. Advertisers in Google Ads will be able to display ads on a hotel’s site using rates set by Google. Hotel advertisers will be able to use Performance Max campaigns, thus promoting their properties much more effectively across all channels in a single campaign: Search, YouTube, Ad Network, Discover, Gmail, Maps.

Hotel property campaigns are created quickly because Performance Max pre-fills resource groups for each hotel property with automatically generated images, descriptions and  videos that can be easily viewed and edited. 

Better Search Ads Thanks to New Ad Extensions

When automatic extensions are enabled, Google Ads will be able to create them and  display them along with the ad automatically if the algorithm system determines that they will improve ad performance. Until now, dynamic sub-page links, dynamic explanations and dynamic information extensions have not been displayed in ads if manually created sub-page links, explanations and information extensions were entered. Since March, automatic extensions can display alongside manually created extensions. This makes it easy to combine manually created sub-page links with  dynamic ones in Google Ads.

An additional change is that sub-page links, explanation and information extensions can now be added at the ad group, campaign or account level. Previously, ad extensions at a more detailed level prevented higher level extensions from being displayed.

From March, subpage links, explanations and information extensions from higher levels of an account can be displayed together with extensions of the same type from lower levels. With this change, the system will be able to choose among the best extensions in your account, and all this to find the most interesting combination of ads for the user. 

Easier-Targeting-Customer-List

The Customer Match function is becoming easier to use. Almost all advertisers have gained access to it (the condition is a 90-day account history and spending of $50,000). In addition to increased accessibility, Customer Match is becoming easier with the introduction of the upload preview tool. We will see any formatting problems in the interface and there we will have the opportunity to make corrections according to Google’s recommendations.

Easier experimentation

In the past, in order to create an experiment it was necessary to create a draft version of a campaign, which was then tested in the experiment. Nowadays, you can instantly select a campaign and then create a custom experiment for it. During setup, you specify how long you want the experimental campaign to last, and how much of the traffic and budget it should use. The effectiveness of the activities can be previewed on the new Experiments page. If our test achieves the desired results you can instantly apply changes to the original campaign.

Synchronization is enabled by default when creating a new experiment, so our test campaign is automatically updated with any changes made to the original campaigns (e.g. keywords). 

New-ways-to-custom-columns

New ways to custom columns feature greater flexibility. For example, if you need Conversion Rate only for mobile devices or only for computers – you can create such a custom column. You have the ability to do things like include spreadsheet functions, calculate and  compare data in different date ranges or refer to other custom columns in a formula. You can apply multiple filters to a single formula, filter for conversions by custom variables or add more non-data columns to a formula. 

News-in-scripts

With scripts, you have the ability to, for example: drive a rate-setting strategy, which includes full support for rate-setting strategies, including those that require an additional parameter, such as target ROAS or target display share.

After the latest changes from 2022, it will be possible to process more units at the same time. The script validation process has also been improved. 

Pass local campaigns in Performance Max

The Local Campaigns self-upgrade tool is available to qualifying advertisers and will be rolled out in stages in August and September. You will have access to it before the automatic updates begin. If you choose not to use the self-upgrade tool, you will receive a notification in Google Ads a few weeks before your campaigns are automatically upgraded to help you prepare for campaign migration.

Greater audience engagement in Discovery campaigns

To improve the deployment of assets and audiences in Discovery campaigns and help create more effective ads, Google has revamped the deployment process. When creating an ad, you’ll see more detailed resource guidance, such as messages to add unique headlines or additional creative dimensions. It is now possible to add graphic assets with text overlays to provide a stronger Call to Action. Discovery Ads now offers even more campaign statistics that are available in Google Ads.

Targeting your ideal customer with Discovery Ads should help you with the Campaign Statistics page, where you’ll see which audience segments are having the biggest impact on your business. Combining clues from your inventory reports with the ability to use  optimized targeting to build greater reach will give you the chance to collect more conversions in your campaign.

The following is a great way to get the most out of your campaign.

The Google Ads editor and interface will help you manage Discovery campaigns at scale.

Summary

Nothing is as certain as constant changes to Google’s systems, so we eagerly await new features. What changes will the Giant surprise us with in 2023? 

Implementation of analytics in Google Analytics is closely linked to good implementation of campaigns in Google Ads. An exciting topic, though not a surprise, will be the long-announced transition to Google Analytics 4, for which companies have until June 2023, when Analytics Universal will begin to be extinguished. 

It will be an exciting topic.

Another big change will be the phasing out of third-party cookies that will affect Google Ads campaign settings, which was announced back in 2021. This is in response to new laws and regulations that are coming into play.