Abstract
- AI streamlines processes. AI simplifies digital advertising tasks and enhances campaign asset selection.
- Conversation experience. Google's Gemini AI makes ad creation easier and improves workflow with a chat-based interface.
- A new trend has caught our attention. The more you focus on the image quality of your ads, the higher your conversion rate will be.
The goldmine of AI promise lies in any conversational experience that simplifies tasks on a given platform, and digital advertising is particularly ripe for streamlining and simplification. Marketers are faced with a rich selection of assets designed to encourage customer purchases, from new watches to insurance plans. The pressing question now is how conversational AI can enhance the process of selecting campaign assets. Let's take a look at how Google's Gemini AI model impacts Google Ads.
Related article: What is conversational AI?More than just a chatbot
Conversational AI in Google Ads
Google aims to address this challenge in digital advertising by introducing conversational experiences to Google Ads. This feature is the first application of Google's Gemini AI model specifically for Google Ads.
Related article: In the age of AI, Google experiments with bold changes to search
Enhanced search experience
Conversational AI experiences power search campaign creation through a chat-based interface. Marketers start by choosing a landing page.
How to use
Google AI then analyzes the page, summarizes its content, and generates relevant keywords. We also create headlines, descriptions, images, and other assets for your ad. This process creates a campaign that is ready for review and modification. AI can also provide additional suggestions before deployment.
Related article: Google, generative search, and the uncertain future of the web
watermark
Google Ads conversational AI experiences will feature images watermarked with SynthID, a system that embeds invisible watermarks. These images also include open standard metadata that indicates their origin, generated by AI.
AI insights on demand
In short, a conversational AI experience allows advertisers to use chat to generate relevant ad content from a landing page URL, and an AI assistant to provide insights on demand. Google has improved the campaign selection process to streamline keyword and asset selection and speed up your workflow. This makes it easy for advertising teams to approve assets before publishing campaigns online.
Related article: Google unveils OpenAI rival: Gemini
Gemini AI model integration
Google first announced the integration of AI into Google Ads last May at its Google Marketing Live event. Since then, Google has been active in incorporating his Gemini AI model into its platforms, including Bard. The company wants to demonstrate how Gemini can help with various use cases faced by marketers.
AI paradigm shift
AI capabilities represent a paradigm shift in capabilities that power advertising use cases. In the past, Google has focused on adding features that emphasize on-screen media elements, such as the introduction of lead forms in 2019. However, images have now emerged as a key factor in getting customers to click on online searches and have a significant impact on conversion behavior. This trend can be attributed to a growing consumer interest in video reels on their preferred platforms.
Related Article: Google Ushers in a New Era of AI-Driven Advertising: What Marketers Need to Know
Deliver better campaigns with less effort
Google acknowledged this trend in its research. The company detailed the results of a test with a select group of advertisers in a blog about the Google Ads conversation experience. Google says, “We found this allows you to build high-quality search campaigns with less effort.” The blog post goes on to say, “One way we measure this is through a metric called Ad Strength, which looks at the relevance, quality, and diversity of ad copy…” Through research, Google says it's improving image quality and We found a correlation between improved ad quality. Improved conversion rates.
As advertising spending remains competitive, we expect to see an increase in AI-powered digital advertising functions.
Google's introduction of new AI capabilities for digital advertising coincides with a flattening of overall ad spending in 2023. As Media Post reported, citing his 2023 data from Guideline's spending tracker, advertising spending in the first quarter fell noticeably. However, a recovery in subsequent quarters resulted in overall ad spend increasing modestly by 0.5% year-over-year.
Advertising dollar market is becoming increasingly competitive
Although advertising campaigns remain in vogue, data suggests a trend toward slower spending growth, indicating increased competition in the advertising market for marketers' budgets. In addition to traditional online platforms such as social media and search engines, marketers now contend with a wide variety of retail platforms competing for advertising dollars. Many of these platforms work with and compete with traditional alternatives. This evolving market environment is forcing industry leaders like Google to innovate solutions that not only accommodate advertisers' workflows, but also enhance the options available on their platforms.
AI solution
This also means that marketplace services for advertisers will become more complex. Brand managers will be looking for solutions that most effectively streamline their workflows among these different options. AI capabilities like those offered by Google are poised to become these popular solutions.
The next step for AI in digital advertising campaign management
The AI-driven conversation experience is currently available in beta for advertisers in the US and UK. Plans for a global expansion are underway, with an initial focus on English-speaking countries and later on regions with different languages.
Focus on new AI tools
Meanwhile, marketers should remain wary of other platforms introducing AI tools to enhance their workflows. Given Microsoft's investment in ChatGPT and its integration into Bing, Microsoft will likely be closely following Google's steps to incorporate Gemini into its Google advertising service. Additionally, marketers shouldn't overlook large retailers like Walmart and Amazon that have launched their own advertising platforms.
ultimate measure
Regardless of the new competitive strategy, the ultimate strategy for marketers will be to enhance conversion metrics within their analytics reports. The challenge lies in achieving this improvement while managing advertising budgets wisely. It remains to be seen which players will emerge as front-runners in the conversational AI and advertising pile.
