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Two Machine Learning Announcements from Google Marketing Live

Last Tuesday, Google announced a few machine learning initiatives that are going to further improve automation. Artificial intelligence and machine learning aren’t new to Google, almost all the latest releases from Google Ads are focused around this technology and Bing Ads have also been supported by machine learning for a couple of years, but things are about to get even more interesting. Here are two Google Machine Learning announcements that pricked our ears.

Responsive Search Ads

Responsive search ads automate ad testing and provide additional real estate to advertisers that agree to be part of the testing for Google’s algorithm. These new ads were beta tested in May and now they’re going to be rolled out to advertisers over the next few months. Google wants advertisers to move away from manual testing and choose automated ads instead. As a reward for doing so, Google will provide extra characters. Advertisers are free to have up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions that include an additional 10 characters, pushing the total up to 90. The responsive ads can show 3 headlines and a maximum of 2 descriptions.

The combination of headline and description will be automated by Google, chosen based on the user’s search query to provide a more accurate response. By increasing the number of variants, the advertisers will have more opportunities to enter the auctions relating to the keywords inputted by the user.

Local Campaigns

Mobile phone users have dramatically increased the use of ‘near me’ searches. Google announced a new type of campaign titled Local, these campaigns are aimed to increase the number of store visits. Advertisers can create a set budget and the ads will be automatically generated based upon the creative elements and location extensions. Google will optimise the ads over their services, including Search, Maps, YouTube, apps and websites.

Local campaigns are focused on driving traffics from the ads to the store. The campaign reports on the number of store visits using data from Google users that have signed into the Google accounts and have turned on location history. All the data is anonymous.

There have been more announcements but both of these new initiatives show the benefits to both online-only stores and those with brick and mortar premises.  Need help getting your heads around Google advertising? Get in touch, we’re ready to help.