Marketers’ Guide to Google’s Next Generation AI-Powered Ads

The Gist
- Google is putting AI front and center. With enhancements to Google Ads, Performance Max, Product Studio and Search Generative Experience (SGE).
- Google Ads now offers an AI-powered chat. A feature that simplifies the process of starting a new ad campaign by providing suggestions and ideas in a chat-like experience.
- Google is bringing generative AI to Performance Max. Allowing users to create and scale custom assets easily and introducing new goals for customer acquisition and reengagement.
For years artificial intelligence has been subtly pulling strings in the background of Google ads, serving as the secret sauce behind many successful campaigns. But like a stagehand stepping into the limelight, Google is thrusting its AI from the wings to center stage as the company unveiled a slew of generative AI innovations during its annual Google Marketing Live event, yesterday.
With a goal to “significantly transform” the landscape of digital marketing, company officials announced plans to “bring AI front and center” with enhancements to Google Ads, Performance Max, Product Studio and Search Generative Experience (SGE) in Search Labs.
Enhancements that, according to Google Ads VP Jerry Dischler, will “bring AI front and center, making it the best tool in your marketing toolkit.”
On the heels of Google I/O — the company’s annual developer conference that took place earlier this month — Google Marketing Live took place May 23 and is aimed at advertisers, marketers and businesses who use Google’s suite of marketing tools and features announcements about new advertising products and updates to existing services.
So, what’s the big news? Let’s take a look.
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Google Ads Unveils AI-Powered Chat Feature
Sometimes starting a new ad campaign feels complicated and overwhelming — but a new feature in Google Ads aims to makes it easier by incorporating a chat-like experience that uses plain, everyday language and combines your knowledge with Google’s AI.
Here’s how it works: You choose a page on your website that you want to promote. Google’s AI will read the page and summarize what it’s about. Then, it will suggest things like keywords, headlines, descriptions, images, and other things you might want to include in your ad campaign. You can check out these suggestions and make any changes you want before you start your campaign. It’s like having a conversation with Google AI, asking it for ideas, just like you’d ask a coworker.
Google also unveiled improvements to its automatically created assets (ACA) feature. First introduced last year, ACA uses content from an organization’s current ads and landing pages to produce headlines and descriptions. Now with AI enhancements, Google promises “to make your ads match more closely to what people are searching for.”
“For example, with a search for ‘skin care for dry sensitive skin,’ AI can use content from your landing page and existing ads to create a new headline that aligns even more closely with the query, such as ‘Soothe Your Dry, Sensitive Skin,” Dischler said in a statement. “This helps you improve ad relevance while staying true to your brand.”
Further, Google insists that its AI tools will have the capacity to understand and integrate company context and policies.
“Although certain advertisers and agencies experienced problems with other generative tools, primarily due to a lack of understanding context and policy awareness, Google Ads has mitigated these issues by incorporating this feature directly into its platform,” Dischler said. “This integration guarantees the tool has the requisite context, grasps policies, and is rooted in the actual services provided by the advertisers.”
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Google Brings Generative AI to Performance Max
Also announced — new features for Performance Max that enable users to create and scale custom assets with a few clicks. Simply submit your website, and Google’s AI will begin familiarizing itself with your brand to fill your campaign with pertinent text and other assets. It will even propose freshly generated images tailored specifically for you.
“This capability will also be available through the new conversational experience in Google Ads,” Dischler said. “To make it easier to increase revenue from both new and existing customers, we’re also enhancing our new customer acquisition goal and introducing a re-engagement goal for Performance Max campaigns.”
Google’s AI-Boosted Search Revolution
During Google I/O, several new generative AI capabilities for Search were revealed, and according to Dischler, as the future of Search evolves so will the future of advertising.
As part of that future, Google launched the Search Generative Experience (SGE), a new feature within Search Labs dedicated to Google Search experiments. In the coming months Google plans to conduct experiments on Search and Shopping ads, with a focus on integrating these ads directly within the AI-driven snapshot and conversational mode of the SGE. Further, the company will explore ad formats that are unique to the SGE to leverage generative AI in designing ads tailored to each phase of the user’s search journey.
“These ads products are guided by our AI Principles and designed to help your business thrive,” Dischler said. “Your business, your marketing and your results — all multiplied by Google AI. As always, we’ll be experimenting first, testing and listening to your feedback along the way.”
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