Sorry, we forgot the croissants. But we do another spread of toasty Google updates…
Start with the ads
Google revealed how the keyword-matching system for search ads works during a recent event.
Here’s the brief outline:
- It starts with a query which Google processes to determine eligibility.
- Then it checks campaign and ad group eligibility based on parameters like geotargeting, audience targeting, negative keywords, and so on.
- Then determines whether a campaign uses broad match – location, recent searches, and landing page are parameters, too.
- Google evaluates responsive search ads (RSA) through the RSA creative system, which assembles best performing creatives from headlines and descriptions.
- Then Google uses Ad Rank to calculate bids and determine the ad placement.
- At the final auction, the relevance is determined by the meaning of the search term, the meaning of all keywords in a group, and the landing page.
The takeaway here is that grouping campaigns can help you avoid segmenting and reducing the available data for Smart Bidding optimizations, which would tank your ad performance.
Pour some datasets on top
Yes, you can now search for datasets on Google and get access to more than 45M sources you can cite. A content marketer’s dream, right?
Even better, datasets now come as featured snippets. So if you’re writing as a dataset author, you may want to implement structured data so Google can recognize it as such.
That may help you gain some valuable traffic.
Eat it while it’s hot
Finally, Google announced new ways to buy and measure YouTube’s Masthead placement – the topmost and most premium promotional slot.
How? By using the YouTube Cost-Per-Hour (CPH) Masthead, which should help you advertise during the hour or hours leading up to big events and other priority moments.
And yes, the Cost-Per-Impression (CPM) Masthead is staying, in case you were wondering.
Why we care
Any look into the inner workings of Google Ads is useful and welcome. Definitely worth taking a closer look at if you want to drive up those click-throughs.
And if you’re doing content marketing, you know how seriously Google takes well-crafted, authoritative content. The new datasets feature should help you produce some of your own.
Finally, with the rise of CTV ads, the new masthead placement seems like a useful feature. Let us know if you decide to give it a try.