Google Updates Lead Generation Capabilities

Today is the latest in Google’s series, The Update, with a focus on how Google can help advertisers drive quality leads, and leverage business signals to enhance online marketing efforts with offline impacts. Since the onset of the pandemic, Google’s continued its evolution of helping advertisers be more agile and effective with budgets, and these updates hold true with that trend.

As privacy updates change the way search marketers utilize audiences, Google is leaning in to help improve the functionality and adoption of first-party audiences. These updates include updates to match rate visibility, with this data populating in the Ads UI, including user match rates and industry benchmarks as well. Additionally, Google is officially announcing similar lists for customer lists in order to reach like users based on these cohorts. 

Another announcement today highlights the benefits of automating the management of audience lists and having technology that assists in this process in a scalable manner. PMG has invested in this automation over the past years with features in Alli that automatically ports Customer Match lists into Google Ads. This tool allows advertisers to customize the lists to fit the search marketing program needs while protecting user privacy and client data in a closed environment.

Takeaway: As privacy practices continue to evolve, leveraging first-party signals will become even more paramount to incorporate into search campaigns to re-engage customers on the SERP. Finding technology, such as Alli for Audiences, that will assist in speed to market and customization will help amplify these first-party solutions and create a better user experience.

Lead form extensions are being rolled out across the Google ecosystem to empower advertisers with flexibility in meeting consumers at touchpoints across the web. These will be present across Search, YouTube, Discovery, and embedded Display ad units, and users will be able to easily fill out their information without having to navigate through to the site. To provide a fast and frictionless way of submitting information, form fields will be auto-filled for signed-in users on Google surfaces. Additionally, advertisers will be able to choose from vertical-specific questions when creating a form to make the qualification of leads easier. 

Takeaway: Testing this new ad format allows advertisers to reduce friction for consumers trying to engage with brands. It will be important to optimize campaigns by utilizing this feature to ensure high-quality leads.

Google is removing the sole dependency on the GCLID for importing data into the UI. This will allow advertisers who aren’t able to capture this ID within a conversion an option to port data signals for bidding and optimizations. Google is expanding into allowing advertisers to upload data utilizing hashed PII for matching purposes, outside of the current ID. 

Takeaway: This starts the conversation for brands that are unable to capture the GCLID for pulling in additional data signals to enhance their bidding algorithms. This also expands the advertiser’s ability to optimize beyond the conversion and more easily associate New Customer Acquisition, Profitability, or LTV models to the individual conversions. Incorporating into the existing process, PMG’s brands are able to do this at scale with Alli.

Testing and adopting these new features will help advertisers maintain flexibility while increasing the impact of search programs in an omnichannel world. There are two more updates scheduled in 2020 for feature announcements from Google, which will continue to build on the platform’s theme of supporting advertisers as we enter a unique holiday season that will surely keep search advertisers on their toes.