Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is ditching AdWords and DoubleClick.
Google Rebrands Ad Offerings
In an attempt to simplify how you create and manage ad campaigns with Google, the search engine company is rebranding these services as Google Ads, Google Marketing Platform, and Google Ad Manager.
The changes streamline and combine existing products in a recognition of the growing importance of mobile advertising, monetizing through different channels and other factors.
Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President of Google Ads, explained how the new offering is geared to smaller businesses in a company release. He writes, “For small businesses specifically, we’re introducing a new campaign type in Google Ads that makes it easier than ever to get started with online advertising.
“It brings the machine learning technology of Google Ads to small businesses and helps them get results without any heavy lifting — so they can stay focused on running their businesses.”
Check out this video from Google that explains the changes to its ads platform:
Smart Campaigns: Google Ads
The new products are geared to helping those small businesses that want to take advantage of online adverting but don’t a dedicated staff or big marketing budgets.
Google reports the Smart Campaigns that will drive Google Ads is 3 times better at placing your ads in front of your target market. They also plan on rolling out Image Picker later this year which will allow for customized pictures to go with the new ads.
“Pick the top three images from our suggestions or upload your own, and your ads will be ready to go. We’ll help you get results by testing combinations of the text and images you selected,” said Kim Spalding, General Manager and Product Lead, Small Business Ads in a company release.
Google Marketing Platform: Analytics and Optimization
Another big change, Google Marketing Platform, brings DoubleClick Digital Marketing and Google Analytics 360 Suite together under a new banner.
Better analytics and optimization under one roof are the big sells from Google here. There’s a new Integration Center supporting 100 pathways to measurement solutions, technology providers and exchanges.
There are other new aspects including Display & Video 360. Continuing on with the theme of streamlining and simplifying the process for small business, this ropes various DoubleClick Bid Manager features into one place.
Search Ads 360 replaces DoubleClick Search.
One of the big themes here that should be of interest to small business is the continuation of the marriage of ads and analytics giving you the ability to tweak your advertising campaigns.
Google Ad Manager: Follow The Leader
Not surprisingly, the new Google Ad Manager had a few moving parts that came together under this new banner.
“Since the acquisition of DoubleClick over 10 years ago, we’ve continuously evolved our platforms to help our partners grow their revenue and create sustainable businesses with advertising,” said
Jonathan Bellack, Director of Product Management said in a company release.
Bringing DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) and DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) together soon morphed into an ad platform suitable for mobile application and video. The new “programmatic solutions” offered here will be a further boon to those small businesses looking to make the most of software that can automate their buying and advertising processes.
Long story short is Google Ad Manager allows you to follow your ads and measure and optimize them in the places where your target market engages like mobile games, other apps, Apple News and You Tube. It’s Google’s way of helping you in that never-ending game of follow-the-leader into new distribution channels.
The new products begin making an appearance in the middle of July. Google Marketing Live will introduce more campaigns July 10.
Image: Google
I like the Doubleclick rebrand, but not sure why rebranding AdWords was a priority. Don’t like the Google Ad Manager name.
Hi Robert
Part of this is a branding issue for Google – The name Adwords was conceived for ads being shown with keywords. Today, they still are, but video ads are the growth market. You can also have Adwords for video, but it’s less about keywords, which I think is Google’s point. Adwords has grown beyond search for a lot of applications and Google really needed to consolidate their advertising brands a bit to keep “mindshare” with advertisers. There are a lot of options out there for advertisers now – we may be seeing a shift from paid search from even being called paid search or PPC.
Aira Bongco
Not to be negative but it seems that Facebook is now getting more advertisers because theirs convert more.
They did lead the pack with ads set to demographics but now Google offers it as well. There are so many advertising options, and Google is already spread thin with platforms for cloud, AI, etc. that consolidation of its older platforms is reasonable. I just can’t believe it’s been 18 years!
Now tons of consistency-obsessed people with OCD will want to update training slides, knowledge bases, etc, lest the old names reveal how long you’ve been in the industry. Well, that can be a positive, depending.
Very true Alex – I am reviewing my presentations as I type because of this news.
yeah agreed it is looking like a migration for the smarter and mobile-first index you can see the smart campaigns are moving more smarter than before.