Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 69 - Google Marketing Live
I am at Google Marketing Live right now! In fact, if you are watching rather than listening, you'll see that big G right behind me. And now that I've taken some time to digest what we've heard, I want to share it with you so that you know what to do with your Google Ads in 2025 and beyond.
I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you.
This is Inside Google Ads: Episode 69, GML 2025.
First, I'm going to share some overall impressions, and then we're going to get into all of the nitty-gritty details of what you need to know that's changing for your campaigns.
First of all, this year's GML, well, obviously, was AI, AI! That's no surprise. But what I will say about that is it definitely felt like there were more innovative features being announced here because of AI. And we're going to get to that. It was not what I expected. I actually expected this to be kind of a boring one, but we've got a lot to talk about today. So that was a very pleasant surprise.
What also surprised me is it was clear from the announcements that Google is trying much harder to really go head to head with social platforms, explicitly calling out how Gen Z still searches a ton, ways to incorporate your assets and data from other platforms into Google Ads, so keep an eye on that one.
And another thing that surprised me was how YouTube-centric the event is. We always talk about Search, Google search being the key O&O platform, but YouTube got a lot of love here. Right up there alongside Search, and I can tell that Google is really positioning that as one of the competitive advantages, having, well, the top two most popular search engines in the world, but also this great platform for discovery, browsing and shopping.
Whether you are a small or large advertiser, ecommerce or lead gen, even if you're on app campaigns, you're going to find something new from this year's GML.
So first, let's talk about Agentic Experiences. And let's just make sure we understand what that means for a moment. We're all pretty familiar with generative AI now, your Chat GPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, etc. It's like a word-predicting machine. You chat with it, have a conversation, and it can help you with things. And within the Google Ads interface, there is an AI chat, which you may or may not have used before, but that space is expanding with Agentic Experiences. And so what agentic means is that these are now going to be more proactive. The AI can actually take action.
For example, right now, perhaps the AI will tell you, you need to install the Google Tag on your website. But with this agentic experience, it can actually go to your website and install that tag for you, whether you use Wix, Squarespace, something not even Google. This is absolutely game changing, and that is not a word I use lightly.
There are three separate Agentic Experiences coming to the Google platform.
One of them is called Your Google Ads Expert. That's a global beta.
One is called Your Google Analytics Expert, another global beta. Both of those are rolling out now.
And third is something called Your Marketing Advisor, which Google says is coming soon, so we'll see if it ever actually rolls out, but will give you business advice about your website.
Now, this all sounds great. I will say I'm a little hesitant because we all know how recommendations work out in the Google Ads platform. Some are more helpful than others. You definitely don't want your auto-apply recommendations on. And of course, the stuff that these agents are all trained on is those Google Ads recommendations, so I am cautiously optimistic.
I'm hopeful that this will be a very helpful tool, especially for small business owners, people who can't afford to hire help. But I am also hesitant that if it operates the way recommendations do today, that it might lead them astray, like adding a bunch of keywords you don't need or turning on auto-apply recommendations that are not right for you. So, cautiously optimistic about these Agentic Experiences.
Now next, let's go to the bread and butter, Search. Already announced was AI Max for Search campaigns. In case you missed that, AI Max is not a new campaign type. It is not a new match type. It is not called Search Max. It's called AI Max and it comes with three features: keyword-less targeting, text customization, and final URL expansion.
Now, if you've used Performance Max before, this should all be familiar to you. And so something I've been hearing a lot of people say here today is this is just Performance Max for Search, but it’s called AI Max for Search.
A new announcement today was something called Smart Bidding Exploration. I'm going to say upfront 99.9% of advertisers do not need this, but if you run Search campaigns, if you use Target ROAS and you are maxed out on your current opportunity, you might want to explore Smart Bidding Exploration. What this does is you give it a sensitivity to lower your Target ROAS in exchange for increasing your total profitability. So you can go after more opportunities that Google can't go after now because it doesn't think it would hit your ROAS, but with a slightly lower ROAS, it could.
Confusing, right?
I know. It's a lot for me to wrap my head around too.
This is rolling out globally now. Again, I'm not going to recommend most people test this, but if you want to, I have a link below this episode description to share more about Smart Bidding Exploration and whether or not it might be right for you.
Now Google also told us that ads are coming to AI overviews. To be fair, they said this last GML and they have not rolled out yet, but the word is it's coming to the US now on mobile devices only. So we'll see about that.
Ads are also coming to AI mode, which is a new kind of chat-based search mode that's coming to Google. More information about that was shared at I/O, which happened on Tuesday this week, and that should also be coming soon to the US in English.
Rolling up all these Search updates together, what we're really hearing is something one of the people said on stage. They said we're moving from keyword matching to predicting.
The world of having your Exact Match keywords, and these are the exact queries I want… I mean, we already knew that was kind of going away the way Search Term matching works now, but really that world is gone. Now Google is trying to take that search behavior, everything else it knows about the user, everything else it knows about the business, and using that to predict which searches will be most valuable for you.
Okay, let's move on to everyone's favorite or least favorite campaign type, PMax.
A lot of this stuff was pre-announced. We are getting channel performance reporting in Performance Max, that is available now globally, Google says. So you'll be able to see if your PMax is spending on Search versus Display, Maps, YouTube, et cetera. I have a link below this episode description with more about PMax channel performance.
Similarly, we are getting a full search terms report in Performance Max along with the ability to add negative keywords. So that is bringing your PMax Search and Shopping component in line with the transparency and controls you would get in standard Search and Shopping campaigns. Google says that it's coming soon, and again, there's a link in the episode description with more about PMax search terms.
So what did we learn about PMax that's actually new? One of the most exciting announcements of the day is video assets in Search and Shopping. This is coming soon in the US and Canada. And basically with your Search ads, there could now be a video that shows with it, just like an image asset. Or with your Shopping ads, you could have your product there and then a video next to it. Now the only way into this inventory is Performance Max. You're not going to be able to add video assets to Search or Shopping campaigns, at least not for now.
I wanted to know more about this, so thankfully, I'm here with Ginny Marvin for the day. I asked her for a little bit more details about how this will work.
And so what she said is, first of all, when you're adding your video assets to your asset groups, think about those asset groupings to make sure that the right video asset will surface on the right kind of queries. You want really specific video content. This is not the place for a generic brand video. Something like how-tos, tutorials, case studies, reviews could be really helpful here, and there will be reporting on these video assets as part of the channel performance reports. You'll see how those videos perform on Search versus Shopping versus YouTube.
There are also more controls coming for customer lifecycle goals in PMax.
Let's skip over to Video. YouTube was absolutely a star of GML. Quite a few video announcements. Shoppable CTV is coming, Connected TV, and shoppable masthead placements. Again, probably not applicable for most advertisers, but I do have an article about that in the episode description if you want to learn more.
There will be Creator partnerships in Google Ads. Google really emphasized the power of YouTube creators, especially with Gen Z. And there's going to be this new area within the Google Ads interface where you can find partners and get reporting on your video assets and partnerships. Apparently that's available now globally, so I'm really excited to see what that looks like.
The most exciting video announcement, though, in my opinion, is something called Attributed Brand Searches. This is a brand new metric coming soon, so we'll see when it rolls out. You'll be able to see people who view your Video campaigns and then search for your brand on Google.
It's this nice additional metric to try to prove the value of Video, because we know people likely don't convert straight from a video, but just reporting on views or impressions may not be enough. So this is at least showing you that someone took action after seeing your video because they went to search for your brand. If you want to learn more about that, there is an article linked in the episode description with more about Attributed Brand Searches.
Now Demand Gen, this rounds out what Google is now calling the Power Pack: Search plus PMax plus Demand Gen. I love Demand Gen campaigns. We have an episode next week with three case studies on how to use Demand Gen.
So a few neat little features there. New customer acquisition is coming to Demand Gen soon, apparently, just like we have in Search, Shopping and PMax.
You'll be able to reach users on Maps via Demand Gen. Maps is a search-based product, so I'll be very curious to see what that looks like. That is also coming soon.
And then there's going to be this accelerated checkout on Demand Gen. We've seen products like this before, like checkout on Google from shopping. That was back in like 2018 or something. So we'll see how that goes. That is available now in the US.
And then last but not least, Merchant Center. Shopping was, of course, a big focus of the event, and so there are a bunch of new features coming to Google Merchant Center.
The brand profile, which was actually announced at GML last year, didn't happen. They still say it's coming soon, but basically you can control the way your brand appears in search results.
There's going to be a content hub in Merchant Center for your video assets. You can pull in assets from social. That is coming soon to the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK.
Then something called Predictive actionable insights coming to Google Merchant Center. The example Google gave is with Father's Day is coming up, Merchant Center could recommend that you have a discount around that and what the discount should be, and with the click of a button, activate that and then also activate ads around it. So that is available now in the US.
Whew, we've covered a lot! There was a lot more, some stuff around measurement, apps, creative, but we've really covered what I think are the most impactful announcements to come out of Google Marketing Live.
So if I had to sum up what I see as Google's key messages for advertisers, first is something I've been saying for ages. Google says, just give us your data, and we'll give you results. And they tried to find ways to make it easier and easier to give us data.
That brings us to the next thing. It's really an adapt or die situation. AI is here to stay. Voice Search turned out to be a nothing burger. AI is not a nothing burger. It's integrated across everything in the Google Ads platform from Targetive to Creative to Bidding. And now with these new Agentic Experiences, if you have not been testing new AI features, now is the time to do so.
The last thing I'll say is Google is definitely listening to advertiser feedback. And that is not something I would have said in previous years. Whether from the main stage where Google representatives shared, or advertiser feedback, we did this, or we heard you didn't like that, so we changed it.
I was also fortunate to attend a few closed door sessions after the keynote with some other Google Ads experts who are on this trip. While I cannot share what was said there, it was all behind closed doors, what I can share is that the product managers who are developing the products and features that I shared with you today really wanted feedback. They wanted to share their ideas with us, and hear what we had to say. What does this mean for lead gen or ecommerce? What does this mean for large advertisers or small advertisers?
You know I was the person in the room who kept saying, “Well, at a small budget we need this.” Or, “Have you thought about how this works for a small advertiser?”
I know this was a lot in today's session. So for more of my ongoing GML coverage and what it means to you, you can go to jyll.ca/gml. That's J-Y-L-L dot C-A slash G-M-L. Next week, we have a special episode where I'm sharing three real life case studies of how to get Demand Gen working for lead gen.
This is Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.