The Latest & Most Important Updates to Google Ads in 2024

Straight from the desk of our Google Ads experts, read on to learn what’s new and how you can turn these Google Ads updates into opportunities for your business.

Starting July 2024, Google Ads has offered advertisers to voluntarily upgrade their Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) to Performance Max (PMax) through a self-serve tool in advertiser accounts. When upgraded, a new PMax campaign is created for each existing campaign, combining previous settings and learnings to maintain performance.

For many marketers, DSAs have been a go-to ad format for creating targeted ads, where Google uses your website content to “dynamically” generate headlines and landing pages to target your ads to relevant searchers precisely.

The upgrade to PMax provides new tools to enhance campaign performance, including inventory-aware ad serving, better insights, and improved user intent targeting. These features aim to help advertisers transition from single-channel campaigns to a unified PMax strategy, improving ROI and performance across multiple channels - search, display, YouTube, Gmail, and Maps.

While upgrades are currently voluntary, PPC experts believe that Google may eventually make campaign setup using PMax mandatory. Whether you should opt in for the upgrade now depends on the pros and cons of the move for your business. Here are some things to consider:

• Integrated campaign strategy: PMax allows advertisers to consolidate a campaign across multiple channels and rely on Google’s AI to increase ROI.
• Improved conversion: Google has said that those who upgrade to PMax see conversions increase by more than 15%. We know that this varies from account to account, so we recommend you be sceptical about this for your own campaigns.
• Inventory-aware ads: For eCommerce businesses, PMax campaigns automatically exclude out-of-stock products, so your budget is not wasted. 
• Greater control: PMax gives you more control over text assets of an ad, like headlines and long headlines, unlike DSAs.
• Wider audience reach: As PMax campaigns run over multiple channels, you can reach new audiences more effectively.

• Lack of detailed reporting: While Google claims that you can access better and more detailed reports with PMax, advertisers in the industry, including us, have found that PMax campaigns lack transparency as we're unable to view granular insights. Google is trying to improve these reports. 
• Loss of control over keywords and targeting: With PMax campaigns, you are unable to use negative keywords or directly target specific audiences.
• Loss of control over ad copy: If you switch to PMAX, you won’t be able to use your web pages to create ads with specific, targeted messaging. 
• Risk of imbalanced campaigns: PMax is AI-driven, which means that it can prioritise certain types of content or audiences over others. This can lead to an imbalance in ad exposure for certain products/services or audiences. 
• Uncertain future of DSAs: It’s possible that DSAs could be discontinued in the future, forcing you to transition to PMax and disrupt healthy campaigns.
• Set-up time: PMax campaigns require more assets in terms of images, videos, and the like, unlike DSAs, which may not be available.

If you’re unsure about whether making the switch is the right thing to do for your business, you can get in touch with our Google Ads experts for a second opinion.

Earlier this year, Google introduced ‘search themes’ for PMAX campaigns. 

While Google reviews your existing assets, feeds, and landing pages to determine ad placements for PMax campaigns, search themes guide Google to expand your search opportunities and reach new audiences. 

In short, with search themes, you can fill in gaps by adding information about your business that you expect to perform well. You can indicate up to 25 search themes per asset group based on queries you know your customers are looking for, to reach those new audiences.

This could come in handy in several instances:

1. You haven’t yet updated your website or landing pages for new products, services, or new offers. 
2. You have just launched into a new product/service category and Google hasn’t had “time” to crawl the information.
3. You are launching a seasonal campaign or product variation where you don’t necessarily have an extensive performance history to influence the new campaign.
4. You want to provide extra information about your brand and offering to further optimise performance and overall results.

eCommerce advertisers will be delighted to know that Shopping Ads are now given top-of-page placement in search results. When you search for an item, Google now displays a catalogue of different options from a number of eCommerce websites, with the product image, short description, and price displayed right at the top in different product cards.

This change drives more traffic directly to online stores. The top-of-page placement is a great opportunity for businesses to increase conversions, but it also needs careful management.

To capitalise on this update, it’s important to properly optimise product feeds as Shopping Ads are impacted by eCommerce SEO. You need to optimise your product listings based on which search queries trigger your ads. To do this, make sure that product titles, descriptions, and images are accurate and compelling - this will help your ad stand out. This is one of the many reasons why you need to run integrated SEO and Google Ads campaigns, as we did for our client, Attaquer. Check out our case study here. 

You should also consider how pricing strategies and promotions might influence click-through rates and conversions in this new placement. If you need help with this, you can reach out to our eCommerce marketing specialists.

Google introduced a host of new AI features for demand generation ads last year, and in 2024 they’ve added more to the toolbox:

1. Text to image: Advertisers have to simply write a text prompt to generate a high-quality visual suitable for their ads, improving ease, efficiency, and customisability.
2. Image to video: If you’re aiming to reach a wide audience for awareness, video ads are the way to go. With Google’s new updates, you can convert product images into a high-quality video that would be great for top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) ads.
3. 3D shopping ad formats: The new 3D format is easier to play with than it sounds. Simply upload images of your product from different orientations (top, bottom, left, right) and Google’s AI generates a 3D model of the product.
4. Product Studio: An image generator to improve product images for Shopify campaigns. This tool is currently in beta and works well only with consumer packaged goods. Use it with caution as it can generate unexpected images if the creative includes human models, hands, walled art, and the like. 

You can use these tools to run campaigns across YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Gmail, and Discover.

Generative AI is likely to save the time it takes to build a visually appealing ad creative, depending on the product/service you are promoting. However, bear in mind that these tools will be available to everyone, including your competition. So, if you want your ads to stand out, have a consistent look and feel, and be aligned with your brand and website, it is still worth partnering with dedicated creative experts to develop your assets for your campaign.

This feature has only been launched in the US, so if you advertise to your audience there, this is for you.

AI Overviews is a new feature that was launched as a part of Google’s new Search Generative Experience. It uses Gemini to directly give AI-generated answers to search queries, at the top of the page, above page results. 

Here is an example of what AI Overviews look like:

According to Google, this feature will not impact ads in any way. It’s also possible that ads will be placed above Gemini’s results in the short term, and within the AI overview ‘cards’ in the future. It is still unclear if marketers need to increase their media budget or increase their SEO investment to tackle this change. 

At the moment, Google has no plans to launch AI Overviews in Australia.

For an in-house marketing manager navigating the complex landscape of online ads, understanding these updates will keep you ahead of the curve. 

Use the latest Google Ads updates shared here to have a constructive discussion with your paid ads specialist or PPC Agency. Consider the changes you need to make in the short-term and long-term to keep generating results from your Google Ads campaigns.