Almost two years ago, we wrote about changes to Google Ads Demand Generation campaigns that increased advertiser reliance on automation and artificial intelligence without the transparency that our client base was asking for and deserved. With the volume of ad spend going through Google Ads, it’s not unreasonable for an advertiser to expect answers to simple questions like, “how are my dollars being spent?” and “what percentage of this campaign spend is on YouTube vs. Gmail?”
Today, we’re very enthusiastic about the beta release of channel visibility reporting for Performance Max (PMax) campaigns and the beta release of ad group level channel controls for Demand Generation campaigns. These features are very welcome transparency updates that, while long overdue, provide solid insights on just where and how advertiser dollars are being spent across Google’s properties.
Specifically, for our first client beta, we linked the product feed from Merchant Center, and now have insights into how many ads are served using product data from the feed vs. how many ads are served without using product data, and how much each of these ad segments contribute to the total. Unsurprisingly, ads using product data account for an extremely high percentage of purchase conversions.
Additionally, we’re able to draw insights from the channel mix for PMax that we were unable to previously. The relative importance of search in the PMax mix cannot be overstated – for our client participating in the beta, search accounts for over 90% of PMax conversions. That’s a comforting statistic, indicating that our PMax impressions are mostly delivered to potential customers actively looking for these products.
The Demand Generation beta for channel controls is a similarly welcome update aimed, like PMax channel reporting, to address advertiser concerns about transparency and lack of control.
We’re pleased to see that Google can still operate with advertiser’s interests in mind, and is willing to show the results of their much-hyped artificial intelligence. Our biggest takeaway – the squeaky wheel still gets the grease, so keep demanding greater and greater degrees of transparency from industry behemoths.