🔍 Google Ads turns 20: The changes that will inform the next 20

Plus, Snapchat’s latest visual search tools and more. Oct 27, 2020 Good morning Search Marketer, Google Ads has been around for 20 years. Two decades in and Google Ads has become a $135 billion business with millions of advertisers. We don’t have to look all the way back to see drastic changes. A review of the big changes of the past 5 years alone point to dramatic shifts and trends that will inform where search advertising heads next. [Here are the biggies](: Rise of audiences: I realize audiences seem obvious, but in addition to new capabilities — including new GA4-powered predictive audiences — in 2017, Google connected YouTube and Search signals for targeting that have been instrumental in deepening Google Ads’ audience capabilities. Privacy restrictions and regulations will mean Google will use more modeling for audience targeting in the coming years. Decline of keywords and match types. We know the fuzzying of close variants story, now with Google limiting the search queries advertisers can see for privacy reasons, keyword management is even harder. Queries are still a powerful (and profitable) intent signal, it’s just that Google is increasingly confident its algorithms can do a better job of intent matching at scale than search marketers can on their own. Automated campaigns and ads. 2018 ushered in the transition to fully-automated campaigns and ad formats, with Smart campaigns, Local campaigns, Smart Shopping and responsive search ads all coming on the scene that year. Machine learning is embedded in every aspect of how these features work. Surfaces across Google. This is technically the name of the option that allows merchants to show their products for free on Google Shopping, Google Images, Google Lens and Google Search, but it captures a broader theme. And that is the extension of campaigns across multiple properties and ads running on more surfaces such as the Discover feed, auto-suggest results in Maps and more. Online-to-offline capabilities. Google has invested heavily in supporting offline business discovery, ad measurement and more. Maps, Google My Business and local feeds in Merchant Center factor heavily as do store visits and store sales measurement. Local accounts for a significant portion of Google’s search traffic and local commerce capabilities are a key differentiator over Amazon. Anything we missed? Let me know: [gmarvin@thirddoormedia.com](. Ginny Marvin,Editor-In-Chief Social Short Snapchat extends visual search to packaged foods, wine Snapchat users can now use their Snap cameras to find nutrition information of one million packaged food products and more than 12 million types of wine labels. Nutrition Scanner and Wine Scanner are powered by [Yuka and Vivino](, respectively, the newest partners of Snap’s AR developer platform Scan. Other partnerships allow users to look up products on Amazon, identify songs, dog breeds, plants, solve math equations and more. Why we care. The new tools — and Scan generally — are aimed at increasing user engagement with the app by adding utility to its camera. Visual search isn’t unique to Snapchat of course — Google, Bing and Pinterest all have lens technology — but Scan is unique in its partnership approach. Tips for improving your Google Quality Score Within Google Ads, every keyword is subject to Google’s Quality Score metric, which impacts your cost and your ad’s ability to display. Download the Quality Score Improvement guidebook from Titan Growth to learn the three main components that impact Quality Score and tactics for improving yours. [More »]( Search Short No more waiting... Local wait times fixed. Google [seems to have fixed a bug where the local wait times were inaccurate]( in Google Local and Google Maps. Number of links. Google says [there is no optimal number of links on a page](. Google easter egg. [Search for [pele] on Google Search and scroll to the bottom](, check out the pagination feature, it is super! 7 life lessons on leadership during COVID and beyond [Sponsored by Integrate]( The desire to bring together a far-flung team suddenly thrust into working from home led Integrate founder and CEO Jeremy Bloom to initiate weekly virtual town-hall meetings featuring special guests with a wide range of experiences. Beginning in March, Integrate staffers heard from the likes of high-tech CEOs, highly-competitive athletes, a professional rock climber, a Minneapolis-based police officer, a neurosurgeon and even Bloom’s sister, whose life was captured in the movie, Molly’s Game. In this interview, we’ll hear from Bloom about the surprising insights gleaned from these town hall meetings, and how they can be applied to better cope with the “new normal.” [Read More>>]( SEO keynote alert! Join us online December 8-9 for expert-led search marketing training, featuring just-announced keynote speaker Areej AbuAli, SEO Manager at Zoopla! [See what's in store »]( What we're reading We've curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader. 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