Google started its ad business 18 years ago by letting local businesses buy text ad placements on its search engine results pages. Google AdWords, the product that enabled this, has since grown to become the bonafide industry leader with multibillion dollar revenues and access to text, display, and video inventory over multiple channels including search, partner publisher sites, Maps, YouTube, and Play Store.
As part of a re-branding exercise that more accurately reflects the present capability of Google’s buy-side ad product, AdWords is being renamed to Google Ads. Most things under the hood will remain the same, except one addition—Google Ads will have machine-learning enabled smart campaigns.
“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,” says Shridhar Ramaswamy, Vice President of Ads & Commerce at Google.
In addition to AdWords, Google is also re-branding its sell-side ad products DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange by bundling them together into one solution called Google Ad Manager.
Google is positioning the Ad Manager as not just an “ad server” or “supply-side platform” but a unified solution that allows web publishers access to the features they are familiar with along with access to programmatic deals, private marketplaces, and open auction, all in one place.
“Ad Manager gives you a single platform for delivering, measuring and optimizing ads wherever your audience is engaging—including connected TVs, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), mobile games and other apps, and platforms like YouTube and Apple News,” says Jonathan Bellack, director of product management at Google Ad Manager.
In order to convey that this all is more than just a branding exercise, Google has doubled down on its promise of providing a brand safe environment by emphasising that in 2017, their spam detection and policy enforcement tools stopped 3.2 billion ads from reaching the users, and that publishers and brands have access to over 30 different controls to fine-tune the type of ads that are allowed in their campaigns.
The new brand ‘Google Ads’ and ‘Google Ad Manager’ names will roll out within the next few days and weeks, and Google will unveil the new smart campaigns in its Marketing Live Event on the 10th of July.
Shubham is a digital marketer with rich experience working in the advertisement technology industry. He has vast experience in the programmatic industry, driving business strategy and scaling functions including but not limited to growth and marketing, Operations, process optimization, and Sales.
