The Sparro team headed to Carriageworks to discover what’s new in search at Google Masterclass 2017.
Google has a reputation for being an innovative company, sparking trends at the forefront of the digital world. At Masterclass, the theme of the day was adaptation, with speakers expressing the need for more creative solutions in the ever-changing digital landscape. While the news that 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t even been invented yet may sound daunting, thinking outside the box and becoming an expert rather than a specialist is what will take your business to the next level.
Read on to find out more about what was discussed at the Google Masterclass 2017.
Intelligent Assistants
With AI technology growing at rapid speeds, Google predicts a move from our mobile-orientated world to trusting a hands-free IA (Intelligent Assistant) with our daily tasks. Or, as Google CEO Sundar Pichai put it:
“The next big step will be for the very concept of the device to fade away. Over time, the computer will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. We will move from mobile first to an AI first world.”
IA models like Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa and more are becoming more readily-available; and the change that they will bring about for keyword research is immense. Google Home now has a 4.9% error rate understanding US English speakers – and as voice recognition advances we get one step closer to saying goodbye to clunky and misspelled keywords with lots of volume in favour of more natural-sounding search terms.
Consumer Journeys
Understanding the change in the consumer journey is what sets digital agencies apart from traditional marketing companies. In today’s world, we have the answers to millions of questions in our pocket almost all of the time. So much so that we consult 10 or more sources before we purchase, and 90% of us switch between multiple devices as we shop. In order to get ahead, the task is now to marry the traditional econometric marketing approaches with new digital tracking methods to get the best understanding of the market.
Ad Customisation
Google reports that 3.5 billion searches happen every day – and 15% of searches are unique! So how do you create impressions for a business, small or large, with so many factors in play? Tailored messages targeted towards a certain demographic, device, geo location or time is one way to get more clicks on your ads, and are easy to create in AdWords using placeholders, countdowns and more. Another way to truly optimise your ads is to let the AI sort through the millions of variables with DSA’s (Dynamic Search Ads.) DSA’s use machine learning to find the best keyword solutions, and companies using them have seen a 30% rise in clicks and CTR as well as a 35% decrease in CPA.
Ad Rotation Is The Key To Success
With so much competition, relevancy is key. Creating more than one ad in your ad group will increase your click-through rate and reach a wider audience. Ad groups with three or more ads receive up to 15% more conversions, and rotating them sees a 5% rise in clicks and conversions. Using AI and DSA’s to work out what works and what doesn’t will give you more time to work on creative targeting and strategic tasks.
Attribution Methods
In a cross-platform age, attribution is becoming a tangled web of devices as consumers consult more sources, reviews and information than ever before. This informed decision stage can take days to months depending on the product, making things like last click attribution steadily more redundant as a single source of attribution. Google are suggesting a move from last click alone and pushing for the use multi-channel funnels to get the best view of consumer behaviour in reporting. Being on top of a mix of channels, such as first click, last click, DDA and more will get the best results.