7 new Google Ads features include Brand restrictions in broad match, AI in Smart Bidding

A handful of tactical search features were announced in conjunction with the other AI-driven announcements from Google Marketing Live 2023. Yes, there is more AI coming to elements within search campaigns, but advertisers should look fondly at additional elements like better brand controls for broad match and better asset insights.

Brand restrictions for broad match. Google has been quickly improving broad match over the past few years and a new brand restriction feature should help advertisers feel more comfortable with the match type.

Similar to the announcement with Performance Max last year, this feature will help to leverage broad match with the brand traffic specified by the advertiser.

This feature will be applied at the campaign level which should make testing a breeze.

Google AI in Smart Bidding. Smart Bidding has always been, well, smart. It is getting even smarter by implementing a deeper integration of large language models (LLMs)into bidding, according to Google.

This will allow systems to use LLMs to better understand searcher intent and according to Google “optimize more intelligently for search queries it’s never seen before.”

Top search categories for RSAs. A new feature will allow advertisers to review the top categories at the RSA level. According to Google this will give a deeper transparency into what is driving performance while also giving advertisers better ideas for optimizing ads.

This may be beneficial to those advertisers with few campaigns as they may be able to see segmentation ideas for better campaign construction.

Campaign prefils. Don’t know what budget to start with for a campaign? New campaign prefills will give suggestions on budgets and even assets sourced from your website, past campaigns and Google AI predictions.

If you are a fan of Recommendations, they are coming to the setup flow as well.

New tools for Ads Creative Studio. You’ll soon be able to preview and export Performance Max assets straight into Google Ads in the specifications required for the campaigns.

A new trends explorer will also be added to Ads Creative Studio to help aid creative teams in finding current search trends and getting better ideas for creative.

New Asset Insights. Advertisers have been hungry for better data on which assets work in order to get the best messaging for their campaigns. Better asset insights will allow advertisers to understand which creatives aren’t resonating with certain audiences. Additionally, recommendations will be presented to guide advertisers on what AI-generated assets or stock photography may get better results.

Improved search terms on the Insights page. Coming soon, you’ll be able to find more search term categories within the Insights page. These will be able to be sorted by custom date ranges and will have historical insights that can be downloaded. These insights will be on the web interface as well as accessible in the Google Ads API.

Why we care. More data? Yes, please. Better bidding and targeting. Thank you much. These appear to be big improvements for advertisers that will help guide all the new AI to deliver better results. Additional brand restrictions alone should be a big win for those that are cautious with broad match and if LLMs can make Smarter Bidding smarter, that would be a win for all advertisers.