4 Next-Gen Betas From Google’s AI Innovation Day
Discover the latest next generation of betas from Google Ads: AI Innovation Day. While many of the betas remain confidential, Google has previously released several betas across various blog articles, forcing advertisers to piece together the information. Like a scavenger hunt extraordinaire, I’ve scoured Google's help articles and pieced this puzzle together in one concentrated summary. This article highlights four game changing betas that Google highlighted at AI Innovation Day last week.
To watch Google Ads AI Innovation Day yourself, register here.
Interesting Beta #1:
PMax Creative AI Improvements
Usually, I’m a skeptic when it comes to Google’s new product releases, but with these PMax creative AI improvements, it really feels like Google has addressed advertisers' pain points. While none of the features are revolutionary, they offer tools that most advertisers without advanced Photoshop skills would otherwise struggle to create. I’m excited to try some of these new creative features. Now, without further ado, let’s dive into the details:
Benefits:
Reduces the workload on creative teams by enabling the generation of multiple image variations.
Scales image creation by generating new scenes and backgrounds for existing images.
Features:
AI Image Editing: Automatically or manually replace image backgrounds.
Create new backgrounds with AI text prompts: One example they demonstrated involved uploading an image of a couch, removing the plain background, and then generating a new scene with the prompt: “living room with plants, exposed brick wall, hardwood floors.”
Adjust images by adding, editing, or replacing elements: For example, they used a drag-and-drop tool to remove a lamp and add an abstract painting.
Uncrop Feature: This allows you to expand the image beyond its original borders—something simple for our creative partners, but quite impressive for the rest of us.
Color and aspect ratio adjustments: Similar to other features, Google offers both manual and AI-assisted options. You can resize images to meet all required aspect ratios for your campaign, ensuring maximum reach.
Brand Guidelines: Enter your URL, and Google will automatically recommend fonts and colors aligned with your brand identity. You can also review logos and business names to ensure accuracy. Additionally, you can input custom primary and secondary colors and choose from six font options that best match your brand.
For more details, read Google Ads' blog article on Performance Max Creative AI Improvements.
Interesting Beta #2:
AI Overviews Ads
The highly anticipated beta, Google AI Overview Ads, is now live for mobile users in the U.S. AI Overviews occupy prime space in Google’s search results, providing advertisers in this beta the opportunity to reach users in an action-oriented environment.
For example, if a user searches, “How do I remove pet hair from a couch?”, the AI Overview will suggest an array of solutions, from household methods like lint rollers to specialized pet hair removal products.
With this Beta, shopping ads are integrated into the result, allowing users to instantly purchase the product.
Google has stated that advertisers already using AI-powered search ads, shopping, or Performance Max, will be automatically included into this beta, with no additional action required.
At this time, there is no placement reporting for AI Overviews, nor is there a way to opt out of the beta.
Features:
Uses both user search queries and context in the AI Overview response.
AI Overviews can feature both standard text and shopping ads.
For more details, navigate to the following Google Ads' blog article and search the page text for "AI Overviews."
Interesting Beta #3
Customer Lifecycle Goals
These two primary goals take Google’s existing features a step further by adding a high-value focus.
High-Value New Customers:
To leverage this, upload a customer list segmented by high-LTV customers. Then, set an incremental value for these high-value customers compared to standard ones. Your campaign will optimize for both regular and high-value customers, assigning a higher CAC target for the latter based on the incremental value you set.
Win-Back and High-Value Win-Back:
Initially teased at Google Marketing Live, the High-Value Win-Back beta is now available. This feature optimizes campaigns for lapsed and high-value lapsed customers. You’ll need to upload lists of current and lapsed customers and set a retention value. For high-value win-back, Google uses a combination of your high-value and lapsed customer lists to target customers who fall within both groups.
A final note: Lifecycle Goals are currently only available for Performance Max. They will expand to search and shopping once the features are generally available. You can learn more by reading Google Ads' blog article on Audience Customer Types.
Interesting Beta #3
Conversational Experience in Google Ads (CEGA)
Google aims for CEGA to serve as your AI assistant while building new search campaigns. This concept is something Microsoft has been working on for years—think back to Cortana from the Halo franchise, which eventually became part of the Windows operating system. And even before that, there was Clippit, the helpful paperclip assistant in Microsoft Word. I digress—it’s hard not to reflect on early tech days. Anyway, Google believes this is the right move now.
Features:
Converse with CEGA to create keywords, headlines, descriptions, images, and sitelinks.
Ensure your campaigns meet “good” or “excellent” ad strength ratings. However, research has shown that ad strength isn’t always indicative of performance, unlike Quality Score (Brad Getis, SMX Advanced Video).
Enter your URL, and CEGA will provide a description of your product or service. You can accept or reject the description before moving on to further recommendations.
Ask CEGA for suggestions, such as “help me come up with additional sitelinks.”
The nice thing about CEGA is that you can use as much or as little of it as you like. It appears as a sidebar on the right side of your screen. Be aware that during AI Innovation Day, the Googler specifically mentioned that CEGA will find new broad match keywords, but it’s unclear if it will also suggest exact or phrase match keywords.
To learn more, read Google's blog article on Conversational Experience in Google Ads (CEGA).
Screenshot of Conversational Experience in Google Ads (CEGA). Photo credit: Search Engine Roundtable
Conclusion
While I’d love to provide more details about these betas and share some of the other cool betas, I’ll have to stop here for confidentiality. The TL;DR is that Google is taking AI innovation seriously, and they understand that their best approach to staying in good standing with marketing professionals is to develop a symbiotic relationship, rather than completely taking over control. As I mentioned at the beginning, you can register to watch Google’s Innovation Day.
If you’d prefer to hear an agency’s perspective, consider a free 30-minute consultation with my team to explore how Google’s future plans fit into your Google Ads account strategy. If this is of interest to you, please reach out via the contact form below.