Notes on Google’s next ad automation push
Ads on Google are changing - in June 2022 they’ll become fully automated. But this simplification of ads comes after a history of increasing complexity - will we lose some control in the process? A digital marketing veteran reflects...
By: The Secret Digital Veteran
Kinase have asked me to write about Google’s plan to retire Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) and leave Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) sitting alone and sad all on their own in their Ad Groups without any ETAs to talk to – like lonely atomic-powered robots left behind after all the humans have mercifully died out.
I think this a more interesting subject than it sounds. But first of all I have to say that my opinions are not necessarily the opinions of Kinase Ltd. In fact, if you read this article in any other browser than Chrome or Safari you’ll see that it’s actually just one long link. So, Kinase haven’t published it at all. Not really.
So – ETAs and RSAs. All sitting together and playing nicely in a single Ad Group. Some impressions go to ETAs, some go RSAs. Who knows why? Google must know but it only gives us some data on it. Enough for an ad-hoc report or two for the client. And it’s in Google’s interest to help us get the highest CTR% from our impressions… Isn’t it? (Let’s forget about the existence of competitors for a second.) We should be grateful for that data we still have. At least we don’t work in SEO - phew!
And if there’s some opportunity cost in not being able to fully understand how people are responding to our messages then Smart Bidding™ will cover up the cracks…
Speaking of brute-force pattern recognition masquerading as actual intelligence, I’ll share a pattern I’ve recognised: Google paste “improvements” on to the existing system right to the point of near-unmanageable complexity, and then they simplify it – and people are so grateful for the act of simplification they forget that they’ve lost a bit more control.
At least that’s the idea. I haven’t forgotten. Doubt I’m the only one.
Anyway, the removal of ETAs is part of that pattern, I think. As long as Google keeps the concept of “pinning” in RSAs - which it will, to satisfy regulatory requirements, brand guidelines, etc - then we can live with it (“Is there any other monopoly search engine we can talk to?”) and we will be glad we don’t have to worry about ETAs any more.
Of course, no-one’s actually written an ad since 2016 when standard text ads were retired. Since then it’s been collage at best.
But imagine for a terrifying moment you’re working in non-digital. You’re an advertiser. You want to buy some media. The media owner says you can advertise – on the condition that they take your copy and re-arrange it in a way that is going to work better. Fine, you say, but can you share your reasoning. Up to a point, says the media owner. Hmm…
I guess we’d just suck it up, wouldn’t we? Since we’ve already accepted that we have to pass exams set by Google to be allowed to even go near a Google Ads account without a klaxon sounding and red light flashing on the client’s desk. And after that, it’s easy to accept the idea of Optimisation Score. Then finally, worst of all, we accept the idea of Impression Share (but that’s another story).
See if you can do it today. Take a system, any system. Your new fridge freezer that has an ice machine, for example. Add “improvements” which are welcome and useful in themselves but gradually make the system unmanageable. Then radically simplify the system – and see how grateful people are for the simplification, and how they forget they’ve lost a bit of control.
When your family / housemates come down for ice at 3am and the ice machine isn’t working (the system has decided that no-one really wants ice at 3am) they’ll go back to bed happy because… Well, ice machines are probably bad for the environment.
I’ve got some more examples. Better ones than boring old ETAs and RSAs (and fridge-freezers). But this article is getting close to the maximum length of link text allowed. So they can wait till next time.
