Google Marketing Next 2017: Key Product Updates
GroupM Point Of View — May, 2017

Background
Google’s annual performance marketing summit, Google Marketing Next, took place in San Francisco, last week (May 23rd – May 24th 2017). The 2-day conference discussed key topics for marketers, including attribution (as you may have seen well publicized in the press), consumer insights/analytics, and automation. Google also revealed several new product updates, many of which will be available to advertisers immediately, or later this year.
Google’s product announcements and updates are organized into five key themes, each of which addresses advertisers’ need for more consumer insights and greater data usage across marketing channels:
- Audience
- Measurement
- Productivity
- Online to Offline
- Assistant
AUDIENCE
Google has announced the ability to target consumer patterns and life events across YouTube and Gmail properties. Additionally, the long awaited in-market audience affinity targets will be available as bid modifiers within AdWords, and advertisers will be able to leverage YouTube ad views and channel views as a retargeting list within search.
Consumer Patterns and Life Events on YouTube and Gmail
What is new?
YouTube’s existing targeting has grown over the last few years to include affinity audiences (e.g. auto enthusiasts), in market audiences (e.g. actively shopping for a car brand: Acura), and custom affinity audiences. Earlier this year, Google announced the impending capability of using a consumer’s Google search history as a targeting parameter within YouTube. The latest features announced at Google Marketing Next expand that targeting further to now include consumer patterns and life events (i.e. graduating college, getting married, having a baby, moving home) across YouTube and Gmail.
How will this impact advertisers?
The new targeting parameters will give advertisers more control than before, allowing them to reign in broader audiences across YouTube and Gmail and specifically target consumers using a greater depth of signals than previously available. Advertisers who depend on consumer life events, and who market based on life events, will see the greatest benefit from these changes as they yield more precise targeting. For all advertisers, leveraging Google remarketing pixels on their sites will continue to be crucial to understanding more about their audiences (including affinities and in-market behaviors) via Google’s Audience Insights within AdWords’ shared library.
Launch date: In beta, by Google invitation only. Available later in 2017.
YouTube Retargeting within Search
What is new?
Advertisers will be able to target consumers who have been exposed to their channels or one of their YouTube ads. These users can be targeted via AdWords similar to RLSA or Similar Audience lists.
How will this impact advertisers?
Leveraging every brand touch point will empower advertisers to differentiate their messages and personalize their search strategy to maximize spend against consumers with the highest likelihood to convert. For advertisers with a well-established YouTube presence or larger investments in the platform, there are considerably more opportunities, including the ability to tie back themes highlighted within YouTube ad creative to their search ad copy, which can create a more cohesive experience for consumers.
Launch date: In beta, by Google invitation only. Available later in 2017.
In-Market Audiences for Search and Shopping
What is new?
As previously noted, in-market audiences have long been available for GDN and YouTube as targeting parameters; however, Google announced that these same in-market audiences (e.g. in-market for trips to Las Vegas) will be available as targets for both search and shopping campaigns. As of May 23rd, there are over 490 in-market audiences for advertisers to choose from. Google takes many factors into consideration when qualifying users for in-market audiences, including clicks on related ads and subsequent conversions, along with the content of the sites that consumers visit and the recency and frequency of the visits.
Google has steadily grown its audience-based search targeting toolset since its initial release of RLSA in 2013. In late 2016, Google announced the time-saving feature that allowed advertisers to target lists (RLSA and Customer Match) at the campaign level instead of the ad group level and increased list membership duration to 540 days. Google also recently took Similar Audiences for search out of beta and publically released it for all advertisers.
How will this impact advertisers?
These changes will allow advertisers to refine targeting across keywords that are actively being targeted, leveraging bid modifiers in either direction (positive or negative) as an added efficiency lever. Furthermore, advertisers can augment their search strategies by increasing the scope of their existing keyword structure, targeting keywords that may have been too expensive to bid on previously due to their broader nature, by using in-market audiences as a qualifier for stronger engagement and conversion rates.
Launch date: In beta, by Google invitation only. Available later in 2017.
To continue reading, download Google Marketing Next 2017 (pdf, 450 Kb)