Google brings AI-powered ad suggestions to AdWords campaigns

Dive Brief:

Google announced new automated processes for AdWords that will go into effect starting April 29, per an email to customers made available to Marketing Dive by Adthena. The changes will use artificial intelligence and related technologies to make suggestions for optimizing ad campaigns run on the platform.
Those suggestions will be generated based on prior campaigns, including from ad headlines, descriptions, extensions and other relevant information found on landing pages.
After receiving a notification about the suggestions, AdWords users will have 14 days to review them before they automatically go into effect. Users will be able to edit, pause or remove the suggestions, as well as opt out of the suggestions feature altogether, the company said.

Dive Insight:

Google over the past year or so has made it clear that AI and its sister technologies like machine learning are going to be integral to its business growth growing forward, and the pending AdWords update signals how the technology giant plans to offer those tools to marketers to help them better run and manage their campaigns.

Being able to automate ad headlines, copy and more takes a lot of the legwork out of crafting and scaling digital campaigns, and beyond helping streamline the process, could provide deeper insights into ROI and other key advertising metrics.

"This speaks to a bigger trend, with Google increasing its machine learning automation with ad copy generation and their own natural language processing to understand ad performance," Ashley Fletcher, VP of marketing at Adthena, said in an emailed comment.

These developments additionally shed light on areas where Google is ramping up focus as some of the traditional pillars of its business, including click-driven advertising, begin to slow down and be adjusted to better meet marketers' needs. More nascent offerings, including Google Shopping Ads and the company's voice-activated Google Assistant, which competes closely with Amazon Alexa, will potentially be bolstered by the AdWords' updates, according to Fletcher.

"It will be interesting to see where voice goes this year," Fletcher told Marketing Dive, noting that the changes could bring Google a step closer to monetizing the channel.

"The vision there is you'll soon be able to target device" and create a profile for it in a manner similar to mobile or web, he said.