This year, we introduced a wave of powerful new features in Google Ads. Let's recap the biggest launches of 2024 and how they can help you connect with valuable audiences and drive better results towards your marketing goals.
Build a strong foundation for success
Drive performance with AI-powered solutions
Expand and unlock new growth opportunities
Build a strong foundation for success
Measurement
Google AI can help you stay on top of industry shifts, from regulatory changes to signal loss, so you can continue engaging with the right audiences and achieve accurate measurement. But AI is only as good as the data that goes into it. That’s why we launched new solutions this year to help you create a durable foundation of first-party data that fuels your AI strategies to deliver better business outcomes.
- Simplify the ways you connect and use your first-party data with Google Ads Data Manager. It puts all your data management controls in one place and integrates with third-party platforms.
- Activate your first-party data in more secure ways with confidential matching. It enables you to match your offline first-party data with Google data using confidential computing technology to use in measurement and audience solutions.
- Use the Tag Diagnostics tool to gain valuable insights into the health of your Google tags and troubleshoot potential issues directly within Google Tag Manager, Google Ads, and Google Analytics.
- Unlock additional control for consent collection with two new parameters in the consent mode API.
- Simplify your consent banner and consent mode deployment with our consent management platform setup.
Drive performance with AI-powered solutions
Search
The future of Search is here and Google AI is unleashing its full potential—unlocking new ways to search, including the types of questions we can ask, how we ask them, and the information Google provides. With billions of searches made on Google everyday, Google Search is where consumers go to discover and decide. That’s why advertisers are more likely to say Google Search provides AI solutions that help them drive better results more than any other paid advertising platform.1
- Reach customers with Ads in AI Overviews, which are now available for mobile users in the US. We see people finding ads directly in Ads Overviews helpful because they can quickly connect with relevant businesses, products, and services to take the next step at the exact moment they need them.2
- Connect with new customers through Shopping ads on Google Lens. Lens is used for over 20 billion visual searches each month3 and 1 in every 4 visual search queries done using Google Lens have a commercial intent4.
- Create high-performing Search campaigns with the conversational experience for Search campaigns, powered by Gemini models. We want more businesses to have access to this technology, so we’re currently rolling it out in Spanish, French, and German languages.
- Refine your branded Search campaigns. Brand inclusions help your branded Search campaigns get the benefits of broad match, while ensuring you only serve on queries that include your selected brands.
- Apply brand exclusions where you need them across all match types and Dynamic Search Ads. These exclude queries for the brands you choose, including misspellings and other variants. Monitor how brand exclusions impact your reach and performance to make sure you’re not missing out on valuable conversion opportunities.
- Add just one negative keyword to exclude misspelled variations. For example, you can now exclude all 1.5 million variations of “YouTube” with one negative keyword, instead of manually adding each misspelling as a negative.
- Find more search terms in the search terms report. Now, misspelled search queries are reported in the search terms report with the correctly spelled search query. This means that, on average, 9% of search terms previously under “Other” due to misspellings in the search terms report are now visible.5
Performance Max
Get the full power of Google’s channels and AI, all in one campaign to maximize performance. Since Performance Max first launched, we’ve continued to make improvements thanks to your feedback. Here are some of the key updates:
Dive deeper into performance with improved reporting and insights
- Understand which assets drive the best conversion performance. With asset-level reporting, you can see key conversion metrics for each creative asset to help you understand what’s resonating with consumers.
- Pinpoint underperforming asset groups with asset coverage reporting. Receive specific recommendations to improve them, such as “add 2 long headlines” or “add 3 square images”.
- Segment and download your asset group performance to conduct deeper analysis of campaign performance. Break down asset group performance by time, conversions, device, and more. These capabilities are rolling out now.
- Uncover new audience insights. Detailed demographics help you understand your untapped segments so you can craft ads that resonate directly with specific age and gender groups.
- Optimize your campaign budgets. With budget pacing insights, you can check real-time spend tracking to see current and projected spend for your campaign alongside your forecasted conversion performance.
- Test the impact of Final URL expansion on your campaign with experiments. Final URL expansion helps you show up on new and valuable search queries, and send customers to more relevant landing pages based on their intent.
- Understand and address campaign fluctuations with overhauled performance insights. We've combined insights, explanations, and recommendations into a single streamlined view.
- Use impression share reporting in Performance Max to understand how you show up for text and Shopping ads on the Search results page, and if you’re losing share to your competitors.
Get more transparency into brand suitability
- See where your ads serve on YouTube. Placement reports and account-level placement exclusions in the content suitability center help you see and take action on where your ads show up, as needed.
- Get third-party verification and measurement implementation. Third-party verification with YouTube brand safety partners helps you further validate the brand suitability of video placements. And for Display placements, you can request third-party measurement implementation.
- Find where you’ve served on the Search Partner Network and exclude placements as needed. Get placement reporting on where your ads showed across the Search Partner Network and use the content suitability center to exclude placements at the account-level.
Drive stronger ROI
- Acquire new customers that are high value with the new customer acquisition goal in High Value New Customer mode.
- Show ads that feature redeemable store coupons to help you drive more store visits and sales in your Performance Max campaigns with store goals.
Create visually engaging ads and increase your asset variety
- Use improved Ad Strength, which now weighs asset quantity and variety more heavily to help you get the most out of the diverse inventory and formats available in Performance Max. We found that advertisers who improve their Performance Max Ad Strength to “Excellent” see 6% more conversions on average.6
- Add your brand guidelines to create on-brand visual ads. Provide Performance Max with your brand guidelines, including your logos, brand colors, and font, in order to serve more on-brand ads to customers across different visual formats and channels.
Demand Gen
It’s been one year since we first introduced Demand Gen campaigns to help you create and convert demand on YouTube and Google’s most visual surfaces. It combines the power of Google AI with the flexibility of controls where you need them. We’ve continued to improve Demand Gen to meet the needs of today’s performance and social marketers in key areas:
- Pin video assets to specific surfaces using creative preferences, giving you more control over where your ads show up.
- Further validate the brand suitability of video placements using third-party verification with YouTube brand safety partners.
- Connect with new audiences similar to your existing customers with lookalike segments. We lowered the required minimum list size of lookalike segments from 1,000 to just 100 users, making it easier for smaller businesses to create these lists.
- Promote the right products to the right audience at the right moment with product feeds in Demand Gen.
- Show your video ads to users beyond YouTube with Google video partners inventory in Demand Gen.
- Manage Demand Gen campaigns at scale directly within Display & Video 360.
Retail and Commerce
This year’s AI-powered launches and new insights help you stand out from the crowd. Create meaningful connections with shoppers to deliver strong ROI and increase loyalty.
- Engage consumers with an enhanced shopping experience using the new Google Shopping. This includes a new deals page and generative AI tools to help shoppers get product recommendations and useful information to find products they’ll love.
- Generate branded videos that highlight key attributes and features of your product. With this new feature in Product Studio, you can transform existing product images into dynamic videos in just a few clicks.
- Showcase your apparel on a diverse set of models with virtual try-on in Shopping ads for men’s and women’s tops.
- Use your loyalty program and tap into your first-party data to offer custom promotions in your Shopping ads from both Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns.
- Differentiate your Shopping ads for new customers who may be on the fence. You can feature first order promotions for new customers directly in Shopping ads from Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns.
- Get actionable performance insights in Merchant Center Next with Google AI. You can see tailored, generated insights as concise snippets that offer performance guidance and outline recommended next steps. You can also describe your desired report in plain language and generate it instantly with visual reports
- Determine the most effective sales price with automated discounts in Merchant Center Next. Automated discounts is an AI-powered solution that dynamically adjusts product price discounts on Shopping ads to help you effectively maximize gross profit across your entire inventory.
- Sync your in-store availability. In-store availability information is extracted from your website and automatically added to your Merchant Center Next account, making it easy for you to drive store sales with local inventory ads.
Apps
This year, our App campaign launches focused on asset generation to help you improve your creative, more ways to optimize your campaign—including on iOS—and greater insights into your performance. Plus, we made it even easier to use your app to drive better results from your web-first campaigns.
Drive more performance from your app
- Deliver more in-app conversions with customized nudges and recommendations for Web to App Connect when you create Search, Performance Max, or Standard Shopping campaigns.
- Drive more reach while optimizing for performance goals. Integrate view-through conversions into bidding for your Android App campaigns (currently available in beta).
- New enhancements to on-device conversion measurement improve the scalability and performance of your tCPA iOS App campaigns. This privacy-preserving solution uses your consented first-party email and phone number data to increase the observable conversions available for iOS App campaign optimization.
- Easily test the performance of different creative concepts such as a set of new videos with Uplift experiments for App campaigns. Uplift experiments are equipped with a Health Check to guide you through a successful setup.
Use improved reporting to measure the impact of your App campaigns
- Review and customize your App campaign performance reports with enhanced asset reporting. Segment performance reports by asset types, campaign, and network, while new metrics like conversion rate and IPM (installs per thousand impressions) offer a clearer picture of ad effectiveness and user engagement.
- Get better iOS measurement and performance with SKAdNetwork enhancements. To help improve attribution for your web-to-app user journeys, new SKAdNetwork reporting updates are now available across the Google Ads API, third-party App Attribution Partners, and the Google Ads UI. Currently in beta, you can also integrate your SKAN conversion value schema with Google Ads to enhance the performance of tCPA & tROAS bidding in your iOS App campaigns.
Make your apps more shoppable
- Use seasonality adjustments to apply bid changes automatically based on upcoming promotional events.
- Showcase your products on the Discover feed. When you connect your Merchant Center feeds with App campaigns, your ads will now be eligible to serve in a carousel format on Discover inventory.
Creative Solutions
We’ve focused on improving our generative AI capabilities to make asset variety much easier, and brought these capabilities to other campaign types so you can create high-quality assets at scale that drive results.
Generate assets with just a few clicks
- Use asset generation in different campaign types and languages. You can now use asset generation in Performance Max, Demand Gen, Display, and App campaigns, in addition to 6 new languages: German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian.
- Create higher quality assets, built for performance. We’ve upgraded our AI models, including our image generation models so that they’re tuned using performance data across industries to help you create higher-performing assets.
- Generate images in your style. Upload reference images to guide AI to generate more images in your visual style. For those assets you know perform well, create additional on-brand variants using the “Generate more like this” feature.
Edit images and easily create new asset variants
- Leverage new editing capabilities. You can now remove and change backgrounds, add or remove objects, extend backgrounds, and adjust images to fit any size, aspect ratio, or orientation.
- Highlight your products in different settings. You can edit images of your products from your Google Merchant Center feed.
- Make edits in other campaign types. AI-powered image editing has expanded beyond Performance Max to other campaign types, including Demand Gen, Search, Display, and App campaigns.
- Flip and shorten your video ads with video enhancements that allow Google AI to automatically create more versions of your existing video, so you can unlock additional YouTube inventory and performance opportunities. You’re in control—you can choose to opt out of this feature or remove the assets that don’t work for your business. Video enhancements are available in Performance Max, Video Action, Demand Gen, and App campaigns.
Upload assets from other design platforms
- Bring in creative assets from other design platforms. We’ve partnered with Canva, Smartly, Pencil, and Typeface to make creating and uploading assets into Google Ads seamless.
- Simplify creative workflows and approvals using shareable previews. Share previews of ads with a link that can be reviewed by anyone, which will make it easier for agencies and in-house marketing teams to share creative concepts. This is available in Performance Max, Demand Gen, and Display campaigns.
Expand and unlock new growth opportunities
YouTube
There’s only one YouTube, where you can reach every audience you care about and build connections across multiple formats and screens. Viewers come to YouTube for unique experiences, deep dives into their passions, and trustworthy creators. This makes it the perfect place for brands to build authentic relationships and drive real results for the objectives you care about. We’re constantly working to create new opportunities for you to make the most of this level of engagement within the ads you can place on the platform.
Customize your campaign and harness the power of storytelling
- Secure the first ad spot and reach the viewers most interested in your brand, when they're most engaged with First Position. This is now available across all YouTube content at a dynamic rate through Display & Video 360.
- Use new format buying controls in Video View Campaigns that allow for greater customization across cost-per-view formats and also enable Shorts-only campaigns.
Create meaningful connections with better viewing experiences
- Get more engagement from your customers with fewer ad breaks on YouTube connected TVs. The less frequently viewers are interrupted, the more likely they are to continue watching their favorite content.
- Show viewers branded QR codes on YouTube connected TV, so they can simply scan the code on their phone to visit your website, make a purchase, or learn more about your product or service.
Build your brand with the power of trusted creators
- Promote creator-made videos as YouTube ads. With our new partnership ads powered by BrandConnect, you’ll be able to bring the excitement and innovation of creators right into your AI-powered video campaigns. You’ll also be able to create new audience segments based on viewers of those videos.
- Make the most of creator-fan connections with YouTube Select Creator Takeovers. Brands can own 100% share of voice on select top creators’ channels. Contact your account team to access this opportunity.
- Sell more products with creators and the expanded YouTube Shopping affiliate program. The program allows you to enable thousands of eligible creators to showcase your products at scale in their videos. You can easily manage the program and view analytics right from Google Merchant Center. It is available in the United States, South Korea, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Vietnam. US Shopify Advanced and Plus plans can also join and get access to insights showing which creators and content are driving sales.
Gain a deeper understanding of where your ads appear
- Get more insight into where your YouTube ads show. Based on industry adjacency standards, now you can see the content your ads run on across various YouTube environments—including Shorts. Additionally, trusted and independent third-party partners can now access and report on Shorts ad placements across campaign types.
- Manage where your ads appear with refined placement and thematic exclusions on YouTube in-stream, and now YouTube Shorts.
Display
The Google Display Network is used by hundreds of thousands of advertisers to reach users on millions of websites and apps across all publisher categories. With new inventory and a range of generative AI-powered creative improvements, you’ll see the impact of ongoing innovations in your Display campaigns.
- Meet more users where they are with new Google Display Ads inventory on X (formerly known as Twitter). Available in all countries and regions for Display campaigns in Google Ads and Display & Video 360.
- Animate your images with generative AI to turn your uploaded static images into more engaging animated assets.
- Expand and adjust the aspect ratio of an uploaded image using Google AI. Improve the performance, fit, and finish of the ad, letting you gain access to more formats and inventory.
- Enhance image resolution and sharpness automatically with Google AI for a clearer, more detailed picture.
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At Google, we’re committed to empowering businesses of all sizes to achieve their marketing goals. We look forward to seeing how these new features can help your business thrive in 2025 and beyond. A huge thank you for all your feedback this year—it's been invaluable in shaping these improvements, so keep those ideas coming!
Posted by the Google Ads Team
1. Google/Ipsos/Kantar, AdsGeist Wave 1 2024, US, UK, DE, FR, CA, BR, AU, JP, CN, IN, 2024, n=4,096 media decision makers/influencers, May-August 2024.
2. Google internal data.
3. Google Internal Data, Global, Lens, October 2024.
4. Google Internal Data, Global, Lens, April 2024.
5. Google internal data, Global, Jan 2023-Oct 2023.
6. Google Internal Data, Global, Performance Max asset groups before/after a change in Ad Strength, Q1-Q3 2023.
