Gmail Ads To Be Absorbed Into Discovery Campaign

SEO marketing agencies can only use Gmail Ads until July this year. Google’s decision to take Gmail advertisements out of the equation is set to change the SEO digital marketing industry as they bring Discovery Campaigns into the picture.

Just recently, Google released an email to users of standalone Gmail campaigns. Starting 1 July 2021, the standalone Gmail campaigns will become “read only”. Moreover, marketers will not be able to create new nor edit existing Gmail ads or standalone campaigns after the said date. Instead, marketers can create Discovery campaigns if they want their advertisements to appear on Gmail.

Gmail ads refer to advertisements that show up in the Social or Promotion tabs of Gmail accounts. They appear in a collapsed state with a subject line, just like how a normal email would look. These Gmail ads can also be saved, starred, or forwarded to others.

When a user clicks on it, the ad will expand, and this could include pictures, videos, and forms. It may also contain links that redirect the user to the advertiser’s landing page.

Currently, there are two types of Gmail advertisements: single businesses ads and multi-retailer versions. The first type, as the name implies, only features one business on the ad. On the other hand, multi-retailer versions take on a shopping-like format, showing multiple products from different retailers.

This type of Gmail ad highlights images, ratings, pricing, and other information about the products and services. With one click from the user, it takes them to the product page of the advertiser’s website.

Users can migrate from Gmail ads by recreating their current setups in the Discovery campaign type. There are three main things to give attention to: Budget, Bidding, and Target selections.

When it comes to Budget, SEO marketing agencies are advised to prepare a higher budget for their Discovery campaigns compared to what their Gmail ads currently have. The specific recommendation is to double the amount for Discovery to account for the greater reach that it provides. This also means that advertisers should expect a wide range of results, unlike when they were only using Gmail ads.

Marketers should also head to the Bidding section to set the Conversion objective using Target CPA (tCPA).

Google usually provides its users with the recommended settings, but if there is none, it is advisable to take the last 30 days of your Gmail Ads CPA average and add 20 per cent as your target. You can simply update this number later once your advertising campaign optimises and grows further.

Lastly, marketers should pay attention to their keyword targeting. They can make a Custom Audience depending on their Gmail ads’ top-converting keywords and apply them to their Discovery campaign.

The biggest difference between Gmail ads and Discovery Campaigns is how the user is charged in the reporting. In the past, clicks in Single-Business Gmail ads refer to a user’s first click on the collapsed ad teaser that causes it to expand.

On the other hand, clicks in the Multi-Retailer ads represent a user’s click out of the email to the product page. In this situation, it does not count when a user clicks through the collapsed ad teaser.

But with Discovery campaigns, it is considered a “click” when the user goes to the marketer’s website from an expanded ad.

Google has yet to explain why they decided to make this huge change, though there are many possible reasons. Nevertheless, this is a big change for the SEO digital marketing industry, and marketers who heavily relied on Gmail ads in the past should start exploring Discovery sooner than later.

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