The document outlines significant updates to Google Ads in 2020, including new features for landing pages, pre-defined reporting, and AI-driven smart bidding options. It emphasizes the importance of adapting to these changes for effective PPC advertising, noting tools like lead form extensions and audience targeting capabilities. The updates aim to enhance user experience and optimize advertising results for marketers and consumers alike.

1. Google Ads Updates
Guide 2020: The
best Guide
As we move into 2020, the leading search
engine in the world continues to evolve to
provide a better service for consumers,
marketers, and search engine optimization
(SEO) professionals.
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28 Most Recent Updates in Google Ads
As we move into 2020, the leading search engine in the world continues to evolve to provide a better
service for consumers, marketers, and search engine optimization (SEO) professionals. In this article, we’ll
explore the top Google Ads updates, looking at the significant changes on the platform over the past
year.

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1. Updates to Landing Pages Report Metrics
In 2020, Google released the Landing Pages report to offer insights on key performance metrics for your
landing pages. With the new update, you can:
• Monitor data on your current mobile site speed
• Track progress by running monthly updates to analyze improvements
• Estimate how site speed is helping or hurting your conversions

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2. Pre-Defined Reporting Updates
You can now access Pre-Defined reports in Google Ads by selecting the Reporting button on the main
dashboard.

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2. Pre-Defined Reporting Updates
In pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, reports are the bloodline of your campaign, giving you the valuable
insights you need on all aspects of your campaigns. Now, it’s easy to access user-friendly reports.

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3. Maximize Conversion Value
As artificial intelligence (AI) gets smarter, advertisers have
more advanced tools to drive results. The latest addition
from Google’s AI system is the smart bidding
solution, Maximize conversion value.
Users can set up their budget, and a target value for the
return on ad spend (ROAS), then hand the reins to Google.
The AI-led system will automatically optimize your keyword
bids to earn the highest possible conversion value.

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4. Lead Form Extensions
Whenever potential new customers are using Google to search for your products and services, lead form
extensions help them connect with your business.
These extensions are optimized to deliver a fast and smooth user experience (UX) on mobile devices,
making it easy for people to submit the forms.

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4. Lead Form Extensions
If a user is signed into their Google account, they can
select a call-to-action (CTA) button — like ‘Contact
Us’ — that will be embedded in your lead form
extension. This process allows for quick connections,
making it great for generating new leads.

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5. New Extensions for YouTube Ads
The value of video marketing is undeniable now, so
advertisers should try and work it into their PPC
campaigns wherever possible. One of the most useful
Google Ads updates for this tactic is the introduction
of extensions for YouTube ads.
These ads feature a sitelink and a CTA that encourages
clicks, and ultimately, increases conversions.

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6. Combined Audience Targeting
This new feature allows you to reach a specific audience by combining multiple audience attributes, such
as interests and demographics.

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6. Combined Audience Targeting
By refining your niche with Combined
Audience Targeting, you can spread brand
awareness among a focused audience, so that
your brand message and offers reach the right
people who have strong buying intent.

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7. Conditional Ads
These ads only display when specific conditions
are met so that it optimizes your budget. For
example, you may offer a course in London, so
you can set the condition that the ad is only
shown to people in London. This will save your
budget from being wasted on impressions for
people who live in other areas.

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7. Conditional Ads
The advantages of conditional ads in Ad Customizers are that:
• They’re easy to use – no technical expertise is needed to customize your ads.
• No more templates – design your ads freely and customize whatever you want.
• Reporting, testing, and optimization is possible – as easy as with any other ad.

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8. Audience Expansion Setting for Display Network
A lot of PPC advertisers on the Google Display network increase their budgets near the end of the month
to drive more conversions. Unfortunately, as they spend more, their return on investment (ROI) isn’t
usually that good.
One of the Google Ads updates of 2020 can help with this problem — the audience expansion setting.
This feature leverages machine learning to analyze similar audiences to yours, and then expands your
reach to drive more impressions, clicks, and conversions — all without requiring you to raise your bids.

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9. Expanded Call-Only Ad Text
With most people owning a mobile nowadays, call-only ads are an excellent method of increasing traffic.

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9. Expanded Call-Only Ad Text
Call-only ads include:
• Two headlines
• Each containing 30 characters
• A single description line up to 90 characters
These limits are an increase compared to the older format, giving you more freedom for compelling ad
copy.

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10. Google Ads Editor
The Google Ads editor has a host of new updates, including:
• IP exclusions can now be copied, added and updated across all campaigns
• Accounts Manager makes managing multiple accounts simple and efficient
• Dark Mode for added viewing comfort
• The image picker will make it easier to browse and select ad images from your desktop

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10. Google Ads Editor

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11. Google Keyword Planner
Keywords are still integral to SEO, and therefore,
you need to stay on top of developments to
make sure your ads are reaching a relevant
audience.

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11. Google Keyword Planner
Here are some changes to be aware of in Google Keyword Planner:
• More Seeds – Enter up to ten seed terms when searching for new keywords.
• Keyword Trends – View or download trends for individual keywords.
• Grouped Ideas – Browse keywords with a similar theme or add a set as a group.
• Save Ideas to An Existing Campaign – Add new keyword ideas to one of your campaigns.
• Suggested Budget – Ask Google for a suggested daily budget, which is based on your Max CPC (cost-
per-click) bid and forecasted costs.
• Competition Value Column – View granular competition ranking across different keyword ideas.
• Website filtering – Filter keyword ideas to only view keywords closely related to your business
website.
• Brand exclusions – Exclude keyword ideas that include brand terms.

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12. Pay for Conversions Display Bidding
Among the Google Ads updates is a constant
tweaking of the available bidding types on the
platform. Google is always trying to give advertisers
more effective methods to maximize their
advertising spend.
Now, on the Display network, you can choose the
option for “Pay for conversions” bidding, which
means you’ll only spend whenever a user converts
on your PPC ad.

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12. Pay for Conversions Display Bidding
Your prospects may complete an online form, call your business, or download your app. All of these could
be a conversion so that you would pay if the user completed these actions. However, if the user clicks
and then bounces off your site without taking the conversion action, you won’t be charged.

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13. Click Share in Google Search Campaigns
In Google Ads, click share is the percentage share
of clicks your ad received out of all the clicks it
was eligible to get.
Let’s say your ad got five clicks, but Google
estimates that it was eligible to receive 50 clicks if
you had a higher PPC budget, higher keyword
bids, or some extensions. In this scenario, your
click share is 5%, which leaves plenty of room for
improvement.

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14. Top Signals
You can use top signals to enhance your ad
performance. These signals are available to
view in the Bid Strategy report.

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14. Top Signals
Some of the signals include insights on:
• Device type
• Location
• Day of week
• Time of day
• Keywords
So, if your business sells jeans, you can view signals for the keyword [branded jeans] in Los Angeles. From
this, you can identify days and times when your audience is active, and more likely to convert.

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15. Recommendations
Another one of the Google Ads updates that help you boost
account performance is the Recommendations feature.
Google Ads recommends keywords you can add to your
campaigns. Note that these suggestions will be smart ones
that should drive more traffic to your ads. A recent update
enables you to use these recommendations with the broad
match modifier type.

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15. Recommendations
You can view keyword recommendations — and their expected ROI — in a user-friendly table format.
This makes it easy to do a lot of things:
• View and sort your recommendations by the most significant optimization opportunity
• See how much your optimization score will change if you adopt a recommendation
• See a breakdown of scoring and recommendations by campaign
• Download the table view into Excel

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16. Conversion Tracking
You must track valuable actions people take on your
website, as this gives you a holistic view of the
customer journey, helping you identify any problems in
your marketing funnel.
You can do that with conversion tracking, which allows
you to monitor the on-site behavior of users after they
click your ad. Google now makes this easy to do as you
can enable conversion tracking whenever you create a
new campaign.

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17. Filters on the Overview page
The Overview page gives you a summary of your account performance and offers valuable insights at a
glance.

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17. Filters on the Overview page
Among the Google Ads updates in the past year was the ability to use filters on the Overview page now
so that you can refine your view by:
• Device
• Campaign
• Campaign type
• Campaign status
• Ad group
• Ad group status
• Campaign label

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18. Standard Delivery for Search and Shopping Campaigns
Previously, advertisers had the option of using Accelerated Delivery, but it inevitably spent your entire
daily budget before the day was done. Now, the only delivery method for Search and Shopping
campaigns is Standard Delivery.
This option takes your expected ad performance into account and aims to maximize performance within
the confines of your budget.
You can still use the accelerated delivery method for Display campaigns and Video campaigns.

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19. New Conversion by Time Reporting
It helps to know when your audience is most active and willing to engage ads. Now, Google offers you the
granular analysis you need to track conversions and conversion value throughout the day.
This Conversion by Time Reporting has six columns:
• Conversions (by conv. time)
• Value (by conv. time)
• Value/Conv (by conv. time)
• All Conv (by conv. time)
• All Conv. Value (by conv. time)
• Value/all Conv. (by conv. time)

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19. New Conversion by Time Reporting
With this, you can get real-time insights for a
clear sense of the days (and times of the day)
that are best for lead generation.

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20. Gauge Landing Page Performance in Shopping Campaigns
Your landing page must offer a great UX to convince people to convert. You can assess the performance
of your landing pages for your Shopping campaigns, learning which ones are doing well, and which need
work.

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21. Cross-device Activity to All Attribution Reports
Attribution reports show you the path that your customer takes to complete a conversion, and attribute
credit to different ad clicks along the way. This is a useful tool for the era of omnichannel marketing, as
most customers will engage your brand on multiple touchpoints before converting.
Cross-device activity is now considered in Google Ads attribution reports so that you can track the
customer journey from one device to the next.

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22. Smart Bidding for Google TrueView Ads
When it was first launched, Google TrueView lacked a depth of customization options.
But we’re happy to tell you that Trueview has been one of the biggest Google Ads updates. Now you can
use a smart bidding strategy called Maximize Conversions, which harnesses machine learning to earn you
more sales.

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23. Responsive Display Ad Updates
Responsive Display Ads evolved in several ways. Here are a few new features to try out:
• Video Assets – When connected to YouTube, you can select videos and use them in your ads.

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23. Responsive Display Ad Updates
• Combinations reporting page – Let Google generate potent combinations of ad copy and
images. Over time, Google will figure out effective combinations that increase your ROAS.

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23. Responsive Display Ad Updates
• Display ad strength – The ad strength tool is
especially for responsive campaigns. You can
use it to optimize your headlines, descriptions,
and images. Google will give you feedback on
the current strength of these areas, helping you
improve them for better results.

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24. Gallery Ads (beta)
Gallery Ads are a swipe able, image-based ad format that gives users the essential information about
your products and services. Best of all, this appears right at the top of the search results page.
As such, these Gallery Ads are great for targeting smartphone users and will help you connect with
prospects before they even click the ad or visit your site.
The beta version of Gallery Ads is currently available in eleven languages – English, German, Japanese,
French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Swedish, and Polish.

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25. Export Google Ads Data to Google Sheets
Are you constantly downloading Google Ads data?
Now, it’s easier, as the latest Google Ads updates
include an easy export option so that you can export
data to Google Sheets, and then share it with your
team or clients.

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26. BERT
BERT is one of the most significant Google Ads updates of the past few years.
In essence, it’s a major algorithm change that means Google is getting better at determining context and
meaning within search queries. The search engine can now analyze longer terms and consider every
word in relation to the other words in the query. Ultimately, this will make for smarter, more relevant
search results in the future.

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27. Ad Groups for App Campaigns
You can take advantage of this new update by grouping similar themes, time-sensitive promotions by
using ad groups for your app campaigns. For example when you have an upcoming promotion. You know
that introducing new creative with the intention of removing them in just a few days can have a negative
impact on overall performance. By creating an ad group to specifically house promotional creative, you
can have better control over their run dates and ensure that no promotional assets get left behind once
the promo is over.

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28. Expanded ad text for App Campaigns
Expanded ad text fields are now available within Google App campaigns. You can now upload up to five
30 character Headlines and five 90 character descriptions. There is a minimum of two headlines and two
descriptions. Previously.

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Wrap Up
So, there you have the ultimate list of Google Ads updates. Every year is sure to be full of changes, too, so
everyone in PPC advertising should do their best to get familiar with these updates and embrace the new
tricks and tools.
Taking a proactive attitude to experimentation is a key ingredient for success with PPC advertising. You
can learn more about that in our blog about How to Create An Optimized Search Ad Campaign.

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