Inside Google's Vision for Privacy-Safe Advertising

Google Marketing Live kicked off earlier today, and the prevailing themes were online commerce and developing new ways of measuring marketing effectiveness in an increasingly privacy-centric world. The virtual event telegraphed several upcoming features, some of which will let retailers promote their discounted wares through a “deals results page” via the Google search engine and its Shopping tab. The online giant is also rolling out its local inventory ads product that helps retailers advertise their curbside pickup and in-store wares to YouTube and Google Maps. “Last week at Google I/O, we announced a new Shopify integration, and today, we’re sharing that retailers on WooCommerce, GoDaddy and Square will soon be able to integrate with Google easily and for free,” wrote Google president of commerce Bill Ready in a blog post published ahead of the event. “Customers will also see Shop Pay as a buying option for listings that have Buy on Google enabled, giving them more options for an easy checkout experience," he continued. "We’re currently testing this new buying experience on Search and the Shopping tab, and plan to bring it to YouTube and Images later this year.” Google is also furthering the rollout of a recent set of tools that helps marketers automate the optimization of their ad campaigns across its suite of products, called Performance Max, making it available to even more brands. Jerry Dischler, Google's vp and general manager, ads, took to the virtual stage to further explain how the company aims to employ machine learning to enable continued measurement of advertising effectiveness as the company strips back the ability for advertisers to directly access user data. “With the right type of automation, effective, privacy-safe ad selection and measurement are possible. These technologies can help provide visibility in cases where data or signals may be limited,” he said. “So, use machine learning and automated solutions whenever they’re available.” Special Report: The Death of Cookies To this end, Google is also promoting a tool letting marketers develop an audience strategy using their first-party customer data. Called Customer Match, the tool is now available to “nearly all advertisers” after they pass basic requirement tests. Vidhya Srinivasan, Google's vp and general manager, ads buying, analytics and measurement, also showcased a number of tools now available to marketers in order to help them shape their online campaigns given the impending roll-back of the third-party cookie. “That's why we've now released conversion modeling through Consent Mode to help close these gaps and give you more detailed conversion insights,” she said. “Additionally, you can soon get a more complete picture of the performance of your Google Ads with improved attribution reporting. In addition to search and shopping campaigns, touch points from display and YouTube will soon be included in all attribution models, including data-driven attribution.”