Cross-device targeting and foot traffic attribution and TV, oh my!
Google revealed three products Monday in a blog post. Here’s the low-down.
Precise Cross-Device
When Google earnestly made its cross-device play last year, it was for measurement and optimization only.
No longer.
Cross-device remarketing for Google Display Network and DoubleClick Bid Manager lets marketers actually target across devices using – that’s right – Google deterministic data. This is Google’s bid to take on Facebook’s cross-device strength from the social network’s enormous base of always-logged-in users.
Google seems to be bracing for the privacy outcry that inevitably accompanies all data-related announcements. The company emphasized that consumers must opt in to allow advertisers to target them across devices.
Meanwhile for advertisers, Google stressed the ability to sequence ads and cap frequency to control how often a consumer sees a message. Previously, that function required desktop cookies and Android IDs, so it couldn’t actually be done across screens.
Location, Location
Google also introduced a way to tie store visits to display ads quickly – in about two days.
Location extension places key business information like address, maps and images into mobile display units. Google can also tell marketers whether those ads led to foot traffic by harnessing Google Maps technology.
It claims to be 99% accurate, based on a panel of 5 million global users. Google is really touting that accuracy rate, plus the ability for an advertiser to get data in two days. In a white paper, Google noted that other methods of determining store visitations – such as panels and onboarding offline data – are slow and inaccurate.
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This isn’t the first time Google has used its maps to measure in-store visits, though the capability was restricted to search and AdWords. The difference now is that location extension and store visit measurement is available on programmatic display, across Google’s web and app ecosystem.
Incidentally, the location extension ad units shouldn’t be confused with Google shopping ads, formerly known as Product Listing Ads. While shopping ads also have store location data, they’re focused on specific products. As such, shopping ads also might have info around offers and available inventory.
Location extension by contrast is devoted to retail store locations as opposed to a product.
Early adapters of the product include Nissan UK, Jerome’s Furniture, Sprint and Home Depot – the case study for which is available here.
TV Time
Google has extended Brand Lift to TV, which used to only be available for online video or display activations. Now, marketers can measure the impact of their TV campaigns on metrics like brand recall and consideration.
This isn’t Google’s first stab at TV measurement. The Google Attribution 360 product (formerly Adometry) already determined how web actions such as search queries impact TV performance.
Google Brand Lift for TV takes the product one step further by enabling control tests that can, for example, compare how YouTube performs versus TV commercials.
Google is integrating with market research companies – names undisclosed – at an API level to enable that capability.
Google claims advertisers can see how their ads performed on networks or programs. For instance, advertisers can see how many searches resulted from a TV or YouTube placement.
In early beta tests with brands like Volkswagen, Google (unsurprisingly) found that YouTube ads generated twice the number of searches per video impression than TV ads.
Google claims brands are mostly using Brand Lift for TV to gauge actions that occur earlier in the funnel, such as search.
Kelly Liyakasa contributed
