Jed Brookes-Lewis delves into the recent re-branding programme that Google is going through. Discover more...
The first thing I should say is that the title for this blog is a rather large piece of clickbait.
No, Google is not killing off AdWords.
What is happening, however, is that they are going through a comprehensive re-branding programme across their products, meaning AdWords will simply become Google Ads, whilst DoubleClick advertiser products and the Google Analytics 360 Suite now fall under the blanket Google Marketing Platform, and DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange combine to become Google Ad Manager.
Whilst on the surface, this appears to be a relatively small, stylistic change, it does have wider implications for how Google wants its platforms to be viewed.
When AdWords launched in the heady days of 2000 with just 350 advertisers on the platform, it was purely for desktop text ads on the Google SERP. In 2018, millions of advertisers are showing ads in a multitude of formats across search, shopping, YouTube, Gmail on desktop, tablet and mobile.
At its most simple, the re-brand takes the focus of the product away from purely search-based keywords, and encompasses the wide range of options now available to advertisers.
The Google Marketing Platform has been rolled out to allow more in-depth integrations between the various platforms shown in the above graphic. Google saw that advertisers were often integrating the data from these products themselves, with performance improving as a result of this.
This integration has also seen DoubleClick Search morph into Search Ads 360, whilst the display advertising products of DoubleClick Bid Manager, DoubleClick Campaign Manager, DoubleClick Studio and Google Audience Center 360 are brought together under the Display & Video 360 moniker.
Finally, Google Ad Manager merges DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange, allowing publishers to monetise the growing list of places where users can be engaged such as live streams, connected TVs, Accelerated Mobile Pages, apps and platforms like YouTube and Apple News.
In the short term, these changes are mainly aesthetic, bringing products under single banners to offer a clearer understanding of their functions.
However, moving forwards, it is a clear indicator of what the future holds; integration, integration, integration. Potentially we could see a “super-platform” being launched in the coming years that encompasses Ads, programmatic and data analysis, allowing a comprehensive end-to-end view of a user’s journey.
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