• Ads that automatically adjust to better match users’ searches. Google introduced responsive search ads, which test different versions of a brand’s ad and automatically identify the best-performing ad creative for certain search queries. With the tool, Google saves brands time they would have previously spent manually optimizing ads. And responsive search ads help drive results — brands using Google’s machine learning ad optimization offering see up to 15% more clicks.
• A bidding tool that helps brands optimize their YouTube ads. The search giant also announced Maximize lift, currently in beta, which uses machine learning to automatically adjust brands’ YouTube video ad bids to maximize lift of effectiveness measures including ad recall, awareness, and favorability. This tool would be useful to brands looking to boost key performance indicators (KPIs) in areas other than views and impressions. For example, automotive brands might specifically look to utilize Maximize lift, as nearly 50% of car buyers turn to YouTube for information before they buy, per Google.

• An optimization tool that will help brands drive foot traffic to their physical stores. Google introduced Local campaigns, which helps deliver brands’ ads across Search, Google Maps, and YouTube, after a company gives Google their ad budget, business locations, and ad creative. Brands with brick-and-mortar stores/shops might become more willing to try out the tool to capitalize on the growing number of consumers leaning on mobile for in-person purchasing decisions: mobile searches for “near me” have grown threefold in the past two years, for example.

Google’s new ad offerings highlight how marketers are increasingly seeking to use artificial intelligence (AI) to automate tasks and improve their workflows. More than half of marketers currently use AI, and an additional 27% are expected to incorporate the technology by 2019, according to Salesforce. This represents the highest expected year-over-year (YoY) growth of any leading technology, including IoT and social listening tools, that marketers expect to adopt.

Although the field of AI tech is still somewhat nascent, more marketers are beginning to realize how the technology can help with completing tasks more quickly, and this could contribute to uptake in Google’s new machine learning ad tools.

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