• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 15, 2020

Google on Wednesday added several ways for marketers to catch the eye of consumers across Search, Display, YouTube and Gmail by optimizing ads and improving on the ecommerce experience.

In Search ads, Google is launching an image extensions beta program. The idea is to upload relevant images or automatically curate them from the brand’s website with help from machine learning. 

The brand Hugo Boss, an early adopter, used image extensions with responsive search ads and saw a 2.5-times improvement in return on investment (ROI) and 5% jump in click-through rates, per Google.

There is also a new way to further personalize and curate responsive search ads by dynamically highlighting sales or time-sensitive deals, as well as receive suggestions on how to promote online availability, shipping, and returns.

Beginning today in the U.S., advertisers can highlight free and fast shipping features, among other features in Smart Shopping, which has shown to increase average conversion rates by 9%, per Google’s data.

Later this year Google will introduce a dynamically curated carousel of products in a browsable shopping experience that can include video content in Display ads.

Responsive display ads also are getting an updated look. Beginning today, advertisers have access to new creative layouts, automatically generated video ads, and updated dynamic ads that can display the business name alongside the company’s logo.

Building on an announcement Google made last week where the company shared information about new tools like portfolio bid strategies and bid strategy reports, advertisers can now optimize Smart Shopping campaigns to grow online sales specifically from new customers.

Google can automatically create an audience list based on the last 540 days of campaign activity and tracked purchases, which is the easiest method for distinguishing new customers from existing customers, according to the company. Or it can use new customer conversion tracking via tags.