• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 30, 2024

Google’s latest features to boost tools supporting creative, performance and transparency in its advertising platforms began rolling out today in Performance Max and YouTube video ad placements.

Performance Max campaigns should allow advertisers to create more effective ads, understand performance better, and ensure brand safety across Google’s ad network. The company expanded asset generation to App and Display campaigns to improve image editing.

Conversion metrics added to asset reporting should let advertisers further optimize creatives and determine what is working well, or not working at all.

For example, this reporting tool can help advertisers find assets that drive strong conversion volume or value.

Then they can use tools such as asset generation, image editing and video creation to improve the mix of assets and help achieve what Google calls “excellent Ad Strength.”

Image-generation capabilities launched in Performance Max last year, but have been fine-tuned on advertising performance data to help generate better images and reach performance goals faster.

While Image generation was extended to Demand Gen campaigns earlier this year, now it is rolling out in App, which includes enhanced asset reporting, and Display campaigns.

A new workflow in Google Ads should make it easier to generate images. By adding assets as a new option in the “Create” menu, to build creation workflows faster without having to create a new campaign. Some creative partners that are participating include Pencil, a Brandtech company, and Canva.

YouTube video placement reporting for Performance Max is now also rolling out to ensure that ads appear in brand-suitable places.

If necessary, account-level placement exclusions in the content-suitability center are available to stop ads from appearing on certain videos.

Third-party verification with YouTube brand-safety partners has become available for Performance Max -- and in Display placements, advertisers can request to implement third-party measurement.

This allows advertisers to append pixels from measurement partners to Performance Max campaigns to measure brand safety of Display inventory, similar to what is offered today in Display campaigns.