PPC Features for Ad Campaigns

PPC Features for Ad Campaigns

PPC ad features that are improving performance and easing the management of ad campaigns. Out of which, some features are “opt-outs” that are valuable for optimizations and campaign efficiency.

1. Video In Responsive Display Ads

The right way of using responsive display ads enable maximizing your reach, boosting engagement, and increasing the efficiency of ad campaigns, helping in staying ahead of your competitors in the long term.

Responsive display ads, or responsive ads for short, are a versatile ad format designed to fit seamlessly into various ad spaces across the Google Display Network.

Video content is becoming increasingly popular in advertising. With responsive display ads, you can include up to five videos from your YouTube channel, expanding your advertising options. Google would determine when to use videos based on their potential to drive better performance.

2. Call Reports and Recording

Google Ads provides only basic call tracking. Third-party software, on the other hand, offers much more robust call analytics, giving you detailed information about each call, like call duration, call recording, and caller demographics. This enable optimizing your campaigns and improving your conversion rates.

3. LinkedIn Profile Targeting

LinkedIn profile targeting in Microsoft Ads is a unique audience feature that enables advertisers to reach users based on their professional attributes as listed on their LinkedIn profiles. Unlike standard demographic or interest targeting, the capability leverages verified LinkedIn data like company industry and job function.

Besides LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads is the only platform you can use for LinkedIn profile targeting for PPC ads. The capabilities of LinkedIn Profile Targeting in Microsoft Ads expanded significantly, making it even more valuable for marketers who want to reach professional audiences with precision and efficiency.

4. Automatically Created Assets

Automatically created assets improve performance, save time, and reduce efforts in managing accounts. Automatically created asset features in Google Ads is effective for many marketers, saving account managers time. Google Ads automatically creates and displays it below your ad.  

Automatically created assets is a campaign-level setting that enhances the relevance of your Search ads by generating custom headlines and descriptions based on your ad’s context. They can boost relevance by matching ads and landing pages better; however, it means ceding control to Google’s AI.

Automatically created assets exist at the account level and campaign level. Google or Microsoft can generate and append headlines and descriptions in rotation with what you have already supplied as a responsive search, thanks to automatically generated ad assets.

You may find this as an opt-in feature in the campaign settings. If you did like, you can activate this at the campaign settings level on both platforms.

5. Search Partners

Search partners extending the reach of Google search ads and listings to hundreds of non-Google websites, as well as YouTube. On search partners' sites, your ads and listings appear on search pages like a list of search results, Parked domain search results, site directory pages, product detail pages, YouTube search results and Watch pages.

Users can perform searches on search partners in different ways, such as selecting a suggested search, speaking a search term into a voice input, entering text into a search box, clicking on a related search term, clicking on a link directing a user directly to a results page or navigating a site directory.

Furthermore, two key areas need to be explored for digging into the search partners' performance:

• Reporting: in both Microsoft Ads and Google Ads, performance can be seen from campaign view, ad group view, or keyword by using the “segment” link for breaking out the “Network (with search partners)” performance.
• Settings: In the campaign settings, opt out if you see the performance is poor by deselecting search partners under Networks.

6. CTV Targeting

CTV (connected TV) is any television that can connect to the internet and stream online video, which includes both smart TVs with built-in connections and traditional TVs accessing the internet through devices like streaming sticks, gaming consoles, and connected Blu-ray players.

CTV targeting brings the precision of social media ads with all the data and demographics to the big screen, where audiences are more engaged than ever. Unlike traditional TV cable ads that cast a wide net for target demographics, CTV targeting delivers those same ads to very specific audiences who stream content on smart TVs, gaming consoles, or connected devices, such as Roku and Fire TV Stick.

Microsoft Ads serves video ads on Netflix’s ad-supported plan and over 860 other CTV publishers. Advertisers can target by demographics, location, audiences (including remarketing), and content genre.

7. Overlap and Outranking Information

“Overlap and outranking information” in the context of Google Ads is a specialized set of insights derived from keyword-level auction insights and automated reports. These insights are valuable for advertisers looking to fine-tune their bidding strategies and enhance the overall performance of their ad campaigns.

Keyword-level auction insights and automated reports help in finding information for improving bidding and optimizations in your account.

8. Content Suitability

Content suitability settings offer additional filtering that helps you find the right fit for product or brand. Depending on campaign setup, they can apply to content on YouTube, Display Network, Google Video Partners (GVP), or the Search Partner Network Coverage of some ad formats and ad inventory types may be limited.

Google Ads content suitability is crucial for ensuring that your ads align with brand values and appear in contexts that enhance engagement and compliance with legal standards. The alignment not only protects brand reputation but also optimized ad performance and improves overall user experience.

Overall, content suitability is important for maintaining the integrity of the advertising ecosystem, protecting brand reputation, and ensuring that ads are seen in contexts that are conducive to positive engagement.

9. Game Placements And Topics

Google display campaigns are a great way for generating awareness and getting your message out to the right audience. However, some advertisers find that gaming placements are not a good fit.

Fine-tuning game placements can help to direct ad serving to more relevant placements, which is accomplished through editing topics by excluding some or all game topics.

10. Optimized Targeting In Display

Depending on the campaign’s goal, optimized targeting helps in reaching new and relevant audiences that are likely to convert. It looks beyond manually-selected audience segments in your campaign to find audience segments for improving campaign performance.

Overview section of the PPC ads account

Google Ads and Microsoft Ads show performance snapshots in card form with data like basic performance, networks, demographics, and more. Each has a little bonus feature that may be useful, like adding or removing cards, changing metrics, or, most importantly, Google Ads, enabling the downloading of the image of the card chart