In June, Google began its exclusive transition to Google Ads, the new interface of what was previously AdWords. We’ve known it’s been coming for some time now. But for those of you who were waiting till the last minute to make the switch, time’s up.

Google’s 2018 rebrand will launch a new “big three” brands for digital marketers to use. These being Google Ads, Google Marketing Platform (GMP), and Google Ad Manager (GAM). The new big three brands are a consolidation of all of Google’s previous digital marketing tools.

 

After years of feedback and complaints about the importance/difficulty of integrating analytics with ads, Google’s finally giving marketers what we’ve asked for.

But with this new and improved interface, comes some necessary adjustments. And just because you have a new tool to use doesn’t mean you can afford to trip up. It’s doubtful your clients will accept you blaming the “learning curve” for missed goals and burnt budget.

So, to make sure your transition to the new Google Ads goes smoothly, we’ve written this guide including everything you’ll need:

1. New Big Three Google Brands Overview
2. Navigating Google Ads Interface
3. New Google Ads Settings
4. New Google Ads Functionalities
5. Benefits Of The New Google Ads

There’s quite a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get started right off the bat with the new Big Three.

The New Big Three Google Brands

Google’s new rebrand will consist of releasing three new platforms to help marketers reach their customers more effectively.

The first new brand marks the transition from Google AdWords to Google Ads. The second new brand unifies Google’s DoubleClick advertising products with Google Analytics 360. This consolidation is meant to help larger, enterprise level accounts with stronger and more streamlined collaboration.

Lastly, Google is also releasing Google Ad Manager, an integration three years in the making of DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange. This new programmatic platform is meant to help make advertising easier for publishers and advertisers alike.

Let’s dive a bit deeper to get a better idea of what each of these new platforms offers.

Google Ads

The basic functions of what-was-once AdWords haven’t really changed now that it’s been rebranded to Google Ads. This is still where PPC marketers are going to be managing their campaigns, keywords, ads, etc.

 

This rebrand can be considered — at its core — to be Google’s reconciliation of the fact that their advertising platforms offer access to both the Google Search Network (GSN) and Google Display Network (GDN).

The old name “AdWords” had a connotation of text focused advertising (i.e. text ads in GSN). But Google wants to be known as much more than just text ads, hence the new name.

Google Ads also comes with a new user interface that has shuffled things up a bit. But we’ll cover these new changes in the “Navigating Google Ads Interface” section.

Another main goal of Google Ads is to help small businesses succeed more with their digital advertising. Google Ads now includes Smart Campaigns to help optimize your campaigns based on the goal actions you choose. These can include calls, in-store traffic, purchases, etc.

We’ll discuss the distinct new functionalities of Google Ads later on in this post (after all, Google Ads is the focus here).

The main goal of Google ads, is to make the actual account setup, activity, and maintenance easier on digital marketers. This way, they can free up their time and energy to focus on strategy and optimization.

Google Marketing Platform (GMP)

The primary goal of the Google Marketing Platform is to help digital marketers account for the myriad of different channels that are available to users today.

With search engines, email, Youtube videos, social media, etc, digital marketers need a singular place where they can manage each of these distinct campaigns.

And this is where the new Google Marketing Platform comes in.

 

Google actually compiled a survey of digital marketers to identify their priorities in a new advertising interface. It turns out that the #1 priority of marketers, as a whole, was to better understand their customers.

In order to help with this, GMP combines the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform with Google Analytics 360. For those of you who don’t know, GA360 is the paid version of Google Analytics, which offers more data on paid campaigns and audiences.

The GMP rebrand also includes Search Ads 360 and Display & Video 360. Each will consolidate the search and display aspects of DoubleClick, respectively.

 

Google’s plan with the GMP is to bring together the best parts of their analytics and marketing tools to:

Help you plan, buy, measure, and optimize your digital media and customer experiences in one place.

Google Marketing Platform also offers over 100+ integrations for different measurement, tracking, and optimization tools. As a whole, the GMP is meant to be the one-stop-shop for your marketing management needs moving forward.

Google Ad Manager (GAM)

The Google Ad Manager represents the combination of DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) and DoubleClick For Publishers (DFP). In order to adapt to the growing number of channels and new content that publishers and advertisers can use, Google has rebranded to GAM.

 

With advertisers demanding more programmatic access, Google wants to make managing auctions and exchanges simpler for publishers.

By integrating AdX into Google Ad Manager, publishers now have a complete sales system. For example, you can curate who has access to your inventory to focus on your advertiser relationships that generate the most revenue.

The biggest win from the Google Ad Manager, however, is that it offers a single platform for delivering, measuring, and optimizing ads wherever your audience is engaging.

With audiences engaging with content and ads in all different sorts of mediums, this is a huge convenience. And the better you can manage you disparate campaigns and channels, the better you can optimize your budgets towards winning opportunities. That’s what makes the real PPC pros, after all.

 

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Navigating Google Ads Interface

Realistically, covering all three of these new brands will take a few blog posts. For now, this post will focus on Google Ads and what the rebrand brings in terms of updates.

First and foremost, the rebrand from AdWords to Google Ads brings with it a whole new user interface. So, let’s start with how to navigate within the new advertising platform.

For starters, here’s a quick reference map, courtesy of Google Support:

 

Part 1 of the new UI, on the left hand side of the screen in dark grey, is the Navigation Menu. This is where the bulk of your actions used to be located in AdWords, but now the Navigation Menu in Google Ads consists only of your different campaign view options:

 

Depending on which view you click, you’ll see all of those campaigns populate on your main screen and under the four major tabs in your Navigation Menu.

Part 2 of the new Google Ads interface is your Page Menu. This is where you can view all of the different strata (fancy people talk for “levels”) of your campaigns. For example, you can click-through to your distinct Ad Groups, Ads, Ad Extensions, Audiences, etc.

You can essentially view everything you need to within each campaign. What’s nicer is that you can see all of the campaigns you could possibly be comparing to one another just to the left of this Page Menu (in the Navigation Menu). It’s a very nice stratification.

 

And speaking of stratification, the new interface in Google Ads also offers a Subpage Menu, which is Part 3. The Subpage Menu will actually change depending on what you click in the Page Menu. For example, clicking Ad Groups will give you the Subpage Menu showing Ad Groups and Auction Insights.

 

But, if you were to click through to the Ads & Extensions tab, you’d be shown a Subpage Menu like the image below:

 

Depending on what you click, the necessary options for that tab will be shown in the Subpage menu. Google Ads has done a great job of creating a tiered organization in the new user interface, that’s for sure.

Lastly, Part 4 and 5 are the toolbars in the new Google Ads interface. Part 4 is the Top Bar, or the consistent toolbar that will help you navigate through your actual Google Ads account. NOTE: This is where the search bar is, but we’ll get to that in a sec. Part 5 is the Table Toolbar, which most PPC marketers will recognize from the old AdWords interface. This is where you can adjust your tables and columns and create filters and segments for your reports.

So, now that we’ve covered the basics of the new Google Ads user interface, let’s take a look at it’s newest and coolest features.

Overview Tab

The Overview Tab is the first page that you’ll land on once you click on any specific campaign. You can find the Overview Tab at the top of the Page Menu.

The Overview Tab was never really that big of a deal back in the days of AdWords. But, the new Google Ads Overview Tab has quite a lot to offer:

 

Google Ads offers multiple new, semi-customizable windows within this Overview page that give you a quick and easy glance at your campaigns. For example, the Biggest Changes window will show you a live view of the biggest percentage changes (plus or minus) in any enabled campaigns.

 

Another great new little feature of the Overview Tab is the search term jumbles that Google Ads supplies you for each of your campaigns.

 

As a whole, these new features are meant to represents Google’s shift from being a keyword based advertising platform to an audience based advertising platform. So it makes sense that Google would introduce a feature that alerts you to what new search terms users are actually using to find your ads.

Your Overview Tab also gives you the live performance graph that the old AdWords interface used to offer. It includes a few KPIs at the top of the graph, which gives advertisers a nice quick summary of current performance.

These KPIs include Clicks, Conversions, Cost/Conversion, and Total Cost. But you can get more in depth in the Reporting if you want.

 

As a whole, the new Overview Tab does a great job giving Google Ads users a bird’s eye view of current performance as well as new optimization recommendations. And the more efficiently you can gauge your campaigns’ performance, the faster you can put out fires and celebrate wins, appropriately.

Tools Tab Consolidation

One of the biggest changes between the old AdWords interface and the new Google Ads interface is the Tools Tab. Mainly, in the old AdWords interface, most of these clickable options were found on the left column of the page.

Now, in Google Ads, this is where the Navigation Menu, which only offers you views of certain types of campaigns. To find your actual Tools and different PPC functions,  you have to find the Toolbar at the top of the page.

 

The Tool Tab can be found on the Top Bar of Google Ads. It has a tool wrench as an icon. When you click it, a drop down menu will appear that shows you the different options and actions available out of five categories:

• Planning
• Shared Library
• Bulk Actions
• Measurement
• Setup

Most digital marketers will recognize a few of these items from the left column of the old AdWords interface. But, being as they’re so widely applicable, I think we can agree that Google had simplicity in mind when consolidating all these features.

Within the Planning category you’ll be able to access your Keyword Planner and preview your Ads. You can also view your Display Planner, if you’re running display campaigns.

In the Shared Library, you’ll still be able to manage all of your vital targeting information. You can manage your budgets, bid strategies, audiences, and even manage your negative keyword lists and placement exclusion lists. These are highly valuable assets in PPC that are often overlooked by digital marketers. Building out these lists will help eliminate wasteful spend and improve ROAS.

The Bulk Action section still handles all of your bulk actions for campaigns, ad groups, etc (i.e. Rules, Scripts, Uploads).

Lastly, your Tools Tab includes the Measurement section where you can view your Conversions and choose Attribution Models. You can also click through to Google Analytics, , if you need more data.

Setup features, including Billing, Account access, and your Google Merchant Center are all under the Setup Tab.

Remember — Google Ads is the official integration of digital advertising across search, display, video, and shopping. So everything needs to be readily available all in one place, regardless of what you’re viewing.

Search Feature

A new Google Ads feature that a lot of paid account managers are excited about is the new search feature.

The new Go To function in the Top Bar, right next to the Reports and Tools buttons, lets you go straight to any page in Google Ads. Keep in mind, however, that this search feature doesn’t let you go to specific campaigns. You can view pages from within the Page Menu, nothing more. So it’s more of a navigational tool than a discovery tool.

 

This is a very helpful feature for those search marketers that like to use keyboard shortcuts to navigate around the interface. The G then T keyboard shortcut automatically opens the search feature.

If you know what you’re looking for, you can really jump around within specific campaigns without ever touching a mouse.

After these significant changes to the user interface, you can imagine Google Ads to be the same as the old Google AdWords in terms of functionality.

It’s simply Google consolidating it’s advertising brands (all four: search, display, video, shopping) under one new name.

So, keeping with the comprehensive dive into what this new name means for Google advertisers, let’s look at the new Settings and Transparency Rules.

New Google Ads Settings

Back in 2015, Google released Google Accounts, a combination of users’ respective Ad Settings, Why This Ad? and Mute This Ad preferences.

Now, with the rebrand of Google Ads, Google is releasing a new version of Ad Settings. This new release is meant to improve the transparent control you have over what ads you see and how/why your ads are tailored to you.

 

What ads are shown to you depends on a variety of factors. Google takes things like interests, Google Account information, recent search activity, and cross-channel engagement into consideration. This is how Google tries to make ads more relevant and helpful to their audience and user base.

However, the perk of the new Ad Settings, is that you can deselect specific criteria for Google to have access to.

So, for example, if you are a noted soccer fan and no longer want to see futbol related ads, you can deselect that interest and Google will remove that detail from your digital persona.

Why This Ad?

Another big improvement the Google Ads rebrand is bringing to the search engine advertising user experience is the now universalized Why This Ad? feature.

 

Previously, you could find this clickable link on certain GSN ads to see why you were shown this specific ad in particular. This was also one of the easiest ways for you to access your Ad Settings in the old interface.

Now, however, because Google wants to increase the transparency between users and advertisers, and make the search engine marketplace a more audience-driven interaction, this is a universal option on all Google ad formats.

That’s right. You can now find the Why This Ad? link on any search or display ad, Youtube video ad, the list goes on.

Google’s aiming to make the functionality of its entire service easier for users both — professional and personal. That way, the tools and platforms are freed up to be more creatively used by each type of user.

New Google Ads Functionalities

Now we’ve finally arrived at the part of the post you’ve most likely been waiting for.

What are the new capabilities of Google Ads? What new features will I have access to that will help me better generate revenue for my paid search campaigns!?

 

The new Google Ads is meant to simplify the technical complexities of AdWords and previous ad platforms to make things easier on users. And the new features in Google Ads reflect this by making paid advertising easier to get started, optimize, and manage.

So, whether you’re a PPC newbie or a seasoned veteran, let’s look at the new tools you’ve been given to work with.

Smart Campaigns

Smart Campaigns represents Google’s efforts to make digital advertising easier on beginners. “Beginners” here refers to small businesses, PPC novices, and brands just starting their digital marketing efforts.

Search engine users are growing more diverse in the ways they interact with ads and online media. They used multiple screens, interact with different ad formats, and engage at different levels of intent. Smart Campaigns are meant to help paid advertisers account for the growing complexity of Google’s audience.

But don’t just take my word for it, hear it from the horse’s mouth:

[Smart Campaigns can be seen]… as our effort to help businesses of all sizes connect with relevant customers across all of our channels and partner sites.

Google reports that for more than 90% of small businesses, their primary digital goal is to get customers to call, visit a store, or make a purchase. Smart Campaigns helps optimize your campaigns performance based on the specific action you specify.

For businesses that are just getting started on the Google Ads platform, this is a great launching pad. Not only that, it’s a great place to get a preliminary understanding of Google best practices.

Image Picker (Coming Soon)

Google Ads is also introducing the Image Picker to replicate the same effect of Smart Campaigns for your Display Campaign images.

 

Google understands that split-testing is the heart of optimization. But they also understand that not every small business owner has the time or expertise to set up, measure, and analyze statistically significant split tests. So they’re trying to handle the split testing for you so you can focus on optimization strategy and decision-making.

This is where the Image Picker comes in. Now, when you create ads, you can choose up to three images and three logos for Google to split test for you. Using the image picker it will automatically work to identify which image performs best.

This way your ads performance will already be optimized towards leading performance. You can then continue to build on these multivariate tests with continued testing of your own.

Note: Image Picker won’t be released until a little later this year. But it’s coming soon!

Life Event Targeting

You know that creepy feeling you get shivering down your spine every time you feel like Google knows you a little too well?

Life Event Tracking is where PPC advertisers get to take that phenomenon and put it into overdrive.

 

Depending on what life event is occurring, your search and purchase history may change.

For example, before a wedding you might end up searching for locations, churches, and catering services. While if you’re graduating college you may end up searching European travel or how to distinguish between nice wine and bagged wine.

Life Even Tracking enables PPC advertisers to target theses actual shifts in purchase behavior. Depending on what service you or your client offers, this can be the perfect tool in your new Google Ads arsenal.

What’s great about this new feature is that you can continually layer your targeting to enhance the performance of these campaigns. You can add on location targeting on top of the specific life events you’re targeting. You can also add in-market targeting within your prebuilt audience for these campaigns.

 

As we’ve continually mentioned throughout this post, Google’s rebrand represents them trying to make the technical functions of PPC easier, so you can focus on strategy.

This includes creating the smallest, most targeting audiences possible to generate the most relevant ads for their users and your campaigns.

Google Optimize

Any PPC marketer worth his/her salt will tell you that the route of all digital marketing success is testing. With that in mind, Google Optimize integrating with AdWords, and now Google Ads, is potentially the most exciting part of the rebrand.

 

Google Optimize does more than work on just landing pages, though. Because Google is consolidating all its digital marketing tools into a singular brand, this includes analytics and tracking for organic websites.

This is one of the things that makes Google Optimize so exciting. You can set specific metrics to track and goal (like increase or decrease in that metric) and, depending on which metric and which pages you’re tracking, Optimize will identify the best potential changes you should implement.

 

Now, given, this is no complete replacement for tried and true Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). But, it’s definitely worth taking a look at within your Google Ads platform. And more than worth the time of integrating the two to at least see what Google Optimize has to say.

New Landing Page Report

Since rebranding to the new Google Ads user interface, Google has even had to release separate guidelines for the “Landing Pages” tab within Google Ads. This is to be distinguished from the old Landing Page Report within the old AdWords interface.

Both serve to do the same thing, in the end. But with Google Ads, everything is housed within the same interface (which has its benefits). On the new guidelines for the “Landing Pages” tab within Google Ads, the experts say you can:

• See the expanded landing pages associated with each of your landing pages
• Identify which of your pages could provide a better experience on mobile devices
• Check a page’s mobile-friendliness or, if the page loads as a valid Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP)

This last bullet is very important moving into the future, as AMP is becoming more and more important to digital marketers. The more users become cross-device using, multi-channel audiences, the more our campaigns need to be ready for mobile.

This is why Google Ads is now offering AMP for display ads as well as landing pages. These new display ads supposedly load five seconds faster than ordinary display ads on mobile devices.

As a whole, Google’s recognizing that speed and accessibility are incredibly important to modern users. To encourage faster load speeds and smoother user experiences, Google baked the page-speed tester, mobile-friendly tester, and AMP-validator tester into the new Landing Page report on user experience.

 

Google Sheets Integration

When you spend so much time tracking, measuring, and analyzing different metrics within your advertising platform, reports are a vital part of in-team communication. Not only that, these reports often build the foundation of your client-agency relationship. Any truly successful agency will have a solid agency-client communication system set up for optimal feedback.

Google Ads will now offer a Google Sheets Plugin, making these reports that much easier.

 

These reports are great for keeping your clients in the loop of your campaign progressions. But Google hasn’t stopped there. They’ve also included the ability to add and edit notes within the Google Ads interface itself.

This is a huge win for accounts that have multiple managers and designers working within them. If you need to communicate quick fixes, priority levels, or just unanswered questions in any part of Google Ads, the notes are there for you.

After all of these new features, though, Google Ads is still generally the same in terms of usage. This is still Google’s primary hub for digital marketers to manage their paid search campaigns.

Having said that, it’s time we take a look past the features and into the benefits that PPC marketers themselves are saying they enjoy the most.

Benefits Of The New Google Ads

Now that we’ve taken the time to address all the new features and navigational aspects of Google Ads, let’s look at what the actual PPC experts love about the rebrand.

There’s some mixed reviews in terms of the new user interface. Some digital marketers really love the sleek new design and the reallocation/consolidation of the tools tab.

Others simply can’t stand it… @CurlyMissy

Regardless of your opinion of the new UI, there are some indisputable benefits of the new Google Ads rebrand. So let’s take a look at our PPC team’s favorites.

 

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Improved Collaboration / Integration

The foremost, strongest, and most obvious benefit of Google Ads is the enhanced collaboration of all of Google’s advertising tools. The three-way rebrand represents a huge consolidation of all of Google’s most popular platforms.

Google Ads also offers a multitude of different integrations for measuring, optimizing, and more. Making this the most innovative update towards a streamlined advertising experience in recent Google history.

The sleek new Google Ads interface also allows for a much more comprehensive bird’s eye view of your performance.

All of these new benefits are meant to assist brands and marketers just getting started in the digital marketing world.

And, for those of you who already consider yourself experts, these changes are meant to make the management and minutia easier on you. That way your time is better spent on expert new strategies to grow your clients’ revenue and ROI.

Kick-Starting Optimization & Split Testing

Since its launch and official, exclusive transition, Google Ads has continually stressed that it wants to help sm