On September 28th, 2022 Google held its 3rd annual Search On event. The event included announcements about several Search improvements related to these topics:
- Visualization
- Personalization
- Sustainability
The B2B industry’s PPC experts were invited to a roundtable discussion after the event, where they provided their opinions on the announcements and how they might impact the sector. The group included Brad Geddes, Melissa Mackey, Michelle Morgan, Greg Finn, Steph Bin, Michael Henderson, and Andrea Cruz Lopez.
The Problem With Images
Several improvements in Search include browsable search results, more considerable image assets, and business messages for conversational Search. According to Co-Founder of Adalysis Brad Geddes, ‘Desktop was never mentioned once.’ Many agreed that their B2B clients still relied on desktop searches and traffic. Since most images are displayed on mobile devices, their B2B clients won’t benefit as much.
The question about image context came up again. Several roundtable participants concurred that images are suitable for user experience but wondered whether we considered image context when creating experiences:
What best way to represent a B2B product or B2B service in an image?
- Images are indeed vital for verticals such as apparel, automotive, and general eCommerce businesses. However, B2B firms may be disadvantaged by this.
More Uses Cases
The group agreed that Search On and Google Marketing Live had become more consumer-focused events.
The Google Marketing Live event was precisely what Greg Finn expected, but he feels that the event is now too broad and that Google is no longer communicating with advertisers. Marvin acknowledged and then revealed that Google received feedback that the vision following this year’s GML was oriented towards higher-level investors.
The group listed a few ways to address the current void in what was announced versus what advertisers can take action concerning.
- An advertiser may schedule up to 30 minutes post-presentation follow-up time to further discuss how the material relates to their businesses.
- Equip more use cases
- Focus less on verticals
According to Michelle Morgan and Melissa Mackey, it would be beneficial to see even a B2B SaaS example screenshot. Providing tangible action items to bring this information to clients is critical.
The Google Product Managers Weighed In
Multiple Google Search Product Managers provided input in the second half of the roundtable.
Is Google becoming a one-stop shop for gathering information and making purchases? How should advertisers prepare for this? Should we expect lower traffic and higher CPCs to secure that precious space?
Google Global Product Lead for Search Formats, Cecilia Wong, stated that they could not comment directly on the direction as a whole, but they do focus on Search. Their advice:
- Keep track of resources and photos, and provide the best user experience.
- When developing B2B websites, ensure that the images foreshadow the content of the destination page.
However, image assets have strict limitations on what can be used. To determine whether Google would alter its image asset restrictions for B2B advertising, I asked if they would loosen the restrictions. Google could not comment directly but acknowledged that looser restrictions on image content are required for B2B advertisers.
Is the Hassle Worth the Value-Based Bidding?
The issue of value-based bidding was raised during Carlo Buchmann’s talk on Smart Bidding, where he stated that he hoped advertisers would move towards it. While the response appeared to be negative, it allowed for open discussion. Melissa Mackey, Senior Director of Digital Marketing at VML, said that while she has discussed value-based bidding with her clients, none of them are willing to leap. B2B conversion values are difficult to assess, particularly in different channels.
However, Geddes believes that Google is struggling to translate its value numbers to the amount of profit resulting from a sale. This, according to Geddes, leads clients to become fixated on pipeline information, which they find difficult to interpret. The more sophisticated clients are returning to manual bidding because Google doesn’t convey all the values and signals.
Finn finished the discussion with his expertise. He reminded us that Google had not released any information about optimally utilizing value-based bids. Google tends to favor lower-value conversions on a client’s account when multiple value inputs negatively affect lead quality. Since there is only one value, it appears that CPA bidding is taking place.
In addition to providing additional resources to dig into general best practices to leverage Search in the world of automation, the Google Search Product Managers closed by providing examples of how to use Search API in various use cases.
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Final Thoughts
According to the PPC roundtable experts, Google’s visualization updates may present challenges for B2B firms. Despite this, they concurred that if Google wants advertisers to utilize these features, they must offer extra assistance. Google has emphasized that the future of Search is visual. B2B enterprises must utilize extra creativity to succeed. However, big and small advertisers are attempting to accomplish more with less time and resources.
Google Search updates are being relied on by marketers to make them relevant to both users and advertisers. Having more precise guidelines, examples, and conversations is a beautiful move toward reviving Google’s collaboration with advertisers.
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