Brand Growth has always been an important factor for the success of any business. It has often been tinged with a lucrative edge, the endless pot of gold. Thus, many companies have often had prospecting activity at the forefront of their mind.
However, during Covid-19, some companies have been shifting the emphasis from targeting new users to retaining their current user pool and increasing the brand affinity of these consumers. Ad-Age argues that throughout the pandemic consumers are becoming numb to new advertisers and thus, it becomes more important than ever to utilise marketing activity to reconnect with your existing customer base.
With Discovery Ads you can get the best of both worlds by leveraging its scope for both brand awareness and enhancing brand affinity across your existing user base.
History Of Discovery Ads
In April 2019 Google introduced Discovery Ads for all advertisers. This was a new ad format which allowed companies to engage with upper-funnel consumers whilst they browsed the internet and at various touchpoints; Youtube, Gmail and across the Google Discover Network.
As Google estimates 86% of consumers are looking for shopping ideas as they watch videos and browse content online, this ad format has become an important way of attracting upper-funnel consumers and raising brand awareness.
With Gmail Ads being deprecated in July, discovery ads are sure to become an integral part of any digital marketing strategy.
What are Discovery Ads?
Discovery Ads can help facilitate this as it has unparalleled reach across 2.9 billion people who are browsing the internet, exploring their interests and looking for inspiration. Whether a user is watching YouTube videos or reading their emails, Discovery ads will show in a variety of engaging formats:
These consist of a headline, description, images, logos and destination URL. Similar to responsive search ads, advertisers are recommended to provide several assets for Google to find the optimal combination to engage users.
This ad format relies on users stopping what they’re doing and clicking on an ad. Thus, the images need to be visually engaging. You can upload up to 15 different images for the Discovery ad. Uploading multiple creatives allows Google to generate personalised ads based on audience and customer intent signals.
How do Discovery Ads work?
Although it might seem that these format of ad will provide little return as it focuses on upper-funnel users, with the use of automation, these can also deliver strong performance.
There are currently two options for bid strategies:
- Maximise Conversions
- Target CPA
As Discovery ads are fully automated, the main source of targeting is based on audiences. We would recommend you split your discovery ads by the audience type (prospecting and remarketing).
- For remarketing you can leverage CRM lists, converters and different aspects of website engagement (such as basket abandoners).
- Whilst for prospecting, there are a plethora of audiences at your disposal from similar users, to in-market audiences and custom intent audiences.
- With custom intent audiences you have the scope to make the advertisements very targeted as you can create a very granular audience bucket.
Final Thoughts
Discovery ads are a great way to target both new and existing users throughout their consumer journey. The rich visuals coupled with automation make this an excellent selection if you’re wanting to find new ways to connect with your customers in a manageable way.
If this article has peaked your interest and you are now looking to test discovery campaigns a good place to start will be to start reviewing your available creative and begin thinking about what audiences you want to target.
References:
If you have any questions or would like any further information on discovery ads then feel free to reach out to us below:
Authored by:
