One of the best things about marketing with Google is the company’s transparency with their sales and earnings calls. They want marketers to be able to stay ahead of the game, so they provide knowledge from the past quarters as well as future trends. The latest call they shared with the public was regarding Google’s earnings from search marketers during Q4 in 2018. Aside from all the numbers involved, here are some of the takeaways from that call.
AI Powered Search
The president of Google, Sundar Pichai, mentioned that “activity cards” would be coming to Google to allow users to pick up where they left off in a string of searches. Executives mentioned that they were looking for new ways for finding and providing information in a more visual way, such as pictures and videos. Google Lens, for example, is now capable of identifying over a billion products and pull up related products and details like product reviews.
Shopping
Google is facing stiff competition from Amazon in the shopping department, which sees ad business grow rapidly. Pichai did mention that the number of shopping daily active users on Google doubled this season from last. The Google Shopping Actions application has seen some serious traction, with merchants including Sephora, Nike, and BestBuy all joining the mix in the last quarter.
Smart Campaigns
Over 20,000 businesses are now using Smart Campaigns, the automated campaign format that launched in 2018. These campaigns work with Google My Business, and they deliver everything from ad creation, audience targeting, and ad delivery across Google channels all based on the advertiser’s specific goals such as phone calls or website visits. Soon, Smart Campaigns will also include automated landing page creation.
Google Home Hub Holiday Activations
Pichai mentioned that one out of seven Google Home activations during the holidays was a Google Home Hub unit. The Hub features a screen, which makes it more inline with screen devices than Home devices, at least for search marketers. Not much was said about this device and its impact on marketing yet, but marketers should definitely keep an eye on its growth in the coming months and years.
Click Volume Goes Up, CPC Goes Down
Paid clicks on Google sites such as YouTube and Gmail are up 66% from Q$ in 2017 while cost per click continues to go down, falling 29% from last year. In the past, executives at Google have pointed to YouTube as a leading contributor to lower CPC averages. These metrics weren’t discussed in the 2018 Q4 call, but developments on YouTube such as YouTube TV came up several times.
The call to discuss Google earnings from search marketers was pretty illuminating for search marketers, as it gives us a lot to look out for in the coming years. At Results Repeat, we aim to stay ahead of the trends so we can more accurately pinpoint what will work best for each client’s needs. We are just as invested in seeing results from your marketing efforts as you are.
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