Google calls it a tool to help marketers"drive more performance with less effort." So, what is the Gemini Era, and how will it make marketers' lives easier?
In late 2023, Google announced the launch of Gemini: Google’s latest, largest and most capable AI-powered language model. While this may sound newfangled, AI has been a core part of the Google Ads service for a while via Smart Bidding and Performance Max solutions.
Gemini is a large-scale language model that has been tested on both world knowledge and its problem-solving abilities. Astonishingly, Gemini Ultra has been found to outperform human experts 90% of the time based on academic benchmarks across subjects such as math, law, medicine and ethics.
Gemini-powered chat uses this vast amount of data in its application to ads by creating a conversational experience.
Combining the expertise of advertisers with Google’s large-scale AI model, advertisers start the process of ad creation by entering their landing page and Gemini will generate ad assets based on your website. This process will automatically help you to create keywords, ad copy, ad extensions and even imagery for your ad groups and campaigns.
What makes this process even more exceptional, is that you can use Gemini’s chat-based experience in a similar way to ChatGPT — just like speaking to a colleague! If the ad copy Gemini offers is a bit dry, you can ask something like "make this description sound more upbeat" or "make this headline more serious." The solution will then tweak your ad copy as required to meet your criteria.
For example, Gemini may take a description such as, "Buy our blue women’s sweater today. Made with 100% cotton. Soft to the touch."
You might find this a bit dry. So, you could say to Gemini "make this description sound more exciting." Then, Gemini may have a new output such as "Buy this season’s must-have navy sweater today! Irresistibly soft, made from 100% cotton."
Below is an example from Google of using Gemini, where the user asked for the ad copy to be tweaked by saying "Can you mention our anti-aging benefits?"
What’s great about this process is that you ultimately have control: you can continue to create your ad group without any of their recommendations, if you wish.
To date, this has only been available to a select group of advertisers for testing. However, as of the announcement on January 23rd, it’s currently in the Beta phase for English-language advertisers across both the United States and the United Kingdom. However, they’ve committed to a global rollout for English-language advertisers in the coming weeks.
The USP for marketers is, undoubtedly, the ease of creating strong and effective ad copy with less ‘effort’ (the jury is out on that part so far - but we digress!). The ultimate benefit of using Gemini to create your ads is that you’ll naturally improve your ad strength from the get-go.
As we know, ad strength is one of the most important factors at auction time. So, if Gemini gives you the ability to create ads with an ‘Excellent’ ad strength, your ads will benefit from a higher CTR (click-through rate), a lower CPC (cost-per-click) and, ultimately, a higher conversion rate — making your ads much more effective.
Crucially, Google’s own research has found the following:
“Our data shows that small business advertisers that use the conversational experience in Google Ads are 42% more likely to publish Search campaigns with 'Good' or 'Excellent' Ad Strength.
"This is significant because we’ve found a strong correlation between Ad Strength and conversions. For example, advertisers who improve Ad Strength for their responsive search ads from 'Poor' to 'Excellent' see 12% more conversions on average.”
No! What’s great about using Gemini is that advertisers still have the ultimate control. You don’t need to accept any or all of the recommendations given to you. And, as the tool is still in Beta, we know it may take time to deliver the "perfect" results.
So, while we suggest testing out Gemini, it shouldn't be the be-all-and-end-all for your advertising efforts.
AI is undeniably becoming a much bigger part of our online lives. And, as marketers, it’s important that we are open to changes in the way we work. While we believe it will take a while for Google to be able to create "perfect" ads without human intervention, it's important not to be dismissive of the use of AI when it comes to advertising.
After all, how many businesses can afford to turn down a 12% increase in conversion rate?
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