This year saw significant changes in the world of digital advertising as platforms rapidly introduced, expedited, or postponed new policies, features, campaign types, and offerings in response to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on consumers and advertisers.
In early March, the impending crisis began to disrupt search and digital ad budgets. Some businesses reduced their ad spend due to supply chain concerns, and advertisers in heavily impacted industries, such as travel, halted their ads entirely. Despite the initial shock, the industry bounced back in Q3 as COVID-driven commerce contributed to record ad revenue for major platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.
The pandemic ushered in a new era of e-commerce
Certain industries were able to resume normal operations faster than others, with e-commerce ad spend doubling as social distancing measures took hold. As consumers shifted to e-commerce, major platforms like Google and Facebook accelerated their plans to meet the new business needs.
After eight years as a paid platform, Google Shopping opened up to free product listings in April. These listings were later extended to the main search results page through knowledge panels, as announced in June. Google further transformed its platform by eliminating commissions for Buy on Google and integrating with third-party services like Shopify and PayPal. These changes make Google more accessible to a broader range of sellers, helping to differentiate it from marketplaces like Amazon, which typically charge significant fees per item sold.
Bing also adapted by opening its Shopping results to free product listings and enhancing its shopping capabilities with visual search, improving product discoverability for consumers.
With many physical stores closing, Facebook launched Shops in May, allowing businesses to establish integrated online storefronts on Facebook and Instagram. This move was a significant step toward a unified e-commerce platform and underscored the increasing importance of commerce for Facebook.
Pinterest introduced several e-commerce features to its mobile app, including a new "Shop" tab, visual search integrated into shoppable Pins, and home decor style guides. In May, Shopify merchants could turn their catalogs into shoppable Pins, providing access to Pinterest’s vast user base and potentially increasing ad spend on the platform.
Shopify also made offline moves by introducing an updated point-of-sale system, integrating online and offline sales capabilities for merchants.
Google promoted local pickup options and service provider badges
Locally, “curbside pickup” badges began appearing in Local Inventory Ads in May, which Google later enhanced by increasing the visibility of “nearby” product inventory through new Shopping features. Google local ads also gained Smart Bidding for store sales this year.
Local Service Ads (LSAs), initially for home service providers, were formally launched in July with the Google Screened certification, available only to advertisers. Advertisers must meet review score thresholds and be Google Guaranteed or Google Screened to run LSAs. These ads are displayed at the top of search results and are charged on a per lead basis. By September, LSAs became available across European countries, accompanied by auction-based pricing in select markets.
The Google Guaranteed badge became available to non-advertisers through an upgraded Google My Business profile for a monthly fee. These badges are becoming symbols of trust for Google users, signaling a new era in local search.
Google also experimented with various features in Maps, such as local ads in auto-suggest search results and the appearance of the Google Guaranteed badge in Maps listings.
Artificial intelligence became more ingrained in how we advertise
Automation remained a strong theme, with new audience targeting options and campaign types leveraging machine learning to reduce the need for manual ad management. Google’s policy changes reflected this trend.
Audiences: Continuous audience sharing was introduced to simplify the sharing process for brands with multiple accounts. Custom affinity and custom intent audiences merged into custom audiences for more flexible targeting. Google also used machine learning to help advertisers target predictive audiences based on purchase and churn probability.
Discovery feed: In the summer, Google monetized Discovery feeds with Discovery ads, which can reach a combined audience of 2.9 billion users, comparable to Facebook’s user base. This campaign type also gained lead forms and the ability to show 4:5 aspect ratio social image assets.
Search terms visibility: In September, Google limited Search Terms reporting to include only terms searched by a significant number of users, without clarifying what qualifies as significant. This change potentially made millions in ad spend invisible to advertisers.
Automation: Microsoft enabled advertisers on its platform to access responsive search ads (RSAs), continuing the debate between RSAs and expanded text ads (ETAs). Despite concerns about phasing out ETAs, Google clarified this was only a test.
Google’s increasing use of artificial intelligence indicates a shift toward predictive marketing. During Advertising Week, Google introduced automated Insights and Performance Max campaigns, released Video Action campaigns from beta, and recommended switching to broad match. The reduced search term data may make it harder to verify the relevance of queries for broad match keywords.
The changes that impacted agencies
Google Ads’ reputation for support worsened when small and mid-sized agency partners lost dedicated ad rep support in March. With new eligibility requirements for the Google Partners program announced the previous month, some agencies may have felt abandoned by Google as the pandemic began affecting businesses.
To stimulate advertising and earn goodwill, Google pledged $340 million in ad credits for SMBs, which began disbursing to qualified advertisers in New Zealand in May. Additionally, from November 1, Google started passing digital services taxes to advertisers in the UK, Turkey, and Austria.
For 2021: In February, Google announced new requirements for maintaining Google Partner status, including certification and spending thresholds. These changes, initially set for June, were postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic’s impact on agencies.
Video advertisers using third-party click-tracking solutions should note that Google extended the deadline for parallel tracking for Video campaigns to March 31, 2021.
SEO year in review: The year’s most important SEO news saw platforms adapting their local and e-commerce offerings in response to the pandemic. Core updates, passage indexing, and page experience were notable in Google algorithm updates for 2020.
