On Tuesday afternoon at 5pm, the team at Katté & Co gathered around the big screen to watch the Google Next – watch it here:

For us the most exciting announcement was Google Attribution.

For the lucky few clients who have Google360 (previously Google Analytics Premium), it’s nothing new, but for those without it’s very exciting indeed – finally a free solution that can help our current reliance on last-click attribution.

The tool aims to simplify the age-old (well since mobile came about) of multi-channel, multi-device attribution by leveraging data that we already have in Google Analtyics, AdWords and DoubleClick Search.

Typically marketers have to rely on last click attribution which ignores any previous touchpoints and therefore stops them from understanding the impact (and ROI) of upper and mid-funnel activities being run.

Other highlights were...

  • AdWords extending in-market audiences to Search campaigns
    We’ve been waiting for this one – allowing advertisers to target users based on purchase intent signals
  • AMP landing pages for Search Ads – Beta
    Launching in Beta only amongst Partner agencies like ourselves, advertisers will be able to send search ad traffic directly to AMP landing pages. As we know that poor page load time on mobile can decrease conversion rate by up to 60%, this is a great one for us!
  • Display Ads automatically converted into AMP ads
    No additional development required, Google will convert your display ads into AMP compliant ads so they can load within a second!
  • Unique Reach
    Now available in AdWords, we can see unique reach to actually see how many people are seeing and interacting with ads, not just raw impression figures.
  • YouTube location extensions
    Another addition to their offline analytics inventory – advertisers will be able to track store visits driven by video ads.
  • New AdWords Interface for everyone
    For those of you who haven’t got the new UI, Google announced that everyone would have access to it by the end of the year.

What about Artificial Intelligence then...?

There was (and is generally across our industry) a much bigger focus/priority on AI this year. Whilst Katté & Co already use machine learning, or AI, across our client accounts – it’s clear that the best performance is going to come from innovating and applying this amazing principal across more and more areas of our work. Indeed, whilst running controlled tests using Google’s own AI-based bidding strategies we’re seeing better and better results all the time. It’s clear that Google have invested heavily along this direction, and the data is telling us it’s working out for them!