Welcome to our monthly roundup of the most relevant PPC news from the last month.
Here are the stories that have caught our eye over the past month:
- Google’s ‘Demand Gen’ campaigns auto-convert images to videos
- Google + Meta still dominate the digital ad market, despite mounting pressure
- Google phases out ‘Call-Only Ads’ in favour of Responsive Search Ads with Call Assets
- Meta to use AI-chatbot conversations for ad personalisation
- Meta stops political and social-issue ads in the EU due to new regulations
Google’s ‘Demand Gen’ campaigns auto-convert images to videos
Google Ads ramped up its Demand Gen campaign features by automatically converting existing image and text assets into video formats of various aspect ratios for broader placements across YouTube and Google surfaces.
This will apply to image-only ad groups created before 27th August, and the video ads will start serving on 31st October unless you decide to opt out.
If you run Google’s Demand Gen campaigns, you’ll need to review your creative set, as auto-generated videos may not match your brand tone or message.
Google + Meta still dominate the digital ad market, despite mounting pressure
According to a report by Axios, Google and Meta very much still own the lion’s share of global digital ad spend. No surprises here, despite what the ‘No one googles things anymore – I just ask ChatGPT’ brigade might have you believe.
It is true that e-commerce and streaming companies are progressively gaining ground and are likely at some point to challenge the duopoly, but for now at least, Google and Meta’s dominance simply can’t be disputed.
(Spoiler alert: sadly, the report can only be accessed in its entirely with a monthly subscription 😬)
Google phases out ‘Call-Only Ads’ in favour of Responsive Search Ads with Call Assets
Google announced that the call-only ad format will be deprecated and advertisers will need to shift to using Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) with Call Assets to generate phone-based leads.
If you rely on call leads (especially for local services ads), this format change means you will have to account for time to update tracking and possibly campaign structure.
Meta to use conversations from Meta AI chatbots for ad personalisation
Meta announced that from 16th December, it will use Meta AI chat content (voice and text) to personalise both ads and content recommendations across Facebook, Instagram and other Meta apps, with no option to opt out. UK, EU, South Korea are excluded for now and, at present, there seems to be no timeline for adoption.
For companies that advertise on Meta this is good news, as it means Advantage+ targeting is bound to become even more accurate by taking into account conversational intent as well as content interaction. We can’t ignore, though, that this comes at the cost of ever decreasing privacy for users.
It’s worth taking some time to consider how your creative and audience signals align with this deeper level of personal data.
Meta stops political and social-issue ads in the EU due to new regulations
Meta announced that it will stop accepting political, electoral and social-issue advertising in the European Union, pointing to the new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) law and the operational/legal complexity it brings. This follows a similar decision from Google in November 2024.
The move hardly comes as a surprise, considering Facebook and Instagram are already under investigation for the alleged failure to stop misinformation from both content and ads in the run-up to the 2024 European Parliament elections.
This is bad news for advertisers running campaigns in the EU, as the ban will most likely force a significant change in strategy to either require a more robust organic presence, or an investment into alternative channels / platforms.
