Article

7 Hidden Features in Google Ads + How To Use Them

December 26, 2023

Recently, I posted about Experiments in Google Ads – one of the most overlooked and underused features around. That post (surprisingly) prompted a number of DMs, emails and outreach, all asking the same question: what else are we missing out on in Google Ads?

As the saying goes, “Ask and ye shall receive.”

Without further ado: 7 Hidden Features in Google Ads (and How To Use Them):

Feature #1: Experiments

Experiments are one of the simplest, most intuitive and most logical ways to test what actually drives performance inside your ad account.

They’ve been a staple in Google Ads for nearly a decade, but 95%+ of accounts that I review have run fewer than 3 in 2023. That’s insane. For all of the talk about marketers being “data-driven” and “scientifically-minded”, we’re not doing enough to back that talk up with action (aside: if you’re looking for a good New Years resolution, this is a great place to start).

Experiments in Google Ads work exactly as you’d think:

Select the “Type” of Experiment you’d like to run – PMAX, Demand Gen, Video, App Lift, Custom. (FWIW, I tend to run “Custom” most of the time)
Pick your “Base” (read: control) campaign: this is the campaign that we’ll conduct the experiment on, in order to determine if the changes have a positive, negative or no effect.
Make changes to that campaign – though you’re better off limiting those changes to one type of change – bidding, negatives, placements, creative, targeting, audience, whatever)
Determine the Evaluation Criteria – you can pick whatever, but I tend to focus on the things that actually matter (Conversions, Conversion Value, CPA, etc.)
Select how the experiment should be run – you can customize the split between control + experimental (50/50 is the default), along with specifying how users should be split within the campaign (cookie-based or search-based), how long the experiment should run, and if any subsequent changes to the control campaign should be automatically made to the experimental campaign (generally a good life choice).
Press “Go”
Check in on progress via the dashboard – once you’ve hit statistical significance, Google will tell you + give you the option to apply, reject or continue the experiment.

It’s really that easy.

The wonderful thing about experiments is their flexibility – you can pretty much test anything that you can change within Google Ads – whether that’s keywords, bidding, creative, location targets, audience targets, placements, whatever.

In addition to the basic (“custom”) experiments, Google has done a marvelous job of making these even simpler for testing PMAX and Demand Gen (and yes, they 100% have a vested interest in this). Both of these work in the same way as the custom experiments described above; the only difference is the changes will be more structured in order to create + test a Performance Max or Demand Gen campaign vs. a standard search campaign.

As Google continues to push these new campaign types aggressively (including with Reps emailing clients + leadership directly), having the ability to point to real experimental data as the reason why you have (or have not) adopted these new features is incredibly powerful. We can all debate the merits (and cons) of PMAX until the cows come home; that debate gets a lot easier to win if you can point to an actual experiment from the account in question that shows material differences in performance.

The simple reality is that experiments should be a standard, go-to tool in every PPC marketer’s toolbox. That’s not the case today, but I hope it changes in 2024.

Final Word of Warning: among accounts that do a lot of experimentation, there’s an overwhelming sentiment that once an experiment has been run, it never needs to be run again.

That’s wrong.

Google Ads (along with every digital ad platform) is in a constant state of change; users are in a perpetual state of evolution. If you’ve run an experiment on something a year and a half ago, run it again today – especially if there have been changes that cause you to re-think whether or not it is now viable (or is no longer viable).

I’m not saying to continually test everything, but I am saying that if you ran a PMAX experiment in 2021 and it failed, 2024 might be a good time to give it another try.

Feature #2: Variants

Variants are the cousin of Experiments. They word (fundamentally) the same way, in that you’ll pick a control and a variant – but that’s about where the similarities end.

To be blunt: there’s no better way to test RSAs than variants.

Where experiments focus changes on a single campaign, Variants can make changes across multiple campaigns or your entire account. That’s extraordinarily powerful for testing (for instance) different core messages, value props and CTAs. Finally, Ad Variants are focused exclusively on (you guessed it) Ads – so you can’t make other changes like bidding or placements.

To set up an Ad Variant:

Navigate to the Variant Screen in Google Ads – Variants are located under the “Experiments” menu in the left-hand navigation bar.
Select the Variation Scope – as mentioned above, Variants can be created across an entire account, a single campaign, or a subset of all campaigns in an account. If none of those options work exactly as you require, you can also create a custom scope.
Create Your Variation – This works exactly like “Find & Replace” in the Ads interface; you select a word, phrase or entire headline, description or final URL you’d like to change, input the new variant to test, and voila!
Configure Parameters – just like Experiments, you can adjust the control/experimental split, determine the length of time the Variant will run, etc.
Launch the Variant – Just like your Experiments, Variants include a wonderfully simple dashboard that enables you to track progress and alerts you when statistical significance is reached. From there, you can apply, reject or cancel the Variant.

The true power in Variants is that they work across your entire account – making them ideal for things like message testing, multi ad group testing and landing page testing (especially if multiple campaigns use the same landing page).

The most common use case for Variants is Ad Copy Testing (which I wrote about here), though they can be used for message testing in a pinch as well.

Variants aren’t limited to copy testing, either. if (for instance) you’re thinking of revamping your home page (or entire site) design, but aren’t sure how that will impact paid media performance, build out the new page as (/2 or /experimental or something), then use a variant to direct a percentage of your branded traffic to that page. If you observe a material difference in performance, that’s a good indicator that the new page is either an improvement or a step back. (Bonus: use Microsoft Clarity to monitor user behavior on both pages, so you can isolate the issues and share them with your creative and development colleagues).

Feature #3: Ad Customizers

Let me start this by saying that I absolutely, positively LOVE Ad Customizers. There is no easier way to make your ads more appealing, relevant and engaging, while avoiding Google’s particular brand of auto-generated crazy, than Ad Customizers.

Unfortunately, when I talk about Ad Customizers, most people assume (wrongly) that I’m talking about the standard ones that can be called using the {braces} inside of the RSA creation tool. By default, this enables you to select from three ad customizers:

Location Insertion – this will pull the current location of the searcher, based on the scope you set (city, region, state, county, etc.). It’s great for adding local relevance in situations where doing so has value (for instance, accounting, legal services, marketing services, stores, etc.).
Keyword Insertion – I’ve never been a huge fan of keyword insertion, because it turns out people search a lot of weird stuff, and that can result in less-than-optimal headlines. However, there are use cases for it – and there’s nothing better than a user seeing your ad at the top of the page, with the exact thing they were looking for. Done well, KW Insertion is powerful + has a positive impact on CTR.
Countdown – If I’m bearish on KW Insertion, I’m bullish on Countdown Timers. Creating urgency is one of the most difficult things to do in 30 characters; Countdown Timers make it easy. They aren’t for every brand or every situation, but in the right context, they are massive difference makers. The best times to run them tend to be around events, sales, new product launches, etc.

While each of these three standard customizers has a use case, they aren’t that cool or special. What is cool and special?

Ad Customizer Attributes

At the most basic level, these allow you to upload *anything* to Google and use it to customize your ads dynamically. Some examples:

Number of Reviews – if you are constantly getting more reviews, your ads will either always be generic (1,000+ 5* reviews), out of date (1,205 reviews, when you actually have 2,562) or being updated (no one likes this).
Number of Locations – For products being carried in stores, or mid-to-large brands, ensuring you have the right number of locations is often important.
Awards + Recognition – same as above; no one likes to update from 10x Top Workplace to 11x Top Workplace every year (and one instance invariably gets forgotten).
Product-Level + KW-Level Customizers – if you have multiple products or sub-brands (for instance, Nike Shox and Nike Air Jordans), you can create (and use) keyword-specific Ad Customizers.
Sale or Offer-Specific Customizers – if you tend to run different discounts or offers on different products/services, Ad Customizers can ensure that the precise offer for a given search is served. That’s the difference between “Save 10% to 25% on Shoes” and “Save 20% on Nike Shox” – one of those is far more powerful (and far more likely to be clicked on) that the other.
Counts of Brands & Products – if someone is searching for (as an example) power drills, and your store now carries 7 different brands and 182 models, wouldn’t it be great to have an Ad that reads “{Location’s} Largest Selection of Drills – 182 Models from 7 Brands – Shop Today and Save Up to 50%” Everything that’s in bold is done with Ad Customizers. Neat, right?
Counts of Customers or Results – Ad Customizers can be used for other counts, too – including ones from your CRM or Business Management Software. For instance, if you’re an SMS platform with 2,245 eCommerce customers, you can pull that exact number from your CRM and include it (automatically) in ads. Now, your ad doesn’t read “Thousands of Thrilled Customers” (blah!); it reads “Trusted by 2,245 eCommerce Owners”
Brand & Company Customizers – Ad Customers need not be limited to product/service/customer attributes; you can create them for your brand, too. This can range from your years in business, to number of experts in a given practice area, to expected delivery time, free shipping cutoffs, customer satisfaction score, current collection out, etc. Pretty much anything you can think of you can use for an ad customizer.

These are just a few examples of how Ad Customizers can be leveraged to make your ads better, more relevant and more impactful. The only limitations on them are your imagination and your data – after all, this data has to come from somewhere. The most common sources are your website, your product feed, a Google Sheet, or a manual upload.

Once you have the attributes uploaded (you do this in Google Ads → Tools & Settings → Business Data → Ad Customizer Attributes), calling them is as simple as using the Location, Keyword & Countdown customizers.

From a big-picture perspective, Ad Customers are the magical link that enables ML-friendly ad account structures to maintain or improve ad relevance while scaling. Historically, the primary reason most PPCers used SKAG structures was to tightly control messaging points around particular searches; with Ad Customizers, that’s no longer necessary – the Customizer does the work of maximizing relevance, allowing you (the PPCers) to actually focus on scaling the account, not trying to bulk-update ads all the live-long day.

If you’re curious about Ad Customizer Attributes, check out this link from Google.

Feature #4: Performance Targets

Performance Targets are delightfully simple and refreshingly aptly named. From a high-level standpoint, they make it easy to monitor your performance toward specific goals across your account (or a subset of your account) – whether those are a number of conversions, Target CPA, Target ROAS, Revenue/Contribution Dollar Target, etc.

Setting Up performance targets is wonderfully simple, though you’ll first need to create Campaign Groups.

Campaign Groups are exactly what you’d think: groups of campaigns. There can be 1 campaign in a group, or 100, or 1,000. To add campaigns to a group, go to the “Campaigns” View in your ad Account, select the campaigns to add to a group, then “Edit”, and Select “Add To Campaign Group.” You’ll be given the option to add those campaigns to an existing group, or to create a new one.

Once you’ve added those campaigns, you can select your targets (tCPA, Spend, Conversions, etc.), then view them in the “Performance Targets” section of your Ad Account (left-hand menu, near “Experiments”).

Candidly, there’s nothing revolutionary about Performance Targets, EXCEPT that it makes your life exponentially easier if you are being asked to provide status + reporting against specific targets across multiple campaigns. There’s nothing better than being able to go into the performance center and see that a given campaign group is pacing hot, or is performing above target in a single view, vs. having to add up a bunch of campaign totals or pull a custom report using Labels. Especially for larger accounts, Performance Targets can be a massive time saver – which means less time doing manual busywork and more time doing cool, big-picture, strategic stuff that really moves the needle.

Feature #5: Shared Budgets + Portfolio Strategies

Last week, I wrote about Liquidity in Ad Accounts – the notion that optimal ad account performance is achieved when money can flow freely throughout an account (or, at least, portions of an account). In many cases, achieving liquidity has required sky-high daily budgets across campaigns, so no campaigns are unconstrained by budget – something that presents a substantial risk if (or, if you’re pessimistic, when) things go haywire on Google’s end.

The solution to this is Shared Budgets + Portfolio Strategies.

Shared Budgets do exactly what you’d expect: they provide a single pool of funds to be shared across multiple campaigns, increasing account-wide liquidity while mitigating risk. This allows you (the PPCer) to spend less time managing and reallocating budgets across campaigns, and more time doing higher-leverage activities, along with improving budget utilization (since funds will automatically be shifted across campaigns without re-triggering learning) and ensuring that the most efficient campaigns are provided with the budget necessary each hour/day.

Portfolio Strategies complement Shared Budgets (one of those little-known features that Google Ads has rolled out, but has gone ignored), by allowing you to create a single strategy (with limits!) that can be applied to multiple campaigns sharing a single goal (like sales, or qualified leads, or app installs).

The combination of Shared Budgets + Portfolio strategies enables you to increase overall liquidity, while ensuring that all linked campaigns are working toward the same primary targets. Accordingly, this only works when the linked campaigns share the same objective (e.g., qualified leads); if you have multiple targets within a single account (for instance, several campaigns focused on recruitment of new employees, and several campaigns focused on generating qualified leads), then you should have two Shared Budgets + two Portfolio Strategies – one for Recruitment and one for Lead Generation. Likewise, if you have multiple different types of leads with different tCPAs or different expected values, then you may be better served not using Portfolio Bidding Strategies + Shared Budgets, as each of those might require slightly different targets.

That being said, even in cases where a shared budget does NOT make sense, Portfolio Bidding Strategies CAN make sense, as they provide the ONLY option to add a Max CPC within an automated bidding strategy (something you should 100% use, as they mitigate blowup CPCs that can tank your account in short order).

In short: the combination of Portfolio Strategies AND Shared Budgets is staggeringly powerful – not only does it increase liquidity, but it also provides valuable risk mitigation to your account, both at a Max CPC level, along with an account-wide Avg. Daily Budget spending level.

Word of Warning: Shared Budgets operate just like Average Daily Budgets – meaning that a single shared budget of $2,000 per day can spend up to $4,000 per day, but not more than 30.4 * $2,000 or $60,800 per month. If you add a Shared Budget mid-day, this will reset the day’s spending limit, so your account could spend up to 2x your previous budget PLUS 2x your Shared Budget on that specific day.

Feature #6: Rules

Rules are absolutely wonderful, and staggeringly, massively underused,

At their core, Automated Rules (found in Google Ads Settings & Tools → All Bulk Actions → Rules) enable you to make changes (and alert you to those changes via email) to your account, campaigns, ad groups, budgets, bids, keywords, ads, etc. automatically, based on conditions you select.

One of the best (though, certainly not the only) use-cases for rules is to automate common, day-to-day tasks – particularly the manual, tedious, boredom-inducing ones. Some examples of how we’ve used Automated Rules includes:

Changing Ad Status – pausing low-performing ads based on CTR, CVR, ROAS, Conv. Value / Cost, etc.
Pausing Low-Performing Keywords – if there are KWs that are spending a ton, but not returning results, you can automatically pause them + have an email sent detailing which KWs were impacted. This enables you to review those KWs manually, while stopping the unproductive spend.
Applying/Removing Labels Based on Performance – I LOVE labels in Google Ads – there’s no better way to document what’s going on, what’s worked and what hasn’t in Google Ads. You can use Rules to apply labels to Ads, Keywords, Campaigns, Ad Groups, etc. based on any condition – for example, if you want to label every KW that has more than 30 conversions and less than $3,000 in spend over a month as a “Top Performer”, you can do that. If you want to tag anything with $2,000 in spend over a month, but less than 15 conversions as “Lower Target” you can do that.
Adjusting Bids/Targets Based On Labels – you can also use Labels to trigger other changes – for instance, if you want to decrease your tCPA for everything labeled “Lower Target”, that’s possible, too!
Bid Scheduling – if you want to automatically increase/decrease your bids, CPA targets or ROAS targets based on the time of day, you can do that with Rules. You can also use rules to increase/decrease keyword bids based on search page location.
Audience Bids – Just as you can adjust CPA targets, KW bids, etc. based on Audience performance – so a top-performing audience can be given a Higher tCPA or Lower ROAS in order to drive incremental revenue // gain priority in the campaign structure.

From a high-level, you can create Rules in Google Ads based on just about anything – including:

Campaigns
Ad Groups
Keywords
Display Keywords
Topics
Placements
Demographics (Age, Gender, Income, Parental Status)
Audience
Ads (Creative)
Asset Groups (PMAX)

For 90% of accounts, the standard Automated Rule interface in Google Ads will provide all the horsepower you need to take your campaign performance to new heights, all while saving you a ton of time. However, there are a few limitations in the Google Ads interface that are NOT present in the API (or in API-powered tools):

Layer Multiple Rules into a Single Strategy – Google Ads provides an excellent “If/Then” rule setup – but sometimes, you need an “Else” or “Do X & Y” – neither of those are supported by default in Google Ads. However, there are API-based tools like Optmyzr that do support this, which can dramatically simplify your life (and avoid your having to build multiple rules).
Pipe In External Data – By default, Google Ads rules work using data from Google Ads – so if the data isn’t in G Ads, it can’t be used for Rules. However, there are ways around this – either Scripts OR API-based tools.
Remove Recent Changes – any bid or budget modification strategy runs the inherent risk of multiple changes before sufficient data is available to evaluate if the initial change was sufficient. Google Ads doesn’t provide a native way toe exclude recently-changed items from strategies for a period of time.
Blend Data From Multiple Ranges – All Google Ads rules use a single date range (absolute or relative) for the entire strategy. This is usually nice, but it prevents you from creating a rule that says (as an example): “Find all KWs that have a CPA that is 25% or more higher over the L7 than the rolling 60 day average.” – this would be a great thing to identify, but you can’t do it natively. Likewise, if you wanted to create weird lookback periods (for instance, L28 vs. Prior 28), that’s a bit trickier, too.
Comparisons Across Hierarchical Structure – This sounds complex, but it really isn’t. Say you want to compare the CPA of a keyword to the CPA of the campaign in which it is located, or against a relative value (for instance, 25% higher than the campaign average). In Google Ads, you can’t do that by default. In the API (or using an API tool), it’s easy.
Move / Exclude Keywords (+ Search Terms) Around Your Ad Account – I’ve written (and talked) above the importance of good Ad Account structure extensively; the challenge is always maintaining that structure as the account and the broader market evolve. I’m a huge fan of automating keyword locations (for instance, demoting a low-performing keyword to another ad group/campaign, or pausing it entirely, or adding it as a negative, or adding search terms as negatives). None of those things can be done natively, but all can be done using the API.

All of these things are available within the API, but you’ll either need some serious dev resources or an API-based tool like Optmyzr or Adalysis to do them.

Even with those limitations, Automated Rules are stupidly powerful and massively under-utilized. As automation increases, Rules become increasingly valuable to both manage your ad account structure AND ensure that you’re able to focus your time and attention on the aspects of your account that need it.

Feature #7: Custom & Combined Segments

The seventh and final feature of Google Ads that I wished more people used were Custom Segments & Combined Segments.

At their core, Custom + Combined Segments allow you to leverage your insights about your audience AND Google’s treasure trove of data to better reach the people you want across different campaign types. While these two operate similarly, there are some important differences between Custom & Combined – so, let’s start with Custom Segments, then move onto Combined Segments.

Custom Segments

Custom Segments are created using the Audience Manager (Tools & Settings → Shared Library → Audience Manager). They can be built using three different types of data:

Searches on Google Properties (Exact or Theme)* – there’s nothing better than being able to use your existing keyword + topical research to create audience signals, which is exactly what the “People who have searched for any of these terms on Google” option allows you to do. The “Interests and Purchase Intentions” option functions similarly to Affinity Audiences. When in doubt, go with search terms.
Types of Websites Browsed – If you’ve done your audience research (and have used tools like Sparktoro to identify user behavioral patterns), there’s no better use for that data in Google Ads than audience building. If you know that your audience overindexes on certain sites, then build an audience of people who use that kind of site and use it for your PMAX, Discovery, Demand Gen and/or Display Campaigns. Additionally, you can include specific URLs (not just the root domain) here – which can help narrow down the audience if the URL is massive.
Types of Apps Used – this one is massively, massively under-utilized. If, for instance, you’re trying to reach amateur investors, target people who have the Robinhood, Schwab, Acorns, etc. apps; if you’re trying to reach ecommerce sellers, people who have Shopify on their phones is probably a good hint; if you’re trying to reach higher-income single people, target people who have Raya or Luxy installed.

*as a note, search terms will only be used as such on Google-owned properties (YouTube, YouTube Shorts + Discover); for 3rd party placements (Display Network), they will be treated like interests.

The one limitation with Custom Segments is that they can only be added to non-search, non-shopping campaigns (i.e. Discovery, YouTube, PMAX, Demand Gen)

Combined Segments

If Custom Segments are powerful, Combined Segments are downright magical. At their core, Combined Segments allow you to layer Google’s Data with your business data to create segments that are the best of both worlds. Here are just a few examples of the near-endless opportunities Combined Segments present:

Want to overlay a Custom Segment with your existing site visitors? Check.

Want to find the people who are in Google’s In-Market Luxury Vehicles Audience AND are in the 5* Hotels In-Market Audience? Check.

Do you want to identify everyone who is in-Market for a Vacation Rental, but under the age of 35? Check.

Do you want to target people who are interested in child care, under the age of 35 and a parent of a child under 5? Check.

Do you want to overlay a Custom Segment (for instance, people searching for an accountant) with everyone who has visited your website over the last 90 days? Check.

In short, Combined Segments give you the ability to use “AND” “OR and “NOT” modifiers for *any* audience in Google Ads – making it easy to identify + target the overlap between two in-market segments, or between an in-market segment and a business data segment.

The best part of Combined Segments is that they can be used in Search Campaigns, along with other campaigns (Demand Gen, PMAX, Display, Video, Discovery, etc.).

I personally love combined segments, if you couldn’t tell – they are endlessly flexible and they can help you take all that customer insights research you’ve already done (and all of that audience data in GA4 that you haven’t used) and turn it into a material advantage in your ad account.

Bonus: Bid For New Customers

This is a relatively basic thing, but nevertheless something I wish more businesses used. Google provides the ability to configure a bidding strategy to focus on either (a) Existing Customers; (b) New Customers or (c) Balance of Both.

For most businesses with an up-to-date customer list, this is 100% something you should be doing, if the goal is new customer acquisition – after all, why let Google go after people you already know, when it could be unleashed on everyone you don’t? Conversely, for brand campaigns or Customer Service campaigns (i.e. issue management), focus on current customers!

Adding a customer list is extremely simple – head over to Audience Manager (Tools & Settings → Shared Library → Audience Manager), hit the plus (+) button (it’s in a blue circle), select “Customer List” and upload your CSV. You can automatically update this using Zapier (seriously!), so that Google always has the latest-and-greatest list – as well as use this integration to ensure that people who have moved through your customer journey are properly reflected. For instance, you might want to only exclude current active customers from the campaigns promoting the service of yours that they use, or you might want to include specific ad customizers (remember those?) to trigger tailored messaging focused on “Use us for this, too!” or “No Need For A New Vendor – We Do That, Too!”

Bottom Line: You should 100% have a customer list uploaded in Google Ads, and using that to inform messaging, ad customizers + bidding is a great life choice.

Cheers,

Sam

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