What 2025 Holds for Google Ads and AI

[00:00:01] Hello and welcome to the Tuesday Deep Dive edition of the podcast. Today we have Jill Saskengales,

[00:00:07] our Google Ads correspondent with us. You used to work at Google. You spent six years

[00:00:11] in Google Ads helping brands there. You've got a pretty good view of the whole scene,

[00:00:16] especially now that you do inside Google Ads, the podcast, the training program and so

[00:00:20] on. Your head is in the game as they would say, I want to pick your brains for the next

[00:00:24] 15-20 minutes and find out what you think 2025 holds for Google Ads.

[00:00:29] We know that one of Google's big areas of focus this year is Gemini. That's Google's

[00:00:34] version of ChatGPT because a lot of people don't realize that yet and that is what Google

[00:00:39] wants to change. So expect to see a lot of buzz around Gemini, Google trying to encourage people

[00:00:45] to install the app on their phones and use Gemini. However, in my opinion, it's kind of a little

[00:00:51] bit too late. You know, we make Google things instead of searching things, but I don't hear

[00:00:56] anyone saying, you know, I'm going to go Gemini that. No, people say I'm going to ChatGPT that.

[00:01:00] I'm going to use ChatGPT. What is Gemini? It's the ChatGPT from Google. So Google is trying to play

[00:01:05] catch up on that front, but that's a tough hill to climb.

[00:01:10] You drink the Google Kool-Aid. So I know you've been using Gemini and like the paid,

[00:01:14] the pro version of Gemini. Aside from like advertising stuff, can we just talk a bit about

[00:01:19] Gemini? Like how have you found it in terms of doing things like producing marketing copy

[00:01:23] and all that kind of stuff compared to ChatGPT and perplexity and Claude and all those?

[00:01:28] I can't speak how it compares to others because I haven't used others. I've been a Gemini beta

[00:01:33] tester for almost a year now. So they give me kind of the free premium version. I get access to

[00:01:38] features early. So I really enjoy it. I use it in a lot of places in my business, especially around

[00:01:44] repurposing content. So I won't go to Gemini and say, write a blog post for me. But every week when

[00:01:49] I do a podcast episode, I give the transcript to Gemini. I have a whole custom gem I've built out.

[00:01:54] That's Gemini language for a custom GPT. And it turns it into blog posts. And then I turn those

[00:01:59] into scripts for videos. And then I turn those into Instagram posts. And I reuse stuff a lot using

[00:02:05] Gemini. And I love it. I think it's great. I'm sure that many of the other tools have similar

[00:02:10] capabilities.

[00:02:12] And how do you find the copywriting in Gemini? My experience with all the other tools

[00:02:19] in its use of adjectives. You know, it's sort of like instead of just saying

[00:02:25] Google introduced a new asset library, it said it'll say something like Google revolutionized

[00:02:31] the industry by, you know, it's like that kind of thing. Have you found that you've had to do a lot

[00:02:35] of editing to the copy you've asked Gemini to do? Or is it does it do a fairly good job?

[00:02:39] I found that when I'm more specific in my prompt and the more I'm editing my gems,

[00:02:44] the better it gets at that. So definitely the first time if you just say, write me this,

[00:02:48] in our ever-changing digital landscape, like it's terrible. But I have used it a lot. I use it

[00:02:54] every day in my business and use it enough that I'm constantly refining the gem. And I have a list

[00:02:58] of words where it's like, never use these words. And what's funny, one of the words I tell it not to

[00:03:03] use is unlock. And sometimes it'll use the word unlock. And then it'll say, by the way, I know I'm

[00:03:08] not supposed to use the word unlock, but I thought it just went really well here. And I'm like, come on,

[00:03:13] Gemini.

[00:03:15] That's awesome. All right. Well, so we see Gemini sort of from a user point of view and a marketing

[00:03:20] point of view most frequently inside Google search results. Do we not?

[00:03:25] Yeah. So that's the AI overviews, whereas Gemini is sort of like the consumer-facing chatbot version.

[00:03:32] AI overviews is we're really seeing this generative AI in search results. And so right now, you know,

[00:03:39] Google is still really just in the early days of testing, even letting advertisers into those AI

[00:03:44] overviews, assuming we do want to be there in that real estate. They've been talking about it for

[00:03:49] nearly a year now, putting search, shopping, performance max ads into AI overviews. But I

[00:03:55] haven't seen that in a while. I haven't seen many reports of it in the wild. It's really tricky.

[00:03:59] Like, how do you do keyword advertising with an AI overview where the query may have been,

[00:04:04] you know, 20 words long? You just can't anymore. Yeah. I haven't seen any screenshots or any. Have

[00:04:09] you seen like any of that stuff leak out? I haven't. No. We know what's going to roll out

[00:04:13] in the United States first. And it actually seems like those shopping and product-based queries are a

[00:04:18] better fit for it initially than just your general search queries. But no, other than the one example

[00:04:23] of a stain remover that Google keeps telling us about, I haven't actually seen any real people

[00:04:28] sharing any screenshots of actually seeing ads in their AI overviews.

[00:04:33] It will be sort of interesting, you know, back in the day when I was giving keynote speeches,

[00:04:37] I talked about location-based marketing and how, you know, in the future, mind you,

[00:04:42] remember this is 20 years ago when there were no smartphones, but I would say how you'd pass a store

[00:04:46] and it would text you a coupon for a product. That never came to pass, of course, although arguably

[00:04:52] we do sort of similar things in marketing today. But the phrase that I used about that sort of

[00:04:57] technology was it was a database that you must be in as a business, because if you don't,

[00:05:02] your competitor will be. Is that where we're going toward once these ads in the AI overviews? Because

[00:05:07] people do a search, you know, best children's shoes, and the AI overview will be at the top,

[00:05:14] presumably. It's the only place I think consumers will probably look, like the majority of consumers.

[00:05:19] Is this not one of those, you're kind of going to have to be there purchases as an ad buyer?

[00:05:26] I mean, the same way that you, you know, do you have to be there with Google ads at the top of

[00:05:30] regular search results? Like, no, you don't have to be there. SEO, still very much a thing. And what's

[00:05:37] interesting is like SEO practitioners and Google ads practitioners, we're all kind of freaking out,

[00:05:41] not knowing what's going to happen with these AI overviews. It affects both of us.

[00:05:45] And what also really affects both of us is the importance of your website and whether or not

[00:05:50] you're getting crawled, not just by Google, but by all these different large language learning models.

[00:05:55] You know, I'm seeing more and more people talk about getting referral traffic from ChatGPT,

[00:05:58] Perplexity, Gemini, you know, and that's not purely an advertising problem. That's just like a marketing.

[00:06:03] Do we want large language learning models to learn from our content? Do we not want them to learn from

[00:06:08] our content? What does click-through look like? So I don't have an answer for it, but it's definitely

[00:06:13] something that not just Google ads practitioners, but all kinds of search practitioners are really

[00:06:17] thinking about. And frankly, I don't even think Google knows the answer.

[00:06:21] All right. So 2025 is here. What do you think we should be as Google ads advertisers,

[00:06:27] practitioners? What should we be paying attention to in the next 12 months?

[00:06:30] My best piece of advice is actually to stay away from like the shiny AI object syndrome. You know,

[00:06:36] there are so many of these little changes, little incremental improvements,

[00:06:41] little features that of course are nice to have, but I think can really distract practitioners from

[00:06:46] what matters. Like sure, having AI image editing in the Google ads interface, cool. Having brand

[00:06:52] restrictions, like cool. These are game-changing things. You know, I'll of course continue to share

[00:06:58] Google ads updates with you, Todd, as we chat each month. But I think that the bulk of your time

[00:07:03] and energy and effort as a Google ads practitioner in 2025 should really be focused on the foundations,

[00:07:11] the foundations of marketing, which haven't changed since, you know, 20 years ago when you were giving

[00:07:16] that talks. Maybe some of the ways that works have changed, but really kind of three key things that I'd

[00:07:22] recommend you focus on, and they're probably things you've been focusing on already for the last 10 years,

[00:07:26] are accurate conversion tracking, you know, letting the Google ad system, the AI algorithms know what's

[00:07:32] driving results for your business and what's not. Customer data, that first-party data, more important

[00:07:37] than ever, one of the most important inputs you could possibly give an AI system to understand who to target

[00:07:42] next. And then compelling ad creative. You know, that's the place where AI is not there yet. Will it ever get

[00:07:48] there? I don't know. But writing effective, engaging text, creating effective images that don't give you the

[00:07:54] heebie-jeebies, creating effective video content, like that's what we humans still do well. So that's what I'm

[00:08:00] advising my coaching clients, my inside Google Ads course members to really focus on conversion tracking,

[00:08:07] customer data, ad creative. Hopefully they all start with the letter C. And if you just focus on

[00:08:12] those fundamentals in 2025, then all these new AI bells and whistles will work well for you because

[00:08:18] you have the right foundation in place. I have a side question for you. Have you heard about Kagi?

[00:08:23] Kagi. K-A-G-I. Kagi.com.

[00:08:28] It sounds like a kind of Japanese food I might like.

[00:08:31] It does, doesn't it actually? It is not. It is a search engine that you will like, but perhaps the

[00:08:37] Google people won't. It is a completely ad free and it is one of the first paid search engines.

[00:08:44] I never thought I would pay for a search engine. I have started to pay for Kagi now by the month.

[00:08:49] And what's cool about it is that aside from no ads, and this is not a paid promotion of any kind,

[00:08:55] I'm just kind of excited by it, is you can block certain domains from showing up. So I don't know

[00:09:01] if you've had this experience in Google where you're typing in some sort of search and Pinterest,

[00:09:05] for whatever reason, shows up really high in a lot of searches. And when you go there,

[00:09:09] it's crap. It's just pins and like they've somehow gamed the SEO. You can just block Pinterest. You can

[00:09:14] just say, just never show me Pinterest in the results. You can turn off AI overviews. You can turn off

[00:09:18] the box. It's really quite incredible. So anyway, I'm-

[00:09:22] I don't see that ever becoming mainstream. I mean, you're someone who reports on marketing news for

[00:09:25] a living. I think a lot of people are going to try to come in there with new ways of search,

[00:09:30] new ways of that. I don't see any of these taking off and becoming mainstream. But if you love it,

[00:09:36] I'm very happy for you, Todd.

[00:09:37] I do love it. I love it. All right. Thank you, Jill, as always.

[00:09:41] Thank you.

[00:09:42] That's Jill Saskengale. She is our Google Ads correspondent. She's here every month

[00:09:45] on the Tuesday Deep Dive episode. You can learn more about Jill and her training program about

[00:09:51] Google Ads and her podcast and her forthcoming book and all sorts of stuff at todayindigital.com

[00:09:56] slash GA. That is our affiliate link. Again, it's todayindigital.com slash GA. If you miss the daily

[00:10:03] podcast, don't forget our newsletter is still every single workday. It comes out at five o'clock

[00:10:09] Eastern time. It is free to sign up to. Just go to todayindigital.com slash newsletter.

[00:10:14] Try it out for a day or two. We've worked really hard on the format. I think you'll like it. It's an

[00:10:18] easy read and keeps you up to speed the way we used to. All right. That's it for the Tuesday episode.

[00:10:25] I'll see you on Friday for a wrap up of the week's news.

[00:10:29] What can we expect from Google this year around AI?

[00:10:33] We know that Google-

[00:10:34] Oh, wait. First of all, sorry. First of all, hello, Jill.

[00:10:40] I forgot the hello. I'll just clip it from another one of your hellos.

[00:10:44] No, sorry. We can go back and start to do the hello. It's cool. I just-

[00:10:48] All right. We got to do the hello.

[00:10:51] Okay.

[00:10:52] Hello.

[00:10:54] Hello.

[00:10:56] Put this in like you did that one time.

[00:11:00] What? Oh, no, I wouldn't do- Would I do that? I would like-

[00:11:03] You did it once.

[00:11:04] I would never do that.

[00:11:06] I would never do that.