Two weeks ago was the most exciting day of the year for paid search nerds! May 4th felt similar to the night before Christmas as search marketers around the globe anxiously awaited the first Adwords live stream event in years. The event aired lunchtime on May 5th and while Google left much to be desired they also revealed some impressive new online advertising tools. The presentation was structured in Google’s typical covert fashion. You know the game – They hype up some sweet new tool just to keep the release date a secret. And as expected, many of the glamorous features were catered to e-retailers particularly in the automotive and insurance industries.

However, the second half of the presentation focused more on B2B related tools such as bid optimization, conversion metrics and account management. Let’s explore the soon to be released tools that I found most useful for B2B advertisers.

Better CPA Bidding

CPA, or cost per acquisition, is the newest bidding model that allows advertisers to choose the price they are willing to pay for a conversion. Google automatically rotates ads, adjusts keyword bids, and fights for impressions they believe are more likely to result in a conversion. All while attempting to deliver you conversions at said cost. This bidding option was released a few years ago, but many B2B marketers do not use it. Even though B2B’s are usually focused on conversion optimization most feel uncomfortable handing over that much power to Google’s machine learning algo. Plus, they admit that your CPA is likely to increase for a short time until it collects enough data.

Google’s new version of CPA bidding claims to be much better at meeting target CPA’s. They will also release an enhanced bid strategy dashboard with a chart to compare target CPA against average CPA. This information is crucial if Google wants to make CPA bidding the norm for B2B advertisers.

Auto-sizing Image Ads

Finally! Designers all around the world will laugh at the days when Google made them create 15 versions of the same image. Google now only needs 3 sizes of an image ad (728×90 300×250 160×600) to cover 95% of the Google Display Network. Talk about a time saver.

Dynamic Search Ads

This enhancement will only appeal to B2B’s with huge product lines. Businesses with thousands of products understand that setting up an Adwords campaign is a huge time commitment. Dynamic search ads were created to lessen the burden of entry. A dynamic search campaign simply requires a URL. Google scans your website and generates keywords and ad groups in a matter of minutes. Think of it as the quick and dirty way to set up a new campaign. If you need a campaign launched lightning fast and aren’t worried about wasting ad dollars then this might be a good option. For most cases, we advise against going this route.

Data-Driven Attribution Model

Perhaps the most sophisticated announcement of the afternoon was the advancements in performance measurement. This is how Google stays ahead of the curve – They offer tools that marketers don’t even realize they need yet. This new measurement tool is called data-driven attribution modeling, which uses your conversion data to decide which keywords are most valuable for driving conversions. In other words, Google will automatically offer keyword bid optimizations based on conversion data. Without committing to the CPA bidding model, advertisers can get a taste of how the Google algo can save them time and money.