Google’s New Advertising Brands: What They Mean for Your Business

We’ve recently rebranded Google’s ads portfolio.

• Google AdWords is becoming Google Ads.
• DoubleClick advertiser products and Google Analytics 360 Suite are unifying under a single brand called Google Marketing Platform.
• DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange are unifying under a single brand called Google Ad Manager.

To understand the reasons behind the rebrand and the implications for APAC, I sat down with Mel Silva, Managing Director, Go-To-Market Strategy & Operations of Google Asia Pacific.

Erica Wong: Why did Google decide to do a rebrand?

Mel Silva: The rebrand was an opportunity for us to ensure our brand names align to what our products actually offer while introducing new product changes at the same time.

When AdWords was first introduced 18 years ago, it focused on text ads placed next to search results. Since then, AdWords has evolved from just words to a range of formats that include interactive text, videos, and images. Given this evolution, we rebranded Google AdWords to Google Ads to better represent the full spectrum of advertising capabilities we offer today.

Over time, our advertising suite also expanded beyond AdWords to include DoubleClick, Google Analytics 360 Suite, and solutions for our publisher clients, such as DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange. We heard from our clients that our offerings were becoming difficult to understand and navigate, so we took a step back. We kicked off feedback sessions with our clients to understand where we could do better. After many months of research and planning, we decided to simplify our brand names and introduce improved solutions in line with the new brand names. We now have Google Marketing Platform for advertisers, which combines DoubleClick and Google Analytics 360 Suite, and Google Ad Manager for publishers, which combines DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

This rebrand was also an opportunity for us to tailor our offerings to the needs of local markets. In Japan, for example, we heard from our clients that it was important to localize brand names. As a result, the brand names in Japan were localized into Japanese (we also localized for Arabic and Russian-speaking countries too). We wanted to get it right for the region.

Can you tell me more about the product changes you mentioned?

Google Ads (what used to be AdWords) will continue to connect advertisers with the billions of people looking for answers on search, watching videos on YouTube, and so on. But at the same time, we are launching new tools to help businesses of all sizes succeed. One example is Smart Campaigns, a new campaign type custom built for small businesses.

For Google Marketing Platform, by bringing together DoubleClick and Google Analytics 360 Suite under one roof, marketers will be able to plan, buy, measure, and optimize digital media and customer experiences in one place. We are also announcing Display & Video 360, which allows creative, agency, and media teams to collaborate on executing end-to-end ad campaigns in a single place.

Finally, with Google Ad Manager, publishers will have a unified platform that combines DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange, allowing them to manage their businesses more efficiently.

Stay tuned for more updates about our new product changes at Google Marketing Live.

Any final words?

I want to also call out that while our product names may be changing, our commitment to delivering useful, relevant advertising—in a privacy-safe way—is not.

We want our clients to feel confident that their digital advertising is safe, and it is equally important that our users understand and can control their Google advertising experiences. To that end, we introduced new Ad Settings across our services, websites, and partner apps. We want to help businesses grow and ensure that we meet, if not exceed, our users’ expectations for privacy, transparency, and control.