After a great night with the Janes of Digital and Bing, the morning started off with lots of new great things from Google.

Session #1 – Keynote Conversation: What’s New and Cool At Google

 Speakers:

1. Jerry Dischler – VP, Product Management, Adwords, Google – @jdischler
2. Babak Pahlavan – Senior Director of Measurement & Analytics, Google – @babakph
   

• Moderator – Ginny Marvin – Contributing Editor, Marketing La
  nd – @ginnymarvin
• Co-Moderator – Greg Sterling – Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence – @gsterling

This session talked about a new free product that Google announced.

My take:

Google’s Jerry Dischler discusses all that is new with expanded texts, audiences, RLSA and more. Here’s the quick recap:

• Reintroducing device bidding for better ROI tracking – Finally!
• Jump in with both feet on new expanded text ads! Apply all of the normal best practices. for maximum impact: testing, optimizing, dynamic elements, all of it!
  
• The day of mobile avoidance is over, people are now embracing the mobile first environment.
• Google announces testing for in-store visit tracking for retailers.
• Google is now finding that offline impact is much larger than online impact. It’s working on putting that data in the advertisers hands.
• Audience targeting is expanding.
  • New demographic targeting – beta rolling out starting today!
  • RLSA (remarketing lists for search ads) is expanding.
  • New customer match options coming using email addresses
  • You can now manage remarketing for search ads at the campaign level.
• Free version of Optimize rolling out on Google Analytics 360. g.co/optimize.
• Similar audiences for search now in open beta.

Google’s Babak Pahlavan discusses what new with analytics and tracking. Here’s what you need to know:

• 20 new tags coming to Google Tag Manager.
• Session quality scores in beta.
• Templates will rollout in October for Google Analytics Data Studio.
• Google is actively working on getting rid of referrer spam in Analytics.
• Anything you can do in Google’s auto tracking can be done in tag manager & GTM is recommended.
• Smart goals: help if you don’t have a lot of data or don’t have conversion goals. It will figure out performance goals.

Session #2 – Attribution in AdWords – Learn with Google

This session discussed moving past the last-click model in Google AdWords. If you haven’t decided what model is right for you, you are already choosing the last click model.

Move beyond last click attribution in AdWords

It is important to determine what is important to you and review current data to choose the right model for you. The model options are:

• Last Click
• First Click
• Linear
• Position Based
• Time Decay
  
• Data-Driven (in beta need 20k click/mo to qualify)

Some of the reports you should review before deciding:

• Top paths
• Time lag
• Path length
• Cross-device activity

If you are focused on branding and need to be more towards position, use first click or linear. If you need to be more conservative, last click might be best.

Test and measure impact of attribution. Ways to test:

• Establish a control period – Recommend at least a few weeks to establish baseline and performance. Look at this account wide basis.
• Update both your model and your bids
• Monitor your test
• Evaluate performance

Things to consider while testing:

• You can update your bids and review current by using new model columns available.
  
• During monitoring – Don’t make any major changes.
• Evaluation – Look for increase in conversion at the same CPA, or in the revenue at same CPA.

Align ads & landing pages with the click path:

• Some pockets might be more upper funnel traffic and may want to review creative or keywords.

Why Automated Bidding is Important:

• Advanced machine learning
• Unparalleled optimization frequency and precision
• Rich set of auction-time signals

For more: Google Best Practices

Check back later for my overview on Day 2 afternoon sessions with SMX!