Google Announces Machine Learning-Based Ads Designed for Foot Traffic, Attribution, Personalization

Google announced on Tuesday a suite of new machine learning-backed ad tools that promise to keep its brand partners happy at a time when digital advertising faces unprecedented brand safety concerns. Among the tools is one explicitly designed to maximize foot traffic.

Here are the major new tools:

Responsive search ads. Google claims that advertisers who use its machine learning technology for ad optimization see 15% more clicks. That’s the rationale behind new dynamic search ads that allow advertisers to submit a number of creative options and let Google’s computers do the rest, choosing whichever ad makes the most sense for a given user in a given context.

YouTube ads optimized for lift. As Google touts, “people watch over 1 billion hours of video on Youtube every day.” Brands, want to capitalize on that? Good—Google’s got you covered with a new smart bidding solution that shows your ads to the audiences most likely to engage with your brand after seeing an advertisement.

Drive foot traffic. Google is not playing around in local. Its new “local campaigns” are designed for the express purpose of pushing consumers exposed to ads to walk on over to local stores and make a purchase. All advertisers need to do is provide Google with the locations of their stores as well as some creative, and the search giant will do the rest.

Fast Company reports that quite a few brands are already ecstatic about the changes.