Why is Google Rebranding AdWords?

In an effort to streamline their plethora of ad products, Google has announced a major rebrand. Citing “consistent feedback” as the primary reason for the image makeover, Google’s Senior Vice President of Ads & Commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, made the announcement on June 27. He conceded the changes were primarily a name change, but said they would be “indicative of where [they] have been directing the product.”

Over the coming months, AdWords and DoubleClick will be put out to pasture. There’s no need to panic though – these advertising platforms won’t actually cease to exist – they’ll just be called something different. Moving forward, each ad product will be divided into three different categories.

Here’s an overview of the rebrand:

• Google AdWords will become Google Ads
• DoubleClick and Google Analytics 360 Suite will become the Google Marketing Platform
• DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange will be integrated into Google Ad Manager.

If everything goes according to plan, making sense of Google’s ad products should become a lot easier for advertisers. So why bother rebranding? Google knows the power of semantics, and renaming their products offers an easy solution to minimising confusion.

Along with the name changes, Google also announced the introduction of Smart Campaigns, a platform designed especially for small business advertisers. This product will allow advertisers to pinpoint which actions offer their business the most value, so they know whether to target things like phone calls, store visits, or purchases. Google will then use machine learning to optimise images, text, and targeting to increase those actions.

Pretty nifty, right? You can read more about the changes on the Google blog.

If you’re still having trouble understanding Google’s advertising products, why not let Search Factory’s Google AdWords Management experts take care of them for you?