What’s going to be the big thing in online advertising this year? Everyone has a different prediction, and it can be difficult to cut through the noise and figure out what’s actually important to prepare for. But there’s one thing that’s certain: Google Ads is constantly changing, and it’s our job as advertisers to keep up with the times and make sure we’re making the most of our accounts.
For this article, there are two things you need to know about me. First, I’m a day-to-day practitioner of Google Ads accounts. I manage them, hands-on, and need to always make sure I’m pulling the right levers to see good performance for my client accounts.
Second, I never win when I go to a casino. Because of that, I’m not going to make any specific predictions because they’ll likely be wrong. Instead, I’m going to talk about things you should be paying attention to and noting in your accounts to make sure 2025 is a strong year for your Google Ads accounts leveraging the tools and trends that we’ve seen building for the last few years.
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The top 3 Google Ads trends every advertiser should know for 2025
Here are three Google Ads trends you won’t want to miss when considering your strategy this year.
1. Google Ads Smart Bidding will become more important
There are two main ways that Google’s automation will impact your account in 2025. The first we’re going to cover is Google’s Smart Bidding. Their machine-learning algorithms are continuously getting more complex and nuanced to make automated bidding better and better. Most likely, you’re already using some form of Smart Bidding, but in 2025, I suggest you pay attention to making those algorithms work as well as they can for you.
For example, are you currently using the maximize conversions strategy? Can you test setting a target cost per acquisition (CPA) to get better costs per conversion? Or, what about adding revenues or lead values into the system? That way, you could leverage target ROAS bidding to not only generate conversions but do it with a given level of profitability built in. Make sure you’re giving Google as much information as you can to help maximize performance.
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2. Advertisers will take advantage of AI-powered creative optimization
The second way Google’s automation will impact accounts in 2025 is via AI-powered creative optimization. Google is continuing to make lots of adjustments to help advertisers create engaging assets for their campaigns.
Throughout the course of 2024, they released a ton of new features. For many campaign types, you can now let Google create all of your assets for you including text for headlines and descriptions, but even images and video just with simple text prompts like you’d use in other AI platforms.
Now additionally, advertisers have more control over their creatives that the AI provides.
For images, you can provide reference images for Google’s AI to use while creating new assets to help the system generate something consistent with your brand.
For Performance Max, while it’s not available in all accounts just yet, you can now provide brand guidelines to tell Google what fonts and colors to use for anything brand-related in your campaigns to ensure a consistent look and feel.
They’ve even rolled out video ad enhancements that can help your ads fit into new placements across the web. But, be warned on this one. While the image below looks great, not all videos will be so easily cropped to fit into each space. My advice would still be to create new videos for each location, but if that’s not possible, you can at least give this option a shot.
3. Privacy, compliance, cookies, and first-party data will continue to trend in Google Ads
It’s been a few years since GDPR has been the prime headline in the advertising world, but that doesn’t mean that privacy concerns aren’t still top of mind at Google.
Although Google has backtracked on its stance to get rid of third-party cookies, that doesn’t mean the strategies born from that shift aren’t relevant anymore.
One of the biggest strategies to come out of that shift was the push for first-party data (FPD). FPD was the best answer we could come up with to third-party cookies going away and it’s still valuable even with those cookies still in place.
First-party data is collected by a business directly from their customers when they engage with the brand. No middleman. This direct relationship makes the information the user provides “clean” for the advertising business. Generating and using this first-party data should still be high on your mind as we get into 2025 as I think we’re only going to get more and more ways to leverage it not only in Google Ads but across all other platforms.
In this same vein, consent mode for cookies is going to be a priority and I expect we’ll get additional controls from Google to ensure our cookies are firing only when legally allowed to based on the user’s location and individual settings.
4. More insights and controls could emerge to meet advertisers’ demands
Google Ads has always been known as a platform with lots of control and insights, but after the launch of new campaign types like Demand Generation and Performance Max along with the deprecation of match types, sentiment has waned a bit over the last few years. And with good reason.
All of that said, 2024 saw many shifts in Google’s releases to give insights and controls previously not available. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not anywhere close to what we’ve had in the past, but they’re better than nothing.
In Performance Max alone, Google gave a ton more insight into performance like audience affinity (seen below) as well as insights on how assets perform.
Additionally, we were given the ability to not only see which placements our ads are showing on around all the Google properties and search partner network, but we can now exclude certain placements at the account level as well.
Looking at search campaigns, we also got controls like brand inclusion and exclusion lists along with updated functionality for misspellings in negative keywords.
The common thread for all of this in my opinion?
User demand.
And I don’t mean user demand in the Field of Dreams sense of “If Google builds it we will use it.”
I mean it in the sense that advertisers have been demanding that Google give back insights and controls and, to our pleasant surprise, they’re doing it.
I think 2025 needs to be a year where we advertisers need to continue making our voices heard and saying what we want and Google just might pay attention to us.
How to take action on these Google Ads trends in 2025
It’s all well and good to talk about what we think is going to happen, but that doesn’t give any specifics on how your day-to-day should either change or stay the same. Below are the things I think advertisers should do in 2025 based on these four big trends.
Ready to make the most of these Google Ads trends? Start with a free, instant account performance report using our Google Ads Grader!
1. Invest in AI
No, I don’t mean go out and buy stock in AI companies. I mean invest your time into testing new AI options that can help you work smarter, not harder. Test the tools, and see what works and what doesn’t. Use what you can and do the rest yourself. Don’t get stuck in 2005 and fight the computers. They’re getting better all the time, and no doubt your competitors are also testing these tools and getting more efficient every day.
2. Prioritize your relationships with customers
In the world of privacy concerns, first-party data will be king, and first-party data is only gained with trust. Build a solid brand and make something that your customers want to engage with. The information you gain from them will help you engage with them better, but will also help you teach the machines (which you’re for sure using based on the first suggestion) to find new customers and expand your base.
3. Remember: more data = better outcomes
In the same vein as investing in AI, the more information you have in the Google Ads platform itself, the better Smart Bidding and other systems will be able to optimize for you. That includes using values for your conversions and including offline conversion data where possible. These algorithms are simple machines: good data in, good data out.
Use these Google Ads trends to your advantage in 2025
While the push for AI, first-party data, more platform insights, and more might not be the most surprising Google Ads trends, these popular strategies for 2025 can be a reminder of how important it is for your account to be flexible. Your campaign priorities should shift and adapt to stay ahead of what other advertisers in your industry may already be implementing. For more help managing the latest and greatest from Google Ads, see how our solutions can maximize your campaign performance no matter what trends are emerging!