Latest news with #PerformanceMax
Borneo Post
27-05-2025
- Business
- Borneo Post
Malaysia Airlines, Google expand strategic partnership with AI-powered solutions
Powered by Google Gemini's advanced AI capabilities, Malaysia Airlines aims to deliver next-level personalisation across multiple customer touchpoints. — Bernama photo KUALA LUMPUR (May 27): Malaysia Airlines and Google have announced the expansion of their strategic commercial partnership, reinforcing a shared vision to redefine the future of travel through artificial intelligence (AI), data-driven marketing, and cutting-edge digital innovation. The renewed collaboration builds on a successful partnership established in 2024 and marks a significant milestone in Malaysia Airlines' ongoing digital transformation. The partnership will now deepen its focus on integrating AI-powered solutions across the airline's operations and enhancing the overall travel experience. Among the recent highlights of the partnership was an interactive AI showcase unveiled at the Matta Fair, which brought to life Malaysia Airlines' 'Time For' campaign. The showcase featured a pilot of Google's latest image-to-video generation technology, Veo, allowing visitors to transform personal travel photos into dynamic, shareable video content. The activation exemplified both companies' commitment to creating immersive, personalised travel experiences. At the heart of this strategic alignment is a mutual goal to elevate the traveller journey from start to finish. Powered by Google Gemini's advanced AI capabilities, Malaysia Airlines aims to deliver next-level personalisation across multiple customer touchpoints by supporting its ambition to become Asia's premier travel gateway and complementing national efforts in tourism development under the upcoming Visit Malaysia 2026 campaign. 'This is about transforming how we connect with our customers from inspiration to booking, to every interaction across the journey,' said Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) chief commercial officer of airlines Dersenish Aresandiran. 'By leveraging Google's advanced technology and global expertise, we're unlocking new opportunities, enhancing the travel experience, and reinforcing Malaysia's appeal as a world-class tourism destination.' The expanded collaboration between Malaysia Airlines and Google is formalised under a new Joint Business Plan that aligns with the airline's commercial growth strategy and brand aspirations. Central to this plan are several strategic pillars, including the use of AI-powered performance marketing through Google's Performance Max and AI-enhanced search tools to drive smarter, data-driven outcomes. The partnership also focuses on global brand building via YouTube, with targeted campaigns in key international markets such as the UK, Australia-New Zealand, Japan, and across Asean to strengthen brand visibility. Additionally, both companies are fostering an agile innovation culture by adopting a 'test and learn' mindset to accelerate digital transformation across the customer journey. Another key area is first-party data activation, aimed at unlocking deeper customer insights to enhance loyalty programmes like Enrich and improve premium cabin offerings. Google Malaysia country director Farhan Qureshi said the partnership exemplifies the potential of AI and creativity in revolutionising the travel industry. 'Our collaboration with Malaysia Airlines showcases how technology and creativity can converge to transform travel at scale. Together, we're pushing boundaries to deliver more relevant, intuitive, and engaging experiences for travellers worldwide.' This strategic expansion reflects Malaysia Airlines' commitment to digital excellence and its broader ambition to lead innovation within the aviation sector. By embracing AI to streamline operations and personalise services, the airline is positioning itself as a customer-centric, future-ready brand while supporting Malaysia's tourism goals on the global stage. Dersenish Aresandiran Farhan Qureshi Google Google Gemini Malaysia Airlines
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Google is bringing ads to AI Mode
Google on Wednesday detailed its plans to bring ads to AI Mode, the company's AI-powered experience in Google Search. Ads may appear "where relevant" below and "integrated into" AI Mode responses as part of a test, Google says. AI Mode lets Google Search users ask a question and get an AI-generated response, with the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions and links to websites. "In some cases, a website builder might be a good next step [in an AI Mode query], so we may show a helpful ad that can help [users] get started," explains Google in a blog post provided to TechCrunch. "From there, [the user] can ask questions to explore possible business ideas, what type of content they should develop, and even learn about their target audience." Ads being Google's primary cash cow — the company notched $66.89 billion in ad revenue in Q1 2025 alone — it was inevitable that they'd eventually make their way into what many see as the future of Google Search. But that doesn't mean users will be pleased. According to a recent poll by CivicScience, a consumer analytics platform, 36% of U.S. adults are wary of AI as it relates to advertising, saying they'd be less likely to purchase from a brand that uses AI in ads. Google says that advertisers already using its Performance Max, Shopping, and Search campaigns with "broad match" will be eligible to have their ads shown in AI Mode. Users in the U.S. will see ads, specifically Search and Shopping ads for now, in AI Mode across desktop and mobile. Several of Google's rivals have experimented — or are considering experimenting — with ads in their AI products. AI-powered search engine Perplexity launched ads last November and hasn't ruled out collecting data outside its platform to sell more targeted advertising. Microsoft briefly piloted ads in its Copilot chatbot several years ago. OpenAI, too, has said that it may one day adopt an ad-supported model to supplement subscriptions. In related news Wednesday, Google said that it will expand ads in AI Overviews, its Google Search feature that automatically synthesizes and summarizes answers to queries. Search and Shopping ads will soon appear on desktop in the U.S. ahead of an expansion to "select countries" on mobile and desktop in English. In AI Overviews, ads are inserted in AI-generated summaries "when relevant to both the query and the response provided," Google says. They're labeled as "Sponsored." Google first brought ads to AI Overviews in the U.S. on mobile last October. Some publishers have argued that Google's moves threaten their own ad revenue. Google has said that it takes publishers' concerns into account in workshopping its AI search experiences and advertising products for those experiences. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Time of India
23-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Businesses in India, elsewhere adopting new AI power tools for enhancing search: Google
Businesses in India and some other parts of the world are adopting AI tools for enhancing search performance based on queries from users, a senior Google executive said on Tuesday. Google Vice-President for global ads Dan Taylor said YouTube has become the most-watched streaming platform in India and Japan. He said according to a recent study by Google and BCG, companies that have deeply invested in AI tools are reporting 60 per cent higher revenue gains than those who don't have it. Talking about India, Taylor cited global search numbers on Google clocking 5 trillion searches every year with 15 per cent of them being new. "It's really difficult to maintain a search engine marketing strategy where you want to try and come up with every possible search that a consumer might make," he said in response to a question on the manner in which media planners and advertisers in India are leveraging Google's AI tools. Businesses in India and elsewhere are adopting new AI power tools such as broad match or Performance Max in search, which try to give users specific responses to their queries, he said. "What we're finding from a skill perspective is that media planners and practitioners are spending more time on data analytics and informing which of these ads deliver the most effective results to then feed that into informing the campaign's strategy moving forward," Taylor said. On malicious ads popping up on Google, Taylor said the company is using AI to enhance the scale and accuracy for safety and identifying bad actors. "That has really helped us inform enforcement against malicious practices on both the organic and on the paid advertising side. In fact, we blocked or removed over 5 billion ads for violating our policy before they were ever seen," Taylor said. Google in its latest ad safety report suspended 2.9 million advertisers' accounts in India and removed 247.4 million ads in 2024 for abusing its advertisement policy. The company has suspended over 39.2 million advertiser accounts, removed 5.1 billion ads and restricted over 9.1 billion ads globally.
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Business Standard
22-04-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Advertisers prioritise CTV ad campaigns as viewer response grows: Google
YouTube, an online video-sharing platform under Google, is the most-watched streaming service on connected television (CTV) in India and Japan. As a result, an increasing number of advertisers are prioritising building CTV advertisement campaigns into their media strategies due to positive responses from viewers, said Dan Taylor, vice-president, global ads, Google, in a virtual media roundtable. In India, 85 per cent of viewers prefer watching YouTube on CTV rather than linear TV, as per data shared by Google. Over 50 per cent of YouTube CTV viewers in India have a content watch time of 21 minutes or longer, the data stated. Globally, people collectively watch more than one billion hours, on average, of YouTube content on their TVs. 'YouTube and CTV also have great momentum in the Asia-Pacific (APAC), where we are seeing a substantial increase in viewing across countries,' said Taylor. 'For example, in most APAC countries, YouTube's CTV watch times have more than doubled in the past three to four years. In Taiwan, it has more than tripled.' He added that Google will continue investing in artificial intelligence (AI) tools to enhance brand marketing and ad campaigns. He noted that Google is an 'AI-first company with a full stack approach to AI innovation.' All the company's AI infrastructure, research, and scale also extend to Google Ads. 'At Google, we recently announced that with the help of Imogen3, which is part of Gemini, advertisers now have the ability to use text prompts to generate images that contain people and faces across Performance Max, Demand Gen, Display, and App campaigns (all these are various features under Google Ads for marketing and advertising). This makes creating content and relevant advertising even easier for our customers,' said Taylor. He added that in India, Puma wanted to explore opportunities across different touch points in the customer journey in a holistic fashion. 'They (Puma) identified website purchasers as their campaign goal and aimed to reach visitors—but non-converters—in-market. Performance Max helped Puma scale efficiently and effectively across Google platforms, resulting in a 35 per cent lower cost per sale compared to all paid channels and 66 per cent higher return on investment (ROI) than other channels,' he explained. On the other hand, Taylor said that YouTube Shorts has been a fast-growing platform, with YouTube Shorts views on TV screens more than doubling in the past year. Through YouTube Shorts, Tira, a beauty retail platform, used its video reach campaign to reach new customers and drove massive impact on consideration, with an average relative search lift of 228 per cent, according to the data shared by Google. 'We are seeing businesses in India and elsewhere adopt new AI-powered tools such as broad match in search or Performance Max, which take user queries and try to better match them to businesses without the business having to be so specific about the search terms that they think a user might search for,' said Taylor. He added that a study done by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Google has shown that marketers who have deeply integrated AI tools report 60 per cent greater revenue growth than their peers. 'The creation and production of creative can now be completed in hours rather than weeks. Measurement and optimisation are possible in real time, allowing for quick adaptation. Media campaigns can automatically identify ideal customers and uncover a new age of ad relevance,' he said. Similarly, in India, Zepto, a quick commerce application, turned video asset creation from a weeks-long process into just a few hours through Veo Craft. The company added motion to every image, improving the video's aesthetics. The final asset showcased Zepto's diverse categories, driving 11 per cent more efficient installs at two times its scale, as per the data shared by Google.
Wall Street Journal
06-03-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
AI Will Soon Dominate Ad Buying, Whether Marketers Like It or Not
Advertisers are grappling with trade-offs of AI-powered ad planning and buying tools for automating nearly every step in digital ad campaigns. The tools work by asking buyers for parameters for campaigns, such as budget limits and sales goals, then allow algorithms to decide where ads will run, who they target and, in some cases, how ads appear. Buyers often can't find out exactly what decisions the artificial intelligence implements, but they can essentially press a button for campaigns to run on their own. AI tools can make a campaign more efficient, according to their developers, which include pioneers Google and Meta Platforms. TikTok, Amazon and Pinterest have also released their own such tools over the past year. The tools can also help developers sell advertising more effectively to small and midsize businesses that provide a majority of their ad revenue and that can't develop complex campaigns on their own, said Karsten Weide, an advertising technology consultant. For many advertisers, however, the lack of control is disconcerting. 'It's almost like a necessary evil,' said Nicole Fisch, senior vice president of marketing at baby products brand Lalo, which uses Google's AI-fueled Performance Max campaigns to run ads online. 'You see the numbers and it does drive sales, but…at what cost?' Reports from Google sometimes show higher returns for Performance Max campaigns than non-AI efforts. But Lalo's team can't tell if their ads reached the company's core audience of design-focused parents, nor can they actively target specific websites and apps those people may frequently visit, according to Fisch. Many marketers—Lalo included—are using the tools nonetheless. 'AI buying agents are going to be directing upwards of 80% of digital media buys by 2030,' said Ben Hovaness, chief media officer at ad buying firm OMD, part of ad giant Omnicom. Marketers have for years responded to the proliferation of platforms and media formats by demanding greater control and transparency in allocating budgets. The tech giants dominating digital advertising now appear headed in the opposite direction. The particulars vary. Meta's Advantage+ places ads only within Meta apps such as Instagram and Facebook, for example, while Google's Performance Max campaigns run on Google properties and elsewhere. Some marketers now call Google and Meta's AI tools 'black boxes' because, depending on the platform, they may not be able to control key factors such as the consumers they're targeting, the platforms and webpages that run their ads, and whether the final ads look like they want. In many cases, marketers may have limited visibility into how well specific campaigns performed, and why. 'The idea is to relinquish control and trust the algorithm,' said Zach Thompson, director of ad operations at digital planning and buying firm Arm Candy. Arm Candy initially spent around 45% of some clients' e-commerce ad budgets on AI tools but now advises using them only in special cases, Thompson said. The tools improved outcomes such as clickthrough rates and costs per click, but in the agency's experience didn't increase sales, and clients lost a certain level of control, he said. Buyers using Meta's Advantage+ targeting tools can make 'baseball' a theme the algorithm may or may not use, for example, but can't ensure ads reach specific audiences such as baseball enthusiasts, Thompson said. The tools also can't pick which Meta platforms brands' ads run on, and buyers who use Meta's creative AI tools can't determine how they may alter the way these ads look, he said. Online event marketplace Event Tickets Center has seen its images and text appear in other brands' ads when buying through Advantage+, said Chief Marketing Officer Ben Kruger. Some OMD clients have shied away from AI buying altogether due to a lack of control over audiences and inventory, according to Hovaness. Marketers considering AI-driven campaigns aren't confident ads for restricted products such as alcohol will appear only in appropriate places, Hovaness said. Other brands can't accept not being able to select where their ads may run online, he added. Despite such complaints, many marketers have embraced the 'black boxes.' Event Tickets Center found Performance Max campaigns deliver higher traffic numbers than traditional search ad buys, which is more important for the ticket seller than transparency, according to Kruger. 'As long as it's delivering profitable sales to us, I don't really care where it's running and what it's doing,' he said. The company now spends around 10% of its roughly $100 million annual Google budget through Performance Max, Kruger said. Advantage+ has reduced the time Saxx spends identifying leads and setting up campaigns, said Kevin Meikle, director of digital marketing. That gives the underwear brand's marketing team more time to test other marketing channels and work on creative strategy, Meikle said. Saxx currently spends 20% to 30% of its Meta budget on Advantage+, but that share has run as high as 50% to 60%, depending on fluctuations in ad prices, Meikle said. Google and Meta have gradually updated their AI products. Performance Max advertisers since March 2024, for example, have been able to block their campaigns from running on up to 20,000 sites or apps. Many marketers, however, would prefer to choose where ads run rather than where they won't, because even a list of 20,000 sites, pages and apps accounts for only a fraction of the billions of places where digital ads may appear. No matter how marketers feel about 'black boxes,' the approach appears to work for tech companies offering them. Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said on the company's most recent earnings call that adoption of its Advantage+ shopping tool, which automates ad campaigns tied to online sales, increased 70% year-over-year. Li also said the product could bring in $20 billion annually. Meta has received overwhelmingly positive feedback about Advantage+ and is testing a new campaign setup that will turn AI tools on by default for certain kinds of campaigns to simplify the process for buyers, according to a spokeswoman. Google will continue to develop AI tools for creating and buying ads, Philipp Schindler, chief business officer and senior vice president at Google parent Alphabet, said on the company's most recent earnings call. 'When advertisers succeed, we succeed, and so we have very common interests,' Brendon Kraham, vice president of global search ads and commerce, business and product strategy at Google, said in an interview. As AI takes up larger shares of brands' budgets, the ad industry must push tech platforms to ensure AI tools keep those interests aligned, said Hovaness. The tech giants' priority is retaining and growing their positions in an increasingly volatile market, according to Weide. 'They do what's good for them, and to the extent that what's good for them is predicated on what they do for advertisers, they will do it, but that's about it,' Weide said. Write to Patrick Coffee at
