Ads Decoded

On-brand, at scale: Driving performance with AI creative

Is generative AI leading to a "sea of sameness" in advertising? This week, we’re tackling the creative burden - from the pressure to produce endless aspect ratios for YouTube to the fear of losing brand control in an automated world. In this episode of Ads Decoded, host Ginny Marvin sits down with Charles Boyd (Group Product Manager - Creative, Google Ads) and Sarah Hathiramani (Director of Product Management, YouTube Ads) to bridge the gap between brand fidelity and AI-powered scale. In this deep dive: - Avoiding the sea of sameness: How to use generative AI to stand out rather than blend in. - Understanding Ad Strength: Why it’s a diagnostic metric for discovery, not a pass/fail performance report - Advertiser-in-the-Loop controls: Using text guidelines to steer AI while maintaining brand control - PMax Asset Experiments: How to use the new "guided A/B testing to isolate creative impact. Want Ginny’s key takeaways and tips from this conversation? Subscribe to the Ads Decoded newsletter: https://goo.gle/4ryu6uV Find Ginny on LinkedIn at https://goo.gle/4aFEw4I and on X as https://goo.gle/3N2Q22r. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Why your Google Ads strategy needs the voice of YouTube Creators

For a long time, creator marketing was seen as a "big brand" awareness play or best suited for retail businesses. If your focus is on performance, B2B, or lead generation, creator content might not have been in your toolkit - until now. In this episode of Ads Decoded, host Ginny Marvin is live from the YouTube NewFronts stage with Melissa Hsieh Nikolic, Director of Product Management for YouTube Ads. They dive into how Google is making it easier for brands of all sizes and across sectors to integrate authentic creator voices directly into their performance campaigns within Google Ads and DV360. They cover: -The trust factor: Why creators help drive meaningful results for businesses across every industry - including finance and healthcare. -Finding your match: How to use AI-powered search in the Creator Partnerships hub in Google Ads to identify the right YouTube creator for your brand, no matter how "niche" your business might be. -Creative freedom vs. rigid specs: Why the magic happens when brands trade strict editorial scripts for a creator’s authentic voice. -Measuring success: Using Brand Lift with Search Lift and Conversion Lift studies and unified organic/paid reporting to prove performance  Want Ginny’s key takeaways and tips from this conversation? Subscribe to the Ads Decoded newsletter: https://goo.gle/4ryu6uV Find Ginny on LinkedIn at https://goo.gle/4aFEw4I and on X as https://goo.gle/3N2Q22r. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

How to build a retail growth engine in 2026

Conversational shopping in AI Mode. Virtual try-on. Agentic checkout. Business Agent on Search. Google Lens in YouTube Shorts. Shoppable CTV.  The secret powerhouse behind them all? Your product data. It’s no longer just a list of SKUs; it’s the high-resolution infrastructure for the next era of retail. In this episode of Ads Decoded, host Ginny Marvin is joined by Firas Yaghi, Global Product Lead for Retail Solutions, and Nadja Bissinger, Group Product Director for Retail on YouTube. They separate the hype from the strategic essentials, discussing the practical steps retailers can take now to deliver high-performing ads across Search, YouTube and new AI-powered experiences. In this conversation: -The product feed as foundation: Enriching your data with lifestyle images and rich descriptions to power multi-modal discovery. -From competing to compounding: Why it’s time to stop viewing campaign types as competitors and use a surround sound-style approach.  -The signal shift: How Lookalikes have changed from rigid targets to multi-dimensional signals that give the AI the flexibility to find your next best customer. Want Ginny’s key takeaways and tips from this conversation? Subscribe to the Ads Decoded newsletter: https://goo.gle/4ryu6uV Find Ginny on LinkedIn at https://goo.gle/4aFEw4I and on X as https://goo.gle/3N2Q22r ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Beyond the form fill: Mastering lead quality in the AI era

From tracking fragmented online-to-offline user journeys to navigating conversion windows that can stretch for months, lead gen marketers face a set of challenges that are uniquely complex. In this episode of Ads Decoded, we’re looking past the simple form fill to discuss how practitioners can master lead quality in an era of signal loss and AI-driven consumer behavior. Join Ads Product Liaison Ginny Marvin, Mimi Forsythe (Global Head of Lead Gen Solutions) and Lydia Azaret (Lead Gen Measurement PM) as they break down the steps needed - from lead scoring to data hygiene - to enable your campaigns to deliver high quality lead volume. In this episode: -The offline gap: Why mapping the full lead-to-sale journey is foundational to driving performance with Google AI. -Value-centric measurement: How to implement proxy values and lead scoring to tell the bidder what "good" looks like. -Data Manager: Navigating the one-stop hub for connecting CRMs and first-party data. -Tactical must-dos: Understanding the nuances of Enhanced Conversions for Leads (ECL) and Google Tag Gateway (GTG) Want Ginny’s key takeaways and tips from this conversation? Subscribe to the Ads Decoded newsletter: https://goo.gle/4ryu6uV [https://goo.gle/4ryu6uV] Find Ginny on LinkedIn at https://goo.gle/4aFEw4I [https://goo.gle/4aFEw4I] and on X as https://goo.gle/3N2Q22r [https://goo.gle/3N2Q22r] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Budgets, bidding & AI-powered campaigns: Best practices for 2026

Getting your bidding and budget dialled in has always been a vital part of campaign success, but it takes on new significance in the era of AI. The strategies and settings you use do more than manage spend - they’re how you signal your business priorities to the system, so it can more effectively deliver on those goals. Join host Ginny Marvin as she sits down with Kristina Park and Carlo Buchmann, Google Ads product managers who specialize in budgets and bidding, to discuss modern best practices and the new capabilities AI is unlocking in these areas. We cover: Smart Bidding ‘cold starts’: Why you no longer need lots of conversion data to launch new campaigns with confidence. Mastering fixed-budget events: How campaign total budgets and seasonality adjustments can maximize your promotions. Finding growth: Using targets to scale with efficiency. Want Ginny’s key takeaways and tips from this conversation? Subscribe to the Ads Decoded newsletter: https://goo.gle/4ryu6uV Find Ginny on LinkedIn at https://goo.gle/4aFEw4I and on X as @adsliaison / https://goo.gle/3N2Q22r ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.