SEOIntel Weekly News Round-up (Fourth Week of January 2025)

In the Google Sphere news, Google has announced key updates: Enhancements to Google Ads Performance Max provide advertisers with greater flexibility and improved reporting tools, while Search Terms are now labeled as ‘Private’ for less frequent queries, enhancing targeting. Additionally, Google Analytics 4 introduces Cross-Property Report Copying, simplifying report management and boosting efficiency. Latest Enhancements […]
Edgar Allan Abuan
January 24, 2025

In the Google Sphere news, Google has announced key updates: Enhancements to Google Ads Performance Max provide advertisers with greater flexibility and improved reporting tools, while Search Terms are now labeled as ‘Private’ for less frequent queries, enhancing targeting. Additionally, Google Analytics 4 introduces Cross-Property Report Copying, simplifying report management and boosting efficiency.

Latest Enhancements to Google Ads Performance Max Capabilities

Google has unveiled several enhancements to its Google Ads Performance Max features, designed to give advertisers greater flexibility, visibility, and data-driven insights when running Performance Max campaigns. The updates include new tools for campaign management, improved reporting and guidance for Search ads, and refinements to asset group functionality.

A Summary of Recent Updates and Additions:

More campaign controls to steer AI

  • Campaign-level negative keywords rolling out to all advertisers
  • New customer acquisition goal with high value mode
  • Brand exclusions for different formats in retailer campaigns with product feeds
  • “URL contains” rules for campaigns with product feeds
  • Demographic exclusions
  • Device targeting

Deeper Search reporting

  • Search themes usefulness indicator

Improved asset group reporting

  • Ability to segment and download asset group performance

Search Terms Insights:

Useful Indicator:

Forum discussion at X.

Google Ads Now Labels Search Terms with Limited Usage as ‘Private’

Google Ads has enhanced its Performance Max campaigns by revealing private search phrases, providing advertisers with valuable data on less frequent search queries.

A new feature has been discovered in Google Ads, specifically within Performance Max campaigns, which flags “private search terms” that have garnered less than 50 distinct searches in the past 90-day period.

A potential shift is on the horizon that may alter the way advertisers access and examine search query data within Performance Max campaigns, which could limit their capacity to refine their strategies based on precise user search behaviors.

Advertisers have expressed frustration with Google’s lack of transparency regarding search term data, making it difficult to assess the effectiveness of important search terms. While specific search details are not provided, some insights are available for low volume keywords, which could assist in shaping overall marketing strategies.

Google Analytics 4 Introduces Cross-Property Report Copying

The new feature in Google Analytics 4, which allows for cross-property report copying, simplifies the process of managing configurations, reduces time spent, and improves uniformity.

Google Analytics 4 has introduced a new feature that enables users to easily duplicate custom detailed reports and explorations between different properties. This enhancement simplifies the process of configuration management and helps users save time for focused data analysis.

The latest addition guarantees uniformity in how reports are set up for different properties, minimizes redundant setup work, and enables analysts to concentrate on extracting practical insights from their data.

Users who have the necessary permissions are able to duplicate settings for personalized detailed reports and analyses, encompassing all overview cards and sections, to different properties, subproperties, and aggregated properties. This functionality is accessible for both regular and 360 Analytics properties.

Important Restrictions and Exceptions:

  • Snapshots only: Copied reports won’t reflect future changes to the original configuration.
  • No default reports: Default reports and custom overview reports can’t be copied.
  • Data exclusion: No data is included; only the configuration is copied.
  • Unsampled data: Tabs with unsampled data are excluded from explorations during copying.
  • Same-property restrictions: You can’t copy within the same property. Use Explore or the reports library to duplicate instead.
  • No auto-creation: Custom dimensions, metrics, summary cards, segments, and audiences aren’t auto-created in the destination properties.