Google Marketing Livestream Keynote

Key Takeaways

[Music] nice [Music] it's let's test it out this is an olive oil heavy class let's start slowly by drilling that hole watch my eyebrow i just spritz it all day we place the order for click and collect we are done that was easy okay we're all done thank you thanks guys we're off to see a film in the car i don't know what i'm teasing right now it's just amazing thank you so much and where is it i haven't gone shopping in so long i miss love all you guys the world looks very different this new year's eve a billion people will be vaccinated this is a worldwide effort until the world is vaccinated no one is vaccinated [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are in the world welcome to google marketing live stream we have registrants from nearly every country in the world from japan to mexico to france to australia to germany to china the uk and many many others this event is something i always look forward to and that has never been more true than it is this year can you believe it's been two years since we last came together and i've got to be honest i've really really missed this and meeting virtually does have some advantages i'm guessing we may have more people attending in sweatpants and slippers but whatever you're wearing and wherever you're joining us from i couldn't be happier that we are back the number of you joining this event during a time that's been difficult for everyone and devastating for far too many is truly encouraging so for those of you who have made the time to join us thank you thank you for making it safer and easier for people to find the goods they need to continue living their lives thank you for keeping pace with a step change in digital adoption by businesses and obviously consumers and thank you for pivoting innovating and persevering and while there are glimmers of hope from vaccine roll out to employment numbers we know many around the world continue to face incredible challenges with covet many businesses and some entire sectors are still struggling and of course there are people who've had a more difficult time because of their identities their health or their financial circumstances there's no question that we're living through a time of extremes we're facing tougher challenges than ever but it's also possible to have a deeper impact than ever because we have a real opportunity to be helpful to more people more businesses and more partners hundreds of thousands of businesses of every size have shared with us the unique difficulties they're facing and at google our top priority is to help you navigate this once in a lifetime digitization moment as the pandemic took hold google's teams around the world worked to do just this i was humble to see that we actually had more interactions with partners during the pandemic than in a normal year the teams delivered 70 000 plus custom analysis using google data responded to 20 more customer emails and calls than normal and connected with customers via 10 more customer meetings than during a normal year we do all this so that you can be ready for what's next let me share a couple of quick examples the disrupted travel industry faced the crisis of canceled flights car rentals and vacations that spurred us to create new tools and solutions to help our partners and travel and beyond understand and keep pace with changing trends and consumer demands we introduced new ways for hotel advertisers to shift the risk from their balance sheet to ours so now if someone makes a reservation using google hotel ads and then cancels for any reason the hotel doesn't pay global quarantines also force the retail sector to completely rethink how to serve their customers in the us we saw 10 years worth of e-commerce growth in just three months as the pandemic took hold we saw we could help businesses by arming them with powerful commercial data and we wanted to share these insights to help business navigate these wild swings and demand so awesome engineers doubled down on customer insight products and quickly launched solutions like our publicly available rising retail categories tool to spot breakout opportunities and while the pace of recovery varies across the globe we can use data from countries who are further along to inform and support those that are still in the midst of challenge it's the closest we can get to using the knowledge of the future to inform the present at least outside of google x so we'll continue to invest to help give businesses like all of yours the power to pivot quickly and prepare for what's next it's why we've got such an exciting agenda inspired by your feedback and we will share some amazing technology and products to help you and your businesses adapt in three big areas on privacy my friend and colleague jerry disler are vp and gm for a full advertising speed will share our vision for the ads product roadmap and our point of view on building for privacy safe world we're going all in on aggregation anonymization on device processing and other privacy preserving technologies that will deliver advertising performance while also protecting people on measurement video srinivasan our vpn gm of ads buying analytics and measurement will share new ways to future proof your business with first party data and automated marketing insights you can start preparing now for the future without cookies and on the future of commerce bill reddy our president for commerce and his team will share what's in store for shoppers and merchant a future where your brand is at the heart of the shopping experience and customer loyalty is a top priority all this work is the result from many many teams and many googlers working to help you drive results for today and tomorrow because you don't have to be able to see the future to be ready for it so sit back and welcome again to google marketing livestream hi and thanks for joining us at google marketing live stream from around the world a special hello to those of you streaming directly in the google ads app on behalf of everyone at google we hope you've been staying safe during this difficult year and taking care of yourselves and the ones you love we last met in person in 2019 and connected virtually in 2020 with global programs like ads on air and advertising week along with various roundtables that my team and i really enjoyed hosting and one thing that's become clear during a period of profound and prolonged uncertainty is that all of our jobs have become more difficult the good news is it's possible to tackle today's challenges and be ready for tomorrow's opportunities together my team's purpose is finding places to add the most value for marketers and agencies thanks to your ideas insights and suggestions we completely revamped our 2020 product roadmap we sprinted to build products to drive results and build resilience for your business during a turbulent time for example the insights page in google ads gives you custom insights specific to your business to help you unlock new opportunities it rolled out to all advertisers around the world earlier this year curbside pickup for local inventory ads helps you better and more safely connect local shoppers with the products they need we enabled booking for local services ads to help people connect with trustworthy professionals in their own neighborhoods all backed by the google guarantee we also unveiled our plans for performance max campaigns a new way for all advertisers to buy google ads from a single campaign across youtube display search discover gmail and maps this new campaign complements your search campaigns it also helps you maximize performance in three key ways first it helps you find more converting customers across all of google's ad inventory without having to manage multiple campaigns second it drives the best performance google can deliver against the goals that matter the most to you and early testers thought it should be easier to import customer data to consider these goals so we've heard your feedback you'll soon see that in your campaigns and third you can get richer insights into automation and how it's working for your business we've increased transparency and that's based on invaluable feedback for many of you starting today given the positive results from early testers were expanding the performance max beta to thousands of additional advertisers globally and look out for that full launch later this year as we built these tools to support your growth of recovery we've heard so many stories of your ingenuity and resolve they're good reminders of other big transformative changes in how businesses reach customers as technology has expanded all over the world broadband triggered the internet's first growth phase by bringing the world online next came mobile which democratized the internet and made it possible for marketers to reach their customers anywhere at any time whether they were at home or away and now the pandemic this public health crisis has had negative consequences around the world and we've taken a lot of our behaviors online to cope and adapt it's the third transformative event to fundamentally shift how people in the physical world interact with the digital world it's been a challenging time yet people still have found ways to remain optimistic that spirit is reflected in what people are looking for on google just to give you a few examples searches with the words ideas for beginners grew by over a hundred percent and searches for how to invest have grown by over 70 percent people are expressing themselves in new ways they're thinking about their future in new ways there are more moments to connect with consumers today than there ever have been before and as the world recovers we have more opportunities than ever to deliver what people are looking for amid all that change privacy continues to be a top priority for google across every one of our consumer products and services and every one of our advertising products when you use our products you trust us with your data and it's our responsibility to protect and respect it we never sell your personal information we never use sensitive information for ads things like health race religion or sexual orientation we never use the content you create and store in apps like drive gmail and photos for any ads purposes these principles govern our ads business and they will never change but we all need to prioritize privacy with much greater urgency for years our industry relied on an implied contract with internet users that went something like this in exchange for your personal data that let advertisers show them relevant advertising people would receive free access to content however today 81 of people say that the potential risks they face because of data collection outweigh the benefits they are increasingly concerned about how they're being tracked when traveling across the internet we've seen this in what people are searching for on google and we've seen it and how privacy controls across our products are being used people are no longer satisfied with the old way of doing things they want more assurance that the bargain is working in their favor they value their privacy more and we are losing their trust our industry needs to take bold action to regain that trust being reactive is just not a sustainable approach our goal at google is the same as it's always been to support a free and open internet while also protecting user privacy but we know we have more to do to achieve that goal that's why earlier this year we announced that once third party cookies are phased out we will not build alternative identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web and we won't use those identifiers in our product third party cookies and other proposed identifiers that some in the industry are advocating for do not meet the rising expectations consumers have when it comes to privacy they will not stand up to rapidly evolving regulatory restrictions they simply cannot be relied on in the long term we can build a privacy safe ad funded internet together it's possible to help you deliver business results while still dramatically improving privacy successfully transitioning to a world without cookies is going to require three things from our industry first building great relationships with your customers has always been critical to a successful business in today's privacy safe world is more important than ever our industry needs to properly use consented first party data that starts by building deep engagement with your customers the sooner the better next automation and machine learning make forward-looking predictive marketing possible by helping you identify key patterns and trends with the right type of automation effective privacy safe ad selection and measurement are possible these technologies can help provide visibility in cases where data or signals may be limited so use machine learning and automated solutions whenever they're available the final step is to commit to new technologies that preserve privacy chrome's privacy sandbox is an open source initiative to develop new technologies centered on advances in anonymization on-device processing and other privacy techniques it's truly a place for everyone where anyone can submit proposals and run experiments these technologies offer sustainable solutions for key digital advertising use cases from interest-based ads to measurement and much more we believe the privacy sandbox is the right way forward for our industry we'll be using these apis for our own ads in measurement products just like everyone else and we will not build any back doors for ourselves anyone can get involved in shaping these proposals protecting privacy can and should be a priority for everyone the world of privacy has already changed and the time to act is now we at google are all in on this the path is clear to dramatically improve privacy that enables advertisers to deliver business results today tomorrow and in the years ahead we're in a new era with privacy at the forefront my team's strategy is based in that core reality and you're going to be hearing all about it today we're building towards the future to help you be ready for what comes next my entire team is working to build the best place for businesses and merchants of all sizes to connect with potential customers if you sell products with us we want to move beyond being a direct response channel our vision is to connect buyers and sellers at scale in a way that's open to the entire ecosystem for video we're making youtube a destination with experiences that inspire both discovery and action where businesses can win new customers online and in person for google ads specifically we remain committed to a future where you can use automation to reach your potential as quickly and efficiently as possible and when it comes to measurement we are working to ensure you can get the insights you need in a privacy safe way in all of these areas we're ready to partner with you to invent the future together to make every marketing dollar count you need to understand consumer behavior and in today's privacy environment users expect more control over how their data is used and collected i've talked to many of you and i know just how daunting it seems to make this fundamental shift away from cookies and other identifiers the reality is our industry is changing and right now is the time to do the hard work of preserving the future of measurement a few key steps can help set you up for the future first build your measurement foundation on first party data next enable users to make choices about their data and finally keep reporting actionable and fill in the gaps with model data we've been listening to your feedback and we will continue to work with you to help preserve privacy while also getting the essential insights you need to be ready for what's next to start your measurement strategy needs a clear plan for collecting and using consented first party data those direct relationships with your customers should be the basis of your marketing this all starts with the foundation of site-wide tagging that gives you the data you need to deliver privacy safe measurement the right approach to tagging enables you to both observe more conversions and model more insights from those conversions we are also introducing a new way to measure conversions even when cookies are not available these enhanced conversions work by allowing your tags to use consented hashed first party data like email addresses from wherever your conversions are recorded this gives you a more complete view of how your ads are performing on google media it also improves conversion modeling and even works across devices for a more complete view of your user behavior separate from measurement insights from your first party data can also help you build a more future-proofed audience strategy customer match can help you deliver relevant experiences and deepen your relationship with your customers and your customers can in turn deepen their connection with your brand while making choices about the data because of the importance of that connection we are now making customer match available for nearly all advertisers to use after meeting a couple of simple requirements advertisers of all sizes can start reaching people with personalized as well as privacy safe ads next we're building new tools for you that protect users privacy last year we introduced consent mode this feature provides new tag settings to customize how google tags behave before and after users make their cookie consent decisions for those who say no the relevant google tags will adjust how they behave for example not using cookies when permission has not been granted this helps you both respect users choices and more effectively measure performance when users do opt-in of course when users opt out of cookies there will be gaps in your reporting that's why we've now released conversion modeling through consent mode to help close these gaps and give you more detailed conversion insights these model conversions will help you optimize your campaigns more effectively and achieve better business results to make it as easy as possible for you to respect people's choices about their data we are adding new consent capabilities to tag manager businesses that already use a consent management solution on their website can integrate directly with track manager without having to edit any website code tag manager will allow tag developers to integrate directly with consent mode you can easily see which of your tags already incorporate consent and you can control tag behavior based on consent without having to make complicated edits to your tagging setup you can enable these new capabilities in your tag manager settings today machine learning and automation can step in to deliver insights and performance from the consented data that you have and that's in addition to modeling conversions for example last year we unveiled the new google analytics which features automated marketing insights and today we're announcing that we are extending google's best-in-class modeling capabilities to behavioral reporting in analytics now you can continue generating powerful insights about the complete customer journey even when cookies are not available and for when you have identifiers from your first party data are readily available we are working on new ways to help you connect user journeys across your site and app in a privacy safe manner this combo of consented and model data is only useful if you can use it to get straightforward actionable reporting what insights about your media do you need to make the right decisions we've created a new advertiser experience in google analytics which presents deeper insights into your campaign performance in this experience you can see cross-channel performance advertising metrics and recommendations all visible at a glance you can compare attribution models too ultimately this will help you make better cross-channel decisions about your media budgets based on site and app performance additionally you can soon get a more complete picture of the performance of your google ads with improved attribution reporting in addition to search and shopping campaigns touch points from display and youtube will soon be included in all attribution models including data driven attribution here is another first we'll be integrating in-app conversions for those touch points as well this means your business can properly value the impact of all your google ads including search shopping display and youtube and of course data driven attribution will continue to work on conversion imported from analytics privacy safe measurement starts with giving users choices about their data and then respecting those choices from there you can still get insights you need with modeled information created with machine learning with that in place you're now ready to make the right decisions even in the world without cookies this is a journey toward improved measurement that we are making together to summarize the future is based on first party the future is consented and the future is modeled great measurement leads to great performance especially when you use your insights to power automation automation is so much more than bidding you can now solve top challenges with a strong partnership between your business intelligence and google ads it's the best way to achieve your maximum potential as quickly and efficiently as possible your marketing knowhow combined with automation delivers performance and unlocks opportunities and that's always with the control you need to recover and grow particularly in turbulent times let's start with performance automation drives results especially when you feed it the right information about the value of your ads you can follow a simple formula that for growth that begins with a deep understanding of value it's as straightforward as using responsive search ads with broad match and smart bidding responsive search ads combines your creativity with the power of google's machine learning to help you deliver relevant valuable ads broad match helps you find high performing queries and emerging trends and smart betting optimizes bids in real time to hit your performance goals even as query volume and conversion value change over 80 percent of you are now using automated bidding to drive results for your business with automation we're now automatically assembling your creative finding more queries that perform with broad match and adjusting your bids to deliver the right creative at the right price for each query they're better together you can also use automation to deliver a great experience that drives engagement when you provide the right components the right person can see the right ad at the right time create at least one excellent responsive search ad and enable four ad extensions that's what it takes to give the machine the flexibility it needs to deliver on the promise of automation you tell your story with the right ad components then the right parts of that story are chosen automatically for every single context in real time and it's now even easier to serve up great ad extensions image extensions are now out of beta and available to advertisers globally flexible creative options can drive performance for you beyond search for video action campaigns and discovery ads you'll be able to connect your merchant center feed and show your top sellers alongside your ad use it to harness the power of video and images to drive product discovery for your full catalog across youtube discover gmail google play and apps in addition to performance automated insights enable you to stay forward-looking and uncover opportunities across geographies we recently introduced the insights page globally in google ads to make it easy for you to explore trends tailored to your business this page contains deep insights about changing query trends information we hadn't shared directly with you before demand forecasts will be rolling out in the coming weeks to predict relevant changes to search behavior over the next 90 days use these insights to prepare your campaigns inventory and more for opportunities that are heading your way automation also creates opportunities for your campaigns themselves specifically optimization score helps you stay on top of all available recommendations and even as user behavior evolves this score helps you meet your objectives whether those are growth or efficiency based even keyword match types the foundation of search ads have evolved based on changing search behavior there have been multiple updates to keywords this year phrase match reaches more of the right searches while broad match has been overhauled to deliver more relevant searches by incorporating signals like landing pages keywords in your ad group and more we improved the understanding of the themes of search to better match them to the right ad groups and ads and an exact match keyword that is identical to a query is now always preferred as long as it's eligible to match so you have more control the berlin-based mytoys group switched many of their keywords to broad match and paired them with smart bidding this new investment and automation led to 40 percent more revenue at a similar roast to past performance finally you also need to steer automation and to have confidence that it's doing what you want it to do for example you've told us that you want transparency into automated campaigns like performance max you can understand how all of that automation is delivering results for you over on the insights page you'll see what's driving performance changes the types of consumers who are converting and which audiences your assets are most resonating this visibility enables you to take control of what needs your attention you want to trust automation to do the right things for your campaigns communicating the right information to google ads is the best way to do that this starts with the quality of your leads or sales including sales that can happen offline you can tell the system when a period of time shouldn't be part of your conversion history for whatever reason other inputs enable you to take control of your brand like the ability to pin your headlines or descriptions in responsive search ads even negative keywords exist for you to tell us what searches you don't want to appear on automation is built with you in mind and updated continuously to improve your performance your marketing expertise combined with the power of google's machine learning can change the course of your business and supercharge your recovery to be ready for what's next we look forward to building for the future of your business and our industry together what does that look like consider the new technologies being developed in the privacy sandbox base your measurement and audience strategies on consented first party data achieve your potential as quickly and efficiently as possible with automation please keep giving us your insights and feedback and we'll do the same for example you'll soon see tailored insights and guidance specific to your account in google ads directly and thank you again to everyone tuning in to this live stream from the google ads app starting today you can look for in-stream education content to help you learn about the features you're using right while you're using them we look forward to partnering with your businesses to both drive results even through continued uncertainty and to build long-term resilience this is a period of immense transformation both for digital marketing and for privacy overall we found a way to thrive after the big shifts triggered by broadband and mobile let's do it again there's tremendous opportunity ahead of us we're here to help you succeed and we look forward to a brighter future together [Music] we've all seen firsthand how the past year has sped the shift to online shopping in every order of groceries or hunt for that at home well everything our google data reflects that in the fourth quarter of 2020 the year-over-year growth rate in retail searches was more than three times the rate we had seen in the same period in 2019 driven in part by covid people shop across google billions of times each day for everything from fitness equipment to outdoor furniture while we've been working toward omni channel experiences for years the pandemic threw into stark relief the fact that consumer needs and expectations change in a flash and the right channel is the one that works for the customer it goes beyond visiting websites over store fronts curbside pickup searches spiked three thousand percent year-over-year at the beginning of the pandemic websites are joining forces with storefronts people even tune in to youtube to help them decide what to buy seventy percent of shoppers surveyed said they bought from a brand after seeing it on youtube our shopping habits are changing at the core of it all is choice shoppers increasingly want more options online people can discover new brands and decide on the best choice all in a couple of clicks the surge in ecommerce brings undeniable opportunities but the changing unpredictable needs of shoppers present challenges for businesses to connect think of google as the connector between you and your evolving customer base we can take those billions of shopping sessions and turn them into real chances for you to meet your customers and their needs shoppers want choice but they also need help finding what they're looking for we can help them by helping businesses stand out and tell their stories that's why we've continued to invest in and build towards an open ecosystem where all merchants can succeed from the world's largest retailers to the mom and pop shop down your street last year alone our merchant community grew over 80 percent with significant growth in small and medium-sized businesses and that's just the beginning we're excited to be partnering closely with shopify to make it easier for all merchants to get discovered across google surfaces helping them meet shoppers in the right decision-making moments across their journey to make this possible we're launching a seamless integration between google and shopify which simplifies getting product inventory live as well as enables shop pay for shopify merchants as a payment option across google surfaces i want to welcome harley from shopify to share more about our work together to ensure more merchants can get discovered on google [Music] thank you bill like you said we are building a version of commerce where all merchants can succeed this means leveling the playing field and giving every independent business the same opportunity to reach customers shopify democratizes commerce for independent businesses and entrepreneurs in the same way google has democratized access to information most recently we extended our collaboration by making the onboarding frictionless and faster for merchants and now we're looking towards what's next helping merchants get discovered across google while enabling the best commerce experience for both users and merchants today we're announcing that we're bringing shoppay one of the fastest and most secure checkouts on the internet to anyone buying from shopify merchants on google last year customers placed more than 137 million orders on shop pay merchants love shop pay too because its conversion rate is almost twice as high as a typical checkout and now even more merchants and their customers can experience the combined magic of shopify and google merchants like anna the founder of xena workwear [Music] working as an engineer in manufacturing i was frustrated with my bulky safety boots they were designed for men and made it impossible to feel confident i founded xena work hard to develop stylish safety shoes and functional apparel that empower women in demanding industries creating a store in shopify really helped me connect directly with our customers and hear their honest feedback since our target audience is very niche we had to be smart with marketing spent google shopping campaigns were just perfect they allowed us to visually show our beautiful products to women who are ready to buy google's integration with shopify made it really easy to get started just a few clicks were needed to install the google channel syncer product feed and go live shopping campaigns have been very successful ads delivered up to 8 times the return on investment and more than 90 percent of sales came from new customers who have never heard of us before i'm really excited about the possibilities we will be scaling our google investment to help more women around the world discover xena workwear this is just one of many developments and how we're building for the future of shopping three core principles are the foundation of our product development first crafting and sharing the open ecosystem this means bringing the industry along with us with every new innovation so we can share our progress and remain the best possible partners to you second knowing the shopper is always right it may sound cliche but it's endured for a reason we strive to help you build the best consumer experience from discovery to checkout finally letting businesses focus on their business we're always working to update and distribute insights and trends and provide easy seamless setup processes so you can focus on what matters no matter where you are in your journey google is here to help your business be ready for whatever comes next today shopping is something we are always doing whether it's conscious or not in line at the pharmacist scrolling through my discover feed i came across an architectural digest article on the best throw pillow brands i subconsciously kept the list in my head until i was ready to dive deep into my options and ultimately buy the perfect pillows and last weekend when having the option of curbside pickup helped me find that last minute birthday present these moments each require a distinct experience i'm not just looking for product information the type of info i need varies based on the product category how i want to purchase it and where i am in my decision making to help merchants get discovered in each of these moments we need to build curated immersive experiences tailored to shoppers specific needs we just shared that with product feeds on discovery ads and video action campaigns you can now highlight your most relevant products across google and youtube there are more places than ever to get discovered year over year searches for local businesses have grown by more than 80 percent and searches for in stock have grown globally by over 800 percent last year we launched new ways for you to show customers which products are available in store and that you offer curbside pickup or in-store pickup all in your business profile on search for free with stores starting to open up we're adding new ways for you to promote and highlight your in-store inventory through local inventory ads you can now highlight products that are available for immediate store pickup curbside pickup and those available to pick up later we're also extending curbside pickup and in-store shopping labels to youtube and maps ads and letting you highlight in-store products across more platforms so you can reach customers wherever they shop these days shoppers seek value searches for discount code have increased 50 since last year and you've asked for more opportunities to showcase deals and connect with price conscious shoppers later this year we're launching our new deals results page on search and shopping shoppers can now easily discover the most popular deals for all their shopping needs throughout the year these are just a few of the ways we're helping you connect with shoppers across their entire journey the online shopping experience is a bit of a contradiction shoppers want choice but too much is also overwhelming so it's important to build your brand and stand out help people understand who you are what's your story and why they should buy your products that's why today we're excited to share how we're working on ways to help businesses enhance their brand presence across 71 of consumers prefer to buy from companies that align with their values to help shoppers do that we want to share information that speaks to your brand's identity we started that work earlier this year indicating when a business identifies as a black-owned business across google search and maps we'll expand these attributes on the shopping tab to women-led and other e-commerce companies owned and led by communities enabling shoppers to buy from businesses and products they believe in to keep those loyal customers engaged we're launching a way to integrate your merchant loyalty program with google you can show your members their loyalty pricing and benefits and entice new people to join your program while retail stores have been shuttered for much of 2020 people still want to be able to see a product in front of them or even see how it would look on them before purchasing last year we launched an augmented reality experience to help people see what beauty products like lipstick and eye shadow would look on people with a range of skin tones or even virtually try it on yourself we've been partnering with brands including l'oreal mac cosmetics black opal and charlotte tilbury to bring this to life and soon we'll be adding foundation to the ar makeup kit and roll this out globally we're also building out a new apparel experience to see how close fit on a diverse set of people too experiences such as these allow brands to more personally engage and connect with the vast and diverse set of shoppers out there and help them find the right products for them we also understand how important it is for you to share what makes your business special to share your story we're experimenting with ways to surface videos lifestyle imagery and rich story formats in addition to your products and prices on google here's a sneak peek it's all about helping consumers learn more about your brand and products and how you can reach consumers in an engaging and personal way we want to give you the tools to curate how your brand appears to consumers and make it super easy to manage your content and products across google products more to come throughout the year so stay [Music] tuned [Music] i'm greg rivelk chief marketing officer at kohl's kohl's is a leading omnichannel retailer with more than 150 stores nationwide with a bold vision to be the most trusted retailer of choice for the active and casual lifestyle we offer our 65 million customers an accessible and aspirational brand portfolio an industry-leading loyalty program and a seamless shopping experience across our stores and online kohl's has been on an incredible journey these past few years but 2020 was one of the most pivotal years in our history as the coveted 19 pandemic escalated we made the difficult decision to close our entire fleet of storage for several weeks becoming a completely digital business overnight in order to meet the needs of our customers our digital channels had to work harder and we work with our media partners including google to help make that happen with consumers staying home the demand for much of our mainstay apparel shifted so our in-house media team worked with google to automate and optimize our investment seamlessly into trending categories like athleisure wellness and home office pivoting with consumer needs our ability to learn and shift investments quickly helped our brand stand out increasing our digital sales and attracting new customers with these new customers coming to kohl's we doubled down on our loyalty program building on our strength and loyalty and value we launched kohl's rewards which is rooted in our customer favorite kohl's cache the refresh simplifies our rewards program enriching it with personalized benefits all focused on the kohl's app we believe kohl's rewards represents the very latest thinking in retail loyalty simple personalized and rooted in a value proposition that is unique to kohl's partners like google have helped us to drive with more speed and agility enabling us to provide our 30 million loyalty members with benefits tailored to them [Music] 2020 taught us that people rapidly change their purchasing behaviors to meet their current needs we see this reflected on google where fifteen percent of searches every day are brand new we know that shopper insights are the lifeblood of your business and allow you to react quickly and make strategic decisions in real time google's unique understanding of what matters to consumers can enable your business for a digital transformation that drives results today while building long-term resilience and growth so you're ready for whatever comes next take mm leflore during the pandemic they leverage google's insights page to monitor search queries they notice an uptick in searches for joggers and comfortable denim so they renamed and refined relevant product descriptions in their line to match consumer demand we're just getting started building better tools to deliver real-time actionable insights that help you shop at the speed of culture to reach that speed understanding the efficiency of your marketing efforts is a huge advantage let's say you're checking a product's performance and notice it's gone up this may seem like an area of value where you'd want to invest more marketing spend but you also might wonder is this product's performance really improving or was it an overall shift in the market our new competitive visibility report brings insights beyond your own performance so you can drill down into external factors like your competitor landscape and see how your share of voice compares to your competitors from there we present you with suggested actions one of those might be to adjust pricing our recently launched price competitiveness report draws back the curtain on how other businesses are pricing similar products showing which prices get clicks allowing you to be more competitive we know that a tangible way of measuring value is through your conversions or products sold through google we're working on reporting that shows how your free listings are helping you drive more sales by gleaning real-time signals from what shoppings are clicking on how your competitors are pricing and performing seasonality fluctuations and more google has given you a leg up like we did with asos my name is carolina vicente and i'm the director of media investment at asos asos's purpose is to give people the confidence to be whoever they want to be we believe fashion thrives on individuality and it should be fun for everyone but last year with a pandemic people's lives changed dramatically and the role of fashion in their lives changed with it this meant that we needed to adapt quickly to meet the changing needs of our customers asos teamed up with google to better understand how consumer needs were shifting we used search to predict shopping trends by identifying the fastest rising in falling apparel categories what we saw was a shift from occasion wear to casual wear which let us know we needed to bring things like sweatshirts and loungewear to the forefront these insights coupled with google's machine learning and automation helped to scale our reach to the right customers across the globe for example we use the smart bidding and targeting capability of video action campaigns and discovery campaigns to reach new customers and re-engage our existing customers with content around what we knew shoppers were looking for across google services as a result we achieved double-digit conversion increases while we don't always know what the future will bring having a partner like google makes us more confident that we'll have the insights and the tools to respond to our customers needs and can continue to make fashion fun for everyone as jerry mentioned trust is key to customer relationships in a cookie-free future we can create great privacy-safe experiences for people while helping your business reach shoppers and achieve your goals for us it's about investing in practices that ensure a safe shopping experience which is why we have policies against selling products that enable violence we also want to ensure shoppers are kept safe while browsing or buying online so we take into account secure checkout flows and clear return policies when shopping on google and with you customers know they're going to have a high quality safe experience we also know policies can cause friction and frustration in your experience on merchant center that's why my team is investing in solutions that provide clear actionable insights into policy violations with recommendations on how to fix the issue as well as tailored troubleshooting resources to keep your products up and running to make it easier for people to shop your business on google we're bringing all buying options together in a cohesive experience anytime they connect with your product on a google service whether they visit your ecommerce site buy on google or visit your store down the street shoppers get to see everything you have to offer in one place to pick the buying option that makes most sense for them we're currently testing this experience on search and the shopping tab and plan to bring them to additional surfaces like youtube and images later this year and if you're anything like me i put products i'm shopping for in carts and end up with a ton of open tabs that are hard to keep track of now you'll be able to see your open carts in one place when you open a new tab in chrome plus any discounts the retailer may be offering and more we're happy to announce that merchants on woocommerce godaddy and square will soon have access to the same 10-minute integration to get on google to sell for free helping even more businesses get started and reach more customers these are just some of the exciting innovations my team has planned for 2021 we're excited to partner with you on this journey [Music] our goal at google is to help shoppers find what they're after and let businesses thrive by connecting the two to achieve that we're focused on four things building an open ecosystem where merchants of all sizes can grow their business helping you reach shoppers at the right decision making moments across their journey building experiences that let you tell your brand story and gain fans who will come back to share in it again and again and helping businesses like yours take real-time action on consumer insights from shopping to advertising to measurement all of us at google are building toward a future with privacy safe technologies designed to deliver results and hopefully after hearing about our plans you're ready to market for today while preparing for tomorrow thanks for joining us we look forward to charting a course forward together with you hello i'm alan tigerson president for the americas at google and i hope you've been enjoying the incredible program we put together you just heard about how our products and features can help you be ready for what's next and in just a minute we're going to open things up for a conversation with digital leaders who are doing just that but first i want to point out that this year we've made it easier than ever for you to choose an experience tailored to your interests your needs and your reality that's exactly what many of you have done for your customers every day over the last 15 months it's what we do as marketers and it's never been more important because the world has shifted under our feet since march of 2020 we're still in a period of uncertainty and it's going to continue for some time so that poses a fundamental challenge to every marketer how can we drive results for today and build resilience for tomorrow when tomorrow is harder to predict than it's ever been if you take just one thing away from our program today i hope it's this you don't have to choose between solving for the success of your business today or for success over the long term because the things that best position you for success today are the very same things that will set your business up for success tomorrow it starts with being privacy safe because protecting consumer privacy is how we earn the right to be invited into their lives once we've earned that privilege we have to respect their time we can do that by being insights led by demonstrating every single time we interact with people that we understand and can help meet their needs the key to understanding those needs is found in consumer behavior that's changing faster than it ever has before and to pivot at the speed of consumers in real time and at scale you have to be agile in the way that only automation can enable that kind of agility is only possible if your business is data driven so you can see and measure what's happening across your business and lastly building a team that's digitally adept with the right skill sets and capabilities is the single best way to drive results today and to future proof your business the good news is you don't have to take the five steps i've just outlined all at once because the kind of digital transformation i'm describing doesn't have to be a big expensive project it can and should be an organic value-adding process it's a process you can undertake and start to see real results almost immediately while building the kind of resilience your business needs to succeed over the long haul so to dive deeper into this i'm going to ask an expert in transformational change to join me t