What’s new in Paid Media: February 2025 industry updates

Welcome to the latest blog from the  Impression Paid Media Team, where we uncover the latest news and trends to help you stay ahead of the curve. 

We are bringing back our “What’s new in Paid Media” articles with our February 2025 edition. Over the winter months, we’ve seen various shifts in the paid media landscape, as well as some time-sensitive updates to keep an eye on. So let’s dive into the February industry updates across PPC, PSOC, and Programmatic.

Keep reading to discover:

Google updates ad quality systems to prioritise landing page relevance & user experience

In early February, Google developed a new AI prediction model to refine its ad quality system. This model analyses and evaluates landing pages based on two main factors: their relevance to the ad, and the ease of which users can navigate the site. To reduce negative user experience, Google will demote ads with poor landing page relevance and unclear navigation in its auction. 

Matt G. Southern from Search Engine Journal has pointed out that this update might be in response to Contentsquare’s 2025 Digital Experience Benchmarks Report, which analysed online experience data across 2024 and found that, on average, paid media costs have surged while conversion rates have dropped. The report cited one of the main reasons for this as user frustration towards poor customer experience, leading to reduced engagement and increased bounce rates when ads fail to meet demands for flawless ad interactions.

What does this mean for you?

Your ads’ performance could struggle if its landing page is irrelevant or confusing to navigate, both because  Google’s ad quality systems demoting it on the SERP and because poor customer experience has been found to be the primary reason 73% of customers avoid making an online purchase. 

Actions you can take:

• For easier navigation, ensure you have clear CTAs and navigation bars on your website.
• Prioritise mobile user experience to ensure your pages load well and run smoothly on all devices.
• Audit your ads to check whether your copy and keywords are relevant to the landing pages.

Google announces roll-out of new Performance Max features

In 2025, Google is committing to expanding Performance Max features to improve reporting capabilities and give advertisers more control over their campaigns. Google has split these updates into three categories: campaign controls to steer AI, reporting tools for search themes, and improved asset reporting.

Performance Max campaign targeting controls expansion

A previously beta-tested customer acquisition feature is being added to Google Ads. This new targeting mode lets you specify your current high-value customers and Google’s AI will predict which new users are likely to match this profile and bring long-term value to your business or client.

This will be available to review at the campaign level, so you can monitor how many new customers your campaign is bringing in and the percentage predicted to be high-value customers.

Over the next few weeks, Google is rolling out the previously beta-tested campaign-level negative keywords, which allow you to exclude specific search queries you don’t want associated with your brand. 

Google will be expanding “URL contains” rules — which allow you to target users searching for queries similar to category pages on your website — to Performance Max campaigns with product feeds. 

Additional targeting controls are being implemented for device targeting through a new Devices beta targeting category, which lets advertisers steer their targeting towards computer, mobile, or tablet traffic.

Google is introducing a demographic exclusions tool, allowing for age-based demographic exclusions. This will allow you to exclude certain age ranges, such as 18-25 or those aged 70+, from being served your PMax campaign.

Performance Max Search reporting improvements

Google is improving its search themes feature, which aims to give you more control over how its AI targets users. Advertisers can enter queries that their customers would use as Search Themes and these then work alongside PMax’s query and placement predictions. 

Now, in the insights tab, you can see Search Term Insights which report on your search themes performance. The ‘source’ column indicates which search categories your ad was shown in and why – whether that was because of your selected search theme, your URLs and creative assets, or something different. 

Google has also launched a search theme usefulness indicator. Hovering over your search theme reveals insights into whether your search theme is driving incremental traffic, additional to what PMax’s AI would find, or whether your theme overlaps with existing signals and could be updated.

Improved Performance Max asset group reporting

Google has also implemented the ability to segment asset groups and download that segmented performance data, allowing you to access PMax data segmented by device, time, conversions and more at the asset group level, and then export to analyse off-platform.

What does this mean for you?

Performance Max campaigns have become a staple feature of many Google Ads accounts and, with Google’s push towards AI-assisted advertising continuing, these tools give advertisers more control over what can feel like an intimidating black box of AI-led targeting. These features also give advertisers more granular insights into how your ads are performing and provide more visibility into how your input interacts with Google’s AI.

Click here to view more information about the changes coming to PMax Campaigns. 

Updates to Demand Gen campaigns coming in early Spring

Google is introducing features to expand Demand Gen campaigns, which were introduced in 2023 as the successor to Discovery Ads. Here are the upcoming updates, which will allow advertisers to customise placements, enhance their creatives, and use in-depth reporting features. 

• Demand Gen plans to offer vertical video formats on Youtube Shorts, in a 9:16 ratio, available from late February. Then, in March, Google will be rolling out the ability to toggle on and off ad placements as a beta, providing more precise control over whether you want your demand gen ads to serve, e.g. only as midroll YouTube ads. 
• Google will be introducing product feeds for Demand Gen. This will appear as a feed at the bottom of the video ad that lets consumers navigate products directly from the video. With the ability to showcase “local offers”, advertisers will be able to promote real-time product availability and drive online traffic to local store locations.
• Finally, Demand Gen will receive new reporting columns, including a ‘view-through conversions’ column, to align more closely with how social platforms measure their performance.

In an effort to ultimately switch entirely from Video Action Campaigns to Demand Gen, Google has created this timeline for the next few months:

• In March, an upgrade tool is launching to help advertisers transfer from Video Action to Demand Gen. 
• By April, you will no longer be able to create the Video Action Campaigns in Google Ads or Display & Video 360. 
• In July, Google will automatically update any remaining Video Action Campaigns into Demand Gen Campaigns, so if you wish to maintain full control over your campaigns during the switch, ensure you have upgraded to Demand Gen before July. 

What does this mean for you?

As noted by Brooke Osmundson from Search Engine Journal, these updates make Demand Gen a more viable competitor for Paid Social platforms, with the ability to toggle on/off specific placements, the new product feed integrations, and the use of AI-enhanced creatives. She points out that advertisers should keep an eye out for how the industry adapts to these changes, and to observe whether platform budgets shift considering the ongoing controversies surrounding multiple social platforms in 2025.

Early stages of Meta introducing ads on Threads

At the end of January, Meta announced that they would be rolling ads out on Threads in 2025, opening up a potential new audience of 300 million monthly users. Threads ads, which at the moment are image only, will appear in the home feed between organic content. Advertisers are able to use AI-powered filtering to control the context in which their ads appear, to ensure they are not presented next to brand-damaging content, giving businesses more confidence in threads as a platform for their brand’s ads. Users are also being given more control over what ads they see: Meta is implementing features to let users skip, hide and report ads they do not want to see or find inappropriate. Testing has begun on a small scale in the United States and Japan, where Meta is closely monitoring the results and using user feedback and engagement metrics to shape how this programme will be expanded. 

What does this mean for you?

In the long term, this is expected to be rolled out to all advertisers, giving advertisers access to a new platform and user base. If you would like to gain insight into what resonates with Threads audiences early, you can opt in to be included in the pilot study if you are within the test markets by ticking the Threads placement option in Meta Ads Manager, although there is no guarantee your ads will be used.

Meta Announces new AI features in Advantage+ AI Suite

Meta has expanded their Advantage + ads by adding a range of changes and new features.

• Meta has removed the option to create Audience Types manually on the Advantage+ catalogue, and has replaced this with AI-driven targeting that’s based on user behaviour.
• Advantage+ campaign set up is now supported by AI, removing the option to choose AI or manual set up and streamlining the process into one, rolling out AI options for sale, app and lead campaigns.
• New Advantage+ Lead campaigns are being introduced. They are designed to find high-quality leads, automate lead generation, and improve efficiency.
  • Early tests have found that CPLs were 10% lower compared to campaigns without the AI features.
• Meta has expanded their opportunity score system, which now gives Advantage+ ads a 0-100 rating score and recommendations for optimisations.
  • Early testing has shown a 5% median decrease in CPL for those who used the recommendations.
• In response to transparency expectations around AI, last year Meta introduced a label for users to identify ads that have been augmented with AI features. This is now rolling out on a larger scale to all AI-altered ads. The label reads ‘AI info’ above your ad, and when hovered over explains how it utilised generative AI in its making.

What does this mean for me?

These features and changes demonstrate Meta’s growing confidence in their AI, which aims to streamline your campaign set-up, optimise your ads, and automate targeting. This shift away from manual controls towards AI-driven targeting and ad creation indicates a shift of control away from the advertiser, although tests involving Meta’s AI so far have produced positive results!

Introduction of TikTok Automotive Ads

Automotive ads on TikTok have now been released with general availability to all advertisers. 

These are catalogue-based ads that come in two creative formats: 

• Multi-link carousel cards, which pull images from your catalogue feed into your ad as your creative. Each image is mapped to a URL destination that leads to a product page.
• Video and product cards, which combine creative videos with product recommendations from your catalogue.

TikTok has outlined two different types of automotive ads that are optimised for two different business goals. 

Their first ad type is Inventory Ads, which are best utilised by car dealers and market places to promote individual VINs (Vehicle Identification Numbers) from their product feed. They require little setup, have an automotive intent and vehicle matching mode that seeks out an audience for your ads, and introduce a catalogue manager where you can manage your feed schedule, diagnose pixel matching, and create product sets all in one place.

The second ad type is Model Ads, which are most useful to OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) who want ads tailored for model, trim and offer promotion. These are designed to be easy to set up as they only require a few basic fields to be filled out and provide a lightweight catalogue of different models or equipment to be browsed on the ad. 

What does this mean for you?

TikTok reports that over a third of its users are in the market for a new or used vehicle, revealing a large, untapped pool of potential audiences. They also claim that 19% of users have bought a car after seeing it on TikTok, suggesting that TikTok has real viability as an automotive trading platform. 

These ads are easy to create; when using video and product cards, advertisers are able to reuse existing upper and mid-funnel creative, and have a catalogue of product cards overlaid to target lower-funnel activity. Multi-link carousel cards automatically pull images from your product feed and create a catalogue for viewers to scroll through. These new ads are aimed to streamline both ad creation and the path to purchase for consumers. For specialists who work with brands in the automotive industry, this is a space to experiment in and see what TikTok Automotive Ads can do for your accounts.

Round-up of upcoming Google updates and deadlines

Over the next few months, Google is rolling out a number of updates across Google Ads and Display & Video 360 platforms. Here is a summary of these changes and the deadlines by which advertisers must take action to maintain full control over their campaigns.

Inclusion of conversion_environment parameter in In-App Offline Conversion Imports

From the 30th of April 2025, the parameter ‘conversion_enviroment’ must be included in your data set when using OCI for in-app conversion imports. This parameter indicates whether a conversion took place in-app or on the web, ensuring accurate data attribution and ultimately better campaign optimization. 

What does this mean for you?

This parameter allows for cross-environment conversions to be attributed to the correct ads and unlocks the ‘ad destination’ report feature in Google Ads. The latter allows you to track performance across platforms, e.g. you can compare whether landing in-app or onsite affects conversion rate. The inclusion of this parameter also helps you get easier troubleshooting solutions and support. Without this change, Google will struggle to understand the context of your in-app conversions and using app signals in smart bidding will be disabled for your campaigns. 

Action required:

• Include ‘conversion_environment’ as a parameter in your conversion uploads to keep taking full advantage of Smart Bidding. Deadline – 30th April 2025.

Google tightens Customer Match data rules in privacy update

Starting from April 7th, Google will be rolling out a privacy update which introduces a 540-day cap on customer match list durations across Google Ads and Display & Video 360 platforms.  This is being implemented as a response to growing privacy concerns; it aims to ensure advertisers are keeping correct, current customer data. A customer match list will now need at least 100 members either added or updated within the last 540 days. 

What does this mean for you?

Customer match lists that have no expiration date or exceed 540 days will be automatically capped at 540 days after April 7th. If these lists are not refreshed, members will expire as their data becomes older and customer match lists will become smaller, running the risk of campaigns being automatically paused because their targeting segments become too small to function (under 100 members).

Action required:

• Ensure that your customer match lists are current and fall within the 540-day duration. Deadline – 7th April 2025.
•  Set up frequent data refresh protocols to ensure your data remains current and your campaign targeting is fully optimised.
• You can refresh your lists using continuous syncing with third-party CRMs or via manual uploads.

Google tightens brand guidelines

In 2024 Google introduced brand guidelines for PMax campaigns, found under your campaign’s settings, which let you customise your business name, logos, custom colours and fonts used in the ad. This aimed to allow advertisers to tailor their ads to better align with brand identity. From the 7th of March, Google will be rolling out mandatory brand guidelines that require the official documentation of business names and logos across advertising platforms. 

What does this mean for you?

If you do not have brand guidelines implemented, or you have ones which are not consistent, Google will automatically select “top performing” names and logos for you based on your campaign data. 

Actioned required:

• To ensure you have full control over your client or business’ brand identity, update your business name and logo. Deadline – 7th March 2025.

Look out for our March edition of “What’s New in Paid Media” for a round-up of next month’s industry updates to inspire your PPC, PSoc and Programmatic strategy. If you want to talk about your business aspirations, get in touch!