Raghavan joined Google in 2014 and for over seven years has driven YouTube teams that work with top creators, some of the large entertainment partners including movie studios, TV broadcasters, and news partners, among others scaling their presence and business on YouTube. (Edited Excerpts)

With advertisers turning cautious in spending, to what extent performance has seeped into all formats of ads – including display, video and audio?

An ever-increasing volume of online information has made the purchase journey of consumers increasingly complex. In fact, of the consumers in India and Southeast Asia who have difficulty making purchase decisions, 81% say it’s because of too much information or too many options. In order to secure the confidence, and choice, of consumers, brands today are seeking to reach them on trusted platforms, in the right format, at the right point in a purchase journey, and at the right time. It is this shift, from measuring marketing metrics to measuring business growth metrics, that is accelerating the rise of performance marketing.

Our longstanding investments in artificial intelligence (AI) have served a pivotal role in helping marketers personalise their campaigns, serve their ads more precisely, measure the results of their efforts in real-time, and automate marketing tasks. As a trusted partner to businesses, our Ads products such as Smart Bidding, Broad Match, App Campaigns and most recently, Performance Max have been helping navigate this changing landscape and unlock new pockets of demand and opportunity. We’ve seen a number of our customers – such as Samsung, Tata AIG General Insurance, Myntra, HDFC ERGO – yield business outcomes using Performance Max, a goal-based campaign type that allows performance advertisers to access all of their Google Ads inventory like YouTube, Search, and Gmail from a single campaign. On average, we’re now seeing advertisers who adopt Performance Max achieve 18% more conversions at a similar cost per action, compared to 13% when it first launched.

Has there been a real impact on businesses through leads – can you please share a case study?

Case studies:
Mondelez: In order to reach Indians in rural areas, Mondelez developed creatives in different vernaculars. Using VRC (video reach campaign), it was able to serve these ads to their target demographic of 18-44 years old. In doing so, they reached an additional 23 million users and saw a lift of seven percent in sales.

Tata AIG General Insurance: Adopted a first-party data strategy that involved working across various internal functions. Using a combination of broad match keywords and Performance Max to value-based bidding, it saw more than nine percent % incremental sales and 10% incremental revenue for its travel insurance products.

Myntra (fashion eCommerce brand): Using Performance Max, video action campaigns and firebase signals, the brand was able to reach out to consumers wherever purchase intent occurs. When Myntra adopted value-based bidding, it saw a more than 37% return on ad spend across marketing campaigns.

HDFC Ergo: The brand found it difficult to show up for a variety of search queries related to its wide range of products, which included health, motor, travel, and home insurance. It also noticed a dip in search queries for its insurance products. When HDFC ERGO switched to Target ROAS and broad match, it saw a 49% increase in ROAS and 84% uplift in revenue. Responsive search ads enabled the brand to maximise campaign performance by ensuring relevant ads were served to its customers.

The combination of programmatic and performance is supposed to bring spending down – have you seen advertisers opting for this format more, if yes why?

As customers deepen their reliance on digital to commence their purchase journeys as well as complete them, brands are keen to meet customers at the moment by executing a fluid full-funnel media plan. Programmatic marketing helps build relevant reach, and combined with the advantage of AI-based performance marketing that helps convert demand into outcomes, brands have the benefit of greater efficiency on their overall investment. This also allows brands to scale beyond existing customers to those actively searching for the brand. We have successfully partnered advertisers from sectors like BFSI, Retail, e-commerce, etc. to achieve a blend of programmatic advertising with performance and build consideration for in-market audiences.

One such example is Axis Bank. Following the recent merger of Axis Bank with Citibank in India, the Bank wanted to effectively reach out to its audiences, especially HNIs and existing Citibank customers, to build awareness of the merger. We worked closely with Axis Bank and Performics India to craft an x-channel campaign across YouTube, Search & OTTs. The Bank leveraged Ads Data Hub (ADH) to effectively measure the impact of the campaign across channels and geographical clusters. With twin goals of positive outcomes on ‘Purchase Intent’ and ‘Search Intent’, the campaign was designed to determine the impact of branding on lower funnel business metrics. As a result, Axis saw a remarkable 268% relative search lift on Axis-Citi keywords, an 18% increase in organic new users, and an impressive reach of 88 million, with 5 million incremental reach attributed to DV360 f-cap management in addition to a higher brand lift across Favorability, Ad recall and Purchase Intent.

A DSP allows advertisers to buy ad impressions across many publishers’ websites most efficiently, while an SSP allows publishers to sell their ad inventory to advertisers at the highest possible price – How has Google been able to optimise to drive maximum revenue, given publishers are also of the viewpoint that Google is eating into publishers’ revenue?

Ad tech is fiercely competitive and constantly evolving. We compete with hundreds of companies in this space, including household names like Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta as well as specialized advertising technology companies like Criteo, The Trade Desk, and many others. Even media companies and retailers now offer competing advertising technologies. We want to provide users with choice, and our advertising technology products are designed to be interoperable with over 80 competing platforms for publishers and even more for advertisers. In such a crowded space, publishers, and advertisers choose to use Google because our products are effective and reliable. Our systems optimize for the most efficient results for our customers. Sometimes that places ads on our network, sometimes it doesn’t. Our ad tech fees are transparent and consistent with industry rates. Our industry-leading tools help publishers and advertisers verify that they don’t face hidden fees in buying and selling ad placements.

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