A new Enhanced Brand Lift Study option in Google Ads lets advertisers detect smaller shifts in brand metrics, but requires a much larger budget. The update aims to improve measurement for upper-funnel campaigns.
Google has introduced an Enhanced Brand Lift Study option in Google Ads, offering advertisers a more sensitive tool to measure the impact of their brand campaigns. This new feature allows brands to detect changes in awareness, consideration, and other key metrics with greater precision-though it comes with a significantly higher budget requirement.
Advertisers now have two choices for Brand Lift Studies: Standard Brand Lift, which measures lifts of 2% or more, and Enhanced Brand Lift, which can identify lifts as small as 1.2%. According to Google, the enhanced option requires roughly three times the budget of the standard study, but increases the chance of detecting a positive lift by 60%.
The move addresses a long-standing challenge for marketers: accurately measuring the effectiveness of brand campaigns, especially when the impact is subtle. Enhanced Brand Lift is designed to give advertisers more confidence in evaluating upper-funnel investments and validating the outcomes of awareness-driven efforts.
Google’s decision to expand Enhanced Brand Lift reflects growing demand from advertisers for more robust evidence that brand campaigns deliver measurable results. However, the higher budget threshold means this advanced measurement is best suited for larger campaigns with enough scale to justify the investment.
The update was first spotted by Google Ads specialist Thomas Eccel, who shared the news on LinkedIn. For advertisers managing both online and in-store strategies, recent changes to Shopping campaigns-such as the automatic enablement of Local Inventory Ads-may also impact how budgets are allocated across different campaign types. For more on these adjustments, see this overview of how Local Inventory Ads are now default in Shopping campaigns.
