From the Archives: A 2014 Google Ads Strategy for 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'

The 2025 Perspective: What's Changed in Google Ads?

While movie studios have always used a diverse media mix including video and print, the capabilities within the Google Ads platform have transformed. A 2014 search campaign was a manually intensive effort. Today, we leverage a more integrated and automated approach. Here are the key differences:

• Bidding Automation: Manual CPC bidding was the standard. Now, we use Smart Bidding strategies that leverage Google's machine learning to optimize bids for conversions (like ticket sales or trailer views) in real-time. What hasn't changed, however, is the need to use Excel and the Google Ads Editor to manually adjust bids at scale.
• Campaign Consolidation with Performance Max: In 2014, YouTube, Display, and Search campaigns were managed in separate silos. Today, a Performance Max (PMax) campaign allows us to reach audiences across all of Google's channels—including YouTube, Display, Discover, and Search—from a single, goal-based campaign, using video trailers and other creative assets as the primary drivers.
• Shift from Keywords to Audience Signals: While keywords remain important, the focus has shifted. The 2014 strategy was almost entirely keyword-based. Today's campaigns are heavily layered with audience signals. We can target users based on their demonstrated interests (e.g., in-market for "movie tickets") or past interactions (remarketing), giving the automation richer data to work with.

The Movie Marketing Playbook: Search Across the Launch Cycle

Promoting a blockbuster film with search campaigns is a phased operation. The budget, keywords, and ad copy shift dramatically depending on the phase.

• Phase 1: Pre-Launch (Hype & Awareness): Starting 3-4 months out, the goal is to capture early interest. We target broad keywords related to the cast, franchise, and director, plus specific terms like "age of ultron trailer." The primary conversion goal is trailer views on YouTube or clicks to the official website.
• Phase 2: Launch Week (Tickets & Showtimes): In the week of release, the strategy pivots entirely to conversion. Bids are increased on high-intent keywords like "buy avengers tickets," "age of ultron showtimes near me," and "in theatres now." Ad copy is updated with direct calls-to-action to book tickets via partners like Fandango or local cinema sites.
• Phase 3: Post-Launch (Streaming & Merchandise): After the theatrical run, the campaign evolves again. We shift focus to capture demand for streaming ("watch age of ultron online," "avengers on disney+"), digital purchases, and merchandise. This long-tail phase can run for months or even years.

The following is the original 2014 campaign blueprint, enhanced for clarity. While the tools have changed, the strategic thinking behind structuring thousands of keywords into tight, thematic ad groups remains a core principle of effective PPC management.

A Look Back: The Original 2014 Campaign Blueprint

PPC campaigns for major entertainment releases have a unique set of goals. Before a film is released, the primary objective is to maximize trailer views and build audience anticipation, rather than direct ticket sales. The strategic core of these early-phase campaigns lies in meticulous campaign structure and keyword management.

The Foundation: Meticulous Keyword Research & Grouping

While at Yahoo, the keyword research for a major film was an intensely manual process. We would start with a seed list from resources like IMDb and then use Excel to concatenate terms, generating thousands of potential keyword combinations. These were then run through powerful internal tools—unavailable to the public—to get search volume data in bulk.

This initial list, often containing over 5,000 keyword suggestions with volume, was then manually sorted and filtered for relevancy, a process that could take several hours. The most promising, high-volume terms from this shortlist were then used as new seeds to generate even more suggestions. The final step involved using Excel's filtering and sorting capabilities to whittle everything down to a hyper-relevant list of about 500 keywords for the campaign. Today, this scale is harder to achieve with public tools, as the Google Keyword Planner is limited in the number of seed keywords it can process at once.

With ad copy often provided directly by the studio to maintain a consistent message, this keyword strategy was the core of the craft. A campaign must always have a "brand" ad group (e.g., avengers age of ultron), but the real depth comes from thematic expansion.

Strategic Insight: Ensemble vs. Solo Star
The campaign structure adapts to the nature of the film. If a movie is driven by a single top star, their name becomes a primary keyword theme. However, for an ensemble film like The Avengers, with multiple well-known actors, creating dedicated ad groups for each major star (Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, etc.) and their characters (Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow) is essential. This approach captures the varied ways the audience searches for the movie.

Essential Negative Keywords for Pre-Launch

While targeting relevant searches, we must also block irrelevant terms that would waste the budget. For a pre-release campaign, the negative keyword list is critical. Using Phrase Match, we would exclude:

• "free"
• "watch online"
• "torrent"
• "download"
• "streaming"
• "tickets" (This is flipped to a positive keyword during launch week)
• "games"
• "t-shirt" or "merchandise" (Becomes a separate campaign post-launch)

Expertise Over Automation: The Value of Human Insight

Even years ago, it was tempting for some to use easy shortcuts like the public Keyword Planner instead of a more rigorous internal process. Today, the reliance on AI and LLMs for keyword ideas, grouping, and ad copy has only amplified this trend toward faster, but often less effective, methods.

This shortcut mentality is why many clients see budgets disappear without generating enough conversions. A generative AI prompt simply cannot replace the detailed work of campaign optimization. An experienced campaign editor, by contrast, lives and breathes the data. They perform daily fine-tuning to maximize clicks and conversions while keeping the cost-per-click efficient. While at Yahoo, I trained multiple teams with a strong emphasis on using Excel for efficiency. There's a learning curve, but once they mastered the shortcuts and functions, their ability to manage complex campaigns became second nature.

In this results-driven field, clients should prioritize performance over credentials. A Google Ads certification or the Google Partner badge is a great starting point, but it becomes meaningless if a client isn't seeing consistent month-over-month (MoM), quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), and year-over-year (YoY) improvements. It’s common for some SEO agencies to acquire Search Engine Marketing (SEM) contracts by default. However, simply having a client with a large budget—which helps meet a Partner badge criteria—doesn't prove the agency is truly effective or skilled at campaign management.

Many of those I mentored are still succeeding today because they learned that building an effective SEM campaign is about attentive effort and strategic thinking, not just expecting a miracle from the newest tool.