What is the expected reduction in global office facility investments in 2020 compared with 2019, and what is the reason for this reduction
hich we are well positioned. So we will continue to invest in these areas including Search, machine learning, and Google Cloud. Finally, with respect to capex, on the fourth quarter call, we shared our expectation that investments in both technical infrastructure and office facilities would increase compared to 2019. We now anticipate a modest decrease in the level of total capex in 2020 compared with last year. The biggest change in our outlook is a reduction in global office facility investments due to both the need to pause most of our ground-up construction and fit-outs in response to COVID-19 and our decision to slow down the pace at which we acquire office buildings. In terms of technical infrastructure, we expect a moderate reduction to our forecast relative to the beginning of the year given the impact of COVID-19 on data center construction delays as well as the benefit of our ongoing focus on server efficiency. Overall, we anticipate technical infrastructure investment to remain at roughly the same level as in 2019 with relatively more spend on servers than on data center construction. Thank you and Sundar and I will now take your questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Eric Sheridan from UBS. Your line is now open.
Eric Sheridan -- UBS -- Analyst
Thanks for taking the question and hope all is safe and well with everyone on the team there at Alphabet. Two questions if I can. One, on the comment with respect to direct response advertising on YouTube, would love to get a little more color on how direct response advertising as ad units continue to evolve and perform and how advertisers are using those ad units as part of their broader advertising goals. And then maybe, Ruth, for you, on the comment on expenses, just want to understand a little bit of how much of what your messaging on expenses is efficiency gains that you were aiming for in 2020 before we got to COVID-19 versus elements of the cost structure that you're reexamining as a result of the pandemic. Thanks so much.
Sundar Pichai -- Chief Executive Officer
Eric, Thanks for the wishes. On YouTube direct response, we definitely are seeing traction there. I think an area where it really works well for example is app installs. That's a great example of it. Gaming is another good example of it and we are working on iterating and making the formats work better so that it applies to more context as well, but in general, I think businesses are learning to adapt. Obviously, we've had great success with Search and so we are bringing a lot of those learnings and we're sharing it with our customers and so we expect to see more traction there over time.
Ruth Porat -- Chief Financial Officer
And on your second question, I like the way you framed it. Yes, we do have efficiency efforts that we started that we had going as we entered this year, but as a result of what we're seeing in the environment, our view was that we should really double down on those. And so when we go through the various areas that I mentioned, we had started the year with an expectation about really optimizing headcount around the various areas. What we've determined is we're going to, at this point, slow the pace of hiring. To be very clear, we are continuing to hire, but we are slowing the pace of hiring and that's helping as we're driving a deeper look into how do you optimize within each area. The same is true for example in some of the comments on marketing. We are continuing to invest in marketing. As you know well, sales and marketing line, the majority of it is headcount related and we do continue to invest here in ads and in particular in Cloud.
As it relates to the marketing component, namely ads and promo spend, we did reduce it relative to our plans in the beginning of the year and we continue to have a healthy budget for ads and promo particularly in digital to support many business areas, but as with the other areas of investment, we're really focused on optimizing across products and services and with physical event
hich we are well positioned. So we will continue to invest in these areas including Search, machine learning, and Google Cloud. Finally, with respect to capex, on the fourth quarter call, we shared our expectation that investments in both technical infrastructure and office facilities would increase compared to 2019. We now anticipate a modest decrease in the level of total capex in 2020 compared with last year. The biggest change in our outlook is a reduction in global office facility investments due to both the need to pause most of our ground-up construction and fit-outs in response to COVID-19 and our decision to slow down the pace at which we acquire office buildings. In terms of technical infrastructure, we expect a moderate reduction to our forecast relative to the beginning of the year given the impact of COVID-19 on data center construction delays as well as the benefit of our ongoing focus on server efficiency. Overall, we anticipate technical infrastructure investment to remain at roughly the same level as in 2019 with relatively more spend on servers than on data center construction. Thank you and Sundar and I will now take your questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Eric Sheridan from UBS. Your line is now open.
Eric Sheridan -- UBS -- Analyst
Thanks for taking the question and hope all is safe and well with everyone on the team there at Alphabet. Two questions if I can. One, on the comment with respect to direct response advertising on YouTube, would love to get a little more color on how direct response advertising as ad units continue to evolve and perform and how advertisers are using those ad units as part of their broader advertising goals. And then maybe, Ruth, for you, on the comment on expenses, just want to understand a little bit of how much of what your messaging on expenses is efficiency gains that you were aiming for in 2020 before we got to COVID-19 versus elements of the cost structure that you're reexamining as a result of the pandemic. Thanks so much.
Sundar Pichai -- Chief Executive Officer
 Eric, Thanks for the wishes. On YouTube direct response, we definitely are seeing traction there. I think an area where it really works well for example is app installs. That's a great example of it. Gaming is another good example of it and we are working on iterating and making the formats work better so that it applies to more context as well, but in general, I think businesses are learning to adapt. Obviously, we've had great success with Search and so we are bringing a lot of those learnings and we're sharing it with our customers and so we expect to see more traction there over time.
Ruth Porat -- Chief Financial Officer
And on your second question, I like the way you framed it. Yes, we do have efficiency efforts that we started that we had going as we entered this year, but as a result of what we're seeing in the environment, our view was that we should really double down on those. And so when we go through the various areas that I mentioned, we had started the year with an expectation about really optimizing headcount around the various areas. What we've determined is we're going to, at this point, slow the pace of hiring. To be very clear, we are continuing to hire, but we are slowing the pace of hiring and that's helping as we're driving a deeper look into how do you optimize within each area. The same is true for example in some of the comments on marketing. We are continuing to invest in marketing. As you know well, sales and marketing line, the majority of it is headcount related and we do continue to invest here in ads and in particular in Cloud.
As it relates to the marketing component, namely ads and promo spend, we did reduce it relative to our plans in the beginning of the year and we continue to have a healthy budget for ads and promo particularly in digital to support many business areas, but as with the other areas of investment, we're really focused on optimizing across products and services and with physical event