Google Data » Aly Makishima

Track cost per call data through Google TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:37:00 +0000

Advertisers can now automatically receive cost-per-call data through Google TV Ads for television campaigns that utilize Google supplied toll-free phone numbers. This free new feature is designed to give TV advertisers access to richer performance data which allows more effective optimization based on real-time call data.

The system tracks incoming calls and matches each call down to the network, daypart and even program level. Advertisers will find these metrics in their campaign 'Targets' tab which reports data like "Live Inquiries," "Drag Inquiries" (calls that come in a significant time after an ad has aired) and cost-per-inquiry. Our system takes into account the number of impressions, network, and time of day for each ad to help match calls as accurately as possible. In addition, the algorithm has been designed to predict call response with increasing accuracy as it learns from your data over time.

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To get started right away, log into AdWords, create a TV campaign and sign-up for free 866 phone numbers in the 'phone numbers' tab of your campaign. Then, designate which ad creative corresponds to which telephone number in the 'Ads' tab of your campaign.

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That's it! Within a few hours, advertisers will see data appearing in the cost-per-Inquiry columns in the 'Targets' tab of each campaign. This feature should allow advertisers to drive even better results with TV advertising.

Posted by Robert Murray and Bozhena Bidyuk for Google TV Ads

Upcoming Webinar: Google TV Ads Recipes for Success

Aly Makishima — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:01:00 +0000

On Thursday, January 28th, Google TV Ads will be hosting a free webinar for businesses and advertisers who wish to learn how Google TV Ads' smarter approach to TV can drive real results for businesses of all sizes.

During this webinar, we'll discuss:
- How to use cutting edge technology to target your audience on TV
- Measurement techniques to track your return on investment
- Ways to reach viewers both on TV and across the web
- How four advertisers experienced success with Google TV Ads

Google TV Ads Recipes for Success
Thursday, January 28th at 11:00AM PT / 2:00PM ET

Posted by Neha Mandal, Product Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Learn how to make a TV commercial in 5 easy steps

Aly Makishima — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:41:00 +0000

As a small business owner, you might feel that television advertising is out of your reach. But with Google TV Ads, you can easily and affordably make a TV ad, plan a campaign, and reach your customers through the power of television. But how do you actually go about creating an ad? An expert in the field has some advice.

Jon Bond, co-founder and co-Chairman at creative agency kirshenbaum bond senecal + partners, has spent many years advising clients on their advertising campaigns. His agency had its first acclaim with a groundbreaking advertising campaign for Kenneth Cole and has helped establish Snapple as a household name with the launch of Snapple’s “100% natural” advertising campaign.

In the video below, Jon gives advice to business owners on how to create the right message for their television ad. Check out the video below or on the Google TV Ads YouTube brand channel at www.youtube.com/googletvads.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Product Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

FragranceNet.com Talks TV on MSNBC

Aly Makishima — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:59:00 +0000

Last Sunday, FragranceNet.com founder Jason Apfel was front and center on MSNBC's "Your Business," a weekly program focusing on small businesses and entrepreneurs. Jason spoke about the growth of his retail business and how Google TV Ads has made TV advertising accessible, affordable and highly effective for FragranceNet. Last year, Jason shared even more impressive details of his company's success with television which we chronicled as a Google TV Ads success story.

Catch Jason's television debut on MSNBC here.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Product Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Building TV campaigns just got easier

Aly Makishima — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:46:00 +0000

What if you could have a custom TV campaign created for you in minutes that optimally reaches your target audience? We're pleased to unveil Campaign Builder, a new Google TV Ads feature which enables advertisers to create targeted campaigns in just a few minutes.

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To get started, navigate to Campaign Builder underneath the "Add Targets" tab of any TV campaign. Then specify your target audience demographics, interests, and/or Nielsen PRIZM clusters. Campaign Builder will produce a comprehensive list of dayparts and TV programs that reach your specified audience in the highest concentrations. What's more, the tool will automatically set strategic bids to increase your likelihood of winning optimal targets and spending your budget. After that, one click is all it takes to port the selected targets and bids into a newly created campaign that can begin running immediately.

Could creating effective and strategic TV campaigns get any easier? Log in today to give Campaign Builder a try.

Posted by David Wurtz, Product Manager, Google TV Ads

TV for All contest finalists announced

Aly Makishima — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:52:00 +0000

We launched the TV for All contest on September 1st with the goal of democratizing TV advertising and helping small businesses get their message in front of millions. Over the past few weeks, over 200 companies submitted commercials to the contest for the opportunity to win $25,000 worth of free national advertising on cable channels such as CNBC, Hallmark, and Bravo using Google TV Ads. All entries showcase the hard work and creativity of business owners throughout the country.

Today we're excited to announce the contest's ten finalists based on our judges' ratings. All you need to do is visit the TV for All contest brand channel and vote for your favorite video! The top three submissions will receive $25,000 in free national advertising through Google TV Ads advertising. Vote now at www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Chickdowntown.com increases web traffic and grows order size through contextually targeted television advertising

Aly Makishima — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:32:00 +0000

One of the best things about our platform is the access to television advertising it gives businesses of all sizes. Chickdowntown.com is one such company that began using Google TV Ads in March 2009 to increase qualified site traffic and revenue. In 2007 Amy Reed, a fashion-minded entrepreneur, founded chickdowntown.com, an online boutique specializing in high-end clothing and accessories. Amy and her team began using Google TV Ads earlier this year to launch contextually targeted TV campaigns that effectively reach chickdowntown.com's fashionable target audience.

By using Google TV Ads' program targeting tool, Amy and her team are able to search relevant keywords such as 'fashion' and 'beauty' to find and target specific programs relevant to those categories. "Basically, we start by targeting programs my friends and I watch because we are the target audience.” Amy says. “Google’s targeting tools then allow us to discover even more relevant programs we hadn’t thought of before, helping us establish more reach."

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“From March to April 2009 after running ads for just one month, we measured a 25% increase in direct traffic to chickdowntown.com,” reports Joey Rahimi of Branding Brand, chickdowntown.com's agency. “We saw another incremental increase in traffic of 25% from April to May, as well as a huge increase in branded keyword searches on Google. Those results clearly show that we’re reaching the right audience through our contextually relevant approach.” Not only did traffic increase, but the average order size has also gone up by 10% since their TV campaigns began airing.

Read the whole story and learn more about how your business can also drive results through a targeted approach to television ads.

Posted by Neha Mandal, Marketing Manager for Google TV ads

TV for All contest submission period ends soon

Aly Makishima — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:49:00 +0000

We launched the TV for All contest a few weeks ago and have received over 100 submissions since then! Make sure you enter your commercial before the submission period ends on Monday, October 5th. You can check out current entries under the "Gallery" tab on the contest home page.

Google TV Ads' TV for All contest is everyone's chance to advertise on television. You can enter your small business' commercial in the contest for the opportunity to win $25,000 worth of free national advertising on cable channels such as CNBC, Hallmark, and Bravo using Google TV Ads.

Easy instructions for how to enter the contest are here. Our panel of judges will review all entries and select finalists by mid October. The YouTube community will then vote for three winners, each of whom will receive $25,000 in free national TV advertising through Google TV Ads. Winners will be announced on October 30.

Full guidelines, contest rules and tips and tricks are available on the TV for All YouTube contest brand channel at www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest. Be sure to enter today!

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Celebrity panel to judge TV for All contest

Aly Makishima — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:36:00 +0000

It's been a little over a week since we launched the TV for All contest, and we have already received over 25 submissions! You can check out current entries under the "Gallery" tab on the contest home page.

As you may recall, Google TV Ads' TV for All contest is everyone's chance to advertise on television. You can enter your small business' commercial in the contest for the opportunity to win $25,000 worth of free national advertising on cable channels such as CNBC, Hallmark, and Bravo using Google TV Ads.

Our panel of celebrity judges will review all entries and select finalists by mid October. The YouTube community will then vote for three winners, each of whom will receive $25,000 in free national TV advertising through Google TV Ads. The contest submission deadline is October 5, and winners will be announced on October 30.

We are excited to have assembled a distinguished group of judges including top entrepreneurs, creative agencies, and television luminaries. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, and Steve Hafner, CEO of Kayak will give an internet tycoon's perspective, while Jon Bond, partner at kirshenbaum bond + partners, and Neal Arthur, Head of Strategic Planning at Wieden + Kennedy will provide an expert creative eye. Noted television journalists and authors Daisy Whitney and Shelly Palmer round out our powerhouse panel.

Full guidelines, contest rules and tips and tricks are available on the TV for All YouTube contest brand channel at www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest. Check out our submissions so far, and be sure to enter today!

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Launched: National Inventory on the Game Show Network

Aly Makishima — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:42:00 +0000

Do you love watching game shows on TV? Lots of people do. In fact, more than 65 million people watch the Game Show Network! We are happy to announce that national advertising on GSN through Google is now available (GSN is already offered through our Dish inventory). Call that a deal (or no deal)? We think it's a great deal!

The network currently offers popular programs such as Twenty Q, Deal or No Deal, Money List and much more. As the premier television network for games, GSN produces some of the most popular original casino and game show series on TV today. The typical demographic for GSN is pretty broad, with its audience consisting of adults in all ranges, who are interested in live game shows and interaction with TV shows.

Here's how to include GSN in your campaigns:

1. Go to your AdWords account and create a new TV campaign.
2. On the "Targets" tab, click the "Add targets" button.
3. Click "Choose networks, days and times" and find "GSN - Game Show Network" in the list.
4. Select the days and times you want your ad to air, and add them to your campaign.

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Once you upload your ad and set the CPM and budget, your ads will then be entered into the auction. After your ads air, you will have access to reports measuring the number of impressions, CPM and audience retention based on accurate set-top-box data.

In addition to GSN, advertisers can also target national inventory on the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel, which we launched earlier this year, along with NBC Universal networks CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, SyFy, Chiller, Sleuth, Outdoor Channel and CBS College Sports. We are thrilled to be extending the reach of our platform for our advertisers.

Posted by Anand Banwasi, Technical Account Manager for Google TV Ads

Upcoming Webinar: Google TV Ads New Product Overview

Aly Makishima — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:50:00 +0000

Last Tuesday, we hosted a webinar to walk advertisers through our new and improved AdWords interface, which allows you to create, manage, and edit campaigns faster and more efficiently than before.

If you missed the webinar, not to worry! We have a great microsite online with training videos to help ease you through the transition, and we are also hosting a second webinar on Wednesday. Hope to see you there.

Google TV Ads New Product Overview Webinar
Wednesday, August 26th at 10:00AM PT / 1:00PM ET
Please register here before the event starts

Update: A recorded version of the webinar can be found here, starting at the 3:36 mark.

Posted by Aly Makishima for Google TV Ads

Check out our new and improved look

Aly Makishima — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:53:00 +0000

The Google TV Ads team is pleased to announce that all TV advertisers now have access to the new AdWords interface to manage their TV campaigns.* Our new and improved interface allows you to create, manage and edit campaigns faster and more efficiently than before.

For the past month, all users who signed up for TV have been automatically opted-in to the new interface. For the time being, you'll still be able to use the old interface, but by the end of August when we complete the rollout, you will no longer be able to switch back.

We've put together a microsite and training videos to ease the transition, and we're also hosting a free webinar to walk advertisers through new changes. Sign up today if you'd like to participate!**

Google TV Ads New Product Overview Webinar
Tuesday, August 18th at 1:00PM ET
Please register here before the event starts

Here are some new features we've rolled out which will make managing TV campaigns easier:

The Traffic Estimator tool is now integrated into the core campaign summary view
Historical bid guidance will be available when researching networks and programs to add to your campaign
New filtering capabilities allow sorting campaigns by custom dayparts, days of the week, and current bid
Custom dayparts are much easier to build via the new drag and drop network/daypart selector

We're excited to finally unveil the new interface which hopefully addresses the feedback we've heard from our advertisers over the years. But we're not done yet -- the new AdWords interface is built on an infrastructure that lets us develop features more quickly than in the past, so you'll continue to see new features launched regularly in the coming months.

To learn more and view videos of the new interface in action, visit our new interface microsite.

Posted by Steve Stukenborg, Sr. Product Manager and Rob Murray, Engineering Manager for Google TV Ads

*Currently, Google TV Ads is only available to advertisers in the U.S.
**A recorded version of the webinar can be found here, starting at the 3:36 mark.

Google TV Ads wins a Telly!

Aly Makishima — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:18:00 +0000

The Google TV Ads team is happy to announce that we've won our first advertising award - a Telly - for one of our click-to-play video ads. The Telly Awards honor the very best cable, regional, local and online video commercials.

The Bronze was awarded to Google/Camp Creative for this ad which focuses on the ease of use that Google TV Ads offers advertisers. You can also check out our other two click-to-play ads showcasing our ability to provide affordable results.

You can see even more videos on Google TV Ads on our brand channel at www.youtube.com/googletvads

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Join Google TV Ads at the SES Social Media & Video Strategies Forum

Aly Makishima — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:31:00 +0000

This year, Google and YouTube will be sponsoring the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum at Search Engine Strategies San Jose on August 11.

Google TV Ads is excited to be a part of this track which is one of the best places for businesses to learn about TV, video and social media solutions. We'll share success stories from marketers who used our own platforms, including Google TV Ads and YouTube Promoted Videos, as well as best practices for making the most of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Meebo.

Please see the full agenda here, and register today. We hope you will join us!

Posted by Neha Mandal, Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Visible World and Google team up to offer creative options

Aly Makishima — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:38:00 +0000

We've partnered with VisibleWorld, a video technology company, to offer our clients a discount on creative versioning. Advertisers with existing creatives can now generate multiple versions of their ads to tailor their messaging at a discounted rate of $50 per ad version.

Visible World's services allow advertisers to create versions of an ad to better tailor and target messaging to various audiences. For example, if an advertiser targets both men and women, he can create one ad version tailored for male oriented networks, and another for female heavy networks and programs. In addition, Visible World's low-cost versioning services allow customers to add unique 800 numbers or URLs in each ad to track response rates more granularly. Lenovo used their services to great success in the past.

You can learn more about this partnership here.

Posted by Sekema Newton, Account Executive for Google TV Ads

Google Announces Agreement with Broadway Systems

Aly Makishima — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:58:00 +0000

The Google TV Ads team is pleased to announce an agreement with Broadway Systems, a leading traffic and billing provider for managing television ad inventory. With this agreement, the two companies will integrate systems and enable Broadway Systems' cable network clients to make their inventory available to Google TV Ads advertisers more easily.

With the addition of Broadway, the Google TV Ads team is now working with most of the leading traffic and billing systems for cable networks, including Harris Corporation and VCI.

Broadway clients who are Google TV Ads inventory partners will be able to reach new advertisers through Google TV Ads, while using their existing tools to manage their television advertising inventory. In addition, these clients will have access to detailed reports on their inventory performance based on set-top box data.

How does it work? As an inventory owner, you specify which inventory you'd like to make available through Google TV Ads. Once advertisers select inventory they want to target, submit bids and upload ads, the winning ads are delivered from Google's platform to Broadway's traffic system, where the ads are scheduled for airing. As ads are approved and aired, Broadway returns verification information to Google about when and where each ad ran.

If you're a TV inventory owner and would like to learn more about how you can sell your inventory through Google TV Ads, visit our AdSense for TV website.

Posted by Bob Meese, Business Development Manager for Google TV Ads

Launched: National Inventory on Outdoor Channel

Aly Makishima — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:52:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce the launch of national inventory on Outdoor Channel through Google TV Ads. This latest partnership represents the 10th national network available through our system, further expanding the advertising footprint available to advertisers. Outdoor Channel reaches nearly 30 million homes across the US, attracting a largely male audience of outdoor enthusiasts. Outdoor Channel's lineup offers nearly 40 original programs including 'Monster Fish,' 'Jim Zumbo Outdoors' and 'Savage Wild.' We are extremely excited to add Outdoor Channel's entire national viewership to our platform's offerings, allowing advertisers to connect with this targeted audience of sportsmen.

Outdoor Channel’s launch also represents a key milestone for Google TV Ads: it is the first partnership to launch using our newly developed AdSense for TV interface. This new platform, currently in an early beta release, will allow our partners to get up and running with Google TV Ads faster than ever before. We're excited about the potential of this platform to offer rich tools for our partners to manage, track, and optimize their Google TV Ads inventory. If you are a TV inventory provider and would like to learn more about AdSense for TV, please visit www.google.com/adsense/tv.

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Advertisers can target Outdoor Channel's national inventory immediately through our system. To learn more about Google TV Ads or create your own TV campaign, please visit www.google.com/tvads.

Posted by Jeff Lu, Software Engineer, and Prabhu Balasubramanian, Product Manager, for Google TV Ads

Launched: Make a payment…at any time, for any amount

Aly Makishima — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:50:00 +0000

We recently launched an easy-to-use feature that offers our TV advertisers more control over the timing and amount of account payments. It gives credit card and direct debit customers more flexibility by providing them with an option to make an immediate payment at any time.

In the past, advertisers have used "threshold billing" to pay online for their Google TV Ads campaigns. Under threshold billing, customers are automatically charged whenever the accrued balance reaches a specified amount, or at the end of the month, whichever comes first.

Now, payments can be made at any time, with any credit card or direct debit account previously defined in the system, and for any amount starting from $10. Payments can be made to partially pay an existing balance, pay off a balance in entirety, or pay more than the outstanding balance to carry a credit balance and delay the next automatic charge. When a payment is made, the new balance is shown on the system immediately. This feature is also useful if your credit card on file is declined for any reason and your ads become at risk of not airing; simply use Make a Payment to issue a payment with a different card to ensure no pause in your account activity.

Check out the video below for more details on how this works:

Our goal with this new feature is to simplify the billing experience for our advertisers and give them more control over the timing and amount of payments made.

Posted by Gil Arditi, Product Manager for Google TV Ads

Inc. magazine features spotlight on Google TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:19:00 +0000

We share a lot of success stories where advertisers have used Google TV Ads with great results. But it's nice when others write about us - here's a recent article from Inc. Magazine that discusses how Google TV Ads enables small businesses to advertise on television in a flexible, cost conscious and results-oriented fashion. In particular, the article focuses on the success of two small businesses - ShoppersChoice.com and Golden Gateway Financial. These advertisers used targeting features such as audience search to find the right target audience for their ads and Google TV Ads' data reports and analytics to arrive at the best mix of networks to reach their marketing goals.

You can read more about other advertisers' successes on our brand channel or website.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Upcoming Webinar: Reaching Viewers Through Multiple Screens

Aly Makishima — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:40:00 +0000

While traditional television viewership is still growing, today's consumer is spending more and more time online; 50% of Americans report that they view television programming online.

Join us at our upcoming webinar where the Google TV Ads team will lead a discussion on how to use Google TV Ads Online to extend the reach of your television marketing to target your customers when they are viewing shows and movies online.

In this webinar, we'll brief you on:

The recent surge in online video usage and online TV viewership in particular
Advertising on new long-form premium video content on YouTube and other partner websites
Ease of use of the Google TV Ads Online buying platform

Google TV Ads Online is a new feature of Google TV Ads that lets advertisers place commercials into the ad breaks of TV programs watched online. Hope to see you at the webinar where you can learn more about this exciting opportunity.

Register Here
(Password is agency1)
Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Time: 12:00PM PST / 3:00PM EST

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Brand advertisers make Google TV Ads part of their future plan

Aly Makishima — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:41:00 +0000

Google and...the upfront? Last week when hundreds of media executives and advertisers poured into New York City for the broadcast upfront week, Google hosted our own "TV Ads Tune In" event for brand advertisers. Let's be clear, Google TV Ads is an auction based system and advertisers cannot reserve spots on Google TV Ads ahead of time, but they can certainly include Google TV Ads in their media plans in advance. Several major advertisers and agencies are already doing this. You can read more about in recent press coverage of TV Ads Tune In in the Hollywood Reporter and Broadcasting & Cable.

This event brought together a number of marketing leaders from across Fortune 500 companies, as well as their agencies, to learn more about how Google TV Ads fits into an their upfront and year long media plans. It focused on the importance of targeting and flexibility in a challenging economic environment, as well as the growing use of video as a creative asset across both television and online media.

Google TV Ads fits into your media plan

Matt Derella, a senior sales manager from the TV Ads team, emphasized the need for targeting, accountability and flexibility in media buying. "Marketers want to move past legacy customer proxies and hone in on narrower targets. Google TV Ads, through its millions of set-top-boxes and Equifax data, empowers advertisers to build a custom network of only the right programs for their core audience", said Derella.

Coldwell Banker's approach to multiple screens

Coldwell Banker CMO Michael Fischer shared how he has successfully harnessed the power of YouTube and Google TV Ads. He encouraged advertisers to take smart risks and "think outside the site". In a "down" real estate environment, Fischer has engaged potential home-buyers through a branded site on YouTube. This channel contains thousands of video tours of homes across the United States, all easily located through a Google map interface.

Other presenters included Rich Greenfield, a leading media industry analyst with Pali Capital, who shared his thoughts about the state of the television industry. He delved into current media consumption trends and assured the audience that television is still a force to be reckoned with. Suzie Reider, head of YouTube sales, talked about sponsorship opportunities available through YouTube, including Project:Direct.

Overall, Google TV Ads Tune In 2009 gave attendees a look at how Google TV Ads can be a strategic addition to brand advertisers' media plans.

You can learn more about Google TV Ads through our website: http://www.google.com/tvads.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Loyalty comes in different flavors

Aly Makishima — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:33:00 +0000

Our final installment of the TV Viewership Insights Series looks into viewers' television consumption behavior and how viewers are loyal to certain networks and specific programming on those networks.

Each graph takes a single network over the course of two weeks and examines the amount of overlap between the audiences at every half-hour period in those weeks. Overlap means that a viewer watching this network in this half hour was also watching the same network the previous half hour. If an audience member stays tuned to the same network for long periods of time, you will see this as a purple band.

Check out this video to see what we found:

Comparison of different networks gives us insight into how different types of viewers consume TV content in different ways. In the first set of charts, Bloomberg's large purple blocks were very broad, suggesting that viewers are staying tuned for very long periods, monitoring the market throughout the day. The neighboring chart shows the audience overlap for a large children’s network, and there are bright purple bands throughout the week, only turning black late at night. Children seem to be a lot like bankers, except they don’t take the weekend off.

Even loyalty comes in different flavors. In the second set of charts, the left-hand chart shows the audience overlap for a major adult entertainment network. The diagonal purple lines indicate that viewers do watch at consistent times from day to day. But notice how thin the lines are horizontally and vertically compared with the posters showing children’s or financial programming. Viewers are tuning in to this adult network regularly, but they don’t seem to be watching very long.

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The right-hand chart is an example of super-niche programming: Armenia TV, which calls itself “the largest, private and independent television operation in the Republic of Armenia.” This chart is a sea of red, showing that a lot of the same people are watching Armenia TV all week long. The network doesn’t reach a huge audience, but many of viewers seem to watch little else.

It is thus important to understand what audience you are trying to reach, what networks they are watching and their viewing habits. This research can help media planners focus their marketing spend on the networks and dayparts that are most effective at reaching their target customer and reduce waste in their marketing spend.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Every second counts

Aly Makishima — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:46:00 +0000

Today's installment of the TV Viewership Insights Series looks under the hood of the Google TV Ads' measurement system. Every day, Google analyzes anonymized data from millions of set-top boxes tuned to several thousand different ad airings in order to describe precise second-by-second tuning behavior for each commercial break.

In this example, we looked at audience tune in and tune out behavior before, during and after a commercial break. Check out this video to see what we found:

Immediately at the start of commercial, a small percentage of the audience tunes away. The audience starts to grow again about halfway through the break, presumably as some of these viewers return in anticipation of the programming resuming. Once the programming resumes, the audience builds back up to roughly its original size, over the course of about two minutes.

We also looked at the exact number of tunes in and out at each second. All the numbers are relatively small, meaning that at any given second only a fraction of 1% of set-top boxes are tuning (i.e., switching channels) at all. Before the break there is some tuning going on, but the tunes in and out are generally about matched. This is probably ordinary channel surfing “noise” that is unrelated to the specific programming on this network. Set-top box data can help better understand the reasons why the audience is changing the channel.

In addition to other signals, second-by-second data can be helpful in understanding viewer response; advertisers can see whether viewers are responding positively to their ads or tuning away. Thus, advertisers can make better decisions on what ads to run in order to reach their target audience.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Networks deliver audiences in different ways

Aly Makishima — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:15:00 +0000

In our latest installment of the TV Viewership Insights Series, we look at how every network delivers its audience slightly differently. Even networks with similar audiences can elicit different kinds of viewing behavior from their followers. We looked at two networks in particular, Oxygen and SOAP, both of which serve an audience composed mainly of women.

Check out this video to learn what we found:

We saw that Oxygen generates more unique impressions as we increase the number of total impressions in a campaign, while SOAP offers more frequency of exposure for any given level of total impressions. Presumably, Oxygen is reaching a large number of women who tune in for a specific show or movie. SOAP, on the other hand, benefits from women tuning into their soap operas day after day at the same time. Advertisers might choose one of these over the other depending on their marketing objectives.

In this TV Viewership Insight, set-top box data enabled us to confirm a plausible hunch regarding Oxygen and SOAP's abilities to deliver on different campaign goals. Applying this type of research more broadly across other networks whose audience delivery is less well understood will help marketers build better media plans and understand their ad viewing audience better.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

DVR: The great equalizer

Aly Makishima — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:29:00 +0000

Our TV Viewership Insights Series delves into the learnings Google TV Ads is starting to develop from anonymous data from millions of set-top boxes across the United States. We started the series yesterday with a look at how the tuning metrics we measure are signals from viewers about what they want to see and when they want to see it. Today we're focusing on how DVR affects how audiences watch television.

There has been an explosion of content on television over the past few years. While in the past viewers were limited to a handful of networks, today's viewers have access to hundreds of channels. From the data, we've learned that this increase in TV content has not really changed the way people watch live TV. Live television viewership is mostly concentrated on the top networks, and viewers seem to be watching TV at the same times, day after day. However, when DVR recording comes into play, these viewing patterns start to change.

Check out this video to learn what we found:

The networks that are less popular when viewed live can have as many recordings as more popular networks, and other times of day can be as frequently recorded as prime time. The most popular (live) networks still tend to attract the most recordings across the week, but individual hours on smaller networks can sometimes match those at the top, as viewers use their DVR to seek out interesting content beyond the usual top choices. Although a lot of people do record the top networks, those networks don’t seem to grow their audience significantly through time-shifted viewers.

At Google, we’re very interested in the “long tail” of TV. Our findings suggest that DVR may be making that long tail a little fatter. And while most TV viewing is still live, DVR usage patterns may be an important indicator of future viewing behavior. One way or the other – either through the proliferation of DVR boxes or through the migration of TV content to on-demand services online – viewers are getting more control over their TV schedules. This data suggest that viewers really use this control when they get it and don’t just watch the same programs as before.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Once a good ad, always a good ad?

Aly Makishima — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:31:00 +0000

Today, we'd like to kick off a series of blog posts that dive into the insights Google TV Ads is developing from set-top box data, to deliver better value to our advertisers and more relevant ads to viewers. Our TV Viewership Insights Series begins with a look at the various tuning metrics we measure, as signals from the audience about what they want to see and when. And while there are many factors that affect audience behavior, we can separate the effects of these factors to focus on how the audience is reacting to the ads themselves.

Visit our post on the Official Google Blog for a more detailed analysis and a new video showcasing our findings.

We'll continue to post installments to this series over the next few days, along with more videos featuring our viewership insights.

Posted by Dan Zigmond, Technical Lead for Google TV Ads

Making it easier to create TV ads

Aly Makishima — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:59:00 +0000

Advertising on television with Google TV Ads is easy...all you need is an ad that meets our editorial and technical requirements. You can create your ad in any of several ways, from finding a professional through our Ad Creation Marketplace, to using the self-service tool provided by our partner Spotmixer, to producing it yourself.

If you produce your own ad, there are a number of non-linear video editing software packages available for use on personal computers. And now, we make producing your ad even easier if you choose to use two of the more popular video editing systems, Adobe Premiere or Apple Final Cut Pro. For each of these software packages, we've prepared a settings preset file which, once imported, makes exporting a video in the correct format a snap. These files are pre-programmed with the right settings to generate a video that complies with the Google TV Ads technical requirements.

You can download these settings preset files and read instructions on how to use them by visiting our Help Center.

Posted by Marek Jeziorek, Video Operations Manager for Google TV Ads

Launched: National Inventory on Hallmark Channel Reaching 86M Homes

Aly Makishima — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Now, advertisers can target Hallmark Channel's entire national audience through Google TV Ads. We're proud to announce the launch of this inventory through our system, allowing advertisers access to family-friendly programs and movies which often rank in the top five amongst women ages 25-54.*

The network offers a varied mix of programming including classic shows like Cheers, Golden Girls and I Love Lucy. Hallmark Channel will also air over 30 original movies in 2009 – its largest-ever slate. To access this inventory, simply log into your AdWords account and create a new TV campaign. On the "Target campaign" page, choose Hallmark Channel as a target network, upload your ad, and set the CPM and budget. Your ads will then be entered into the auction. After ads air, you will have access to reports measuring the number of impressions, CPM and audience retention based on accurate set-top-box data.

In addition to Hallmark Channel, advertisers can target national inventory on Hallmark Movie Channel which we launched in March along with NBC Universal networks CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen and Sci Fi. If you'd like to learn more about creating a Google TV Ads account, please reference our Getting Started Guide. We are thrilled to be extending the reach of our platform for our advertisers. Stay tuned, because more developments are coming soon.

Posted by Neha Mandal, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

*Source: Nielsen Media Research, 2008

Set-top box data reveals learnings about network audiences

Aly Makishima — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:32:00 +0000

Google TV Ads recently launched an audience data reporting feature which allows advertisers to better understand if their ads reach their desired audience using anonymous set-top box data in combination with anonymized demographic and marketing data from such companies as Equifax and Nielsen. As our advertisers have been learning about who is watching their ads, here at Google we have done some analysis of our own in order to better understand what types of audiences are watching what shows.

We've found that sometimes the audience that you'd expect is watching a certain program or network, but other times intuition can be a poor guide in matching television viewers and the programming that interests them -- that's where data can be useful. Here are a few interesting and suprising examples we'd like to share.

Skiers are looking for excitement

We learned that skiers are found in a greater proportion on BBC America's Top Gear, a long-running series about cars, than on Tru TV's Ski Patrol, a show that follows ski patrolmen and their daring rescues of skiers and snowboarders. So while an advertiser can certainly reach skiers on Ski Patrol, one can also reach them through programming one might not naturally think of. Google TV Ads data helps advertisers discover previously overlooked networks and programs to reach their audiences.

Chefs prefer travel to interior design

We also learned a bit about gourmet chefs and their TV viewing habits. Would food aficionados be more drawn to programming on home design or travel? Foodies care a lot about their kitchens, but they are always on the look out for new recipes from other countries. Bottom line -- it's hard to say. Our analysis showed that in fact the Travel Channel reaches a higher proportion of those interested in gourmet cooking than HGTV. Data settles the debate.

Same network, different audience

A given network does not reach the same audience all the time. We looked at the gender breakdown of households watching TNT during a certain week. Monday night attracted 60% more women only households than men only households while the scenario was reversed on Thursday with 20% more men than women watching the network. This suggests that it is important to know what shows you're advertising on; buying spots broadly across a given network may not always give you access to your target audience.

Learning from these insights

We're intrigued by what we're learning from the set-top box data and thrilled to see advertisers using the data to identify where their ads should run to best reach their desired audience. By focusing investment on reaching right viewers, advertisers can get more out of their campaigns.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Marketing Analyst for Google TV Ads

A Closer Look Into Bloomberg Television’s Partnership with Google TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:15:00 +0000

Over the past year, we've announced many exciting partnerships with TV inventory providers. Today, we take a closer look into the experience of one Google TV Ads inventory partner, Bloomberg Television. Recently, Trevor Fellows, Head of Advertising Sales for Bloomberg Television sat down with us to talk about their experience.

"Bloomberg as a company has thrived because we’ve been open to doing things differently," Trevor says. “We found Google TV Ads to be very logical, and saw the attraction of the value proposition early on." At the top of Bloomberg's wish list was to make inventory accessible to a larger group of advertisers.

“Google TV Ads has helped us understand how a larger pool of advertisers responds when we make inventory easily available,” notes Trevor. “In the first month, we found that nearly 80% of advertisers bidding on our inventory through the Google TV Ads platform had never run on Bloomberg TV before, and those numbers have stayed high.”

Second-by-second data provided to Bloomberg by Google TV Ads shows surprising audience patterns on Sundays. Bloomberg airs coverage of Asian financial markets on Sundays, attracting a spike in weekend viewership.

Set-top-box data provided to advertisers through Google TV Ads is also valuable for our inventory partners. "Google showed us usage heat maps, such as audience viewership behavior during Sunday evening programs focusing on the Asian financial markets,” he says. There was a clear increase in viewership as the Asian markets opened, followed by a steady increase over the course of the night and into the early morning. It’s actionable data that allows us to make informed business decisions, and it’s exactly the type of information our advertising customers want.”

We look forward to growing our relationship with Bloomberg Television and all of our inventory and advertising partners. To learn more about Bloomberg Television, please visit their website.

Posted by Neha Mandal, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Reach TV viewers through more than one screen

Aly Makishima — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Google TV Ads makes it easy for advertisers of all sizes to reach customers watching television. These days, many full-length television programs are also available for Internet users to watch online. These programs may appear in various places, including the websites of the networks which originally broadcast them and on other sites that specialize in video content. What if an advertiser wants to reach the audience of a particular program, no matter whether they're watching on a television or online?

We're excited to announce the beta launch of Google TV Ads Online. This is a new feature of Google TV Ads that lets advertisers place commercials into the ad breaks of TV programs watched online. It works in the same way as Google TV Ads: advertisers can target specific programs and select their cost-per-thousand (CPM) bid. Based on their targets, budget and bid, ads are inserted in the same program breaks that were designed for advertising when the programs first aired. (Ads may also be shown "pre-roll", before the program begins, or after the online presentation of the program "post-roll.") And like Google TV ads, we provide advertisers with measurement tools that give greater insight into how their ads perform with users.

One website where viewers are consuming more and more full-length content online is YouTube. Today, YouTube launched a new destination for full-length shows and movies, and advertisers will be able to use Google TV Ads Online to reach the millions of people who come to YouTube to watch this content. That's not only good for advertisers, but content partners who are looking to generate revenue from their videos online. Ads will also be shown on other websites that carry full-length video programs.

Google TV Ads Online is still in beta and available to advertisers by invitation only. If you're interested in learning more about it or would like to be considered for the program, please contact Erin Bouchier at erinb@google.com.

Posted by Geoff Smith, Product Manager for Google TV Ads

Tip: Measure TV Ads Effectiveness with Google Analytics

Aly Makishima — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:28:00 +0000

Are you curious to know exactly how effective your TV ad campaigns are, but have not been tracking your TV campaigns with unique phone numbers or URLs? Worry no more. In addition to the TV Campaigns reports discussed in this post, Google Analytics offers two great ways to track your TV campaign effectiveness.

1. Direct Traffic Report
When your customers type your URL directly into their browser, this traffic is classified as direct traffic. All of the TV viewers who type your website URL into their browsers will fall into this category. Therefore, it is important to monitor how your direct traffic is influenced during the time of your active TV campaign.

To access the Direct Traffic report, log in to Google Analytics and choose Traffic Sources -> Direct Traffic. Make sure you select the date range that corresponds to your active TV campaign. The example below features data from a real campaign, and you can see that there is a clear lift in traffic when the TV campaign was running (shown with green labels).

(Click the image for a full-size version)

2. Non-paid search traffic
Your customers may search for your company or product on their favorite search engine instead of visiting your website directly. To get a more complete picture of the effect of your Google TV campaign, it's important to monitor your non-paid search traffic as well. Non-paid search traffic is traffic that originates from the natural search results of search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. These visitors are accounted for in the Search Engines report.

To access your non-paid search traffic, login to Google Analytics and choose Traffic Sources -> Search Engines. Then click the "non-paid" link to filter out any paid traffic from the engines. In the example below, you can see a noticeable increase in non-paid search traffic on days with active TV Ads (shown with green labels).

(Click the image for a full-size version)

We hope this post provides you with some simple and powerful tools to measure the effectiveness of your Google TV Ads campaign.

Posted by David Wurtz, Associate Product Manager for Google TV Ads

Google TV Ads: Reaching Far and Wide

Aly Makishima — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:22:00 +0000

This is a big week for the TV Ads team at Google!

Not only are the latest 2 NBCU networks, Oxygen and Sci-Fi, going live, but the first of the two Crown Media networks, Hallmark Movie Channel (HMC), will also have inventory generally available across all day parts through the Google TV Ads platform.

This week's new network additions brings a little something for everyone. Both Hallmark Movie Channel and Oxygen offer a great way to reach adult women. Hallmark Movie Channel reaches 10 million homes with family-friendly programming and movies, while Oxygen reaches 74 million homes with original programming and content that's bold and engaging. Sci-Fi has historically provided strong reach with adult men, but more and more women are also becoming fans. Sci-Fi reaches 95 million homes with science fiction movies and original series.

If you don't have campaigns already setup that target these networks, you can access this inventory, by creating a new TV campaign in your AdWords account. Then, on the "Target campaign" page, choose any of our 3 new networks as your target, set the CPM and budget, upload your ad with the recommended technical requirements and you'll be entered into the auction. Those are the simple steps that you'll need to take to see your ad playing on these national networks.

We're working hard to provide advertisers with the option to reach even more of the right audience. There's more to come soon!

Posted by Lana Harel, Technical Account Manager for Google TV Ads

New Enhancements to TV Campaigns Reports within Google Analytics

Aly Makishima — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:15:00 +0000

What if you could identify which of your TV ad airings most effectively drove traffic to your website? Now it's even easier to track the online impact of your TV campaigns. Since we announced the integration of TV campaign data with website metrics in your Google Analytics account, we've added two new enhancements:

1) Hourly Data Breakdown
TV Campaign metrics are now available to review in hourly breakdowns. Simply click on the "Graph by Hourly" clock icon in the top right hand corner above the chart. This view makes it easier to attribute website metrics to specific TV ad airings.

Please note that the hourly display in Analytics is based on the specific timezone associated with your Analytics profile and AdWords account, while the TV Reports within AdWords will show the time of an ad airing based on TV station's timezone.

The image below is a sample Analytics report illustrating the correlation between TV campaign impressions and website traffic. Keep in mind that website traffic may be generated by other media channels, not just TV ads.

(Click the image for a full-size version)

2) Additional TV Campaign Metrics
We've also added two metrics available in your TV reports within AdWords to the TV Campaigns report in Analytics: View Entire Ad and % Initial Audience Retained.

With these enhancements, you can more easily analyze the online impact of your TV campaigns, and use this information to optimize your campaigns as you learn.

If you'd like to learn more about Analytics, visit our website. If you already have an Analytics account and would like to access the TV Campaigns report, you'll need to link the AdWords account containing your TV Ads campaign to your Google Analytics account. Check out this video for step-by-step instructions. Then, once you've run your first TV campaign, the report will automatically appear in your Google Analytics account.

Posted by Meredith Papp, Product Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Launched: Audience Data Reporting

Aly Makishima — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:59:00 +0000

We recently launched Audience Search for Google TV Ads, a useful tool to select which networks, dayparts, and programs best reach your desired audience. This week, we are happy to announce the launch of audience data reporting. Now, you can view how effectively each of your ad airings reached your desired audience based on actual set-top box data. Previously, we provided reporting on the Viewers Per Viewing Household (or VPVH) within a chosen age and gender set for each of your airings; now, we've enhanced this report to include an audience index value for a selected interest -- like motorcycling, photography, or gardening -- as well as household properties -- like marital status or presence of children.

To take advantage of the new reporting capabilities, follow the simple steps below or view our how-to video on the Google TV Ads YouTube Channel.

How to create a report with Audience Data:
1. Log in to your AdWords account and go to "Reports."

2. Click over to the TV Ads Reporting section, and select a Played Spots report or a Summary report.

3. In either report, select "Add or Remove Columns" and find the section titled "Audience Data". There, you can specify which attributes you're most interested in reviewing.

(Click on image for a full-size version)

Once you've created your report, you'll see columns with the traits you selected in the report. In the Played Spots report, we provide you with the index of the trait at the specific time that your ad aired. For index values, 100 is the average. If you see an index of 129 for an interest like photography, it means that the program you aired on draws 29% more photographers than average. For Summary reports, the index values represent an aggregation to the level you specified in the report. Note that if you select "Viewers" and choose a specific age and gender, we'll report to you the more specific VPVH as calculated by Nielsen.

(Click on image for a full-size version)

The great thing about these data is that they are based on actual tuning behavior from the set-top boxes that were tuned to your ad. This information is available the day after your ads have aired, though it takes about a week to finalize (much like impressions change until they are finalized), and you can get information for all ads that aired on January 5th, 2009 or later.

Our goal for this feature is to help you to identify where your ad should run to best reach your desired audience and then quickly determine whether your ads are in fact effectively reaching your desired audience, so you can adjust your campaign accordingly. By focusing your investment on reaching viewers who find your message most relevant, you'll find that you're getting more out of your campaign.

Posted by Andrew Poon, Product Manager for Google TV Ads

Launched: MSNBC National Inventory Available through Google TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:56:00 +0000

This week, we're pleased to announce the addition of national inventory on MSNBC to the Google TV Ads platform. Some of you may already be running ads on MSNBC on the Dish Network inventory available in our system. Now, as a result of our partnership with NBC Universal Google TV Ads advertisers can reach over 91 million households who watch MSNBC.

MSNBC network offers the latest news programming, including programs like Dateline and Meet the Press. Advertisers who have already been targeting MSNBC, available through our partnership with Dish Network, will automatically be included in the auction for the new national network inventory, provided that their ad meets our technical requirements. We can help you identify whether your budget and bid are likely to cover the networks and dayparts you've selected; simply click on the "Calculate Weekly Estimates" button on the Set Pricing screen. Learn more about estimated impressions and cost.

To access this inventory, simply log into your AdWords account and begin by creating a new campaign. On the "Target campaign" page, choose MSNBC as a target network. Next, upload your ad, making sure it meets all recommended technical requirements. Then, once you set the CPM and budget, you'll be entered into the auction. After your ad plays, we will give you detailed reports that measure number of impressions, CPM and audience retention for each ad airing.

We're look forward to continuing to expand our platform to include more inventory.

Posted by Meredith Papp for Google TV Ads

Media Planners Gather to Learn More About Google’s Products

Aly Makishima — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:50:00 +0000

Last week we hosted Video View, Google's first event designed specifically for the media planning community, in our New York offices. This event brought together over 200 media planners and executives from the agency world to learn more about Google TV Ads, the Google Content Network, and YouTube. Themes that emerged from the event focused on: targeting your audience with precision and the growing convergence between online and offline media.

Marketing the President
To kick-off the event, keynote speaker Jim Margolis, senior strategist to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, talked about the importance of consistency in driving a message to consumers, as well as the significance of media convergence in reaching your audience. "We embraced technology from the very start… what we did online and what we did on traditional media such TV had to go together, and if it was to work then they had to feed off each other," Margolis said. He also discussed the campaign's strategy in harnessing new technologies such as cell phones and YouTube to organize voters young and old.

Reaching Your Audience With Google TV Ads
The TV Ads team focused on how to do more with less in this challenging economy. Matt Derella, a senior sales manager from the TV Ads team, talked about how to use audience search and program targeting features on Google TV Ads to reach your target customer more efficiently. Matt said: "You plan in IMAX, knowing everything about your target customer. But you are forced to activate in black and white. With Google TV Ads, you can plan and activate in IMAX, and target who you're looking for."

The 2009 Google Video View Summit gave attendees a unified view of how Google can help them reach their audience efficiently using the strength of Google TV Ads, Google Content Network, and YouTube. You can learn more about our event at the Video View brand channel: http://www.youtube.com/videoview09.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar for Google TV Ads

Tip: Take Advantage of Seasonal Trends in TV Programming

Aly Makishima — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:02:00 +0000

The Google TV Ads team is hard at work building tools to help you create efficient TV campaigns. A few months ago, we launched new Program Targeting and Demographic Search tools, which enable you to reach the right audience when your message is most relevant. This week, we've enhanced the program targeting tool with the launch of Seasonal Searches.

Seasonal searches allows you to review and select programs that are related to a particular season or event that may be relevant to your business. For example, if you are a sporting goods store looking to advertise specials during the upcoming college basketball tournament, simply select "March Madness" from the seasonal searches list, and we'll show you relevant programs such as "NCAA March Madness Central" and "College Basketball Scoreboard". This new feature makes it easy to see the upcoming events that may be relevant to your audience.

To try a seasonal search, look directly beneath the Program Targeting search box. You'll see the upcoming events listed. Clicking on any of these events will show you the TV programs related to that event.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

Posted by David Wurtz, Associate Product Manager and Jeff Lu, Software Engineer for Google TV Ads

Upcoming Webinar: Maximizing Your Return on TV Advertising

Aly Makishima — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:22:00 +0000

Are you a direct response focused advertiser who is challenged to do more with less? Join a discussion hosted by the Google TV Ads team on maximizing your TV advertising investment.

Learn how with Google TV Ads you can:

Use technology to get better CPLs.
Use desired audience attributes such as household income to target relevant networks and dayparts.
Manage and optimize your campaigns using precise performance reports.

We'll also share case studies from Fragrance.net and ShoppersChoice, direct response focused advertisers who have found success with Google TV Ads.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009
10:00am PST / 1:00pm EST
RSVP now to secure your spot.

Posted by Anna Khesed, Google TV Ads

A Golden Opportunity

Aly Makishima — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:13:00 +0000

Last month, we posted about how online retailer ShoppersChoice.com was able to reach new customers using Google TV Ads. Golden Gateway Financial, an online provider of reverse mortgages, also wanted to drive more customers to their website through television advertising. Their challenge, however, was to make sure that their campaigns reached audiences in the right demographics, because their products are specifically designed for seniors. They chose Google TV Ads to get started.

"With Google TV Ads we were able to review recommended programs, such as game shows, that appeal to our target demographic," Bob explains. "As a result, we were able to be more efficient with our media spend and increase the average age of visitors to our site [from 62 years] to 70 years, which is just where we want it to be." By using the unique targeting tools offered by Google TV Ads, Bob was able to not only drive more traffic to his website, but also increase the percentage of qualified traffic.

Following the TV Ads campaigns, direct traffic to the Golden Gateway Financial website increased from 15 percent to 70 percent, and those visitors stayed on the website longer and made more use of the site’s tools. “Google TV Ads has tools that are easy to understand and use,” says Bob. “Any small business that wants to grow its customer base through scalable efforts should check out Google TV Ads."

Click here to learn more about Golden Gateway Financial's success with Google TV Ads.

Posted by Kate Pacher for Google TV Ads

Launched: CNBC National Inventory Available through Google TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:43:00 +0000

This week, we're thrilled to announce the addition of national inventory on CNBC to the Google TV Ads platform. This is the third network to be added as a result of our partnership with NBC Universal and enables Google TV Ads advertisers to reach over 95 million households who watch CNBC.

You can reach affluent males by targeting CNBC network and its popular business news content, including programs like The Kudlow Report and On the Money. Use our targeting tools such as audience search and program targeting to ensure that your ads reach the right audience when your message is most relevant.

To access this inventory, simply log into your AdWords account and begin by creating a new campaign. On the "Target campaign" page, choose CNBC as a target network. Next, upload your 30-second ad, making sure it meets all recommended technical requirements. Then, once you set the CPM and budget, you'll be entered into the auction. After your ad plays, we will give you detailed reports that measure number of impressions, CPM and audience retention for each ad airing. This data can help you determine the return on investment for that particular ad airing. Then, use our system to adjust your budget and CPM based on the audience reach and type of audience you are trying to reach.

The Google TV Ads team is excited to continue to expand our platform to include more inventory, and we are looking forward to launching MSNBC, Oxygen and SciFi in the coming months. So stay tuned for more!

Posted by Anand Banwasi, Technical Account Manager for Google TV Ads

Upcoming Webinar: Grow Your Retail Business through Accountable, Efficient TV Advertising

Aly Makishima — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:32:00 +0000

The retail industry is facing new challenges with declines in consumer spending. These changes require a renewed focus on managing your marketing resources effectively – in particular, your media dollars – in order to maximize ROI.

Join us at our upcoming webinar where John McAteer and Dan Gertsacov from Google's Retail and TV Ads teams will lead a discussion on how to use Google TV Ads to help boost your business. Learn how to reach new customers efficiently and generate greater returns on your marketing investments. We hope to see you there!

Register Here

Date: Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Time: 10:00 AM PST / 1:00 PM EST

Posted by Meredith Papp, Product Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Launch: Reach and Frequency Estimates for Google TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:16:00 +0000

In October, we launched the Reach and Frequency report, a detailed breakdown of a given TV ad campaign's reach, delivered at a given frequency of exposure. As a reminder, Reach is defined as the number of unique televisions exposed to the campaign. Frequency is the number of times a given television was exposed to an ad.

Today, we'd like to announce reach and frequency estimates available within our forecasting tool. Now, you can get an idea of whether your campaign is likely to achieve your reach and frequency goals before your ad airs, allowing you to adjust your campaign to achieve your optimal reach and frequency before you spend a dime.

It's easy to review your reach and frequency estimates:

1. Create a new campaign or edit an existing campaign
2. Click on "Calculate weekly estimates" on the "Set pricing" page
3. Look for the section called "Weekly Reach and Frequency Estimates"
4. View the average frequency and unique reach numbers
5. Make adjustments based on your target reach and frequency

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

Your weekly estimates include:

Total impressions - The total number of impressions we expect you to win based on your current budget, bid, and set of targets.

Unique impressions - The number of unique televisions exposed to the campaign, one or more times. Unique impressions are based on historical overlap we see between different programming. For example, if you were watching Family Guy at 8:00PM, how likely were you to be watching The Simpsons at 9:00PM? This can also be called "unique reach."

Average weekly frequency - Total impressions divided by unique impressions. This tells you how many times a television will display your ad, on average, within the set of all televisions that display your ad at least once.

So what's your target reach and frequency? Determining the right level of reach and frequency depends on several factors, including the type of product or service you're selling, the competition, the quality of the ad you use, as well as the type of audience that would most likely buy your product or service. Once you have a target reach and frequency in mind, you should use these estimates to guide your campaign in the right direction.

Posted by Andrew Poon, Product Manager for Google TV Ads

Realty Executives International uses Google TV Ads to connect with target audiences

Aly Makishima — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:34:00 +0000

Realty Executives International began advertising on television in 2006, and quickly realized that it needed a more affordable and targeted way to reach viewers on TV. The company provides corporate support and marketing for its real estate franchises in nearly 800 locations. With such a large scope, the team launched television campaigns which proved to be a powerful medium to build brand awareness and reach target demographics, however limited budgets were restricting reach and frequency of ads.

The team soon discovered Google TV Ads through its agency Infuse Creative, and found the efficiency, flexibility, and targeting needed to reach the maximum number of consumers for the least amount of dollars. “We are constantly looking for what we can do differently for our clients,” says Greg Markel of Infuse Creative. “For an agency new to television advertising, Google TV Ads not only seemed accessible and easy-to-use, but we saw it as a great way to broaden our service offerings.”

Fine tuning
“From the start, we saw positive results with Google TV Ads,” Marissa says. “We were running commercials on more shows and cable networks with the same budget as before. Most importantly, we were reaching the right viewers,” says Marissa. The team could access campaign reports within 24 hours of airing that included impressions and accurate demographic data.

“As a result, we’ve optimized our television campaigns to be more effective in reaching our target than before. Traffic to our website has increased exponentially, and our franchises are seeing positive impact on their businesses. Our brokers and sales executives from all over the country tell us that people approach them on the streets to say they’ve seen our television ad. We are able to deliver customers and generate greater brand awareness.”

More with less
With recent downward trends in the economy, Realty Executives International has found Google TV Ads to be an effective way to increase its return on TV advertising investment. “We’re advertising in a way that’s highly accountable, highly measurable, and radically cost-effective,” says Greg. Marissa adds that "[with Google TV Ads] you're able to do so much more, reach so many more people for the same or less dollars. So why would you not want to be more effective with how you're spending your money right now?"

Watch Realty Executive International's success story video to learn more:

Posted by Neha Mandal, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Google Exits Radio but Will Explore Online Streaming Audio

Aly Makishima — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:49:00 +0000

At Google we've never shied away from high-risk, high-reward projects. We believe that making big bets is not only in the best interests of our users and partners, but also important for our long term success. In 2006, we launched Google Audio Ads and Google Radio Automation to create a new revenue stream for broadcast radio, produce more relevant advertising for listeners and streamline the buying and selling of radio ads. While we've devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven't had the impact we hoped for.

So we have decided to exit the broadcast radio business and focus our efforts in online streaming audio. We will phase out the existing Google Audio Ads and AdSense for Audio products and plan to sell the Google Radio Automation business, the software that automates broadcast radio programming. Advertisers will continue to be able to use Google Audio Ads until May 31 and broadcasters will be able to publish inventory to Google until that date as well. We will work with partners to make sure that there is as little disruption to their business as possible and will work to find a buyer for the Google Radio Automation business.

Instead we will use our technology to develop Internet-based solutions that will deliver relevant ads for online streaming audio. We are dedicating a team of people at Google to explore how we can best add value for advertisers, broadcasters and listeners in this emerging advertising space. In addition, we will continue to invest in our growing TV advertising business, where we can measure audience response and help advertisers understand how effective their ads are.

We regret the impact these plans will have on the Googlers working on these projects. We hope to find other roles for the majority of the people concerned and will work to make that happen over the next couple of months. However, given that we are exiting the broadcast radio ad business and selling the Radio Automation business, we expect that up to 40 people may not be able to find other roles at Google.

We have always accepted that if you take risks not all of them will pay off. Deciding to close products is never easy, but we will continue to focus on advertising products that provide measurability for advertisers, and are relevant and useful for users, listeners and viewers.

Update 8/5/09: WideOrbit has purchased Google's radio automation assets.

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, VP, Product Management

Increasing Direct Traffic with Google TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:13:00 +0000

We've recently published a new case study about how ShoppersChoice.com used Google TV Ads to boost direct traffic and increase conversion rates.

ShoppersChoice.com, an online retailer of outdoor entertaining products, wanted to reach new customers and build its brand image. They had never tried television advertising before, but Jason Stutes, director of marketing, saw that he could easily launch and manage a TV campaign directly from his AdWords account.

They leveraged the targeting tools available through Google TV Ads to put their message in front of the right audience. With program targeting, they could focus their spend where the programming content was most relevant to their products. And it was easy to update their campaigns to feature seasonal best-sellers. From their Google TV Ad campaigns, ShoppersChoice.com saw direct traffic to its website increase by 120%. What's more, these new visitors were more than twice as likely to convert to purchase.

Check out the video below for more details on how ShoppersChoice.com used Google TV Ads to efficiently reach new customers and grow the business.

Posted by Kate Pacher for Google TV Ads

Google Announces Agreement with VCI Solutions

Aly Makishima — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:01:00 +0000

The Google TV Ads team is pleased to announce an agreement with VCI Solutions, a leading traffic and billing system for managing television ad inventory. With this agreement, the two companies will integrate systems and enable VCI's cable network and broadcast clients to make their inventory available to Google TV Ads advertisers more easily.

VCI clients who are Google TV Ads inventory partners will be able to reach new advertisers through Google TV Ads, while using their existing tools to manage their television advertising inventory. In addition, these clients will have access to detailed reports on their inventory performance based on set-top box data.

How does it work? As an inventory owner, you specify which inventory you'd like to make available through Google TV Ads. Once advertisers have uploaded their ads and bid the clearing price in an auction, the winning ads are delivered from Google's platform to VCI's traffic system, where they follow spot placement rules for where they will appear. As ads are approved and aired, VCI returns verification information to Google about when and where each ad ran.

If you're a TV inventory owner and would like to learn more about how you can sell your inventory through Google TV Ads, visit our AdSense for TV website.

Posted by Bob Meese, Business Development Manager for Google TV Ads

Google TV Ads Summit Brings Together Industry Leaders to Discuss Innovation in TV Advertising

Aly Makishima — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:15:00 +0000

Last week, we hosted the 2nd annual Google TV Ads Summit in Google's New York offices. This event brought together over 200 industry professionals, thought leaders and executives from the world of TV advertising and media. We've posted a highlight reel and photos from the event to give you an an inside look. Themes that emerged from the event focused on: doing more with less, using data to make decisions and utilizing new media to continue connecting with audiences beyond television.

New Economy Brings New Mindset
To kick-off the event, keynote speaker Kim Kadlec, Chief Media Office of Johnson & Johnson urged the audience to embrace the new economy and learn to do more with less. "This environment gives us the opportunity to automate some parts of media planning and buying, in order to activate more overall sales," Kadlec said. She believes that fear is a choice, and she urged the audience to embrace the changing environment to find ways of driving business forward.

Data Rules
It was clear from many conversations that making data driven decisions is becoming increasingly important. Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC Universal said: "We would like to deliver what our advertisers want. Set top boxes are the treasure trove for all of us." A panel focusing on response-focused advertising stressed the vital need for more data and information. Greg Smith, COO of Neo@Ogilvy said, "Our clients are not asking us to re-invent ourselves...but they certainly are asking for more insight from the data."

New Platforms, New Possibilities
Leaders on the cutting edge from YouTube, blip.tv, Joost and VivaKi discussed the convergence of offline and online video, a hot topic of the night. Jack Klues, Managing Partner at VivaKi noted, "Advertisers are prepared to spend money on the right target, right program, right time regardless of the absolute audience size." Panelists agreed that audience viewing habits are changing radically, and advertisers should take advantage of new scalable media like online video to augment TV ad reach.

Jeff Zucker also commented on NBC Universal's partnership with Google TV Ads: "We're really proud to be doing what we're doing with Google...The way we've done business for the last 25 years has got to continue to evolve."

The 2009 Google TV Ads Summit truly opened up the conversation on innovation and gave attendees a unique glimpse into the TV industry. We hope you will check out event highlights captured in the video below.

Posted by Neha Mandal for Google TV Ads

Google TV Ads Offers Time-Shifted Viewership Reports

Aly Makishima — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:56:00 +0000

TV viewers are increasingly watching what they want when they want it. About 25% of television households in the United States have digital video recorders or DVRs installed. Today, the Google TV Ads team is excited to announce the launch of time-shifted viewership data, which provides you with insight into how and when viewers see your ads during DVR playback of recorded content. As with all metrics in your Google TV Ads reports, time-shifted impressions reflect the viewership of your specific TV commercial, not just general program viewership. And, what's more, this information is available to Google Adwords TV advertisers for free.

DVR viewership is very fragmented, and thus requires a very large sample to make accurate projections. This is where Google's processing power can benefit you. We process anonymized DVR viewership data from millions of set-top boxes, in order to provide you with accurate, detailed time-shifted impression counts.

Check out this video to learn more about how to access this new data in your reports:

At Google, we love digging into data. So we've been excited to investigate how time-shifted viewing differs from live viewing. Our initial findings suggest that niche programming tends to get a disproportionate percentage of its viewing through DVR. That is to say, without DVR, smaller networks would have a more limited audience. For advertisers, insight into the time-shifted viewership of your ads will help you better understand the full value of the networks and programs you've targeted in your campaign.

We hope access to time-shifted viewership data offers you new insights into how the audience is interacting with your TV commercial.

Posted by Yaroslav Volovich, Software Engineer for Google TV Ads

Launched: Sleuth and Chiller TV Network Inventory Available through Google TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:45:00 +0000

Here at the Google TV Ads engineering offices we're geeks for TV scheduling and measurement. We spend our days working out the best ways to make television inventory accessible to all advertisers. We go gaga over building an auction marketplace that offers innovative ways to target viewers. And, we shed a single happy tear when we're able to gather and report on the viewership of an ad to tell how many TVs were tuned in. We're particularly proud that our platform now offers access to an ever broader audience as we have expanded our inventory offerings.

That's why we're so excited to announce the launch of our first national inventory from our partnership with NBC Universal. Starting this week, Google TV Ads advertisers will have access to national cable inventory on Sleuth and Chiller TV, reaching over 45 million and 28 million homes respectively.

Sleuth offers all types of programming, from reality television to movies, in the genre of Crime and Mystery. And Chiller TV provides horror and suspense programs.

As with all our inventory, we're able to provide detailed reports for ad airings on these previously unmeasured networks using our large sample size and second-by-second measurement. Report data includes the number of impressions, CPM cost, and audience retention for each ad airing.

Sleuth and Chiller TV networks have been available for targeting through our partnership with Dish Network. If you already have a campaign using these networks, we'll automatically include you in the auction for all inventory on these networks. But, you may need to increase your budget to cover the increased number of expected impressions. We can help you identify whether your budget and bid are likely to cover the networks and dayparts you've selected; simply click on the "Calculate Weekly Estimates" button on the Set Pricing screen. Learn more about estimated impressions and cost. You'll also want to make sure your ad meets all recommended technical requirements.

Stay tuned for upcoming announcements of the addition of even more inventory on networks including MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen and SciFi.

Posted by Greg Hecht, Software Engineer for Google TV Ads

Turning the page on Print Ads

Aly Makishima — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:59:00 +0000

In the last few months, we've been taking a long, hard look at all the things we are doing to ensure we are investing our resources in the projects that will have the biggest impact for our users and partners. While we hoped that Print Ads would create a new revenue stream for newspapers and produce more relevant advertising for consumers, the product has not created the impact that we — or our partners — wanted. As a result, we will stop offering Print Ads on February 28. For advertisers who have campaigns already booked, we will place their ads through March 31.

We launched our Print Ads program with 50 newspaper partners in November 2006 and, with the cooperation of our partners, were able to expand the network to include more than 800 U.S. newspapers. Since then we have worked closely with advertisers and newspapers to create a product that would bring a new source of revenue to publishers.

We believe fair and accurate journalism and timely news are critical ingredients to a healthy democracy. We remain dedicated to working with publishers to develop new ways for them to earn money, distribute and aggregate content and attract new readers online. We have teams of people working with hundreds of publishers to find new and creative ways to earn money from engaging online content. AdSense, DoubleClick, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Earth, Google News and many other products are a part of our significant investments to innovate in this space.

These important efforts won't stop. We will continue to devote a team of people to look at how we can help newspaper companies. It is clear that the current Print Ads product is not the right solution, so we are freeing up those resources to try to come up with new and innovative online solutions that will have a meaningful impact for users, advertisers and publishers.

It's always difficult to say goodbye to products. Lots of people at Google have worked hard on Google Print Ads. Some advertisers have seen good results and our partners have dedicated time and resources to help get it off the ground. But as we grow, it is important that we focus on products that can benefit the most people and solve the most important problems. By moving resources away from projects that aren't having the impact we want, we can refocus our efforts on those that will delight millions of users.

Posted by Spencer Spinnell, Director of Google Print Ads

Create Your Own Free TV Commercial

Aly Makishima — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:56:00 +0000

Now it's easier than ever to advertise your business on national television. We've partnered with SpotMixer to introduce a new, free ad creation solution available in your AdWords account. You can create your own ready-to-air TV commercial in just a few easy steps. Choose the visual elements from a library of free content as well as cool transitions and effects, or upload your own images or video content. Each ad also comes with an adjustable soundtrack and you can easily record your own voice.

Watch the video below to learn how it works.

This free ad creator solution is a great way to test how television advertising can drive results for your business. We hope to see you on TV!

Posted by Meredith Papp for Google TV Ads

Tip: Calculating the Average Frequency for Your TV Campaign

Aly Makishima — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:26:00 +0000

A few months back, we launched a new addition to Report Center: Reach and Frequency reports for Google TV Ads. These provide you with insight into how often viewers see your ad, so you can determine whether your campaign is delivering on your goals. Today, we'd like to share a tip about something useful you can do with the data, once you create one of these reports.

You may be curious to know the average frequency for your campaign, or in other words, the average number of times a given television was exposed to your advertisement. Calculating this is simple.

1. Generate a Reach and Frequency Report from Report Center.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

2. Notice how many unique TVs were exposed to your campaign (Reach) and how often (Frequency). For example, in the report below, 50 TVs showed the ad once, another 20 TVs showed the ad twice, and 10 TVs showed the ad 3 times.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

3. To calculate the average frequency for your campaign, divide the total number of exposures, by the number of unique TVs exposed.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

In this example the average number of times a given television showed the commercial was 1.5. Use this formula with your own data to understand how often viewers saw your ad. Then you can adjust your campaign based on these results. For example:

If you wanted to decrease your frequency and increase your reach, you could do so by adding more unique networks for the same dayparts you are using now.

If you wanted to increase your frequency and decrease your reach, you should bid on fewer overall networks.

You can always increase your budget to try to improve both your reach and your frequency, but keep in mind it's harder to achieve higher frequencies than higher reach.

Posted by Aly Makishima for Google TV Ads

Rewind: Google TV Ads in 2008

Aly Makishima — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:24:00 +0000

While you are deciding on your New Year's resolutions and preparing for an exciting 2009, the Google TV Ads team would like to thank you for tuning in and reading our posts. Here's a look back at our favorite product enhancements of 2008.

Expanded reach
We announced partnerships with NBC Universal, Bloomberg TV, and the Hallmark Channel, all in our mission to grow our inventory so that advertisers can leverage the benefits of Google TV Ads to reach up to 94 million households. Bloomberg TV network inventory became available in Q4, and eight more networks will be available in early 2009.

Paving the way for additional future inventory partnerships, our partnership with Harris Corporation will enable media companies to more easily make their inventory available to Google TV Ads advertisers through Harris' current traffic systems' inventory tools. Our inventory providers will find it easier to manage their media sales through our platform within the existing Harris system.

The right audience
Making ad spend more efficient is about airing an advertiser's message to the audience that finds it most relevant. Program Targeting was enhanced to provide advertisers with "Broad Match" results that not only match the keywords you entered into the search field, but also TV programs related to the keywords. With this enhancement you can discover and target even more programming content that is relevant to your business. We also had a beta launch of Demographic Search, where advertisers select the audience attributes they value most, and are then presented with a list of networks and programs whose viewership includes a high concentration of the ad campaign's intended audience.

Data to help you optimize for improved ROI
We added a few features to help advertisers fine-tune their campaigns for an improved return on investment. Nielsen viewership demographic data is available in Report Center for each ad airing in a campaign. With this data, advertisers can get directional feedback on whether their ads are reaching the desired demographic, and then adjust their campaign targets accordingly. Report Center also has new Reach and Frequency reports to provide insight into how often viewers see an ad, helping determine whether the campaign is delivering on goal.

Better campaign planning tools
Some of the feature updates we implemented this past year will help advertisers by improving the campaign creation process. Our Traffic Estimator got a new look and enhanced functionality, while still providing estimated impression counts for each target network/daypart and program, based on budget and bid. And the new Flight Controls feature allows advertisers to schedule in advance when they'd like to pause their campaigns, saving time when managing their campaigns.

Easier campaign management
We like keeping things simple, but useful. This year we added some tools to accomplish just that. To help save you time when creating a new TV campaign, we launched a new feature that allows advertisers to copy your targeting settings from a previous campaign to a new campaign. We also created the Ads Diagnostic Tool to quickly provide details on why an uploaded ad may not be ready to air.

As 2008 comes to a close, we are already working hard to bring your more exciting developments in Google TV Ads for next year. Stay tuned...

Posted by Aly Makishima for Google TV Ads

It’s Hear: Audio Ads Getting Started Guide

Aly Makishima — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Are you interested in running radio ads with Google, but you're not sure how to start? Have no fear, the new Audio Getting Started Guide is hear. You'll find that you can learn a lot from reading its comprehensive step-by step guidelines for creating a Google Audio Ads campaign.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

From creating a radio ad to analyzing your results with our Audio Ads Reports, the Getting Started Guide will take you through the complete process. It also has helpful screen shots, demos, and extended information, including:

Station Format Guide
Ad Creation Marketplace Video Demo
Editorial and Technical Guidelines
Audio Ads Reports & Explanations

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

With all this knowledge at your fingertips, you'll have everything you need to start advertising your business with Google Audio Ads!

by Julie Picquet, Account Manager for Google Audio Ads

Driving Attendance with Google Audio Ads

Aly Makishima — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:42:00 +0000

Google Audio Ads provides real value for Traditional Media agencies buying air time for their clients. We recently published a case study about Motor Trend Auto Shows and their agency, AdStrategies, on their success with using Google Audio Ads for supplemental audio buys.

Motor Trend Auto Shows is the largest producer of auto shows in the United States, holding 23 car shows annually in multiple cities nationwide. “In two or three hours you can see virtually every new make and model of car, truck, S.U.V., and minivan on the market, all under one roof, without pressure from salespeople,” says John Marriot, senior vice president and general manager of Motor Trend. “We live and die by the gate numbers. Our end goal is to sell tickets.”

Radio advertising has long been a substantial part of Motor Trend’s strategy for increasing awareness before shows. “Especially in that week before the show, we have to do everything we can to get the word out as efficiently as possible,” John says. For several years, John and Motor Trend have teamed up with the Maryland-based advertising agency AdStrategies to drive attendance to the auto shows. AdStrategies president Curt Van Loon and advertising technology specialist Andy Lynch both have extensive backgrounds in radio, and they’ve used that insider knowledge to help Motor Trend buy effective advertising on the airwaves and increase ticket sales.

AdStrategies explains, “We like to talk to our clients about new things that are happening — and Google is pretty much what we talk about. When we tell clients that we can use Google to go in and buy radio inventory, they’re amazed. They say, ‘Wow! You can do that?”

Google Audio Ads has helped Motor Trend Auto Shows grow its marketing reach geographically. “Google has allowed us to widen the circle,” Andy says. “If Motor Trend has an upcoming show, we can use Google Audio Ads to supplement their existing radio buy and find additional radio spots in nearby markets, and thereby expand the overall market.” Additionally, Google Audio Ads enables Motor Trend to reach a wider audience by giving them easy access to inventory in new radio markets — air time they might not have considered before adding Google Audio Ads to their overall ad spend.

With a greater choice of radio spots, Motor Trend and AdStrategies are able to make efficient spending decisions that result in more listeners for their ads. Motor Trend realizes the value in expanding across all types of stations. "Even a small station in a market has listeners. They may only have 2,000 listeners, but if we can get 500 of those to come to an auto show and buy a ticket, then we’ve succeeded,” explains Curt.

By supplementing Motor Trend’s traditional ad buy with Google Audio Ads, AdStrategies has helped Motor Trend Auto Shows increase the overall efficiency of their radio buys. “To me,” says John, “that’s a pretty sound strategy.”

Read the full case study here.

Posted by Julie Picquet, Account Manager for Google Audio Ads

Create Custom Dayparts in Google TV Ads Campaigns

Aly Makishima — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:24:00 +0000

We recently posted about a new feature called "Copy Campaign" that allows you to copy your settings from a previous campaign to a new campaign. An added bonus to this feature is the ability to customize dayparts down to a half-hour granularity.

For example, instead of targeting the 2:00 to 5:00 PM daypart, you can target 2:00 to 3:30 PM instead. Simply go into the text editor and modify the start and end times:

1. From the targeting page in campaign creation, select from the original list of dayparts

2. Select the "Advanced: Edit networks and dayparts in bulk” link

3. Edit dayparts within the editor and then select “Apply new schedule"

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

You are no longer restricted to dayparts in the system! Feel free to create as many custom dayparts as you like, as long as they do not overlap.

Posted by Ajoy Bhambani, Product Specialist for Google TV Ads

Beta Launch: Demographic Search for TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:55:00 +0000

This week we’ve launched a new feature to help you reach those viewers who find your message most relevant. You may recall our recent launch of broad match results for program targeting that recommend even more relevant television content associated with your advertising campaign. Now the demographic search feature beta helps you find more relevant television audiences. Both tools are designed to help you determine which ad placements achieve your objectives most efficiently.

With demographic search, you choose the audience attributes you value most, and we’ll present a list of networks and programs whose viewership includes a high concentration of your ad campaign's intended audience. Advertisers can now view recommendations based on three attribute categories: viewers, household data, and interests.

For example, if you're advertising motorcycle accessories and you've found in the past that most of your buyers are adult men, you may want to find content where you can reach those customers. Google TV Ads can now help you locate TV programming that best reaches households that have expressed an interest in motorcycles and where viewers are males between 25 and 49 years old. Simply select those attributes from the drop-down menus, then review recommendations of programs, networks, and times, and add them to your schedule. You can find this new demographic search feature on the "Target Campaign" screen during your campaign setup:

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

The Google TV Ads system recommends networks and programs to help you best reach your desired audience based on anonymized data that we receive from a variety of sources, including historical viewing patterns from millions of set-top boxes through our partnership with Echostar, and anonymized demographic and marketing data from such companies as Equifax and our collaborator Nielsen.

To sum up: the Google TV Ads demographic search feature provides advertisers and agencies with a powerful way to find and reach the viewers for whom their messages are most relevant. TV viewers also benefit, as they will likely start to see more ads that are more relevant to them. Like all Google product features, we will continue to evolve and improve this feature based on feedback from our users.

Posted by Andrew Poon, Product Manager for Google TV Ads

Launched: Copy Settings to a New TV Campaign

Aly Makishima — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:16:00 +0000

To help you save time when creating a new TV campaign, we’ve launched a new feature that allows you to copy your targeting settings from a previous campaign to a new campaign. These settings include network, dayparts, and program targets.

When might you find this useful? Say, for example, you've got a new ad and want to create a new campaign that targets the same networks and dayparts as an existing campaign. Instead of taking the time to manually re-select the same settings, you can copy over all the network and daypart targets from the existing campaign and then modify the details you choose. This will hopefully save you lots of time!

The feature is accessible on the first screen when you click to create a new TV campaign. Simply select from a list of previous campaigns in the drop-down menu at the top of the screen. Once a previous campaign is selected, the existing network and daypart targeting settings will appear. These settings can be changed by selecting the “Advanced: Edit networks and dayparts in bulk” link. Selecting this link will display all the network and dayparts you have targeted. Edits to individual networks and dayparts can be made within the text box or they can exported to a .csv file where changes can be made in bulk in an editing application.

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Now you know how simple it is to copy network and daypart targets from a previous campaign and make any necessary modifications for new targets.

Posted by Ajoy Bhambani, Product Specialist for Google TV Ads

Hallmark Channel Partners with Google TV Ads

Aly Makishima — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:40:00 +0000

Today we announced another exciting inventory partnership agreement that will make Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel national inventory available through the Google TV Ads platform. This expanded inventory will become available through the Google system in early 2009, allowing advertisers to reach even larger national audiences: up to 86 million households through Hallmark Channel and up to 10 million households through Hallmark Movie Channel.

We're thrilled to partner with Hallmark and expand Google TV Ads' inventory offering, allowing advertisers national reach on networks focusing on family-friendly programming. Hallmark Channel appeals to a largely female audience and consistently ranks among the top 10 ad-supported cable networks in prime time and total day household ratings. Programs and movies aired on Hallmark Channel often rank in the top five amongst women ages 25-54.*

While this new inventory will not launch in the Google system until early 2009, Hallmark's popular programming and attractive demographic are available to advertisers today through our existing partnership with Dish Network. Through the Google TV Ads interface, advertisers can easily find Hallmark Channel and other family-friendly programming by simply sorting networks by genre.

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Hallmark joins our other inventory partners including Dish Network, Bloomberg Television and NBC Universal. We look forward to continually building an expansive television ad network for advertisers and inventory providers.

To learn more about Google TV Ads and how to maximize your TV advertising dollars, please visit our official Google TV Ads website.

Posted by Neha Mandal, Associate Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

*Source: Nielsen Media Research, 2008