Google Data » Inside AdWords crew

More control with "mute this ad" [x] icon

Inside AdWords crew — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 10:00:00 +0000

We’re investing in many ways to give users control over the ads they see. On YouTube, our TrueView ad products enables users to skip video ads. On Google search, you can click “Why this Ad?” and stop sites you’re not interested in from showing you ads. Our Ads Preferences Manager, available with one click on the AdChoices icon on ads on the Google Display Network, enables you to edit your interest categories, or opt out of all interest based ads including remarketing ads on our Display Network.

Over the next few weeks, we’re introducing a small [x] which will appear in the corner of some display ads on the Google Display Network. When a user clicks the [x], he or she will no longer see ads from that campaign. We’re starting by showing the [x] in ads that are based on remarketing and interest categories.

Users who click the [x] on an ad will be shown a confirmation page explaining that the advertisement has been muted, along with a link to the Ad Preferences Manager. The feedback this provides will also help improve our ads over time.

The muting is not a 100% guarantee you won’t see that ad again -- for example, the same ad could be shown by a different ad company, or the marketer could run a separate campaign targeting specific web content. But we believe it’s an early step in the right direction of giving users control over ads, while helping marketers and websites deliver ads that perform better.

We believe this early-look feature can bring benefits to the entire ecosystem: users have a way to control their experience and signal that they aren’t interested in certain ads; advertisers are no longer paying to show ads to people who aren’t interested; and publishers will receive better performing (and potentially more valuable) ads, and spend less time filtering out ads they think won’t be of interest to their audience.

Online advertising underpins the web and supports millions of businesses. It’s already unique in the level of control it can offer users. We’re at the early stages of these innovations, with much more to come in months and years ahead.

Posted by Michael Aiello, Product Manager

Search Attribution: AdWords Search Funnels

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:24:00 +0000

In last week’s webinar on search attribution, we explored how AdWords Search Funnels can show you the full search path your customers take prior to purchasing or “converting” on your site. This path can include different types of keywords, ranging from early searches on generic keywords (often referred to as “upper funnel” or awareness-generating keywords) to later searches for your specific brand. By better understanding the full search path and the role that different keywords played in leading your customers to buy or convert, you’ll be able to improve your advertising campaigns.

During the webinar, we walked through the Search Funnels reports, the insights the tool can provide, and some practical uses:

We received a lot of great questions from webinar participants. We weren’t able to get to all of them during the allotted time, so below are some responses and more pointers on Search Funnels.

If you’re interested in learning more about digital marketing attribution, you can also watch the previous recordings in our attribution webinar series and register for our upcoming webinars:

Attribution Insights from Google and Econsultancy (4/26/2012) – watch recording here
Building Blocks of Digital Attribution (5/24/2012) – watch recording here
Search Attribution: AdWords Search Funnels (6/20/2012) – watch recording here
Multi-Channel Funnels: Attribution Across Channels (8/9/2012) – register here
Next Steps with Attribution – registration details coming soon

What is digital attribution? What is search attribution?
Digital attribution is the process of assigning credit to the various online interactions your customer has before a “conversion” (conversion = making a purchase or performing some other valuable action on your site). These interactions could include display ads, paid or organic search results, email campaigns, affiliate coupon programs, social network posts, and other digital interactions. Today, many marketers by default use “last click” attribution, assigning all of the credit to the last interaction before a conversion rather than considering the entire conversion path.

Search attribution focuses specifically on understanding and assigning credit to the keyword searches, search ad impressions, and search ad clicks a customer performed before converting. The Search Funnels reports allow you to view these “search paths” in detail and how some keywords assist conversions earlier in the path while other keywords occur later in the path, immediately before a conversion. By understanding the role these keywords play in the conversion path, you’ll be better equipped to design your search marketing programs.

What are the requirements for Search Funnels?
Search Funnels works automatically with AdWords Conversion Tracking. Once this feature has been set up, the Search Funnels reports are automatically available within the AdWords interface. If you aren’t yet using Conversion Tracking, Bill Kee’s recent webinar on the Building Blocks of Digital Attribution provides a great overview on how to set up Conversion Tracking. You may also wish to view our help center articles on Conversion Tracking and Search Funnels.

Could you please define the Search Funnels terms?
Sure, during the webinar we provided some definitions. Here they are:

Search Funnel: Report describing Google.com search ad click and impression behavior prior to a conversion
Conversion Path: Sequence of ad clicks and impressions leading up to a conversion
Last Clicks: Any search ad click that happened immediately preceding a conversion
Assist Clicks: Any search ad click that happened prior to the “last click” before a conversion
Assist Impressions: Any search ad impression that was not clicked and happened prior to a conversion
Assist Clicks / Last Clicks: The ratio of assist clicks / last clicks for a particular campaign, ad-group, or keyword
Assist Impressions / Last Clicks: The ratio of assist impressions / last clicks for a particular campaign, ad-group, or keyword

This is my first time using Search Funnels, what three analyses do you recommend?
Search Funnels offers some great ways to quickly pull out some actionable insights. First, in the Assisted Conversions report, sorting in descending order by the ratios “Assist Clicks / Last Clicks” and “Assist Impressions / Last Clicks” provides an easy way to identify which of your keywords assist the most conversions and are having most of their contribution overlooked in AdWords’ last-click model. You may choose to test different bidding or budget strategies for these keywords to ensure you capture their value. For example, if a particular keyword has a ratio of three, then for every last click conversion the keyword provides, three additional assists were provided. The keyword would receive no credit for these assists within AdWords under the last-click model. However, utilizing the insights gained from Search Funnels you may wish to explore whether increasing this keyword’s bid drives more users down the conversion path by placing these high-assisting ads in higher positions.

Second, the ‘Time Lag’ report can help you to identify how long your customers take to convert. In particular, the ‘Time From First Impression’ report can help you approximate your customers’ research cycle, from the time they first see one of your search ads, to them eventually converting with you. Within this report, you may also want to explore whether your most valuable customers take a certain period of time to convert. For example, many advertisers find that customers that consider their purchase for longer are actually more valuable customers.

Finally, the top paths report is another great resource. You can dive in to the most common paths your customers take before converting with you. In particular, you can try to identify whether customers begin their journey by researching on broad generic keywords and whether they complete their conversion on more branded keywords.

What is the history window and how important is it?
By default, Search Funnels includes all of the paid search interactions your customers had in the 30 days prior to the conversion occurring. However, this feature can be customized by selecting from the drop down menu at the top of the interface. You can select to change the history window to either 60 or 90 days. This is an important consideration. The length of time that makes most sense for you will likely depend on the type of products you sell. For example, if you’re a business that sells high-consideration product or services, you may want to extend the window to 90 days, as it may take customers a long time to purchase and you would want to ensure that you include all of their interactions with your search advertising. Before selecting a history window, you may also want to examine the ‘time lag’ report to identify on average how long it takes your users to convert.

What are impression assists? And how should I value them?
Impression assists occur when a customer sees one of your search ads, but does not click on it, before later clicking on another of your ads and converting. The impression could be providing a branding effect. For example, if you are getting a lot of assist impressions and their average position is relatively high, it's possible that those impressions had a positive impact on the customer coming back and converting later. You could test this hypothesis by bidding keywords to different positions and measuring the impact on impression assisted conversions.

What about attribution beyond search?
Search Funnels uncovers a crucial part of the path to conversion by showing all of your Google search ads that a user either saw or clicked on, before they converted for you. However, you may be interested in understanding how your customers interact with your other online channels too. In our upcoming webinar on August 9, we’ll be walking through Google Analytics’ Multi-Channel Funnels, which allows you to examine not only the path within paid search, but also display, organic search, social, e-mail marketing, and more. Register here.

Happy analyzing!

Posted by Simon Rosen, Global Sales Lead for Search Funnels and AdWords Conversion Tracking

AdWords’ new look rolling out globally

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 17:11:00 +0000

Since we showed you a preview of AdWords’ new look, we’ve been reviewing feedback and working to make even more improvements. Over the next several days, we’ll begin rolling out the new design to all AdWords accounts.

The new look simplifies the interface with newly designed menus, tabs, navigation, and buttons so that the important things -- such as your data -- stand out. The latest web technologies have been used to make the interface more visually appealing and zippy, while keeping the features where you are accustomed to finding them.

If you’re curious about specific design choices, or how we think about UX (user experience) at Google more generally, please join me for a live discussion and Q&A on Thursday, June 21st at 9:30am PST/12:30pm EST. To tune into this Hangout On Air:

Visit the Google Ads +Page at 9:30am PST/12:30pm EST Thursday June 21st.
Look for the stream post (see image below for what it will look like), and click to tune in. Be sure you’re signed into Google+!

We aim to deliver a simpler, more beautiful experience across all Google products. I hope you’ll find the experience using AdWords easier and more enjoyable, too. I’m looking forward to hearing your comments and questions soon!

Posted by Greg Rosenberg and the AdWords User Experience Team

Announcing the next series of Learn with Google webinars!

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year, we introduced the Learn with Google webinar program, and we were delighted to see thousands of you show up to learn about a variety of Google advertising products and solutions. Today, we’re happy to announce the continuation of our series with 10 new webinars over the next few months. During each webinar we’ll share tips and how-to’s to help make the web work for your business.

Check out our upcoming live webinars below:

May 23 at 10am PDT: Getting Started with Google Analytics
May 24 at 9am PDT: Building Blocks of Digital Attribution
May 31 at 10am PDT: Introduction to TrueView for YouTube
June 5 at 10am PDT: GoMo: Mobilize your Site with Quick and Easy New Tools
June 6 at 10am PDT: Our Mobile Planet: Understanding U.S. Smartphone Consumers
June 7 at 10am PDT: Introducing Mobile Apps Inventory in AdWords
June 12 at 10am PDT: Get Local with ZIP Code Targeting to Increase Sales/Leads
June 14 at 10am PDT: Search Optimization: Tips, Tricks, and Tools
June 19 at 10am PDT: Bringing the Power and Control of Search to Display
July 10 at 10am PDT: Account Management Tools for Large Advertisers and Agencies

Visit our webinar page to register for any of the sessions and to access past webinars on-demand. We’ll be adding new webinars as they’re scheduled, so check back regularly for updates. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by downloading our Learn with Google Webinar calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars in your Google Calendar.

Whether your goal is to engage the right customers in the moments that matter, make better decisions, or go bigger, faster, we hope that you’ll use these best practices and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to having you at an upcoming Learn with Google webinar!

Posted by Erin Green, Marketing Coordinator

Celebrate the best in digital creativity with Google+ at Internet Week New York and the Webby Awards

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:03:00 +0000

Once again, Internet Week New York is in full force, and we hope that you'll come and join Google+ for some of the festivities as the city’s digital thinkers, from developers to ad agency execs, collaborate on a week of panels and parties:

IAB Innovation Days: On Wednesday, May 16 at 1:45pm, Kate Stanford, Group Product Marketing Manager for Social Ads, will be giving a presentation at IAB Innovation Days at Skylight Soho about connecting with customers through a joint strategy across mobile and social platforms.

The Webby Awards: On Monday, May 21 at 5:30 PM, celebrate with the whole digital industry and Google+ at the 16th Annual Webby Awards, where we’ll be hosting an exclusive backstage Hangout On Air from the Webbys Google+ page during the show. Whether you're there in person, watching the live stream, or watching our Hangout, expect plenty of surprises and laughs. Connect with the Webby Awards on Google+ for more updates, and if you're there, say hello to the Google+ and Google Creative Lab teams at the afterparty!

We’re excited to share our thoughts about the future of digital advertising and marketing and proud to be part of New York’s technology scene. We hope to see you out and about!

Posted by Caroline McCarthy, Product Marketing Manager, Google+

Welcome new AdWords Top Contributors!

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:20:00 +0000

This week, the English AdWords Community team is pleased to welcome three new members to the AdWords Top Contributor program: Moshe Avichai, Pankaj Sabharwal, and Scott Dunroe. The Top Contributor program recognizes advanced AdWords experts who have dedicated their time and passion for AdWords to helping other users in the Community. Read their stories below about how they first got involved in the AdWords Community.

Moshe Avichai (aka “MosheTLV”)

With a start of my engineering consulting business and use of AdWords, I wanted to gain a better understanding of the advertising system. AdWords forum was my starting point to get answers to my questions.

Pankaj Sabharwal (aka “pankaj1782”)

I realized how much my AdWords knowledge improved since I discovered the forum. Ever since then, it has become my hobby to help other users in the AdWords Community. I love interacting with the Community because it has users ranging from beginners to Adwords Experts.

Scott Dunroe (aka “ScottyD”)

The ability to interact with some of the most knowledgeable individuals in the AdWords industry is a real privilege. But the best feeling of all is helping novice members with their AdWords related questions and then seeing them gradually become active members themselves.

Our three new Top Contributors will be active in the Community along with the other Top Contributors and our thousands of users to help you with all your AdWords questions. Join the conversation!

Posted by the AdWords Community Team

GoMo: Mark your calendar to ‘Hangout on Air’ and learn how to build a mobile site in minutes

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:22:00 +0000

Did you know that 40% of mobile web users reported that they’ve turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience1? With about half of all Americans now owning a smartphone2, it’s time for businesses to meet user expectations by delivering a mobile experience as good as the desktop experience. In short, it’s time to step up to the plate and build a site optimized for the mobile web.

Google can help. We recently teamed up with DudaMobile to release a free mobile site builder. In three easy steps you’re able to get started with mobile: (1) enter your site’s URL, (2) customize your site and (3) redirect mobile users automatically to the new mobile-friendly version. It’s free and takes just a few minutes to complete!

Join us on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST and watch as Google showcases how two businesses, Top Mast Resort in Massachusetts and Sava’s Restaurant in Michigan, go mobile and build mobile-friendly sites--live on air.

You’ll see how Top Mast is preparing to take advantage of mobile travel purchase intent - which is five times higher than online travel purchase intent, according to InsightExpress. You’ll also see Sava’s move ahead of 95% of restaurants that do not have mobile-friendly sites, according to a study by Restaurant Science.

Finally, you’ll hear from the CMO of Dudamobile, Dennis Mink; he’ll talk about best practices when using the mobile site builder and walk through important questions to ask yourself when building a mobile-friendly site.

Details on how to tune in

Sign into Google+ on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST

Go to the Think with Google Google+ page

Look for the stream post and click to enter the live stream

Be sure to set a reminder in your calendar! If you have questions before or during the Hangout, post them with the hashtag #GoMoSite as a comment on the Google+ page.

Posted by Suzanne Mumford, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

Sources: (1) Gomez 2011 (2) Nielsen February 2012

AdWords Community now available on your phone!

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Ever wish you could reach out to other advertisers with just a click, even when you're not behind your computer? We’ve got some good news for you - AdWords Community is now optimized for all web-enabled mobile devices!

Like PPCBossman and many other Community users, you can get AdWords Community mobile on your smartphone and stay connected anywhere and at any time:

Ask your AdWords questions as soon as they come to mind.
Post answers/articles and help other members.
Instantly browse any thread you want to re-visit.

Sign up is as easy as opening www.en.adwords-community.com in your mobile browser (ensure you type in the www) with no additional applications. It auto-captures your mobile email (you can choose to use a different email) - simply choose your username and get started!

The simple interface with finger-friendly buttons lets you easily use all all the Community features just like on your desktop. One member theitiuk says this increases his accessibility to reach out to the Community at any time from anywhere. PPCBossman, who is a regular user, finds the functionality almost identical to the desktop version.

Try it out, bookmark it on your phone and let us know what you think by posting your comments and suggestions on the AdWords Community.

Posted by Rashmi Singh, Ad Policy Specialist

Introducing the AdWords Community Top Contributors Program

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:07:00 +0000

You may have noticed that some members of our AdWords Community are true AdWords experts. Not only do they participate actively in discussions, but they're eager to help other members, which provides a huge benefit to the community. That's why we've created the AdWords Top Contributors Program to reward them for their efforts.

Members who qualify for the program receive the title of Top Contributor in the Community, which helps show the world that they’re truly AdWords experts. Other perks include:
A profile on our AdWords Top Contributors page.
Access to private forums with Google team members.
Inclusion in the Trusted Testers program to test out cool new features before anyone else.
Product updates directly from the AdWords team.
Hangouts with AdWords Community Leads on Google+.
Trainings given by the AdWords team.

In addition to these perks, in 2011, we invited our Top Contributors (TCs) to the Googleplex, in Mountain View, California, for the Top Contributor Summit. It was an opportunity for TCs to talk with Google executives and AdWords Product Managers, and offer their valuable feedback to the teams.

Top Contributors are also eligible to get the annual AdWords Top Contributor badge to put on their websites. It's another way for them to show their AdWords expertise, and it's only granted to those TCs that go above and beyond in their contribution to the Community.

This year’s recipients for the annual AdWords Top Contributor badge have just been announced! Congratulations to:

And congratulations to all our AdWords Top Contributors globally!

Visit the AdWords Community to learn more about the AdWords Top Contributor program and get to know our Top Contributors.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Get inspired with Think Quarterly’s creativity issue

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:56:00 +0000

What does creativity look like in a digital context? What does it mean for your business, your campaigns, and your customers? This issue of Google’s Think Quarterly explores these fundamental questions and more -- a must read for digital marketers!

As the internet comes of age, technology is catching up with our wildest imaginations. We can realize ideas that simply weren’t possible merely five years ago. And you don’t need to be a technologist or have “Creative” in your title to utilize technology in new ways; millions of people around the world are making, remixing, and sharing every day.

Case in point: There are over 800 exabytes of digital information in the world -- words, videos, photos, music. To put that in context, a volume of the complete works of Shakespeare is about five megabytes. It would take one billion book-filled pickup trucks to make just one exabyte. This is our creative output -- the sheer volume is equally inspiring and overwhelming.

Where to begin? Right here. The Creativity issue of Think Quarterly, launching today, documents this far-reaching transformation, cutting through the noise to focus on what it all means.

In “The Curious Case of Creativity,” Google VP of Global Marketing Lorraine Twohill sees creativity through an engineer’s eyes as a way to solve problems, big and small. Interviews with the founders of two award-winning global agencies, Sir John Hegarty of BBH and Ajaz Ahmed of AKQA, discuss what creativity means in a digital context and how you can encourage it, even at a big company. Creative minds from Mullen, Wieden and Kennedy, Barbarian Group, AKQA, and Anomaly pick their most envy-inducing digital campaigns. And “Lean Communications” looks at how technology is forcing the traditional creative process to get faster, smarter, and more efficient.

We also explore how the web is inspiring entirely new forms of creativity, like YouTube remixes, 3D models, data art and infographics, that are reshaping how we see the world. (And if you want to see how the web shapes your brand in particular, try our new “Brand Impressions” tool on Think Quarterly and Think Insights.)

Take some time to check it out and let us know what you think on +Think With Google.

Posted by Allison Mooney, Think Quarterly Editor

Upcoming Webinar: Measurement and optimization on the GDN

Inside AdWords crew — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:39:00 +0000

Looking to measure and optimize your GDN campaigns? We'll be hosting a webinar on April 2nd at 3:00pm GMT to discuss how to create successful GDN campaigns. You can use the GDN to target specific sites, categories, topics and audiences, and in this webinar we'll discuss best practices surrounding the creation and optimization of GDN campaigns. This webinar will be presented by a UK-based Google Display Specialist and more specialists will on hand to answer any questions you may have.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Updates to Google Merchant Center Terms of Service

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:09:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Commerce blog)

Back in January, we announced our new Google Terms of Service to provide a more consistent experience for users across Google's products. Starting today, March 29, Google Merchant Center will be covered by the new Google Terms of Service along with a short set of additional terms and conditions specific to Merchant Center.

While the substance in the additional Merchant Center terms and conditions remains unchanged from the previous version, the new additional terms and conditions are shorter and reworded to be easier to understand. We encourage you to take the time to review the new Google Terms of Service along with the additional Merchant Center terms and conditions.

Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Senior Product Manager, Google Merchant Center team

Put your business in fast forward with Google+

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:50:00 +0000

Today, we’re thrilled to share with you the story of musician and Google+ breakout star Daria Musk.

We often get asked for examples of how to use Google+ to engage with users. Lighting up Google+ with live concerts, as Daria’s done, can seem a song apart from selling wares such as designer laptop cases, hotel rooms or even car insurance -- but the principles of building an engaged Google+ community ring true across industries. Daria’s story is a shining example of what working with an active audience can look like.

Be authentic and committed
On March 13, Daria crossed the amazing milestone of having more than one million followers. That means more than one million Google+ users have added Daria to their circles, all in the space of about eight months.

Daria was looking for those listeners when she joined Google+. “I was dreaming maybe there’s this wider world that I can sing for,” she said. “Maybe my people are out there somewhere.”

Through posts and Hangouts, Daria has kept her fans engaged. Keys to success, Daria said, include starting with enthusiasm and authenticity. “Right now if you get on Google+ and you show that you’re doing something remarkable, they’ll notice you,” she said.

Being remarkable, Daria coached, includes being yourself and avoiding canned-message posts. Users can tell if you’re trying to make a real connection. Be genuinely excited to connect with them and they’ll connect back.

When users do notice you, make sure you commit enough time to connect back. Taking just 10 to 15 minutes to respond to comments can keep the conversation going.

Create a Hangout ritual

When it comes to connecting with Google+ users, Daria’s found the perfect vehicle: Hangouts, which allow Google+ users to connect over video chat, in real time, for free. For Daria, that has meant instantaneous global concerts that have included a round-the-world New Year’s Eve Hangout and a Hangout on stage at her TEDxTalk -- allowing her to share key moments with her “G+niuses, ” her followers.

For a successful Hangout ritual, follow Daria’s example and recommendations:

Announce the Hangout: Be excited! Hang a virtual poster on your stream and tell users what you’ll be doing or discussing.
Encourage participants: If you’ve noticed great comments, invite those users directly to get a lively discussion going.
Follow up: After the Hangout, post a summary on your stream. What happened? What was discussed? What will you do with what you learned?

Get inputs -- and inspiration -- from your audience
For Daria, Google+ isn’t just a way to promote her music. It’s also a way to help shape it. The magic of Hangouts -- including watching a sunrise in Norway from her studio in the United States -- has inspired Daria to create additional “products” – her songs and music -- including tunes such as “+1 Me.” She even cut audio from the live Hangouts into her live album, "L+VE." What could you learn from your own customers?

Google+ makes Daria feel like an innovator -- and it’s open to anyone. All you have to do is sign up and start engaging. “We’re … making our own party,” she said, “and everyone’s invited.”

Join the party today. Create a Google+ page for your business at google.com/+/business.

Posted by Becky Bowman, Account Manager

New research: Organic search results and their impact on search ads

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:15:00 +0000

The Google Research team has a new study out today that examines how organic search results and ranking impact ad impressions and ad clicks. The team analyzed 390 Search Ads Pause studies and found, on average:

81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks occur in the absence of an associated organic result on the first page of search results. All ad clicks in these situations are incremental.
On average, for advertisers who appear in the top rank organic slot, 50% of ad clicks are incremental. This means that half of all ad clicks are not replaced by organic clicks when search ads are paused.
For advertisers whose organic search results are in the 2nd to 4th position, 81% of ad clicks are incremental. For advertisers appearing in organic position of 5 or lower, 96% of ad clicks are incremental.

The numbers reported here are averages. As always, we encourage advertisers to experiment with their own accounts to determine their individual incrementality rate. This rate should be factored into ROI calculations.

You can read more about it and see the infographic on the Google Research blog here.

Posted by Christina Park, Product Marketing Manager

Helping the right customers find your business with our Help Desk Hangouts On Air Series

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:56:00 +0000

Join us every Wednesday at 11am PST on the Google+ Your Business page to learn about the tools that Google offers your business. This week, we’re excited to bring current AdWords users a Hangout On Air about using AdWords to introduce your business to new, potential customers. AdWords is an amazing tool to help customers find you, so we want to make sure you make the most of it! We will cover topics around defining advertising goals, effective account structures, important metrics, and useful reports and features to help you get the most out of advertising with us.

Here's how you can participate: Sign into Google+ and add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. Post questions ahead of time - just look for the post that we put up every Monday morning soliciting your questions. Then, on Wednesday, navigate to your Stream where you’ll be able to view our Hangout live with just one click!

We’re excited to see you, answer your questions, and teach you a little about AdWords!

Posted by Courtney Pannell and Dorian Storbeck, Global Online Advertising Associates

Webinar tomorrow: Making Mobile-friendly Websites

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:19:00 +0000

Mobile searches have grown 400% in the last two years, but many businesses today still don't have mobile optimized sites. A mobile optimized site will allow users to have a great experience on your site while browsing on their mobile devices. Whether your customers are contacting you or making a purchase, this session will walk you through the ten best practices for building a better mobile site so you can get more customers while they are using mobile devices. This webinar will be hosted by one of our in-house Mobile Websites specialists who will also be on hand to answer questions after the webinar.

The session will take place on Tuesday, March 13, at 3pm GMT. Register Now!

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Introducing the Learn with Google Webinar Program

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:19:00 +0000

At Google, one of our goals is to help make the web work for your business. Today we’re introducing the Learn with Google webinar program that does just that, by sharing best practices and tips across a variety of products, including search ads, mobile ads, display ads, YouTube and Google Analytics.

We’re kicking off the program with eight live webinars in March:
March 13 at 10am PDT: 5 Tips to Start Marketing your Business with Video
March 14 at 10am PDT: Introduction to the Google Display Network
March 15 at 10am PDT: GoMo: Mobilize your Site and Maximize your Advertising
March 20 at 10am PDT: Understanding Mobile Ads Across Marketing Objectives
March 21 at 10am PDT: Reaching Your Goals with Google Analytics
March 22 at 10am PDT: GoMo for Publishers
March 27 at 10am PDT: Manage Large AdWords Campaigns with Less Effort
March 28 at 10am PDT: 3 Tips to Get More out of your Video Advertising Campaigns
Check out our new webinar page to register for any of the sessions or to access on-demand webinars. We’ll be adding new webinars as they’re scheduled, so check back regularly for updates. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by downloading our Learn with Google Webinar calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars in your Google Calendar.

Whether your goal is to engage the right customers at the right time, make better decisions faster, or get the most from your marketing dollars, we hope that you’ll use these tips and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to having you join us!

Posted by Erica Tsai, Product Marketing Manager

Check out your new image ads from the AdWords Display Ad Builder

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:38:00 +0000

Image and video ads on the Google Display Network can have a strong impact on the success of your online marketing campaigns. These ads convey your messages in more engaging and memorable ways, enticing viewers to buy what you’re selling.

The Display Ad Builder tool within AdWords already lets you easily create image and video ads for free and gives you the flexibility to customize these ads to suit your needs. Check out these image ads for examples of what you can create:

But today we’re announcing a new feature that essentially builds your image ads for you.

The Display Ad Builder now automatically creates suggested image ads, using the existing text ads in your campaign.

Click on the suggested ad that you like best.
If necessary, customize any fonts, text, or colors that need tweaking.
Then incorporate the ad into one of your ad groups. It’s that simple.

Check out your suggested ads now>>

You don’t even have to be in the Display Ad Builder tool to use this new feature.

If you’re in one of your ad groups, you can select an existing text ad and under “More Actions,” choose “Generate Display Ad.”
AdWords will create an image ad based on the text ad you selected.

If you want to create your ad from scratch, you can always choose from hundreds of template designs.

Add your text and customize the fonts, colors, and background.
Choose images from the AdWords stock gallery, from your computer, or straight off your website.
Review the ad in all formats to make sure it looks right, then add it to your campaign.

For more information about Display Ad Builder, visit the Display Network website.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Taking Automated Rules to the next level: Now in My Client Center

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0000

We’ve added My Client Center support, so you can now run Automated Rules across multiple client accounts, to help you manage many accounts more quickly, easily and efficiently. To get started, simply click the “Automate” drop-down menu on the Performance or Budget tab:

This AdWords Help Center article walks you through how to set up Automated Rules in My Client Center. As you may notice, the steps are mostly the same as for individual accounts, except that we’ve added sections for account and currency selection:

As always, remember to click the Preview results button to verify that you've set the rule up correctly. Previewing displays the time you’ve chosen for the rule to run in groups according to your clients’ timezones, and allows you to get a glimpse of the changes that the rule will make to the first account you’ve selected.

To see popular types of rules created by advertisers, please see this AdWords Help Center article. To learn more about Automated Rules, please visit Ad Innovations.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Product Marketing Manager

Introducing Enhanced Ad Sitelinks

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:30:00 +0000

We've talked before about how useful ad sitelinks can be. They give users more options, and deliver advertisers more clicks. On average, the clickthrough rate is 30% higher for ads with sitelinks than those without. And we've continued experimenting with new ways to make sitelinks even better. Today, we're taking the covers off one of our strongest performing experiments. It works by incorporating text from ads in your account that are related to your sitelinks. The easiest way to understand things is with an example:

Say you've created sitelinks for your pizza restaurant campaign, and your ad displays sitelinks as shown here:

Now, let's say your account also includes the following text ads:

With this enhancement, your ad could now look like this:

To be eligible, your ad with sitelinks must show above Google search results and your account must contain active ads closely related to the sitelinks in your campaign.

In testing, people reported that ads with enhanced sitelinks were more useful and relevant. And clickthrough rates were significantly higher than the same ad with traditional 2- and 3-line sitelinks.

If you’re not already using ad sitelinks and would like to get started, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by David Ganzhorn, Senior Software Engineer and Ramakrishnan Kandhan, Software Engineer

AdWords campaign management – Even better when you share

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0000

Last January, we introduced a new way to manage changes across multiple campaigns with lists, starting with negative keyword lists. These lists give advertisers the ability to create and manage groups of negative keywords in your account and to associate them with multiple campaigns. We’re now pleased to announce two new developments to our lists feature which will sit in a new place in the AdWords left navigation panel called the “Shared library.”

#1. Placement exclusion lists

Exclusion lists, which are similar to negative keyword lists, allow you to create lists of placements to exclude, and associate these lists with multiple campaigns in your account.

For example, let’s say you have a set of particular placements on our Display Network that you don’t want your ads to appear on. Previously, you’d need to add these as placement exclusions to every campaign targeted to the Display Network within your account. With placement exclusion lists, you can create a single list containing these placement exclusions and associate them with any or all the campaigns in your account running on the display network. Additionally, if you wanted to add another exclusion, you’d just have to add it to the list once, and it would automatically apply to all the associated campaigns.

#2. List suggestions

The new list suggestions feature will tell you where you are using the same negative keywords or placement exclusions across multiple campaigns and therefore where it would be useful to create lists for these keywords/placements instead.

We hope these features will help you manage your negative keywords and placement exclusions more easily and efficiently by removing the need for duplication of entities across your account.

Please visit our Help Center to find out more about placement exclusion lists and the list suggestion feature.

Posted by Luisa Lu, Software Engineer

Search Funnels refresh: new and improved interface

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

In March 2010, we launched Search Funnels, a tool that helps advertisers understand the series of search impressions and search clicks that result in conversions.

Since then, we've been tweaking the user interface to make it more useful and usable. We're launching our interface refresh today and want to familiarize you with the new interface so you can migrate smoothly. For the next few weeks you'll also be able to access the previous version (see the left navigation bar under the report list), but we hope you'll take advantage of the improvements in the new version.

Here's a sampling of some of the improved features:

Compare date ranges and see if your funnel has changed year-over-year. Just click on the date range drop down and this menu will appear:

Access drill-down dimensions quickly via tabs. You'll see these tabs at the top left of the Search Funnels tables:

View total conversions and conversion value side-by-side in our histogram reports, now available in all Search Funnels reports:

We've also made it easier to create persistent drill-down filters so you can view multiple reports focusing on the same analysis. For example, if you'd like to do an analysis based on "all the Top Paths where the first click was Campaign XYZ," you can now Save this drill-down and then click through multiple reports. If you no longer want to have this view, just click the "Clear" button above the report title and you'll return to the unfiltered version of the report:

Click "Save" to keep a first-clicked view across reports

Click "Clear" to return to an unfiltered view

We hope you enjoy these new usability tweaks, and happy path analyzing!

Posted by Laura Holmes, Product Manager

Impression Share Updates Rolling out Globally

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Starting today, we will begin rolling out updates to your Impression Share metrics, which include new ad group-level impression share metrics as well as revised campaign-level impression share metrics. We've also changed the frequency with which we update this data to once a day. These updates will be in effect in all accounts globally over the next few days.

For more information on Impression Share, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords Crew

Love at first Search

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

More and more people are falling in love with Valentine’s Day. According to a recent survey by ORC International, Valentine’s Day is now the number two gift giving holiday, right behind Christmas, with 88% of Americans saying they plan on giving a present to their loved ones. This should be great news for businesses, but marketers still have trouble making a love connection with consumers based on charts that look more like dated EKG readings than real-time insights into the heart of the consumer.

Since getting the affections of one person is hard enough, below are some timely insights from Google’s “database of intentions” to keep you ahead of the game as you create your Valentine’s Day campaigns.

Search is where the heart is

Already we’re seeing Google searches related to Valentine’s Day increase 35% compared to last year. Not only are more people searching, they’re searching earlier - last year people began looking for Valentine’s Day ideas on January 9th. This year the upward trend began two days earlier, on January 7th.

Across categories, jewelry is seeing a 42% increase in mobile and desktop queries compared to January of last year; gifts jumped 27%, and flowers saw an 18% spike.

Girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice

The results from this graph show women look for gift ideas earlier and more often than their male significant others. Maybe men are more last minute about buying gifts than women, but it doesn’t mean they’re cheap about it! In 2011 the average man spent $158 for Valentine’s Day, about $80 more than women.

Looking for a change of heart?

Valentine’s Day is less than three weeks away, which means that this is this is the great opportunity for marketers to influence people with their products since consumers are still searching for ideas. If you look at the word cloud below (spoiler alert!), a good chunk of people are searching for “diy valentines gifts” and “valentines day baskets,” which means there will be quite a few people unwrapping homemade gifts or pre-made gift baskets this year. The biggest cluster of phrases, “valentines day border,” “valentines day drinks,” and “valentines day meals,” signal that people are also planning on celebrating in style. Now would be a good time to promote recipes and decoration ideas in your campaigns.

For more useful trends and tips for your campaign, download and review the 2012 Valentine’s Day Consumer Intentions Deck on Think Insights. Hopefully it helps you steal away some hearts!

By Christina Park, Product Marketing Manager, Think with Google

Create more Automated Rules and undo changes

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:00:00 +0000

We heard your feedback that you want Automated Rules to be even more flexible and useful, so we rolled out two improvements - increased rule limit to 100 and the ability to undo changes made by a rule.

1. Increased rule limit to 100

We increased the number of rules you can create from 10 rules per user to 100. This should allow you to easily try out new rules -- have a look at common examples to see how advertisers are using Automated Rules.

2. Ability to undo changes made by a rule

In the event that a rule doesn’t make the changes that you expect, you can easily undo them by clicking the “Undo” button in the Logs table. We hope that undo can help you feel more comfortable experimenting with Automated Rules. You can try out new strategies for a few days and quickly return to the state in which you started if you’re not happy with the performance. Please see this AdWords Help Center article for more information about the undo feature.

Not currently using Automated Rules?

Automated Rules is a feature that lets you save time by scheduling automatic changes to your account based on criteria that you specify. Please see this AdWords Help Center article to see popular types of rules created by advertisers. To learn more about Automated Rules, please visit Ad Innovations.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Product Marketing Manager

Visit the re-designed AdWords Help Center today

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:34:00 +0000

Brits, Aussies, and Kiwis: see what Americans have been buzzing about for weeks!

We launched a new look for the AdWords Help Center and it's now available in your countries! Since we introduced it in the U.S. just a few weeks ago, thousands of AdWords users in America have already opted-in. And the feedback is overwhelmingly positive! You asked for a better Help Center -- you got it!

Here are the changes we're rolling out today:

1. Simpler navigation: More easily navigate to the right content using the new menu at the top of each page.

(click for full-size image)

2. Visible contact options: Find options to reach Google with a click on the "Contact us" button in the top right of any page.

3. More screenshots and videos: Use the screenshots and videos in many of the articles to quickly learn how to make the most of Google AdWords.

Ready to try the new Help Center? Opt-in today. Just click the "try the new look" window. Not ready for the new look just yet? You can opt-in later using the yellow bar at the top of any page.

Of course, you can opt-out at any time by selecting “Go back to the old look” in the bottom right corner (but we hope you'll like it too much to leave!).

We’re rolling out the changes gradually, so stay tuned for updates and more helpful articles over the next few months.

Do you like the new Help Center? We’d like to hear what you think. Once you've opted in to the new Help Center, just click the "Send Feedback" link in the lower right corner of any Help Center page.

You can also follow a thread in the Forum if you have something to share with the users in the AdWords Community.

Posted by the AdWords Help Center Team

On your marks, get set, GOMC!

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000

We’re pleased to announce that professor registration for the 2012 Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC 2012), our global student competition, is now open!

Student registration, however, will open January 31, 2012. In order for student teams to participate in the competition, their professors must first register.

But what is this challenge, you ask?

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is a global online marketing competition for students from any higher education institution in the world. Students must develop and run a successful online advertising campaigns through Google AdWords for a real business or non-profit organization, exercising advertising and consulting skills and summarizing them in the campaign reports.

Once the campaigns finish running, Google and a panel of independent academics from all over the world will select the winning teams. Their selections will be based on the success of the campaigns and the quality of the competition reports.

There are exciting prizes awaiting the winners:

Trip to Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California for the Global Winners
Trips to local Google offices for Regional Winners
Opportunity to win donations worth $30,000 for the non-profit organizations the students partner with
A brand new award category for GOMC 2012 - The Best Social Media Page Award - more details to follow!

Last year’s challenge featured 50,000 participants representing 100 countries, and this year’s challenge is expected to boast even more. Students, here’s your chance to make a global impact!

To learn more about the Google Online Marketing Challenge, please visit our website: www.google.com/onlinechallenge.

Posted by AJ Pascua and Anndrea Moore, GOMC Team

Think With Google’s December Adventure: That’s a wrap!

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:10:00 +0000

Think With Google's December Adventure finishes this week with tips on measurement and analytics. We hoped you enjoyed our insights and daily tips this month on the Think with Google Plus Page. If you missed them or wanted to review, here are the previous weeks' recaps for:

Here are the three tips and insights covered this week (and a bonus treat):

#1. Monday - According to the Google ebook Zero Moment of Truth, consumers now consult an average 10.7 sources before making a purchasing decision.
Use Multi-Channel Funnels reporting in Google Analytics to see a user's interactions beyond the last click prior to conversion.

#2. Tuesday - 44% of searches for last-minute gifts and store locations are predicted to be from mobile devices
See how well your mobile site is facilitating conversions with mobile reporting in Google Analytics.

#3. Wednesday - Use Real-Time reporting to see the impact of your holiday promotions within seconds
Use Real-Time reporting in Google Analytics to monitor the immediate impact of email offers and other campaigns that drive customer purchases.

And as a bonus holiday treat...
Holiday measurement tips - straight from the source!
As our final posting for Think with Google's December Adventure, we've wrapped up a handy video from Google's Digital Marketing Evangelist (and best-selling author) Avinash Kaushik on how to measure your holiday campaigns.

To see future insights and tips, please follow Think with Google on Google+.

Happy holidays from Google!

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords Crew

New Tools and Controls to Manage Your Google+ Pages

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:01:00 +0000

Last month we introduced Google+ Pages to provide a new way for you to build a public identity on Google+. We’ve been listening closely to your feedback and today we’re introducing several new tools and controls to help you better manage your pages. These new features will start appearing in Google+ accounts over the next couple days; so if you don’t see them today make sure to come back and look for them later this week.

Multiple Administrators and Ownership Transfer
Starting today, you’ll be able to add up to 50 managers who can login and manage your page with their own accounts. Managers can publish posts, respond to comments, add photos, change profile information, and even add/remove other managers.

We've also added the ability for you to transfer page ownership. Ownership of a page can only be transferred to an existing manager. To do so, click the ‘Transfer Ownership’ link in the new Page Settings panel and then choose one of the managers you’d like to transfer ownership to.

Notification Settings
Another feature we’ve added is a way for you as a page owner to get notifications about actions on your page. With this change, you’ll be able to customize the notifications for your business page separately from your personal profile, allowing you to choose the level of detail that’s most appropriate for you. These new settings allow you to change the email address where page notifications are sent, customize what you’d like to be notified about, and adjust how you’d like to be notified.

To adjust these settings click on the Page Settings link and look for the “Set delivery preferences” section. There, you can set what actions you'd like to be notified about and optionally specify a different email address (than your personal email address) for your page notifications. If you have multiple managers on your account, you might want to change the address to a team address that everyone will have access to.

Unified +1 & Circle Count
We’re also making a change to the +1 count shown on your Google+ Page. Starting today, the bold count on your page will include both your +1’s on Google+ and across the web, as well as the number of people who have added you to a circle. This change will not affect the way +1’s are counted or displayed on ads or search results.

We believe that this simple change will better highlight the number of ways people have chosen to recommend and follow your business with Google.

You can learn more about these new features in the Google+ Help Center. We’re working on even more ways to improve the Google+ experience for your business, so please keep sending us your feedback and stay tuned in 2012!

Michael Nestler, Google+ Pages Engineer

Think With Google’s December Adventure: Display and 2011 Trends Recap

Inside AdWords crew — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:30:00 +0000

Think With Google's December Adventure finished its third week with a focus on display and trends from 2011.

Here are the five insights and tips we covered this week:
Click on the titles to view the original posts and comments.

#1. Monday: Rich media ads are 2.7x as effective in driving purchase intent vs. basic Flash

Be sure to make video a core component of your display advertising mix to maximize holiday sales.

#2. Tuesday: 96% of people visiting a website leave without completing a transaction

Use remarketing to follow-up with targeted shoppers who browsed your products and left, or abandoned their shopping carts part-way through the purchase process.

#3. Wednesday: Rich media ads grew 66% last year and are predicted to be over 50% of all display ads by 2015

Browse our Rich Media Gallery or our new ad formats for mobile to check out some of our "best of" examples to get your creative juices flowing.

#4. Thursday: Use Google Zeitgeist 2011 to see the hottest gifts and trends for holiday shopping lists

Our year-end Google Zeitgeist launches today, and it's chock full of fascinating tidbits about what's been burning up the search queries this past year

#5. Friday: The search for holiday gifts is on!

Find out what's burning up the search charts as we approach the holidays with this week's top shopping queries.

To learn more, follow Think with Google on Google+ or add this helpful holiday calendar to automatically see these tips on your Google Calendar.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords Crew

Learn with Google Webinar: Driving Conversions Using Google Products

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Is your online campaign performing as well as it could be? Do you want to get more out of your digital marketing campaigns and increase your ROI?

We’ve heard from many of our users that with so much data, it can be hard to know where to begin. If you’d like to get a deep dive on how to increase your conversions, then please join us on Thursday for a Learn with Google webinar:

Webinar: Driving Conversions Using Google Products
Date: Thursday, December 15
Time: 11am - 12pm PST / 2pm - 3pm EST
Sign up here!

This webinar will teach you how to optimize your AdWords account for conversions on Search, Display, and Mobile. Learn to navigate Conversion Tracking, Search Funnels, and the many product features that can help you get your ad in front of the most relevant audience to drive more conversions.

The webinar will be presented by Tiffany Bristol, a Google account manager, and will include Q&A.

Posted by Dora Nagy, Product Marketing Manager

Think With Google’s December Adventure: Mobile Tips Recap

Inside AdWords crew — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 23:30:00 +0000

Think With Google’s December Adventure continued this week with a focus on mobile.

Here are the four mobile-related insights and tips we covered this week (and a fun factoid):
Click on the titles to view the original posts and comments.

#1 Monday: Search from mobile devices up 5x in the past two years!

Capture the mobile opportunity with separate campaigns targeting mobile devices only. Advertisers with mobile-optimized sites and mobile-targeted campaigns have seen an average 11.5% increase in mobile CTR.

#2 Tuesday: 59% of users visit a business and 40%+ make a purchase after using their smartphones to find local information

Use AdWords location extensions to showcase key business information, including your address, phone number and driving directions.

#3 Wednesday: 65% of tablet owners use their tablets at least one hour per day

Target tablet devices as part of your AdWords campaigns and, if you have tablet specific products or services, create tablet-only campaigns.

#4 Thursday: 51% of consumers are more likely to purchase from mobile-optimized websites

Get best practices and personalized tips on how to make your website more mobile-friendly at www.HowToGoMo.com.

#5. Friday Fun Factoid: One, Two, Dial my Smartphone

Sign of the times: We agree with this article and predict that more kids will know how to use a smartphone than know how to tie their shoes. Watch endearing video on the post to see just how important it will be to market your content to the four screens: mobile, tablet, laptop and TV.

To learn more, follow Think with Google on Google+ or add this helpful holiday calendar to automatically see these tips on your Google Calendar.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords Crew

Migrating Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC campaigns to “Optimize for conversions”

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:30:00 +0000

If you’re focused on conversions and CPA (cost-per-acquisition), you may already be using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC to optimize your campaigns to get you more conversions at a lower cost. To ensure that your campaign settings are also in line with your conversion goals, we plan to migrate existing campaigns using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC with “Optimize for clicks” ad rotation to “Optimize for conversions” ad rotation. Our studies have shown that campaigns moving from “Optimize for clicks” to “Optimize for conversions” see a 5% increase in conversions on average. This migration is scheduled for February 2012.

If you would prefer not to have your campaigns migrated to “Optimize for conversions” ad rotation, please fill out this form by January 31, 2012.

Not currently using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC?

Please watch the videos below to learn more about the Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC. You also can visit the AdWords Help Center to learn more about ad rotation options.

Conversion Optimizer

Enhanced CPC

Posted by Andrew Truong, Product Marketing Manager

YouTube and TV: better together

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:37:00 +0000

Each day, people watch more than 3 billion videos on YouTube - the equivalent of every American watching about 9 videos a day. U.S. online consumers now spend as much time online as they spend watching TV. With the consumer shift to online media consumption, many of our advertisers wonder how online video ads measure against traditional TV ads. Do traditional and new media ads complement each other? Which format drives recall most effectively?

To get answers, we partnered with Ipsos to measure the relative and combined effects of YouTube in-stream ads and TV ads on ad recall and brand metrics across six advertiser campaigns.

After conducting tests of 15- and 30-second spots on YouTube pre-roll instream ads and TV ads, the results revealed that YouTube and TV ads work better together. People who watched both YouTube and TV ads showed a 2X increase in brand recall than people who only saw TV ads. Those that only watched a YouTube ad had a brand recall rate 1.5X those who only watched a TV ad.

Hotels.com, one of the advertisers that participated in the study, uses YouTube video ads to drive incremental reach for TV campaigns. "Our customers are online today, so it only makes sense for e-commerce brands like Hotels.com to find entertaining and engaging online formats to interact with our audience," says Vic Walia, senior director of brand marketing for Hotels.com. "YouTube video ads is a great distribution vehicle for us to efficiently maximize our reach, but the fact that is has the added impact of improving our overall ad recall metrics is a tremendous win."

This study comes on the heels of our multi-screen research, which found that brand recall jumps dramatically for consumers shown ads across all screens - TV, PC, smartphone and tablet devices. As more people consume media across multiple devices, having a multi-channel campaign strategy helps reach consumers at different points throughout the day.

To learn more about our study, download the infographic and slides from Think Insights or check out our video. And, when planning your media buys, consider using a combination of YouTube ads and TV ads to help you achieve higher ad recall than TV ads alone. You can find out more information about YouTube video ads here.

Posted by Lizzy Van Alstine & Christina Park, Google Research and Marketing

+1 button in DFP for direct sold ads

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:34:00 +0000

In March, we introduced the +1 button on search results to make it easier for people to get recommendations from the people they trust right when they’re searching. Then in early October we expanded that to include Google Display Network ads across the web on both desktop and mobile.

Today, we’re excited to expand this capability to publishers who sell their ad space directly to advertisers using a new creative template available in DART for Publishers and the new DFP. Using the Image or Flash with Google +1 custom creative template, publishers can now add the Google +1 button to their ads so that people can share your offers with others across the web.

If you’d like to learn more about how publishers can integrate the +1 button on your direct-sold ads, please visit the DART or new DFP help centers.

Posted by David Flinner, Product Manager.

Think With Google’s December Adventure: Search Tips Recap

Inside AdWords crew — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:00:00 +0000

As we announced earlier this week, we'll be sharing insights and daily tips this month on Think with Google's Plus Page, to help you make the most of your holiday marketing.

Here are the four search ad related insights we covered this week (and a fun factoid):
Click on the titles to view the original Google+ posts and comments.

Monday: 57% of shoppers still plan to do most of their holiday buying after Cyber Monday – Prepare for the big shopping days ahead by scheduling budgets to meet demand. Learn how in the "budget scheduling" section of this helpful article to learn how.
Tuesday: Online ads are surprisingly under-served during the holidays – Take a look at the seasonal spike in shopping queries versus the level supply of ads. Grab people's attention with ads at the top of the page by taking advantage of our newly launched options for Automated Rules.
Wednesday: Searches for "layaway" are heating up – Layaways are catching fire again with budget-conscious consumers at retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart - especially in the Southern US. Geo-target your campaigns to areas where holiday shoppers are looking through the Location Targeting Tool.
Thursday: December has arrived, bringing eight projected $1 billion+ online shopping days – Target those last-minute, undecided buyers with keyword terms such as "quick and easy gift ideas." The rush to purchase gift cards has also started, so make sure you have relevant keywords and ads.
Friday Fun Factoid: The Cold Truth – Did you know people in the US catch an average of three colds a year, per person? At about 1 billion colds annually, that's nothing to sneeze at. And this year's cold season could be worse than usual: Cold- and flu-related searches on Google are up by 61% so far over the same period last year. That means we'll see 14.1 million more cold- and flu-related searches this December than last December. So wash your hands before hitting the keyboard and bundle up, folks!

To learn more, follow Think with Google on Google+ or add this helpful holiday calendar to automatically see these tips on your Google Calendar.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords Crew

Webinar: Reaching Your Goals with Analytics

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:00:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Analytics Blog)

Is your website performing as well as it could be? Do you want to get more out of your digital marketing campaigns, including AdWords and other digital media? Do you feel like you have gaps in your current Google Analytics setup?

We’ve heard from many of our users who want to go deeper into their Analytics -- with so much data, it can be hard to know where to look first. If you’d like to move beyond standard “pageview” metrics and visitor statistics, then please join us next Thursday:

Webinar: Reaching Your Goals with Analytics
Date: Thursday, December 1
Time: 11am PST / 2pm EST
Sign up here!

During the webinar, we’ll cover:

Key questions to ask for richer insights from your data
How to define “success” (for websites, visitors, or campaigns)
How to set up and use Goals
How to set up and use Ecommerce (for websites with a shopping cart)
How to link AdWords to your Google Analytics account

Whatever your online business model -- shopping, lead-generation, or pure content -- these tools will deliver actionable insights into your buying cycle.

This webinar will be led by Joe Larkin, a technical specialist on the Google Analytics team, and it’s designed for intermediate users of Google Analytics. If you’re comfortable with the basics, but you’d like to do more with your data, then we hope you’ll join us on Thursday!

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Google Analytics team

New ways to take action on top of page bid estimates

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

A few months ago, we launched top of page bid estimates to provide additional assistance in optimizing your ads to show above the search results. Today, we wanted to let you know about ways to more easily and scalably take action on these bid estimates, now that they’re supported by Automated Rules and AdWords Editor 9.7.1.

Setting up top of page bid rules with Automated Rules

You can use automated rules with top of page bid estimates to raise the bids of your keywords to the recommended top of page bid, and run this rule on a daily basis.

To create this rule:

Click All online campaigns in the left panel of your AdWords account.
Click the Keywords tab.
Click the Automate button, and select “Raise bids to top of page CPC when..." from the drop-down.
Fill out the form as desired.

Note: Be sure to specify a maximum bid, In addition, you might want to only raise bids for keywords that have a good quality score (for example, Quality score >= 6), so as not to bid up keywords that need to be optimized.

What you can do in AdWords Editor 9.7.1

AdWords Editor 9.7.1 launched last week with support for managing bids based on top of page bid estimates. New functionality was added to allow:

Viewing “Top of page bid estimates” on the Keywords tab
Raising bids to “Top of page bid estimates” using Advanced bid changes
Filtering keywords based on “Top of page bid estimates” within Advanced Search and “Find duplicates”

For more details on AdWords Editor 9.7.1, please see the release notes and the download center.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Product Marketing Manager

Holiday insights and tips from Think with Google!

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Think it’s too late for holiday marketing initiatives? Think again!

Today the Think with Google team launches December Adventure, where every weekday between now and December 23, they’ll share useful, surprising and delightful insights and opportunities for sparking your online holiday sales via search ads, mobile and more. It’s prime time for online shopping, so follow Think with Google on Google+ for daily tips! You can also add this helpful holiday calendar to automatically see these tips on your Google Calendar.

Our December Adventure is just beginning - so bundle up, log on, and get ready to grow your holiday business day by day. Click here to visit Think with Google on Google+. To share the glow of these holiday insights, use #decemberadventure.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords Crew

More ways to reach your audience with YouTube mobile ads

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

There’s no debate that the world is going mobile. Mobile web searches have grown five times over the past two years. YouTube mobile now gets more than 400 million views a day, representing 13 percent of our total daily views.

For advertisers, this opens up more opportunities to reach customers. And in some cases, it can amplify existing campaigns. In a recent study conducted with Nielsen research, we found that promotions perform better together when displayed across multiple screens. In fact, brand recall jumps dramatically to 74 percent for people who saw ads across TV, PC, smartphone and tablets, up from 50 percent for those who saw ads only on TV.

Here are a few ways you can extend your mobile reach with YouTube:

YouTube’s Promoted Video ads on mobile

Do you use Promoted Video ads to reach viewers searching for relevant products and potential customers browsing videos on YouTube.com? You can also use Promoted Videos to reach viewers on the go. Promoted Videos are featured at the top of the video search results on m.youtube.com, YouTube’s mobile platform.

Advertisers pay only when the viewer chooses to watch the video, and all mobile and desktop view counts are summarized into one complete view count on your channel page. Mobile Promoted Video ads are auction-based campaigns that can be managed in your Google AdWords account. All Google AdWords campaigns are opted into “all devices” by default, but creating separate mobile campaigns helps optimize your mobile advertising efforts and the performance of your brand channel.

A Promoted Video ad on m.youtube.com includes an ad thumbnail, title and channel name; similar to the organic video results.

Promoted Video ads have recently joined YouTube’s family of TrueView ad formats. Soon, your Promoted Video ads will become TrueView in-search ads and TrueView in-display ads. TrueView in-search ads show up in display ad units against search results on YouTube, whereas TrueView in-display ads show up in display ad units against suggested videos on YouTube and across website content on the Google Display Network. These TrueView video ads can be set up and managed in any Google AdWords for video account and purchased on a cost-per-view basis.

YouTube mobile in-stream ads

YouTube mobile in-stream ads are 15-second pre-roll ads that appear before the video begins to play. Similar to your desktop experience, mobile in-stream ads may show before videos produced by YouTube partners. In addition to the Android YouTube app, in-stream ads are also available to viewers accessing m.youtube.com from their iPhone.

You can optimize your mobile in-stream ads to reach specific audiences, locations and content. In-stream ads are priced on a CPM basis and can be arranged via ad reservation through your Google sales representative.

Animal Planet used mobile in-stream ads to promote the new season of River Monsters.

YouTube mobile roadblocks

YouTube Mobile roadblocks give brands 100% share of voice on the YouTube home, browse and search pages on m.youtube.com. According to recent Nielsen data, these roadblocks add 17 percent incremental impressions for advertisers.

adidas used mobile roadblocks to complement their homepage masthead ad. Using multiple mobile tactics in addition to roadblocks, channel views jumped 26x over the span of their “adidas is all in” brand campaign.

Mobile brand channels extend your online presence

Many advertisers use banners, background images and gadgets to customize their YouTube brand channels. Extend your brand presence to mobile users by creating a customized mobile brand channel. Accessed through m.youtube.com, mobile channels offer the same high level of customization, including the use of gadgets. You can drive traffic to your YouTube mobile brand channel by running ads on the AdMob network or on m.youtube.com.

YouTube’s AdBlitz brand channel features custom-designed elements which engage our growing mobile audience.

For more information about YouTube mobile ads, connect with your Google sales representative or visit www.youtube.com/advertise/mobile.html.

Posted by Nicky Crane, Product Manager

Get more from AdWords this season with improved Product Ads

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:00:00 +0000

The busiest shopping days of the holiday season are just around the corner! As you're thinking about ways to get more results from AdWords this season, consider investing in Product Listing Ads, which allow shoppers to see the exact products you offer before they even reach your site, leading to more clicks, higher quality leads, and higher ROI for your search ads. In fact, users are twice as likely to click on Product Listing Ads than on text ads in the same location for shopping queries.

Here are a couple of recent enhancements we’ve made to Product Listing Ads to make them even more effective this season:

More featured products - Product Listing Ads (in the top ad location) can now show up to 5 products at a time, giving users more shopping choices and allowing more advertisers to promote their inventories in all countries with Product Listing Ads.

More traffic - Since launching Product Listing Ads in AdWords to all US advertisers, we’ve seen significant growth with an overall 600% increase in traffic to retailers from Product Listing Ads compared to last year. With the holiday season approaching, we expect even more users shopping and searching for products on Google.

How can you take advantage of this opportunity?

Optimize bids and plan for budgets for holiday season - Bid competitively and appropriately for your expected holiday sales. Also, ensure that your budgets aren’t limiting your ability to capture the growing holiday traffic.
Feature all of your products - Use the "All Products" product target to ensure you are running Product Listing Ads on all of your inventory.
Review Merchant Center data quality errors and suggestions - Check the Data Quality tab in Merchant Center to ensure you are providing us with enough information to help us match your products to more and better customer queries.
Use promotional messages to highlight special promotions - Messages such as “Free Shipping,” coupon codes, or “Extended Warranty Special” can help your ad stand out.

Looking for more ways to get the most out of Product Listing Ads? Visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Product Marketing Manager, Product Ads

Third Party Tools To Help Manage Your Google+ Page

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Last week, we announced Google+ Pages, which provide a new way for businesses, brands, products, organizations and other entities to build a public identity on Google+. We’re encouraged by the number of pages that have been created and brands’ enthusiasm for building better relationships with their customers on Google+.

Businesses can create and manage their pages directly through Google+. We are committed to working on enhancements and innovative features to offer businesses more flexibility and power to run their pages. We also recognize that some businesses use social media management companies to manage their presence across multiple social networks. So today we’re announcing that Google+ is enabling six companies to test Google+ functionality in their management tools -- Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, HootSuite, Involver, and Vitrue.

These companies will offer a subset of their clients the ability to manage circles, publish to Google+, and monitor usage. To learn more about their services and pricing, check out this page.

We are currently working with these companies so that we can experiment and get feedback. They were selected based on their extensive experience helping brands and businesses manage and analyze their presence on social networks. If you’re a social media management company interested in working with Google+, get in touch with us.

Follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Sara McKinley, Product Manager, Google+ Pages

This Week: Google+ Webinar and Help Desk Hangouts!

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:21:00 +0000

As you may already know, last Monday we announced Google+ Pages for businesses, a collection of tools and products to help clients get closer to customers. Over the next two days we’re offering two awesome opportunities for you to learn more about getting your business on Google+:

Tomorrow: Learn with Google Webinar: Getting Your Business on Google+
Wednesday November 16, 2pm ET. Register here.
Join our live webinar hosted by Google+ experts to learn more about how you can bring your company and customers closer together using Google+. Key topics that'll be covered include:

Setting up a Google+ Page for your business
Best practices and early use cases for using Google+
Promoting your Google+ Page
Improving the performance of your ads with +1 annotations

Thursday: Help Desk Hangouts
Thursday November 17, 12pm - 3pm ET. Visit our Google+ Your Business page.
Still have questions? Talk face-to-face with a Google+ expert using our group video chat product, Hangouts. Learn technical tips, content strategies, and potential use cases for your business.

Check out how Zen Bikes uses Google Plus in this awesome video!

Posted by David Weisman, The Google+ Team

Connect your Google+ Page to your AdWords campaigns

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:15:00 +0000

This week we introduced Google+ Pages, a new way to get closer to your customers online. At that time we announced that you’d be able to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns, so that all your +1s -- from your Page, your website, ads and search results -- get tallied together and appear as a single total. We’re happy to announce that starting today, and rolling out to all advertisers globally over the rest of the week, we’re making this functionality available with a new AdWords feature called Social Extensions.

With Social Extensions, consumers will be able to see all the recommendations your business has received, whether they are looking at an ad, a search result or your page. This means your +1’s will reach not only the 40+ million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day.

Currently (and for campaigns that don’t have Social Extensions enabled) your AdWords ads only show +1’s from people who have +1’d that ad’s landing page. This limits the likelihood that someone who sees your ad will have a friend or contact who’s recommended it. By enabling Social Extensions on your ad campaigns you’re able to leverage all the +1’s your brand has received, whether it be on a search result, on your Google+ Page, your website or on your ads, making it more likely that someone who sees your ad will have a friend or contact who has recommended it.

We believe that this has the potential to improve your overall ad performance. In fact, 71% of shoppers say that recommendations from friends and family impact their purchasing decisions.* These additional recommendations may result in more conversions and deeper engagement with your business overall.

Not only have we enabled you to serve more personalized ads, but we’ve also added a new reporting segment that will help you better understand the impact that social annotations are having on your campaigns and ads. Starting today you can segment any campaign, adgroup, keyword or ad by a new +1 annotation segment.

This segment will breakout your performance metrics into three categories

Impressions with personal annotations - (impressions where the viewer had a friend or contact who had +1’d your brand.)
Impressions with basic annotations - (impressions that included an anonymous count of people who +1’d your brand)
Impressions without any social annotations

Note that this segment works on all campaigns, even ones that don’t leverage the new Social Extension (since +1 annotations can come from a number of sources, and not simply Google+ Pages).

To enable Social Extensions on your AdWords campaigns simply click the Ad Extensions tab in your account and select Social Extensions from the drop down menu and choose new extension. You’ll be prompted to add your connected Google+ Page URL and click save.

You can link your Google+ Page to your AdWords campaign with Social Extensions. Social Extensions are available in the ad extensions tab in your AdWords account

To learn more about the AdWords Social Extensions please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords Crew

*Harris Interactive, June 2010

Introducing the revamped Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to introduce the revamped Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center, a site designed for advertisers and publishers to learn more about invalid clicks. The Google Ad Traffic Quality Team monitors traffic across Google’s ad network, and prevents advertisers from paying for invalid traffic. Our team provides this protection for everyone without any action needed from you, but we also know that many of you want to do whatever you can to ensure the best performance for your ads. We have created this site to share various resources that can help you learn about invalid clicks and maintain a successful AdWords or AdSense account.

On the site, you’ll learn about:

Google’s protection against invalid clicks: Learn more about how we detect invalid clicks and how advertisers and publishers are protected.

How to better understand your ad traffic: Understand and analyze your traffic better by learning more about various tracking techniques.

Best practices for generating leads: Tracking your leads better helps you improve the ROI you see from your AdWords campaigns.

To get started, check out the articles on the site. We’ll be adding more content and improving the site over time, so be sure to check back often.

Posted by Fili Wiese, Ad Traffic Quality Team

Learn how to get your business on Google+

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, we opened up Google+ to businesses, a way for businesses to get closer to their customers. We’ve already seen many brands using Google+ in unique and exciting ways, such as hangouts out with Miss Piggy and style bloggers from Macy’s.

How can you best use Google+ to grow your business? We have set up a number of opportunities for you to learn how to get started:

ad:tech New York keynote: Getting Closer to Your Customers on Google+
Wednesday, November 9, 5:30pm - 6:15pm ET
Join Google’s Head of Social Advertising Products, Christian Oestlien as he maps out the company’s vision for putting people at the center of the web experience and the opportunities Google+ creates for marketers to engage customers in new, better ways. If you can’t make it in person, you can watch the live stream or follow the reaction by searching for #gplusbiz on Google+.

ad:tech New York booth
Wednesday November 9 (10am - 6pm), Thursday November 10 (10am - 4pm)
We’ll also have Google+ experts on hand at ad:tech to answer questions and help you create your own page. We’d love for you to stop by and meet the team!

Learn with Google Webinar: Getting Your Business on Google+
Wednesday November 16, 2pm ET. Register here.
Join our live webinar hosted by Google+ experts to learn more about how you can bring your company and customers closer together using Google+. Key topics that'll be covered include:

Setting up a Google+ Page for your business
Best practices and early use cases for using Google+
Promoting your Google+ Page
Improving the performance of your ads with +1 annotations

Help Desk Hangouts
Thursday November 17, 12pm - 3pm ET. Visit our Google+ Your Business page.
Still have questions? Talk face-to-face with a Google+ expert using our group video chat product, Hangouts. Learn technical tips, content strategies, and potential use cases for your business.

In the meantime, you can check out our Getting Started Guide on our Google+ Your Business site. To keep up to date on the latest tips, add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Get closer to your customers with Google+

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:04:00 +0000

Since the initial launch of Google+ just a few months ago, we’ve welcomed over 40 million people and introduced more than 100 new features. For all these people, one important part is still missing - your business.

We want to help you make the same kinds of lasting connections with your customers online the way you can in real life. That’s why we are introducing Google+ Your Business, a collection of tools and products to help you get closer to your customers. At the heart of this is Google+ Pages, your business’s identity on Google+.

Google+ Pages: Have real conversations with the right people

To get your business on Google+, you first need to create a Google+ Page. On your page, you can post updates and news about your business, engage in conversations with your customers, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1’s you have across the web. Here are a few features of Google+ Pages that we think will help you build relationships:

Google+ Pages are at the heart of Google+ for Business

Hangouts
Sometimes you might want to chat with your customers face-to-face. For example, if you run a bookstore, you may want to invite an author to talk about her latest novel, or if you market a cosmetics line, beauty specialists might want to hold how-to sessions for makeup tips. Hangouts make this easy, by letting you have high-quality video chats with nine customers, with a single click. You can use Hangouts to get product feedback, help solve problems or simply get to know people better, all in real time.

Hangouts let you meet your customers, face to face

Circles
Circles allow you to group followers of your Page into smaller audiences. You can then share specific messages with specific groups. For example, you could create a Circle containing people who are your most loyal customers and offer them a special discount.

+1 button and Google+ badge: Inspire current customers to recommend new ones
Google+ Pages also help you deliver your great content to users in a way that’s easy to share with their friends. We introduced the +1 button as a way for your customers to recommend your business across the web - on Google search, in your ads, on sites across the web and on mobile devices. Now, your customers can +1 your Page, recommending your actual brand -- not just an individual ad or a site -- directly to their friends.

To help your customers find your page and start sharing, we have two buttons you can add to your site by visiting our Google+ badge configuration tool:

The Google+ icon is a small icon that directly links to your Page.

In the coming days, we’re introducing the Google+ badge, which lets people add your page to their circles, without leaving your site, to start getting updates from your business via Google+.

Make your +1’s count, improving the performance of your ads
Coming soon, we will also make it possible to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns for your site, so that all your +1s -- from your Page, your website, ads and search results -- will get tallied together and appear as a single total.

Your +1’s will be shown with your brand wherever it appears, including search, ads, Google+ and your website

Consumers will be able to see all the recommendations your business has received, whether they are looking at an ad, a search result or your page, meaning your +1’s will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day. In the coming days. you'll be able to link your page to your AdWords campaigns by following the instructions in the AdWords Help Center.

You can link your Google+ Page to your AdWords campaign with Social Extensions. Social Extensions are available in the ad extensions tab in your AdWords account.

Bringing Google+ to the rest of Google
Our ultimate vision for Google+ is to transform the overall Google experience-- weaving identity and sharing into all of our products. Beginning today, with a select group of websites at launch, we’re rolling out a new feature, Direct Connect -- an easy way for your customers to find your Google+ Page on Google search. For eligible pages, when someone searches for your business with the ‘+’ sign before it Direct Connect will send them directly to your page. For example, try searching for ‘+YouTube’ on Google. Users will also be prompted to automatically add Pages they find through Direct Connect to their circles. Direct Connect will not work for everyone.

Direct Connect suggestions start populating as you type on Google.com

Just the beginning
We wanted to help you get your business on Google+ as soon as possible, so we’re opening the field trial for Google+ Pages to everyone today. Creating a Google+ Page only takes a few minutes. To get started, you’ll need a personal Google+ profile. If you don’t have a Google account, it’s very quick and easy to join. And if you are looking for inspiration, check out some of the companies that are already starting to set up their Pages:

To learn more about how Google+ works for your business, check out the Google+ Your Business site. We’re just getting started and have many more features in the coming weeks and months. To keep up to date on the latest news and tips, add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. If you have ideas on how we can improve Google+ for your business, we’d love to hear them.

Posted by Dennis Troper, Product Management Director, Google+ Pages

Re-thinking Mobile Marketing & Analytics webinar recording featuring Avinash Kaushik

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Missed the Think Mobile webinar on Nov. 2nd? The recording is now available here on the Google Business Channel on YouTube.

In this video, Avinash Kaushik shares some best practices regarding mobile marketing strategies, and points out some strategies that you should be aware of. He also shares a framework for bringing fast, innovative measurement to your mobile data (including a special downloadable report).

We hope you enjoy the webinar!

Posted by Jaime Mayer, Marketing Manager

Reminder: Google’s Think Mobile Webinar featuring Avinash Kaushik – November 2nd

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Not sure how to most effectively leverage and measure your mobile marketing campaigns? Well, you’re not alone. While mobile is an incredible new way to distribute content and reach customers on the go, it also presents a unique challenge when it comes to measuring the impact of our mobile efforts (like applications, advertisements or mobile-optimized websites).

We just wanted to remind you to tune in this week to Google’s Think Mobile webinar, Mobile Advertising: Right Person, Right Time, Right Message - Finally!, led by Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist. Avinash will share tips and best practices for mobile marketing campaigns, new metrics unique to mobile, and how best to measure mobile ads and websites.

When: Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 9-10:30am PST (12-1:30pm EST)
How: Register here

We hope to see you there!

Posted by Jaime Mayer, Marketing Manager

Product Listing Ads rolling out to UK, German and French advertisers

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Starting today, UK advertisers can start using Product Listing Ads. In the next few weeks, we'll be making them available to German and French advertisers as well. Product Listing Ads are an ad format that makes it easy for you to promote your entire product inventory while still providing potential customers with high-quality, relevant results. Since our previous US beta and launch, advertisers have listed hundreds of millions of products and we found that people are twice as likely to click on a Product Listing Ad as they are to click on a standard text ad in the same location.

Product Listing Ads, along with Product Extensions, are part of AdWords Product Ads. With Product Ads, users can see the exact products you offer before they even reach your site, which leads to more clicks, higher quality leads, and higher ROI for your search ads.

(Example of standalone Product Listing Ads)

(Example of Text Ad with Product Extensions)

Like Product Extensions, which lets you add the pictures and prices of relevant products to your keyword-targeted text ads, Product Listing Ads make it easy to show the most relevant products from your Google Merchant Center account to potential customers searching on Google.com.

However, unlike Product Extensions, Product Listing Ads don't require any keywords or ad text. Product Listing Ads are automatically triggered whenever someone's search matches an item in your Merchant Center account, making it easy to show relevant ads for your entire product inventory.

To learn more about Product Ads and see how to get started with Product Extensions and Listings, you can visit our help center.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Product Marketing Manager, Product Ads

Improved transparency and choice with ads on search and Gmail

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:36:00 +0000

Our AdWords engineers are constantly working to make ads more relevant and useful. We're also working to give users more transparency and choice with the ads that they see. These efforts help maintain user trust, which is fundamental to the effectiveness of AdWords.

New features for users

Starting today we’re placing a "Why these ads?" link on Google search results and Gmail (known as Google Mail in some countries).

When a user clicks the link, it expands to explain details about why each ad was shown.

A user can also access the Ads Preferences Manager for search and Gmail.

Here, the user can choose to block ads from specific advertisers or opt out of personalized ads. Because we can show fewer, more relevant ads when users have opted-in to see personalized ads, we describe these benefits with text and video to help them make an informed choice.

Potential impact on advertisers
As an advertiser, you might wonder how these changes could impact your AdWords performance. When a user opts out of personalized ads on search and Gmail, your ads can still reach them but the targeting might be a bit less precise. If users block your ads, they won’t see your ads in the future. The number of blocks you’ve accumulated does not directly affect calculations of your Quality Score and Ad Rank.

Users must be signed in to Google for their ads preferences to apply.

More details
You can learn more about the new Ads Preferences Manager for search and Gmail at the Web Search Help Center. You can also visit Good to Know, a new site for users on how to manage their data on Google and across the web.

Posted by Ginsu Yoon, Group Product Manager

Meet the family: TrueView video ads deliver on cost-per-view pricing model

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:15:00 +0000

If you use TrueView video ads or interested in video advertising, we invite you to check out the Agency blog where we just posted some news and recent stats on this new suite of cost-per-view video ads. To learn more about the TrueView family of ad formats, visit the website here.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Location Targeting gets a makeover

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Today, many businesses are using location targeting in their online ad campaigns to reach the right customers and improve campaign performance. Online agency iProspect, for example, uses location targeting to focus on top performing geographic areas for their client Talbots. As a result, they were able to lower their cost-per-click (CPC) by 36 percent, driving higher quality leads at a lower cost.

To provide an even better experience for our advertisers, we've connected the location targeting feature within AdWords to Google Maps. This will allow us to provide more information about locations, make relevant location suggestions, and improve the level of accuracy of our location targeting. We think these changes will make location targeting an even more useful tool for improving your campaign results.

Today we're announcing the first of these changes: a makeover to the location targeting interface within AdWords. The new Location Targeting Tool will make it easier to discover and obtain more detail on potential target locations.

Easily discover locations

Let's say that you want to target your latest AdWords campaign to New York City. On your Campaign Settings tab, as you type "New York" into the search box in the location targeting section, you'll instantly see helpful search suggestions. The suggestions include (1) matches like the city of New York, (2) locations that enclose New York (such as the state of New York), and (3) related locations that may be near the location that you've entered, have a similar name, or enclose a location that has a similar name. You can then pick the options that make the most sense for your business and quickly make the appropriate selection.

(click for full-size image)

You can also view your locations via a map, which shows more detailed location outlines. The new tool also allows you to view the boundaries of multiple locations that you've selected simultaneously, so you can see how much area the city of New York (smaller area shaded in blue) covers in relation to the entire New York metro area (larger area shaded in gray). Once you choose a location, you can easily add, exclude, or view nearby locations by clicking the appropriate links.

(click for full-size image)

More detail on locations

We now offer reach numbers to help you estimate the audience within your selected target. These reach numbers are based on the number of users seen on Google properties and may differ significantly from census numbers. Reach should be used only as general guidance to help you determine the relative number of users in a location target compared to other locations. For example, you can see from the screenshot below that targeting the Dallas metro area could result in three times the reach of the city of Dallas.

Additionally, we will use the 'Limited reach' label to indicate locations where we may not be able to associate users with a selected location based on their devices' Internet Protocol (IP) address. In these instances, we will primarily be using user intent data rather than device location data to target these locations.

(click for full-size image)

When you target a radius (also known as proximity targeting), we'll show 'Locations within this target' so you know exactly which areas are covered by your radius. You can also choose to 'Add all' of the individual locations within your radius.

(click for full-size image)

Additional Changes

Beyond the new features mentioned above, here are a few more changes to be aware of when planning your campaign.

Increased location targeting limits: We've increased the location target limits from 300 to 10,000 locations (plus 500 additional proximity targets) per campaign.

Polygon targeting migration: For existing polygon targets, you will see a 'feature removal planned' badge which will signify that we will continue to support this feature through the end of the year. We recommend using the Target a radius feature which now allows you to selectively add locations within your radius target. You can also run a geographic performance report to get an idea of which locations received traffic within your custom shapes and target those individual locations.

We hope you enjoy the new Location Targeting Tool and explore ways to use geographic reports and location targeting to optimize your campaigns. As always, we welcome your feedback through the Contact Us link in AdWords and we encourage you to review our FAQs through the AdWords Help Center for more details.

Posted by Smita Hashim, Group Product Manager, Local Ads Quality

Retiring support for Internet Explorer 6

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:51:00 +0000

By the end of this year, advertisers accessing the AdWords web interface will be required to use Internet Explorer 7 or 8, or any other compatible browser to log in into their account.

If you are still accessing AdWords with Internet Explorer 6, you’ll see a notice in your account encouraging you to upgrade as soon as possible. For optimal performance and a faster experience, we recommend you use the latest version of your preferred browser to access AdWords.

You can also use the following links to download other browsers that are compatible with AdWords:

Please visit our Help Center if you have additional questions.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Retiring support for Internet Explorer 6

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:51:00 +0000

Please visit our Help Center if you have additional questions.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Small business and the power of video: Announcing “My Business Story” by Google and American Express

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:01:00 +0000

Let’s say you’re a custom sneaker maker. Or you run a yoga retreat center. Or maybe you even sell vegan Vietnamese out of a gourmet food truck. Your business has its own unique story to tell. If you had the chance to show the world what your business is all about -- from its founding roots to the ways it changes your customers’ lives -- would you take it?

Today you have that chance. We’re pleased to be presenting "My Business Story®" alongside American Express. “My Business Story” is a program for small businesses to tell their stories through video, leading up to the second annual "Small Business Saturday," a day set aside to encourage communities to spend and support local businesses by shopping small.

And since Google research has shown that companies who use video can expect better customer engagement and retention, we are launching a new video tool so that small business owners can create personalized, professional-quality videos about their business.

Once you’ve got your video crafted, business owners are invited to submit it to the contest for an opportunity to appear in the YouTube homepage ad on Friday, November 25th, which is viewed by an estimated 22 million people in the United States every day. Thirty-six small businesses will be featured in the ad and will receive an online ad campaign worth $5,000 from Google and American Express. All submissions will be viewed and judged by an independent panel of experts. The deadline for the contest entry is Tuesday, November 15, but entry is not required to use the My Business Story editing tool.

Happy editing! We’re eager to see what you come up with.

Posted by Marisa Currie, Product Marketing Manager

Introducing bid-per-call in AdWords

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Over the next few weeks in the US and UK, we'll be rolling out the ability for advertisers to bid for phone calls -- in addition to bidding for clicks -- when they show Google search ads on computers and tablets.

Potential for more calls

Let's say your business sees phone calls as a valuable lead source. You're willing to pay up to $5 for a phone call and up to $1 for a click from a prospective customer who searched for "caribbean cruise" on Google search.

Today, a combination of your ad's Quality Score and max cost-per-click (CPC) bid determine your Ad Rank, which influences your ad's position. But with bid-per-call, your bid for phone calls and phone call Quality Score can directly factor into your Ad Rank, too. Higher ranked ads are more likely to be seen and can therefore generate more phone calls (and clicks, too).

Setup and reporting

To take advantage of bid-per-call, select the option to use a Google forwarding number when you set up Call Extensions so that our systems can measure when a call to your business occurs. With bid-per-call, you'll also get the benefit of detailed call reporting right in AdWords, which includes:

Summaries of completed calls, phone-through rate (PTR), and phone call cost on the Ad Group and Campaign tabs.
Details for each call, including call time, duration, caller area code, and the ad group that drove the call on the Dimensions tab.

Eligibility requirements

At this time, bid-per-call is available only in the US and UK. Max CPP bids are set at the ad group level. And each ad group must meet certain minimum click and call thresholds. If you're already using Call Metrics, you must enter a Max CPP bid in order to activate bid-per-call.

More details

In the AdWords Help Center, you can find details on how bid-per-call works with Ad Rank and the AdWords auction, and general FAQs about call extensions. For the latest updates on bid-per-call and other useful features, please visit Google Ad Innovations.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Product Manager

Making local online advertising easy with Google AdWords Express

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:15:00 +0000

Today, we're officially introducing AdWords Express in the UK and Germany. AdWords Express is a faster and simpler way to start advertising online in under five minutes and is designed to help local businesses that aren't already AdWords advertisers create effective campaigns. Watch the video below to see how you can create and run an online campaign from start to finish in just a few clicks:

AdWords Express helps potential customers find your website or Place page and gives you a quick and straightforward way to connect with them and grow your business. You simply provide some basic business information, choose some wording for your text ad, select a monthly budget and your campaign is ready to go.

After you sign up, the campaign will be automatically managed for you. AdWords Express will figure out which searches should trigger your ad to appear and displays it when these searches happen. Your ad will be shown in the Ads section of search results pages—on the top or right hand side—and in Google Maps with a distinctive blue pin. Customers can see your ad whether they’re searching on laptops or mobile phones.

As with all our ad products, you pay only when a customer clicks on your ad. To make things even easier, AdWords Express optimizes your ads to get the most out of your advertising campaign and budget.

Many businesses are already finding success through AdWords, but we know many of you are looking for an easier way to begin advertising online. Visit www.google.co.uk/adwords/express to sign up or learn more about how it works.

Posted by Kiley McEvoy, Product Manager, AdWords Express

Introducing Dynamic Search Ads (beta)

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:00:00 +0000

For many online businesses, each day you might have hundreds of new listings, items that temporarily change availability, or items that are permanently removed from stock. And at the same time, user search behavior can be a moving target -- each day, 16% of searches that occur, Google has never seen before. So even well-managed AdWords campaigns containing thousands of keywords can miss relevant searches, experience delays getting ads written for new products, or get out of sync with what's actually available on your web site. That's not great for advertisers. It's also not great for end users, who appreciate relevant ads linked to landing pages with in-stock items that perfectly match what they're searching for.

To help with these challenges, we're launching Dynamic Search Ads, a new way to target relevant searches with dynamic ads generated right from your website. Dynamic Search Ads complement your existing keyword-targeted ads to help you sell more with less effort.

Dynamic Targeting, Ads and Landing Pages

With Dynamic Search Ads, we maintain a fresh index of your inventory using Google's organic web crawling technology.

When a relevant search occurs, we dynamically generate an ad with a headline based on the query, and the text based on your most relevant landing page.

The ad enters the auction and competes normally -- but we'll hold it back for any search where you also have an eligible keyword-targeted ad. So you get additive results from broader exposure for more of your in-stock inventory, without disrupting your existing keyword campaigns.

User Experience & Performance

Ads are answers. And when users see ads and landing pages that deliver exactly what they're searching for, they're more likely to click and convert. So it's not surprising that we've seen solid performance in limited testing so far. While results vary, the majority of advertisers in our pilot have seen 5-10% increase in clicks and conversions with satisfactory ROI.

Some advertisers have the potential for better results. ApartmentHomeLiving.com, a leading U.S. apartment shopping website, is one example. Lawrence Cotter, General Manager, manages their huge online inventory of apartment listings that's constantly changing and growing. Over the past 5 years, his AdWords campaigns have topped 15 million keywords. Several weeks after implementing Dynamic Search Ads, he reported:

"Using Dynamic Search Ads increased conversions by almost 50% with an average cost-per-conversion that's 73% less than our traditional search ads. Dynamic Search Ads are doing a really good job finding the right searches to tap into, creating good ads, and getting visitors to the most relevant page on our site."

You're In Control

You can choose to target your whole site, specific categories of products on your site, pages containing certain words, or pages containing certain strings in your URL. And all controls can be used as negatives, along with traditional keyword negatives, to refine your targeting and prevent the promotion of out-of-stock items.

Reporting and optimization work in familiar fashion. You get full reporting on searches that generated clicks, destination pages that matched ads, ad headlines that were generated, as well as average CPC, clicks, and conversions. Many popular third party tracking systems are also supported. To optimize, use familiar techniques like adjusting your max CPC bid and negatives.

Availability & More Details

At this time, Dynamic Search Ads are available in all countries and languages as a limited beta. You can join the interest list by contacting your Google account representative or signing up here. To learn more, please visit our Help Center FAQs.

Posted by Baris Gultekin, Director, AdWords Product Management

Think Mobile Webinar – November 2nd

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Not sure how to most effectively leverage and measure your mobile marketing campaigns? Well, you’re not alone. While mobile is an incredible new way to distribute content and reach customers on the go, it also presents a unique challenge when it comes to measuring the impact of our mobile efforts (which may include applications, advertisements and/or mobile-optimized websites).

Tune in on November 2nd for Google’s Think Mobile webinar, Mobile Advertising: Right Person, Right Time, Right Message - Finally!, led by Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist. Avinash will share tips and best practices for mobile marketing campaigns, new metrics unique to mobile, and how best to measure mobile ads and websites.

When: Wednesday, November 2, 2011 9-10:30am PST/ 12-1:30pm EST
How: Register here

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords crew