Google Data » Rob Newton

Introducing YouTube Director: A suite of video ad creation products for businesses

Rob Newton — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 15:00:00 +0000

Whether it’s for entertainment, indulging a passion, or discovering something new, more people are turning to YouTube to watch video. In fact, growth in watch time on YouTube is up at least 50% year-over-year.¹ Now, more than ever, businesses can connect with their customers through video advertising on YouTube.

But we know that creating a video ad can be challenging. To make it easier for every business— from a dog walker to a barber shop owner—to get started with advertising on YouTube, we’re launching the YouTube Director suite of products. Three products that make video ads more accessible to businesses.

Make a video ad right from your phone

With the free YouTube Director for business app (available for iPhone today in the U.S. and Canada) anyone can create a video ad for their business quickly and easily—right from their phone. No editing experience required. People like Woody Lovell Jr., owner of the The Barber Shop Club in Los Angeles, are already seeing positive results with YouTube Director.

Woody shot and edited a video ad by himself, uploaded it to YouTube, and worked with an AdWords expert to run a campaign. As a result, Woody’s business saw a significant increase in potential customers being able to remember and recognize his ad.²

We challenged five business owners—including Woody—to create a video ad in twenty minutes or less. Watch what happened and download the app to give it a try.

Get a professional to make your video ad

In select U.S. cities, we’re also offering YouTube Director onsite, a service that sends a professional filmmaker to shoot and edit a video ad for free whenever a business spends at least $150 to advertise on YouTube. YouTube Director onsite is available in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C.—and coming to more cities soon.

Is your business an app? We can create a video ad for you too

YouTube Director automated video creates a video ad automatically from existing assets like logos and app screenshots in the App Store or Google Play Store, and is available globally. Reach out to a Google expert (1-855-500-2756) for more information.

No matter what kind of business you’re in, getting started with advertising on YouTube just became a whole lot easier. We can’t wait to see what you make. Happy filming.

Posted by Max Goldman, Product Manager, YouTube Director, recently watched "YouTube Director Video Challenge."

This post originally appeared on the YouTube Blog.

¹ Google Internal Data, 2016
² Woody’s YouTube Director video ad for The Barber Shop Club drove a 73% increase in ad recall among target customers on YouTube, and a 56% lift in brand awareness (AdWords Brand Lift Study, June 2016)

To Viewability and Beyond: Active View coming to TrueView

Rob Newton — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 16:00:00 +0000

Ensuring that your ads are able to be seen is an important baseline for driving brand impact. That's why we've been so focused on improving viewability measurement. We’ve spent the last several years investing in our Active View technology, which measures whether or not an ad was able to be seen. Active View makes viewability measurement effortless and free. Over the next few weeks, Active View will become available for all YouTube in-stream inventory, including TrueView, whether bought through Google AdWords or DoubleClick Bid Manager.

Viewability on YouTube

As the place people choose to watch video, YouTube has an industry-leading average viewability of 93% globally¹. To help you measure the viewability of your ads, Active View now provides viewability measurement on a per-campaign-basis, so you can understand how your campaigns are performing.

Catching the WAVE to greater brand impact

Viewability is crucial, which is why we're excited to extend Active View to our full range of in-stream formats on YouTube. But it’s important to keep in mind that with video, viewability is an indicator of whether or not your ad was on screen – not the impact of your ad. In addition to viewability, there are several factors that drive results for brand campaigns, such as: Are your ads heard as well as seen? Is the viewer interested in seeing video and paying attention to your ad? And most importantly, for how long do they watch and listen? We take each of these factors – not viewability alone – into account when we deliver your ads. It’s Watchtime, Audibility, Viewability and Engagement together that drive the greatest impact for your brand, and YouTube alone delivers the whole package:

Watch Time: Looking at hundreds of Brand Lift studies, we saw that the longer a user watches your ad, the higher the lift in awareness and consideration²
Audibility: We tested 280 campaigns and found that among users exposed to ads that were both viewable and audible, ad recall had a lift of 43%. Among users exposed to ads that were viewable alone, ad recall was significantly lower at 31%³
Viewability: YouTube has industry-leading 93% viewability
Engagement: Looking at 89 US brands that ran Brand Lift studies, we found viewers exposed to TrueView ads are 10x more likely to engage with the brand on YouTube, such as visiting or subscribing to the brand channel, watching more from that brand, or sharing the brand video⁴

WAVE is what makes video ads on YouTube different. And we tune our video ad system to optimize for all of these factors, to ensure advertisers get the full benefit of video.

The more we can help you understand what drives impact and reach those viewers who want to hear from you, the more you can drive towards your ultimate goal of greater impact per dollar spent.

Posted by Zach Lupei, Product Manager, Video Ads and Alec Berntson, Product Manager, Measurement

1. Source: Google and DoubleClick advertising platforms data, April 2016
2. Source: Google August 2015 Meta Analysis: Understanding How Viewability Relates to Brand Metrics for Video Ads
3. Source: Google Brand Lift Data, 280 US campaigns, May 2015
4. Source: Google August 2015 Meta Analysis: Measuring TrueView Impact on Brand Channel Engagement

Introducing AdWords Conversion Import for Salesforce

Rob Newton — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 17:28:00 +0000

For many marketers, dealing with the technology and scale necessary to tie offline conversions back to the keywords and ads that drive them can be a difficult task. Often, they have to make important decisions based on aggregated data from different sources or no data at all, making it difficult to understand the true value of their AdWords campaigns.

That’s why we’re introducing AdWords Conversion Import for Salesforce. AdWords Conversion Import for Salesforce measures the value of your offline conversions that result from online AdWords clicks, without the need to reconcile your AdWords and customer relationship management (CRM) data manually.

How it works

After linking your AdWords and Salesforce accounts, you can pick which important milestones, like 'lead qualification' or 'deal won', you want to track as conversions. When someone clicks your ad and visits your website, your website captures a unique Google click ID that tells your website which ad the visitor clicked on. If that visitor submits a lead form on your website, your website passes along the click ID to Salesforce, where it’s stored with the corresponding lead and any future sales opportunities.

AdWords will regularly check your Salesforce account to see if you’ve recorded any new important milestones in your sales funnel that resulted from ad clicks. If so, AdWords will count those milestones as AdWords conversions.

Peninsula, the UK’s largest team of HR, Employment Law and Health Safety experts says, “With AdWords Conversion Import for Salesforce, we now have the ability to easily see the keywords that drive qualified leads. This has allowed us to concentrate efforts in the right areas and make better use of our budget. Since we started using this feature, we’ve seen an 11% decrease in cost per lead as a result of reallocating budgets and decreasing bids on poorly performing keywords that were sitting in top positions.”

Focus on the clicks that matter

With AdWords Conversion Import for Salesforce, you’re provided with a more comprehensive view of your sales activities, and the ability to adjust your bids and budgets to be more effective. For example, you can increase your bids on keywords that drive highly qualified leads, or pause ads that result in clicks but no opportunities. This allows you to not only utilize your existing budgets more wisely, but also optimize your ad strategy for better performance.

Learn more

You can learn more about AdWords Conversion Import for Salesforce by visiting the AdWords Help Center. This solution is only available by invitation for the next few months, and will become available to all advertisers later this year. If you'd like to request an invitation before it becomes available to all advertisers, please contact your Google Sales rep or submit your information here.

Posted by Jon Diorio, Product Manager, AdWords

A new guide to attribution with AdWords – Google Best Practices

Rob Newton — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 19:00:00 +0000

The customer journey can be complex. Being able to identify which ads actually influenced someone’s decision can be challenging, but it’s crucial to get right.

In May, we launched the ability to update your attribution model in AdWords. It’s an update that can help you go beyond last-click measurement, the default in AdWords, and understand your customer’s journey on a much deeper level. As of today, this change has been rolled out to all AdWords accounts.

We’ve published a new guide to help you understand attribution and make the right decisions for your account. This resource offers best practices about what you need to do to go beyond last-click, covering topics such as:

Determining if going beyond the last-click is something that you need to do
Choosing a model that fits with your needs
Acting on attribution
Evolving your approach to attribution as measurement gets better

By going beyond last-click attribution for your Search ads in AdWords, you can understand your customer journey and make changes to improve your campaigns. Users take a while to make decisions; by changing your approach to attribution you can identify how your advertising affects people across all of their crucial, decision-making moments.

Want to stay on top of even more Best Practices? Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter.

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

2016 update to Google Shopping Products Feed Specification

Rob Newton — Wed, 25 May 2016 17:00:00 +0000

Today, we’re announcing updates to the Google Shopping Products Feed Specification. The specification is your resource for understanding what information Google needs about your products to run Shopping ads. Each year, we make updates with the goal of creating better experiences for users searching for your products online.

Some of the updates require changes to your current product data that need to be implemented by September 1st, 2016 and February 14th, 2017, respectively.

Here's an overview of this year’s updates:

‘Unit Pricing’ will be made available for all markets and applicable categories to ensure consistency in the way prices are displayed. This means, going forward, if you want to display Unit Prices, use the unit_pricing related attributes and not the price attribute. Learn more.
‘Color’ and ‘size’ values submission will be enforced more strictly for apparel products in Germany, France, Japan, and the UK. Complete and consistent data for variant attributes provide a better shopping experience for users. This means, going forward, not providing ‘color’ and ‘size’ values for apparel products in Germany, France, Japan, and the UK, will result in item disapprovals. Learn more about 'color'. Learn more about 'size'.
‘Gtin’ and ‘google product category’ requirements will be expanded to Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, India, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Turkey to improve product matching and overall ad performances. This means, going forward, Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) are required for all products with a GTIN assigned by the manufacturer. GPC is required for all products falling within the 'Apparel & Accessories', 'Media', and 'Software' categories. Not providing values for the ‘gtin’ or ‘gpc’ attributes will result in item disapprovals. Learn more about Google product categories. Learn more about GTINs.
The minimum image size requirements for non-apparel products will be increased from 32 x 32 to 100 x 100 pixels to be able to support new ad formats better. The minimum image size for apparel images will remain 250 x 250 pixels. Ads with large, high-quality images (we recommend 800 x 800 pixels or larger) have proven to be more effective and lead to better performance. This means, going forward, non-apparel images below 100 x 100 pixels and apparel images smaller than 250 x 250 pixels will result in item disapproval. Learn more.
The maximum feed file size will increase from 1 GB to 4 GB (Gigabyte). As before, files can either be submitted in compressed or uncompressed format. Learn more.

Below are the timelines when certain product requirements will lead to item disapprovals:

Beginning September 1st, 2016, all of the updates, except the GTIN requirement updates, will go into full effect and any product data that doesn't meet the requirements in the Products Feed Specification will be disapproved.
Since providing accurate GTIN information can take more time, the GTIN requirement updates will go into full effect later on, starting February 14th, 2017.

As you begin making updates to your product data, we also recommend that you update the corresponding microdata on your product landing pages, which helps to ensure a strong match of information between your ads and your website. Additionally, this allows you to take advantage of advanced features such as automatic item updates, which ensure that your ads have the most accurate price and availability information.

Posted by Angelika Rohrer and Patrik Reali, Google Shopping Team

Ads and analytics innovations for a mobile-first world

Rob Newton — Tue, 24 May 2016 16:43:00 +0000

The shift to mobile is no longer a change on the horizon. It’s here.

Every year, there are trillions of searches on Google and over half of those searches happen on mobile. And across the millions of websites using Google Analytics today, we're seeing more than half of all web traffic now coming from smartphones and tablets.

When we asked people to describe the role smartphones play in their lives, they used phrases like "attached to my hip", "butler" and "lifeline." Smartphones have become the companion that people turn to in I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do and I want-to-buy moments throughout the day.

To help marketers succeed in this mobile-first world, we have redesigned AdWords -- from the ground-up -- and re-thought everything from creatives and bidding, to workflow and measurement.

We’re also making it easier for marketers to bridge the digital and physical worlds. With location-related mobile searches growing 50% faster than all mobile searches, it’s clear that consumers are moving seamlessly between online and offline experiences. So it’s important to help marketers think this way too.

It was incredibly exciting to share new innovations with advertisers this morning at the Google Performance Summit. Below are highlights from today’s announcements. You can watch a replay of the full program here.

AdWords re-imagined for the mobile-first world

Over the last several years, we’ve discovered that accounting for mobile and designing for mobile-first are two very different things. That’s why we’ve completely transformed how we think about and build AdWords.

In order to enable advertisers and developers to drive more downloads of mobile apps -- across Google properties -- we built Universal App Campaigns. To date, Universal App Campaigns has delivered more than 2 billion downloads for advertisers, across Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. And last week at Google I/O, we announced this campaign type is now available on iOS.

Today, we are announcing even broader changes to advertising with Google, from how text and display ads work, to the way advertisers optimize campaigns.

What do text ads look like in the mobile-first world? Mobile has revolutionized the canvas where ads live. Earlier this year, we removed right-hand side ads on desktop to improve the search experience and make it more consistent across devices. This paved the way for us to introduce the biggest changes to our text ads since AdWords launched fifteen years ago.

Optimized for screen sizes of the most popular smartphones, new expanded text ads in AdWords provide more ad space so you can showcase more information about your products and services before the click. Here are the key changes:

These upgrades help your ads work harder across screens, especially for the on-the-go mobile consumer that wants to know exactly what you offer before tapping into your website.

Based on early testing, some advertisers have reported increases in clickthrough rates of up to 20% compared to current text ads. We encourage you to start planning for this upgrade before it rolls out later this year.
How do display ads look in a mobile-first world? From sites to apps to videos, mobile has unlocked a universe of new spaces to reach consumers. Responsive ads for display adapt to the diverse content across the more than two million publisher sites and apps on the Google Display Network (GDN). They also unlock new native inventory so you can engage consumers with ads that match the look and feel of the content they’re browsing. Simply provide headlines, a description, an image, and a URL -- and Google will automatically design these beautiful responsive ads.

Responsive ads for display adapt to fit any app or site on the GDN.

We’re also extending the reach of GDN remarketing campaigns by giving you access to cross-exchange inventory, which includes more websites and apps around the world. With this inventory, European airline SAS drove about 20% more conversions at a similar CPA for its remarketing campaigns. Learn more

What does bidding look like in a mobile-first world? Marketers need more control and flexibility to optimize bids on specific devices. In the next few months, you’ll be able to set individual bid adjustments for each device type -- mobile, desktop and tablet. This lets you anchor your base keyword bid to the device most valuable to your business and then set bid adjustments for each of the other devices. You will also have a wider range to adjust bids, up to +900%. With more controls, you can now optimize with greater precision while keeping things simple with a single campaign that reaches consumers across devices.

Mobile is local, bridging digital and physical worlds for marketers

Nearly one third of all mobile searches are related to location. People’s online and offline worlds are colliding — whether you’re researching restaurant ideas for dinner on Friday night or looking for a store that sells rain boots in your size.

To help advertisers reach consumers searching for physical business locations, we’re introducing new local search ads across Google.com and Google Maps. Advertisers using location extensions will be able to prominently showcase their business locations when consumers search for things like “shoe store” or “car repair near me.” Learn more

We’re also investing in more branded, customized experiences for businesses on Google Maps -- geared towards helping you increase store visits. First, we’re experimenting with a variety of ad formats on Maps that make it easier for users to find businesses as they navigate the world around them. For example, Maps users may start to see promoted pins for nearby coffee shops, gas stations or lunch spots along their driving route. Local business pages are also getting a brand new look -- to encourage consumers to explore your store before they even arrive, we’re adding new features like special offers and the ability to browse product inventory.

Ads in Maps : promoted pin and business page

With online ads bringing more people to your storefronts, how do you measure the impact?

AdWords is the largest online-to-offline ad measurement solution in the world. In fact, since AdWords store visits were introduced two years ago, advertisers have measured over 1 billion store visits globally.

Businesses across a variety of industries around the world are using insights from AdWords store visits to measure the impact of online ads on offline activity. Nissan UK discovered that 6% of mobile ad clicks result in a trip to a dealership, delivering an estimated 25x return on investment. See the full story here.

Succeeding in a mobile-first world

As consumers live their lives online and blur the lines between online and offline, it’s more important than ever to build your business for mobile. Google’s building for this mobile-first world as well and we’re excited to go on this journey with you.

To see the full range of ads and analytics innovations announced this morning, watch the Google Performance Summit keynote here. Also check out the new AdWords Marketing Goals site to learn how to use ads solutions to meet your business objectives.

Posted by: Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce

Google Ads & Analytics Innovations Keynote

Rob Newton — Tue, 24 May 2016 13:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the Google Performance Summit livestream! Tune in at 9AM PT/12PM ET to hear Google’s latest mobile-first innovations, the moment they’re announced. Join the conversation at #GoogleSummit.

Driving Mobile App Downloads and Engagement – Google Best Practices

Rob Newton — Mon, 23 May 2016 16:00:00 +0000

In today’s crowded market for mobile apps, it’s more important than ever to be able to attract the right users to your app, gain their loyalty, and drive long term value.

By now, you’ve probably had the chance to hear about some new ads & analytics announcements at Google I/O designed to make it easier for developers and marketers to find more of the right users for their apps across all of Google. Things like:

Improvements to our Universal App Campaigns: expanding beyond Android into iOS and optimizing beyond CPI for user value and in app conversions, and
A new analytics platform called Firebase Analytics that can help you to understand and optimize for lifetime value.

To help prepare for these updates, we’ve updated two of our best practices guides that will help you use AdWords for driving more app downloads and increasing user engagement.

You can also check them out at g.co/PromoteYourApp. Only 364 days left to the next I/O!

Want to stay on top of even more Best Practices? Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter.

Posted by: Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

At Google I/O, new features to find the right users for your app

Rob Newton — Wed, 18 May 2016 18:39:00 +0000

Last year at Google I/O, we shared our mission to make app growth easier with the launch of Universal App Campaigns - one simple campaign that surfaces apps to billions of consumers who use Google Play, Search, YouTube, and more. It’s working, and more people are discovering apps on Google than ever before. Over the past year -- and thanks to Universal App Campaigns -- we've more than doubled the volume of app installs driven by ads, and to date we’ve delivered more than 2 billion downloads to developers.

Today at Google I/O, we’re announcing multiple improvements to Universal App Campaigns to make it an even more powerful tool for app developers to find the right users for their app.

Making app growth simple for iOS developers

First, Universal App Campaigns are expanding beyond Android to help developers grow their iOS apps. Now, all app developers can tap into the simplicity and power of Universal App Campaigns to reach billions of Android and iOS users on YouTube, the Google Search App, and the Google Display Network. Universal App Campaigns for iOS are available in beta today and will roll out to all developers in the near future.

Finding more valuable users with less effort

Second, we’re helping developers more easily grow an active user base by finding the right user from the start. Instead of reaching any user to install their app, developers can now also find customers who are likely to be valuable users of their app. A recent study¹ showed that 17% of users drive 85% of app revenue, which is why successful apps are shifting their focus from volume to finding more of the right customers.

Universal App Campaigns will automate targeting, bidding, and creative generation to find your most valuable users based on your in app conversions. Just tell us the in app events that matter to you, whether it’s reaching level ten in your game, subscribing to your service, or making a purchase in your app, and we’ll do the rest. Our models evaluate countless signals and constantly learn and adjust, meaning every ad is based on the freshest, most relevant data. The best thing is that we do all the hard work in the background, predicting which users will be valuable and acquiring them at the right price. These innovations are in testing and will roll out in the coming months.

Pocket Gems has already been leaning on the automation of Universal App Campaigns to find quality users at scale, as David Rose, Director of Performance Marketing said:

"Universal App Campaigns have helped us acquire users with a higher LTV compared to other acquisition channels. We're particularly excited about how the next generation of Universal App Campaigns will enable us to iterate quickly and optimize for the actions that matter most to our business. This is an app marketer's dream."

Screenshots of mobile users discovering the Pocket Gems War Dragons app on Google Play and Google.com, powered by Universal App Campaigns

More ways to reach the right customers at the right moments

That’s not all. We’re creating more chances for developers to show ads where users go to watch, discover, and communicate. Universal App Campaigns will soon reach more users on YouTube, as well as introduce a new opportunity to reach users on top of tabs in Gmail.

New Gmail placement launching in 2016

Insights made for apps
Finally, we know app developers need the best user insights to build better apps and power their marketing campaigns, so we’re particularly excited about Firebase Analytics, our new analytics platform designed for apps from the ground-up that was announced at Google I/O earlier today. It provides prebuilt engagement and in-app actions that will help manage your conversions and lifetime value for AdWords campaigns and over 20 third-party ad networks. If you’re an AdWords user you can funnel these conversions into AdWords so it’s even easier to optimize campaigns to the things you care about.

SparkPeople, one of our early testers in the health and fitness sector, is already gaining more insights and taking a longer term view of app audience growth by linking AdWords accounts to Firebase:

“AdWords is a crucial part of my customer acquisition strategy. Linking my AdWords account to Firebase was incredibly easy, and now I can see total lifetime value for all users I've brought in from AdWords, broken down by campaign. The ability to sync my AdWords data to Firebase Analytics has simplified my daily management and optimization from hours to minutes, so I can spend more time building an app my users will love." - Joe Robb, Digital Marketing Director, SparkPeople

The Firebase Analytics dashboard

We look forward to helping many more developers build and grow successful businesses. At Google I/O, we’ll be sharing essential insights and best practices on how to drive growth with Google tools. You can take part too by viewing the live streamed and recorded sessions here. Happy I/O!

Posted by: Sissie Hsiao, Product Management Director, Mobile App Ads

1. State of Mobile Acquisition, RadiumOne

New ways to be there and be useful for mobile shoppers

Rob Newton — Mon, 16 May 2016 16:00:00 +0000

It comes as little surprise to many of us, but mobile’s share of online retail purchases continues to grow. In 2016, 34% of online retail purchases in the US happen on mobile.¹ And it’s not just the purchases themselves. It’s the explosion of ‘I-need-some-ideas,’ ‘which-one’s-best?’ and ‘I-want-to-buy-it’ micro-moments happening on Google that lead to those purchases. In fact, mobile shopping searches on Google have increased by 30% in the last year.²

Retailers have asked us to help make it easier for them to be there and be useful during these mobile moments. Here’s what we’ve been working on:

Introducing shopping ads on image search

Whether they’re looking for a new sofa or the perfect pair of earrings, people who search and shop on their smartphones at least once a week say that product images are the shopping feature they turn to most.³ And it turns out, the top questions Google Images users ask us are 'What's the price of this?’ and ‘Where can I buy it?’

That’s why we are introducing Shopping ads on image search. Now your ads for related products will appear as shoppers browse Google Images, so they can easily click through to buy from you.

Brands like Swarovski are excited about this new visual format.

According to Yelena Aschberger, Vice President of Digital Communication, PR & Events at Swarovski CGB, “Swarovski is an emotional brand and we are always looking for new ways to bring our products into a visually inspiring context. We’re thrilled to be able to leverage Google’s newest formats, particularly Shopping ads on image search which will allow us to engage shoppers and inspire them to desire our brand as they’re browsing and discovering products in our categories.”

Your ads are automatically eligible to show on image search as part of the Google Search Network.

Shopping ads on image search

Making local inventory ads more useful and accessible

Searches with local intent - those that include a place name or zip code, or words like “near me” - have doubled in the past year.⁴ We introduced local inventory ads to help make the inventory in your local stores accessible to people shopping online. This format has been incredibly effective for shoppers and retailers, and we’ve shown them four times more to people looking for local products in the last year.

Starting today you can show people that you offer buy online pickup in store by adding a store pickup link to the Google-hosted local product page. This is the page that appears after a user clicks your local inventory ad.

Kohl’s, a participant in our Store Pick-up pilot program, saw a 40 to 50% increase in clicks from their Google local storefront to the Kohl’s site with this feature.

For advertisers who use local inventory ads, we’re also making your inventory searchable on Google.com in the local Knowledge Panel, a place where shoppers already look for store hours and directions. Together these updates will assure shoppers that what they’re looking for is in stock, bringing more of them into your stores.


Store Pick-up link	Searchable inventory in the local Knowledge Panel

Bringing Google Express to more shoppers and retailers

Google Express continues to drive value for retailers by helping them sell their inventory online and particularly on mobile – with our mobile app accounting for over 50% of orders.

Over 50% of customers brought to retailers by Google Express are new.⁵ And sales from retailers’ existing customers have grown by 18%.⁵ On the back of this success, we continue to roll out our overnight delivery service. In June, we’ll launch to over 23M people in Texas and parts of surrounding states, increasing Google Express coverage to over 120M people.

More Purchases on Google

Last July we launched Purchases on Google. This feature of Shopping ads allows people to easily buy products on mobile through retailer-branded product pages hosted by Google.

Ralph Lauren, UGG, Staples and more of our top advertisers have been testing this feature and seeing strong results. That's not only good for retailers, but also for shoppers who are more easily able to purchase on the go.

According to John Kalinich, Senior Vice President, Global Digital Commerce at Deckers Brands, "It's early days, but we're seeing a nearly 50% increase in conversion rate on our mobile Shopping ads with Purchases on Google and a 25% decrease in our cost per conversion for UGG."

Staples has seen similar results. “We've added 95% of our products to the Purchases on Google program and within less than a year, we've already seen an improvement in ROAS, compared to mobile shopping ads” says Faisal Masud, EVP of Global E-Commerce at Staples.

Purchases on Google

As mobile’s role in shopping continues to grow, being there and being useful to people in their “I need some ideas,” “which one’s best?” and “I want to buy it” micro-moments will drive more online and store sales. Please talk to your Google account team if you’re interested in trying any of these features.

Posted by: Jonathan Alferness, Vice President, Product Management, Google Shopping

1. Google Data, Aggregated, anonymized data from Google Analytics for US retailers, U.S., April 2016.
2. Google Data, Aggregated, anonymized mobile searches that are eligible for a Product Listing Ad, Global, May 10, 2015 - May 9, 2016.
3. Google/Purchased Digital Diary: How Consumers Solve Their Needs in the Moment, May 2016, Smartphone users = 1000. Search and purchase on smartphones weekly = 736. Shopping features include the following: Engage with advertisements or messages from a business (click, watch, etc.) Check product availability online or instore, Read reviews from other shoppers and experts, Watch online videos about the product or service, Look at product images for the product or service, Use discounts or offers for a product or service, Contact a store about a product or service, View store locations on a map.
4. Google Trends, U.S., 2015 vs 2014.
5. MasterCard/Google Express incrementality study, 2016

Move beyond last click attribution in AdWords

Rob Newton — Tue, 10 May 2016 23:40:00 +0000

People often see many ads across different devices before making a purchase, booking a flight, or signing up for an account. Because of this, advertisers know that last click attribution may not always tell the full story. In 2014, we released the Attribution Modeling Tool in AdWords to share insights about how users interact with your ads. Later this month, you’ll be able to integrate the attribution model of your choice with your conversion data and bidding.

For each conversion type, use a simple drop-down menu in Conversion settings to select one of six different attribution models -- last click, first click, linear, time decay, position-based, or data driven. When you pick a new model, credit will be reassigned across the conversion path for all search or shopping ad clicks on Google.com, and your conversion stats will change moving forward. You can adjust bids based on your new way of counting conversions, and if you’re using automated bidding for search ads, your bids will be optimized automatically to reflect your new model. To learn more, visit our Help Center.

For the first time, AdWords advertisers with sufficient data will also be able to select the new data driven attribution model as a public beta, which is also available in Analytics 360, Attribution 360, and DoubleClick. Unlike rules-based models, data driven attribution uses machine learning to evaluate all the converting and non-converting paths across your account and identifies the proper credit for each interaction. The model considers the number of ad interactions, order of exposure, ad creative, and many other factors to determine which keywords and clicks are the most effective at driving results.

To help advertisers succeed with attribution, we’ve created a new best practices guide: “Beyond Last-Click Attribution.” The guide will show you how to:

Determine how important moving beyond last-click attribution is to your business
Choose a model that best fits your needs
Value early influencer keywords appropriately
Act on attribution
Evolve your approach to attribution as measurement gets better

We hope the new functionality and guide will help you optimize your marketing campaigns and drive stronger results, and our goal is to expand beyond search soon.

Posted by:
Joan Arensman, Product Manager
Wilfred Yeung, Product Manager

Preventing accidental clicks for a better mobile ads experience

Rob Newton — Fri, 06 May 2016 15:00:00 +0000

We’ve all been there. You’re trying to send an article from your phone to a friend, or you’re playing a mobile game while waiting in line for a movie, when you accidentally touch an ad on your screen. You weren’t interested in the ad -- heck, you didn’t even have time to see what it was for -- but now you’re hitting the back button to get back to what you were doing. Not only do accidental clicks like these annoy users, but left unaddressed, they can drive down the value of ads.

Over the last four years, we’ve introduced a series of protections across mobile web and mobile apps to prevent accidental clicks like these on ads. Today we are continuing this commitment to protecting users and advertisers by extending accidental click protections to native ad formats. Native ads were developed to help publishers and developers implement ads that complement the look and feel of their content.

Since our teams started instituting various click protections, we’ve learned quite a bit along the way. Here are two insights among many that guide our ongoing work.

Fast clicks are not real clicks

A professional baseball player has about 680ms¹ to react and swing at a baseball thrown at 90mph. That’s fast, even for a professional who’s paying close attention to hitting the ball. We think it’s virtually impossible for someone to read, understand, and take action on an ad in that amount of time.

Figure 1: A click is ignored when a user accidentally fast clicks on an interstitial ad

Not surprisingly, we found super-fast clicks on ads to provide little to no value to advertisers. That’s why we ignore fast clicks that we detect to be accidental immediately upon ad load. Rather than our ads causing surprise low quality clicks, users can continue on uninterrupted.

Edge clicks lack value

If you’ve used a mobile device, you know fat-fingers are a reality of touchscreens: the average fingerpad is roughly 50px large when pressing down.² When we’re swiping, pinching, and poking our screens, it’s easy to accidentally touch the edge of an ad that appears unexpectedly or is placed too close to tappable controls on your screen.

Figure 2: A click is ignored when a user misses adjacent content and accidentally hits the ad

When we compared the performance of clicks from the edge of ads to those coming from the interior region, we found dramatically higher conversion rates and user intentionality on clicks toward the middle of ad units. A few years ago, we started to expand these protections across mobile placements resulting in ad clicks that are more intentional.

The overall benefits of click protections

Fast clicks and edge clicks are just two of the user interaction issues we prevent in order to deliver value to advertisers. By expanding protections like these to native ad formats on mobile, we observe conversion rates increase over 10% on average with minimal impact to long term publisher revenue. This combined with our previous efforts has greatly improved the experience with mobile ads for users and advertisers.

The protections we’ve put in place across mobile web and mobile apps prevent tens of millions of accidental clicks per day, saving users tens of thousands of hours. When we look at the effect for advertisers in mobile apps, we observe double the value per click. We work hard to ensure that the clicks advertisers are charged for are more meaningful, and we hope sharing insight on these protections helps raise awareness and guide the wider advertising ecosystem. Plus, we really love playing games on our phones too, and want to make sure that we’re only taken to an advertiser’s page when we mean to go there.

Posted by Alex Jacobson, Product Manager, Ad Traffic Quality

90ft/132 ft per second = 681ms, 132 ft per second = 90mph
http://touchlab.mit.edu/publications/2003_009.pdf

New Merchant Center Feed Rules helps you submit your product data into Google Shopping feed format

Rob Newton — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 17:00:00 +0000

Finding the right customers on Google Shopping starts with your Merchant Center product feed: it contains all the information about the products you sell to help online shoppers find just what they’re looking for. But we know that creating and maintaining a complete and compliant data feed can be challenging. To make feed management easier, we’re excited to introduce Feed Rules, a self-service tool to help you transform your existing data from your inventory management systems into the format accepted by Google Shopping. Feed Rules helps you streamline your data feed uploads, whether you’re already running Shopping campaigns or you’re just getting started.

Use Feed Rules to set up and maintain your feed in Google Shopping format
Feed Rules allows you to perform basic transformations of your existing product data -- making it easier than ever to get your data feed up and running. You can export and submit your product data in your own format, and use different rules to transform it into product attributes and values that follow the Google Shopping feed specification, directly in Merchant Center:

Map your column headers to the attribute names supported by Google Shopping. For example, if you have an existing feed with the unsupported column header “main title”, you can set up a rule in Merchant Center to have it recognized as the supported attribute name, “title”.
Transform the values in your feed to values supported by Google Shopping. For example, to submit gender specifications for your products, you can transform the unsupported value “for women” in your existing feed to the supported value “female”.
Populate missing attribute values with a fixed value, or with different values based on conditional criteria. For example, if the “condition” attribute is missing and you’re only selling new products, you can set up a rule to have this attribute automatically set to “new”.

Once you specify new rules for a feed, all future uploads of this feed will be processed according to those rules.

Feed rules in action: these rules transform unrecognized values for gender into values accepted for Google Shopping

Use Feed Rules to organize your data for campaign optimization You can also use conditional rules to better organize your data:

Implement rules for custom labels to structure your campaigns in new ways. For example, you can group products by price ranges or margins, then later bid differently on these groups.
Tag your products with a shipping label. For example, you can derive “heavy” from the category, label those products, and define a particular shipping cost for those items.

As we introduce the first version of Feed Rules, we’re eager to learn about even more use cases from you. Feedback and suggestions for this feature can be entered directly from your Merchant Center account by clicking the gear icon in the top-right corner of the page and selecting “Send Feedback” to let us know what you think.

For more information about Feed Rules, check out our Help Center article, and stay tuned to the blog to learn more about feature updates and enhancements.

Posted by Sven Herschel, Product Manager for Google Shopping

Built for mobile: Bumper ads drive incremental reach and frequency, particularly on smartphones

Rob Newton — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 13:00:00 +0000

Recent research has shown that half of 18-49 year olds turn to their mobile device first to watch video. Even in the living room, many people prefer to watch on their smartphone – for the control, personalization and ease it offers. And as viewing habits change, we are working to introduce new formats adapted to these habits.

That’s why today we’re announcing Bumper ads – a new six-second video format, sold through the AdWords auction on a CPM basis. Bumper ads are ideal for driving incremental reach and frequency, especially on mobile, where “snackable videos” perform well.

Given the succinct nature of the format, we’ve seen Bumper ads work best when combined with a TrueView or Google Preferred campaign. In early tests, Bumpers drove strong lift in upper funnel metrics like recall, awareness and consideration. We also see that Bumpers work well to drive incremental reach and frequency when paired with a TrueView campaign.

Atlantic Records was an early tester of this new format, using Bumpers to launch English band Rudimental’s second album. As Fiona Byers, Senior Marketing Manager of Atlantic Records/Warner Music Group said, “TrueView and Bumpers were a really important part of the recent Rudimental campaign to tell the story of the band’s second album. Through cost-efficient bumpers we could really showcase the plethora of legendary guests featured on the record. They each gave a short sharp insight into a featured artist and individual track on the album, with TrueView providing the fuller story around the album and the band. When used in conjunction, TrueView plus Bumpers really work more effectively than either format on its own.”

As a quick and fun format, Bumpers lend themselves well to serialized content. Audi Germany cut up their longer TrueView ad to introduce their Q-series SUVs with evocative German “q” words like querpass (cross kick) and quantensprung (quantum leap). Their early adoption of the format mirrors Audi Germany’s tagline “Vorsprung durch Technik” (“advantage through technology”).

We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads – and we’re excited to see what the creative community will do with them. You can use Bumpers beginning in May by talking to your Google sales representative, and stay tuned as we continue to roll out new ad formats that are uniquely adapted to the way people watch video now, and in the future.

Posted by Zach Lupei, Product Manager, Video Ads

Join us as we announce the latest Ads and Analytics innovations on May 24th

Rob Newton — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 15:00:00 +0000

Tune in live to the Google Performance Summit Keynote on Tuesday, May 24 at 9am PT / 12pm ET to hear the latest Ads and Analytics innovations.

We live in exciting times when technology seems to upend everything as we know, every few years. And nothing has changed consumer behavior and business innovation as much as the mobile phone. People are attached to their phones, tapping and swiping their way through places to go, stuff to buy, and things to do. This presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to connect with customers in more meaningful, relevant ways. And Google is a key partner for advertisers, providing the media and tools to help you make those connections and measure the results.

To ensure we are building the right products for consumers and businesses all around the world, my team and I make it a priority to regularly visit our ads and analytics customers. Last year, we met with advertisers in India, Japan, China, the UK and Germany, and gained new insights from every country.

For example, in Europe, we learned that universal app campaigns are effective at growing installs across a broad range of app users. Now, advertisers want the ability to reach very specific audiences. In Asia, home to three of the five top smartphone markets, advertisers asked for more control and flexibility on mobile devices for both creatives and bidding. And in every country we visited, we saw customers working hard to integrate data from across their organizations and transform it into actionable insights. Marketers want better data to understand the customer journey across devices, contexts and channels.

We were all grateful for these insights and have been using them to build a whole new generation of Ads and Analytics products. We look forward to sharing many new innovations with you at the Google Performance Summit on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 9am PT / 12pm ET.

Register for the livestream here.

Until then, follow us on our +GoogleAds page for sneak previews of what’s to come.

Posted by Sridhar Ramaswamy Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce

Showing how YouTube ads drive sales for CPG brands with Oracle Data Cloud

Rob Newton — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 13:00:00 +0000

Measuring the impact of online video is something of a passion for us at Google. It’s been three years since we unveiled Brand Lift for YouTube and brands have seen great success. But the last piece of the puzzle has been how does online video drive offline sales? This is particularly true for consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, for which the vast majority of sales – over 90% – happen offline. Thanks to our new integration with Oracle Data Cloud – a leader in the emerging Data as a Service (DaaS) industry that measures the sales impact of digital media – we now have a solution to answer that question. Today we’re announcing the availability of sales lift studies in the US, for CPG advertisers using TrueView video ads.

The value of video

We’ve been testing this capability for a while, and have seen promising early results: 78% of TrueView campaigns we studied on YouTube showed an increase in offline sales, with 61% driving a statistically significant lift in sales of the advertised brand.¹

To build this solution we worked with Oracle Data Cloud to develop the first in-depth application of their DLX ROI product on video formats, and we studied a range of CPG video campaigns running TrueView ads across food, health and beauty, beverage and homecare. We built this with privacy at the center, and no personal data is exchanged between the companies.

Early client successes

One campaign we measured, Gatorade’s “We Love Sweat,” earned $13.50 sales in return for every dollar spent on TrueView (return on ad spend, or ROAS). This stunning success was due in part to persistent branding and strong creative geared specifically for driving sales. Gatorade’s campaign was also interesting because it delivered a remarkable 16% lift in sales among new buyers that had seen the video vs. new buyers that had not – according to Oracle Data Cloud a typical lift in this metric hovers around 2.5%.

Similar to Gatorade, parent company PepsiCo also saw sales lift success with their campaign for Doritos. Not only did our DLX ROI solution show that their 30-second creative drove higher lift in sales among exposed households than a 15-second version, but they saw particular targeting techniques – namely topic targeting and remarketing – drove greater sales lift compared to a demographic target.

Mars also participated in our DLX ROI test for their Pedigree pet food brand, and the sales lift studies helped them make key creative decisions. They tested a video that opened with strong branding against one that saved their branding for the end, and learned that the video with strong upfront branding drove nearly 7x greater sales lift. As Laurent Larguinat, Global Director of Mars Consumer and Market Insights said, “With this new offering, YouTube is rounding out a full funnel measurement solution for video. We're excited to continue to see these results for all of our campaigns."

This new sales lift offering drops the last piece into place for full funnel measurement of CPG campaigns on YouTube, and we’re excited to bring you new creative and media strategy insights that drive incremental sales as we scale these studies.

Posted by Mark Thomas, Brand Measurement Product Manager

1. Google/Oracle Data Cloud Sales Lift Meta Analysis, US (TrueView CPG campaigns tested between April 2015 and March 2016)

Google Manufacturer Center helps brands find and convert new customers

Rob Newton — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 17:10:00 +0000

Google provides consumers around the world with the answers they need to find, review, and buy the products they’re looking for. Last year, we announced Google Manufacturer Center, a free tool to help brand manufacturers accurately represent their products to shoppers on Google.com and other Google services. By uploading complete and accurate product data into Manufacturer Center, brands increase their chances of standing out in a crowded marketplace -- and ultimately get more of their products in the hands of consumers. Today, we’ll shine a light on three manufacturers who have boosted results with Manufacturer Center, and highlight new partners that can help manufacturers maximize the tool.

We’ve seen that manufacturers who upload their authoritative product data -- including product descriptions, high-resolution images, GTINs, and product variants -- have helped improve the online shopping experience and increase conversions in key ways:

Detailed product data enables more relevant search results. Product descriptions submitted by manufacturers contain key product attributes, which allow Google to surface Shopping ads (created by retailers) for those products when users search for those attributes. GTIN identifiers enable Google to match manufacturer content to ads and information cards for the same products.
High quality data helps users decide what to buy. By uploading better images and detailed product information, manufacturers can improve the accuracy and completeness of how their products are represented. This helps consumers decide which product to buy.

Manufacturers can choose to either upload their product data directly to Manufacturer Center or work with an approved Google Shopping Partner that integrates with Manufacturer Center. In addition to our existing partners, we're announcing 4 new partners: WebCollage, Channel Advisor, Informatica, and GFK Etilize. These partners are industry leaders in organizing and distributing product data.

Below, learn how three manufacturers -- Bosch, JanSport, and Speakman -- are using Manufacturer Center to help their shoppers make more informed buying decisions.

Bosch drills into richer product data, sees 4% conversion uplift
Bosch, a leading power tool and accessories brand, has been an early adopter of Manufacturer Center, using the tool to upload rich product data for use in Shopping ads. Before Bosch added product data via Manufacturer Center, a user that searched for “lightweight drill” was unlikely to find the Bosch PS31BN Brushless Drill. The product description provided by Bosch, however, highlighted that the PS31BN is compact and lightweight. Even Shopping ads that don’t display product descriptions can benefit from this additional information, helping Google show the most useful ads to users. Now, when users search for “lightweight drill”, they are much more likely to find the PS31BN. As a result of uploading this more accurate, descriptive data, Bosch saw a 4% uplift in conversions across their updated products on the sites of retailers advertising Bosch products on Google.

JanSport packs in an extra 13% in conversions for back-to-school
During the 2015 back-to-school season, JanSport, the world’s leading and largest backpack maker, used Manufacturer Center to overhaul their product images, descriptions, and details to improve how their products appear on Google. For example, JanSport updated their Big Student model backpack by including richer descriptions that highlight the product’s two large compartments, water bottle pocket, and extra large capacity. This information helped create more effective listings on Google Shopping and other Google services like Google Express, letting shoppers better understand what they’re buying. Jansport saw a 13% increase in conversions originating from Google for their backpacks with updated product data, compared to benchmark products without updates.

Speakman cleans up with an 8% increase in conversions
Speakman, manufacturer of premium shower and bath products, was an early adopter of Manufacturer Center. They worked with Salsify, a Product Information Management partner, to send their rich product information to Manufacturer Center for use in Shopping ads. With the addition of richer and more complete data, including multiple product images and even videos of their products in action, Google was able to increase relevancy for users searching for Speakman products like their Speakman Reaction and Icon shower heads. After updating product data, Speakman saw an 8% uplift in conversions originating from Google, compared to benchmark products that were not updated.

Simply put, Manufacturer Center allows manufacturers to elevate their brands and ultimately attract more shoppers online. If you’re a brand manufacturer and are interested in getting started with Manufacturer Center, complete our interest form and we will reach out with next steps. If you already use a PIM, ask how you can get your data sent to Manufacturer Center for use across Google.

Posted by Christian Santiago, Strategic Partner Development Lead

More defenses roll out to thwart Clickjacking

Rob Newton — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 13:00:00 +0000

At Google we defend our ad systems from fraud using technology in a variety of ways. Often our investment in these defenses goes beyond protecting against only known threats. Our engineering and operations teams are continually working to identify new and emerging threats. Once a new ad fraud threat is found, we move quickly to defend our systems against it using a combination of technology, operations, and policy.

Recently we identified “Clickjacking” (aka UI Redress) as an emerging threat to cost-per-click display ads, and we’ve rolled out new defenses to protect advertisers against this threat. Clickjacking is a type of web attack where the appearance of a website is changed so that a victim does not realize they are taking an important action, in this case clicking on one or more ads. For example, a user may intend to click on a video play button or menu item, but instead clicks an invisible ad unit.

Figure 1: An example of a clickable ad hidden behind a video playback button.

Moving quickly to thwart Clickjacking attempts
Earlier this year when our operations team identified Clickjacking activity on our display network, they moved swiftly to terminate accounts, removing entities involved in or attempting to use this technique to trick users. Our engineering team worked in parallel to quickly release a filter to automatically exclude this type of invalid traffic across display ads.

This approach delivered a one-two punch to publishers who violated our policies: our operations team, which forms an early line of defense against invalid traffic, cleaned out publishers from our ad systems, while engineers built a new filter as a durable defense to protect against Clickjacking traffic.

Figure 2: An example of mouse-tracking, which leads to a page with lots of ads being opened regardless of where a user clicks.

Even as there are ongoing attempts to perpetrate this type of attack, our ongoing and proactive hunt for emerging types of invalid traffic has enabled us to move early and quickly to address Clickjacking threats on several occasions.

A combination of defenses
Our Clickjacking defenses operate at considerable scale, analyzing display ad placements across mobile and desktop platforms, evaluating a variety of characteristics. When our system detects a Clickjacking attempt, we zero-in on the traffic attributed to that placement, and remove it from upcoming payment reports to ensure that advertisers are not charged for those clicks.

This latest effort also is a great example of how our work against invalid traffic is at the intersection of technology, operations, and policy. Each piece plays a key role in keeping our ad systems clean and defended against ad fraud.

We’re proud of our work to protect our ad systems against emerging threats like Clickjacking, and we’ll continue to be vigilant as we fight the good fight against ad fraud.

Posted by: Andres Ferrate, Chief Advocate, Ad Traffic Quality

No products left out with new Shopping product insights

Rob Newton — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 15:00:00 +0000

With winter sales coming to an end and spring finally upon us, now is the perfect time to clean the clutter and ensure all of your products are live in your Shopping campaigns. Approved and ready to serve products are essential for great performance. In fact, 12% of top-clicked products for all advertisers in 2016 are currently not being advertised because they are disapproved or out of stock. Ensure that all the products in your inventory are ready to go using new product status and effective max CPC reporting.

More insights in the Products tab
Now you can easily spot the status of your best performing products with the product status column. Product status will help identify items that have stopped attracting traffic and conversions because they are disapproved, excluded or out of stock.

Let’s say you sell shoes and want to know why there’s been a 50% decrease in total conversions this month from your top performers. You can use the product status column to see if this drop was due to an inventory issue. Select “product status” from the columns drop-down, then sort the table by descending conversions.

Product-level performance data

Adjust bidding immediately for top shoes with the effective max CPC column; the effective max CPC column shows the bid you set on products within your product groups. Clicking on it takes you directly to the product group that covers this shoe.

Inventory status for Products Groups
We're also bringing new inventory insights in the Product groups tab. See which shoe products need to be updated in your product data and Shopping campaigns so your campaign reaches its full potential. You can use these new columns for a snapshot of inventory status:

Products submitted: Total products in your linked Merchant Center account
Products approved: Total of submitted products approved by Google
Products active: Approved products with a bid
Products ready to serve: Active products that are in stock
% approved: Percentage of approved from total submitted products
% active: Percentage of approved products with a bid
% ready to serve: Percentage of your total products eligible for auction

New product status columns for product groups

For example, use these snapshots if you notice a conversion drop specifically in your "running shoes" product group. If “% approved” is showing only 60% for “running shoes,” the loss in conversions could be the result of disapproved products.

Robust performance analysis
Also, starting today, Shopping attributes like brand or product type are now available in the AdWords Report Editor. After you’ve reviewed the status of your products, you can analyze your performance by building custom tables and charts to identify trends, compare sales across brands or devices, and optimize for your goals.

Getting your products live is key to helping shoppers find exactly what they’re searching for. Find more information and tips on how to use the new product status and effective Max CPC reporting using the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Tom Beyer, Product Manager, Google Shopping

Making the Most of Display Advertising – Google Best Practices

Rob Newton — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 13:00:00 +0000

Today, people have higher expectations of ads than ever. It’s never been more important to tailor messages to the right people at the right moment as they engage in blogs, news sites and more across the web.

We’ve put together a new guide, Making the Most of Display Advertising, to help you deliver relevant ads and efficient results on the Google Display Network. The guide touches on topics such as:

Reaching the right audience at the right moment
Matching the message to the moment
Optimizing for performance

Check out these display advertising best practices to deliver on consumers’ expectations and drive more sales for your business.

Want to stay on top of even more Best Practices? Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter.

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

Best Practices: A new guide to entering international markets with AdWords

Rob Newton — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 13:00:00 +0000

It’s possible to connect across the globe in an instant. Expanding your business to new countries unlocks new opportunities and challenges for your AdWords account.

We’ve published a new guide to help advertisers go global. This resource offers best practices on exporting your AdWords advertising to new countries, covering topics such as:

Discovering your opportunities abroad
Connecting with the locals
Setting up your account for international optimizations
Using automation to scale your coverage

By understanding how you can prime your AdWords campaigns for new markets, you can expand your account effectively and take your business worldwide.

Want to stay on top of even more Best Practices? Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter.

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

Rev up the car shopping experience with Automotive ads

Rob Newton — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:00:00 +0000

The way people shop for cars has changed. The days of going from dealership to dealership are over. People now turn to their smartphones in critical auto shopping moments to research models, find deals, and get real-time advice. In fact, 1 out of every 2 automotive searches on Google, like those for make and model, occur on smartphones¹ - up 51% year over year.² To help you reach these auto shoppers with the most relevant and useful experience in those critical micro-moments, we’ve fully rolled out Model Automotive ads, a new mobile ad format now available to all OEM automotive advertisers in the US.

Engage shoppers in your mobile showroom
Undecided auto shoppers turn to images to help narrow down their choices. Searches for “pictures of [automotive brand]” are up 37% year-over-year³ with 80% of those searches occurring on mobile.⁴ In fact, viewing images of cars and trucks is the most common mobile action when shopping for a vehicle.⁵ That’s more than any other mobile action taken when shopping for a car. Model Automotive ads recreates that showroom experience by featuring images of your cars along with additional information about each of them, like estimated MPG or advanced features, right within mobile search results.

Shoppers can swipe through high-quality images of a car’s exterior and interior, view details about performance and features, find a local dealer, or navigate directly to your website to build the car of their dreams. Brands are seeing more than a 30% average increase in engagement rate with Model Automotive ads compared to standard text ads.⁶

“Google's Model Automotive ads provide an immediate and immersive mobile experience for our guests, and the ability to show and tell our story helps highlight the value of the Toyota brand and our vehicles. Across our core line of car models, we’ve seen a 45% increase in conversion events and a 30% decrease in CPA compared to standard text ads.” - Dionne Colvin-Lovely, Director, Traditional and New Media, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A.

Drive shoppers to local dealerships

Even as the majority of the car shopping process moves online, the visit to a dealership remains a crucial step in the journey. In the past year, search interest for “car dealerships near me” has doubled,⁷ with interest in dealer phone numbers up nearly 80% year over year.⁸ Dealer Automotive ads captures this growing opportunity by featuring the location, directions, and a click-to-call button of nearby dealerships at the top of mobile search results.

To help shoppers navigate from the mobile showroom to a test drive at their local dealership, we’ve built Automotive ads to work seamlessly together. Auto shoppers who start their search with a car model can easily tap on the “Dealers” button in the Model Automotive ad to get directions to or call local dealerships. For example, if someone taps on the Model Automotive ads “Dealers” button after searching for “2016 Toyota Prius,” Google will automatically show Dealer Automotive ads for Toyota dealerships near their location.

"Our goal is to make the car buying process better. Dealer Automotive ads lets us do this by giving shoppers the option to find the closest dealer, get directions, or call them for more information. Results to-date have been incredible. This format is driving 30% higher CTRs and has increased website visitors from intent-based dealership queries by 40%." - Chris Vessey, Director, Digital Media Solutions at Dealer.com

Learn more
Dealer Automotive ads are available to franchise and authorized dealerships in the US. You can learn more about Model Automotive ads or Dealer Automotive ads by reaching out to your AdWords account team.

Posted by Bhanu Narasimhan, Director of Product Management, AdWords

¹ Google internal data, United States, February 2016
² Google internal data, United States, April 2014 vs. April 2015
³ Google Trends, United States, September 2015 vs. September 2014
⁴ Google internal data, United States, September 2015
⁵ Mllward Brown Digital/Google Vehicle Shopper Path to Purchase Study, September 2013
⁶ Google internal data, United States, March 2016
⁷ Google Trends, United States, July 2015 vs. July 2014
⁸ Google Trends, United States, August 2015 vs. August 2014

Redesigning AdWords for marketing in a mobile-first world

Rob Newton — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 11:00:00 +0000

Since introducing AdWords 15 years ago, we’ve seen a fundamental change in the way people find what they want, when they want it. We now use multiple devices throughout the day, and watch more videos and visit more websites and apps than ever before. Today, more Google searches take place on smartphones than on computers, globally.

The days of predictable web sessions have been replaced by numerous short bursts of digital activity throughout the day, primarily on mobile. In these micro-moments, consumers expect ads to be helpful and relevant - whether that’s showing product details, directions to the nearest store, a phone number to call, or additional information about the business they’re interested in.

The innovations in AdWords that make these experiences possible have helped many businesses reach their customers in better, smarter ways. What was once a tool to help advertisers place text ads on search results has become so much more than that. As a result, we’ve seen an increase in the complexity that marketers face every day. For example, AdWords now encompasses display and video media that can be bought on YouTube and across the web. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

This rise in complexity has created the need to reimagine AdWords, and over the past year, our product teams have been thinking hard about about how we can make AdWords as relevant for the next 15 years as the first 15. From creating a single Shopping campaign to updating thousands of text ads, we needed to do this in a way that works well for all advertisers around the world, regardless of size or objective.

So we met with many of you - large and small advertisers, from power users to beginners - in order to understand what we’re doing well and where we’re falling short. The comments we received and insights we uncovered were illuminating, and they ultimately resulted in user studies, product refinement, and this important milestone.

Today I’m excited to provide an early look into the new AdWords experience and three key areas of the platform we’re deeply focused on. Each is rooted in the feedback we heard from you.

AdWords should be more about your business, and less about our product. We want everything to support the way you think about your business. From the way you express business goals to the way you measure and manage your ads, we want to make it super easy to execute and optimize campaigns based on your unique marketing objectives.

You want the data you care about at your fingertips. From the campaigns that drive the most profit to the percentage of traffic coming from mobile, we want to surface insights and help you visualize them in more actionable ways. By seeing the data most relevant to your business goals, you can spend more time optimizing campaigns and identifying opportunities.

At the end of the day, you need simple yet powerful tools that help you do more in less time. You should be able to complete your most important tasks, like managing ad extensions and building reports, all in one place. With less clutter and more intuitive workflows, you can quickly make the changes that move your business forward.

What should be most noticeable about this new AdWords experience is the look and feel. This is Material Design, the design language that’s at the core of our favorite Google apps like Maps, Search, and Gmail. While this AdWords may look and feel different, your campaigns will run the same as they run today - with no upgrades or migrations.

Through 2016 and into 2017, we’ll continue to build out this new AdWords experience, and invite advertisers along the way to try it out and provide feedback. Invites will be sent based on a number of factors, therefore not all advertisers will be able to test the new experience right away.

We look forward to undertaking this journey with you and to delivering the tools you need to connect with consumers in meaningful and relevant ways.

Posted by Jerry Dischler, Vice President of Product Management, AdWords

Introducing the Google Analytics 360 Suite

Rob Newton — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 12:00:00 +0000

An enterprise-class solution for a multi-screen world

Our lives are filled with micro-moments: intent-rich moments when we turn to the nearest device to find a store, buy a product or look for answers to all kinds of wants and needs. In these moments, today's consumers decide what to do, where to go, and what to buy.

If you're in marketing or analytics, you know this consumer behavior brings new opportunities to reach your customer in the right moment with the right message. At the same time, it's harder than ever to get a complete view of the consumer journey and then make sense of it all.
That’s why we’re introducing the Google Analytics 360 Suite, a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers. It all starts with understanding consumer behavior in the moment — getting the right insights, and then making your brand useful to consumers.

“The Google Analytics 360 Suite gave us the really big ah-ha moment. When we launched our mobile app, it provided insurance quotes. But after looking at the data, we saw people were attempting to buy insurance. So, we shifted our mobile strategy to offer ecommerce. Google gave us that insight,” said Pawan Divakarla, Analytics Leader at Progressive.

Modern measurement tools that are simple to use
Sophisticated marketers who use analytics platforms are three times more likely to outperform their peers in achieving revenue goals.¹ It’s no wonder enterprise-class marketers have been telling us they need more from their marketing analytics tools. Many toolsets can't cope: They're too hard to use, lack sufficient collaboration capabilities, are poorly integrated, and require hard-to-find expertise.

Several years ago, Google engineers set out to simplify marketing analytics in the same way we simplified web search with Google.com. With infrastructure that allows us to handle billions and billions of daily search queries — generating answers before users even finish typing — we set out to give enterprise marketers the same utility.

As we built the system, enterprise marketers shared what they needed with us:

See the complete customer journey. Marketers require full visibility and context to see what’s really happening across all customer touchpoints, devices, and channels.
Useful insights, not just more data. Marketers need enormous computing power, data science and smart algorithms, all working together to quickly make sense of data for them. In other words, built-in intelligence to do the heavy lifting for marketers and make insights easy to see.
Enable better sharing within your organization. Marketers seek to put insights into everyone’s hands and get the whole company on the same page — resulting in stronger cross-functional goals and smarter decision-making.
Deliver engaging experiences to the right people. Marketers want to make their brand immediately useful to consumers. With integrations across multiple Google technologies, the suite products not only work well together, but also with other products, including AdWords, DoubleClick, and 3rd-party platforms — enabling marketers to take immediate action and drive business impact.

The Google Analytics 360 Suite is built to address these needs. Its powerful set products are unified, providing a consistent user experience and cross product data integrations, plus services. Simply put: it’s a complete measurement platform.

“Using the integrations in the Google Analytics 360 Suite, we are able to manage everything in one seamless platform,” said Khoi Truong, Director of Analytics and Media at L'Oréal Canada.

Loaded with six products, four of which are brand-new, the Google Analytics 360 Suite offers easy-to-use tools that enable sharing of data and insights throughout an organization.

Google Audience Center 360 (beta). This powerful data management platform (DMP) helps marketers understand their customers and find more like them across channels, devices, and campaigns. It offers native integration with Google and DoubleClick, plus it's open to third party data providers, DSPs and more.
Google Optimize 360 (beta). This website testing and personalization product helps marketers deliver better experiences. Marketers can show consumers multiple variations of their site and then choose the version that works best for each audience.
Google Data Studio 360 (beta). A new data analysis and visualization product that integrates data across all suite products and other data sources ― turning it into beautiful, interactive reports and dashboards. Built-in real-time collaboration and sharing is based on Google Docs technology.
Google Tag Manager 360. Built from our industry-leading tag management product, it empowers enterprise marketers to move faster and make decisions with confidence. It offers a simplified way to gather site information (all those tiny bits of code) and powerful APIs to increase data accuracy and streamline workflows.
Google Analytics 360, formerly known as GA Premium, will roll out exciting new capabilities throughout the next couple of months as investments continue to grow. It will serve as the measurement centerpiece by analyzing customer data from all touch-points and integrating with our ad products to drive marketing effectiveness.
Google Attribution 360, formerly known as Adometry, has been rebuilt from the ground up to help advertisers value marketing investments and allocate budgets with confidence. Marketers can analyze performance across all channels, devices, and systems to achieve their most effective marketing mix.

Achieve more with your Google media

The Google Analytics 360 Suite offers integrations with many third party data providers and platforms. It also plugs right into Google AdWords and DoubleClick Digital Marketing, our core ad technology. That means marketers can turn analytics into action by combining their own data from multiple sources ― website data, audience data, and customer data (e.g. CRM) and more ― and using it to make ads more relevant for people.

“The Google Analytics 360 Suite has a native integration with DoubleClick — that’s a game-changer. Now I can personalize my media based on website user behaviors, such as what they purchase,” said Khoi Truong, Director of Media and Data Optimization at L’Oreal Canada.

When will the Google Analytics 360 Suite launch?

The new products -- Audience Center 360, Optimize 360, Data Studio 360, and Tag Manager 360 -- are available today in limited BETA. If you're a Google Analytics Premium or Adometry customer, you will see the products renamed in the coming months, and we'll let you know when you're eligible to join the new betas.

This is just the beginning of our ongoing innovation in enterprise marketing analytics -- we can’t wait to share more. In the meantime, visit our website for more details or hear from directly from our customers below.

Over the coming weeks we’ll dive into the capabilities and benefits of all the new products on the newly refreshed and renamed Google Analytics Solutions blog, and on the Google Analytics Google+ and Twitter pages. We’d love your feedback.

Posted by Paul Muret, Vice President of Analytics, Display, and Video Products, Google

¹Source: Forrester Research, Inc. Discover How Marketing Analytics Increases Business Results

New ad formats and targeting to find, keep and monetize high-quality gamers

Rob Newton — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 16:59:00 +0000

When mobile users are looking for entertainment they often turn to gaming apps. In 2015, an estimated 41% of all apps downloaded were games.¹ However, while a user may be excited about downloading an app, it can soon be forgotten; studies have shown that 1 in 4 installed apps are never used.

For game developers, building a successful business has often depended on an approach of acquiring as many users as possible, then trying to keep them engaged in the game as their interest wanes. While volume is important, it’s more important to find the right kind of user, who’ll open the app and keep on playing. That’s why today, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), we announced a host of new features in AdWords and AdMob that make it simpler for developers to reach the right users at scale.

Let users try your app before downloading from Google Search
We recently introduced Trial Run Ads on the Google Display Network which let users stream your game from a display ad for your app before they download. In the next few weeks, we’ll extend these ads to search results on Google as a beta for selected U.S. advertisers. With Search Trial Run Ads, when a user searches for a game on Google, they can click ‘Try Now’ from within a search ad and try the app before installing it, similar to streaming apps from organic results. These ads will appear to smartphone users on WiFi, and the user can play for up to 10 minutes, then download the app in full if they choose. This format drives highly-qualified users who are more likely to stay engaged with the app after install. Contact your Google representative to learn more about using this new format.


	SGN’s Search Trial Run Ad for Panda Pop

Showcase your game with portrait videos
More than 80% of video ad views in mobile apps on the Google Display Network are from devices held vertically, but often, the videos are created for landscape viewing. Over the next few weeks we’re launching Portrait Video Ads so users have a full-screen, immersive portrait video experience without having to re-orient their device. We’ve seen significant improvement in both click-through and conversion rates from game developers using Portrait Video, resulting in much lower cost per install and a larger number of downloads.

In AdWords, you'll be able to give us a portrait video and we'll display it full screen to the user.

Promote your app to game-lovers
Advertisers have long been able to control who sees their AdWords ads, and in the coming weeks we’ll be launching even finer options to reach high-quality users with Active User Targeting for Games. This new type of targeting for Android apps can show ads to users who have spent more than 30 minutes playing games, or who have played a Google Play Games integrated game in the last 30 days. Game developers can show their ads to game lovers, and combined with other types of targeting, such as a particular game category (e.g., Adventure), they can reach a very precise audience.

Earn money from rewarded ads with AdMob Mediation
AdMob helps app developers around the world earn through in-app advertising with best-in-class formats and smart tools to maximize revenue. Increasingly, rewarded advertising is becoming a popular form of game monetization: users are given the choice to engage with ads in exchange for in-app rewards. Today, we’re introducing a way for developers to easily monetize apps with rewarded video ads from a number of ad providers in AdMob Mediation. Supported networks and platforms include AdColony, AppLovin, Chartboost, Fyber, Upsight, and Vungle, with more being added all the time. So if you’re a developer monetizing with these providers, you can easily manage and optimize them through the AdMob interface. It’s part of our ongoing commitment to provide app developers with a first-class mediation solution, and follows our recent launch enabling SDK-less mediation.

We’re working closely with developers to innovate our ad solutions and help them build strong businesses. If you’re a game developer, come and meet with our ads teams at GDC at the Google booth between Wednesday and Friday, to discuss developing great games, growing your user base and earning more money. We’ll have a series of great talks in our booth mini-theater each day, and on Thursday morning we’ll be part of the main GDC sessions, with a discussion on user acquisition and monetization.

Posted by Sissie Hsiao, Product Management Director of Mobile Display Ads

¹App Annie, Mobile App Forecast, Feb 2016

Designing for Mobile Micro-Moments

Rob Newton — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 19:53:00 +0000

Mobile has shaped the way users interact with businesses and brands alike. Nowadays, businesses cannot simply replicate their desktop strategy on mobile; they need to re-think how to build mobile experiences that are useful for clients in their moments of need - those I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do, and I-want-to-buy moments throughout the day.

To help app and mobile site developers learn what comprises a best-in-class mobile experience, we’re launching a new mobile design hub on Think with Google: Designing for Mobile Micro-Moments. The new hub features in-depth research on exactly what people expect from a mobile experience.

Learn what makes a best in class mobile experience

We partnered with AnswerLab to run user studies with more than 100 people, where we tested user's behavior on more than 100 different apps and mobile sites to undercover what led to a seamless experience and what design experiences were problematic or caused frustration to users. The results are two new sets of UX principles with specific recommendations to help you improve your mobile experience and drive conversions:

Start building better mobile sites and apps today

After you’ve identified how to improve your mobile experience, you can find tools and resources to start making improvements. Here are just a few of the resources that are available on the hub:

For mobile sites, consider using the latest technologies to create an Accelerated Mobile Page. This dramatically improves the performance of the mobile web and allows rich content to load instantaneously for a speedy, delightful experience.
Research shows that the bounce rate can be as high as 58% for web pages that take nearly ten seconds to load.¹ Check Pagespeed Insights to gauge your mobile site’s speed.
Building a native app? Take advantage of Google API and Services to simplify development, grow and engage your user base, and earn money.
Improve the look and feel of your mobile site and app with Material Design.

Learn More

Visit the Designing for Mobile Micro-Moments hub on Think with Google to view the studies and get additional resources to start developing and marketing great mobile sites and apps.

Posted by Jenny Gove, UX Research Lead, Google

¹“Case study: Mobile pages that are 1 second faster experience up to 27% increase in conversion rate” https://www.soasta.com/blog/mobile-web-performance-monitoring-conversion-rate/

Increase customer activation and retention with easy app engagement

Rob Newton — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:03:00 +0000

We've all downloaded useful apps with the intention of using them, but with many things fighting for our attention it’s easy to forget about the ones that we’ve downloaded. For app marketers, being able to reconnect with app users in those relevant moments is extremely powerful, and with our latest launch of bulk IDFA/advertising ID upload in AdWords, we’ve made it easier than ever.

Being present in context when a consumer needs you is crucial. For example, 91% of smartphone users reach for their phone to get ideas while doing a task - and that’s when you want your app to surface. To adapt to this shift, apps today are investing beyond the install and moving to engage their customers with smart retention strategies.

Introducing bulk IDFA/advertising ID upload
With this in mind, today we’re launching bulk IDFA/advertising ID upload across Android and iOS. Simply put, it’s a tool that allows a developer to upload their own list of existing app users that they’d like to engage further on their app. For example, say a retail app wants to get purchasers from their holiday sale to check out their new spring discounts. They can pull a segment of their app users’ IDs from their own analytics tools and upload them to AdWords. They can then run engagement campaigns across apps on the Google Display Network while targeting a group of potentially high-value users. The targeted campaign can incentivize users by providing a special discount on their retail app purchase and reduce friction by opening a specific section of the app upon ad click.

Reach users across screens and platforms
You can also use this feature if you have both a site and a mobile app. If your site has had success targeting an audience who've shown interest in, for example, board games on your site, use your app analytics tools to create this segment of app users, and upload to target those users in AdWords. This helps you get in touch with users during those crucial micro-moments across platforms. Bulk IDFA/advertising ID upload is now available via AdWords and runs on the Google Display Network. Learn about additional best practices on app engagement here.

We understand that app engagement is important to lifetime value and are continually building and improving upon products that help reach those growth goals.

Posted by Tom Price, Product Manager, Display

Finding your audience with Google display and video ads

Rob Newton — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 15:07:00 +0000

People constantly move between devices throughout the day — reading breaking news on their smartphone, watching a viral video on their tablet, or researching a beach vacation on their laptop. This creates a challenge for marketers: how do you find the right person at the right moment? Google’s audience solutions help marketers reach people based on the things that matter to them using insights from millions of websites and apps on the Google Display Network and billions of daily video views on YouTube. Whether you’re a business looking to build your brand or drive sales, we can help you deliver relevant messages to people at each stage of the path to purchase. Here’s how businesses can find the right audience with Google display and video ads:

Demographics - Reach customers within demographic groups you choose — including age, gender, and parental status. For example, a brand running a promotion for back-to-school backpacks can reach moms 25-34 years old.
Affinity audiences - Drive brand awareness and engagement by reaching people who have interests relevant to your brand. For example, a sportswear brand can reach outdoor enthusiasts to announce its new line of hiking apparel.
Custom affinity audiences - Drive consideration with an audience tailored precisely for your business. For example, a company that produces a soccer video game can reach fans of specific soccer clubs.
In-market audiences - Drive qualified traffic by reaching customers actively researching and intending to make a purchase. For example, a consumer electronics manufacturer can reach customers actively shopping for cameras.

Each month, AdWords advertisers worldwide run hundreds of thousands of campaigns using these audience solutions. Ford New Zealand, one of these advertisers, used Google’s audiences to drive more car shoppers to its website. Ford wanted to reach auto enthusiasts and raise brand awareness for its vehicles, so it used affinity audiences. The automaker also wanted to reach individuals actively researching and considering the purchase of a new vehicle, so it used in-market audiences. By using these solutions as well as dynamic remarketing, Ford drove a 60% increase in site visitors and tripled the amount of time spent on its site.

"Google’s audiences let us reach customers at each stage of the path to purchase, which helped us drive more qualified customers to our website and increase leads,” said Ford New Zealand's general manager of marketing, Cameron Thomas. Read more here.

Marketers can achieve results like these because of three things unique to Google:

1. Deep consumer insights based on many touchpoints
Google’s audiences are built using data from millions of websites and apps — including properties like YouTube that reach over a billion users. This gives us a wide range of contexts — reading hotel reviews, browsing homes on a real estate app, watching car videos, and more — to understand what people care about. Users can control their experience so they’re more likely to see useful, relevant ads.

2. Ability to distinguish between people’s passions and purchase intent
We classify the millions of websites and apps on the GDN using machine learning, separating those that indicate “passion” from those that indicate “intent.” This enables you to connect with customers at the right stage of the path to purchase based on the types of websites and apps people visit. For example, if you’re an electronics brand looking to drive awareness, you may want to reach people who browse electronics blogs and videos to satisfy their passion for gadgets. But if your goal is to drive sales, you may want to reach people who are researching high-definition televisions on price comparison websites.

3. Real-time data that’s always fresh
AdWords updates audiences in real-time, adding new information each time an ad is shown and removing information that no longer reflects people’s current interests. This is important for your ads’ performance, since a person who shops for a plane ticket today may no longer need one tomorrow. Or a person who is an aspiring chef this winter may find a new all-consuming passion for the outdoors in the spring.

To help even more marketers reach their audiences, we’ve also made these solutions available globally on YouTube and DoubleClick. Whether your goal is building your brand or driving sales, Google’s audiences help you reach the right people at the right moment across millions of websites and apps.

Posted by Jon Krafcik and Max Maxwell, Product Managers, AdWords

Test with confidence using campaign drafts and experiments

Rob Newton — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 17:59:00 +0000

Have you ever wanted to make changes to your AdWords campaigns, but wanted to understand whether those changes will help you reach your business goals? Over the next few weeks, we’re rolling out campaign drafts and experiments to help you test changes to your campaigns, easily measure results, and apply the changes that are working well for your business.

Use drafts to stage your changes

Drafts let you prepare and review multiple changes to an existing campaign before implementing them. For example, let’s say you want to increase mobile bids for ad groups with strong mobile conversion rates. You can create a draft of your campaign and set different mobile bid adjustments for those ad groups — without impacting your campaign. If you’re happy with the changes in your draft, you can apply them directly to your original campaign.

But how do you know if those mobile bid adjustments will help you reach your business goals?

Run an experiment

Experiments lets you test changes to your campaigns in a controlled environment. Let’s say you want to see how your new mobile bid adjustments perform compared to your original settings. First, create a draft with your new mobile bid adjustments. Then, create an experiment from that draft to test those changes against your current bidding strategy. You decide how much traffic (and budget) to split between your experiment and original campaign, and how long you’d like the experiment to run.

Measure your results

An essential part of running a successful experiment is understanding how your changes are impacting your business goals. For example, measuring the uplift in conversions can help you understand whether your new mobile bid adjustments are resulting in a better return on investment.

With campaign drafts and experiments, you can monitor results in two convenient ways to understand whether your experiment is driving the desired outcome:

Compare performance with the reporting scorecard. The performance scorecard has icons that highlight whether the experiment’s metrics are higher or lower than the original campaign, and whether or not the differences are statistically significant.

Evaluate ad group level performance for deeper insights. Sometimes individual ad groups are responsible for significant shifts in overall campaign performance. Monitor ad group-level metrics to understand how each ad group is impacting your campaign.

If you’re happy with the results of your experiment, you can quickly apply the changes from your experiment to your original campaign, or convert your experiment into a brand new campaign.

Testing with success

Customers like Red Ventures and The Honest Company are using campaign drafts and experiments to test and apply new campaign strategies at scale.

“Campaign drafts and experiments has revolutionized testing for our Fortune 500 clients. The tool streamlines the test creation, analysis, and implementation process. We can now launch more powerful tests in a fraction of the time that it took to manually duplicate campaigns and ad groups. The new scorecard allows you to confidently measure the impact of your tests and implement them in a single click if they’re successful.” – Jeremy Mayes, Vice President of Marketing, Red Ventures

“We have multiple conversion types with varying levels of customer lifetime value. Campaign drafts and experiments let us test new bidding strategies with a quarter of our campaign traffic, and the reporting scorecard let us easily measure the impact on the different types of conversion values. In the past, a test like this would require massive changes to the account. The new streamlined process lets us quickly test new bidding strategies until we find the one that best fits our complex business model.” – Josh Franklin, Search Account Manager, The Honest Company

Learn more

Campaign drafts and experiments is currently available for Search and Search Network with Display Select campaigns in AdWords. To learn more about campaign drafts and experiments, check out this how-to video or visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Pallavi Naresh, Product Manager, AdWords

Booting the bots: New botnet protections across our ads systems

Rob Newton — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 17:04:00 +0000

Keeping fake traffic that originates from infected computers (aka “botnets”) out of our ads systems has been a priority since we launched, and over the years we've worked hard to put in place extensive technology checks and filters to safeguard against this type of traffic.
Today we're further reinforcing our existing botnet defenses across our ad systems through a new feature that automates the filtering of traffic from three of the top ad fraud botnets, amongst those we are monitoring and defending against. One of the key benefits of this new feature is that it is resilient to possible changes to the malware that generates this botnet traffic.
This move boosts our defenses against invalid traffic generated by some nasty ad fraud malware, including Bedep and two other malware families that we have code-named Beetal and Changthangi. Together these three botnets are comprised of over 500,000 infected user machines.
Today we’d like to take this opportunity to take a deeper look at ad fraud botnets.

Ad fraud botnets: a menace to the advertising ecosystem

Ad fraud botnets are armies of malware-infected computers that are controlled by malicious fraudsters intent on generating large amounts of non-human ad traffic volume, typically for unscrupulous publishers. As a result, ad fraud botnets are a major threat to the budgets of advertisers, the reputation of publishers, and the safety of consumers. And this threat is considerable, given that hundreds of thousands of computers around the globe are infected with malware used specifically for ad fraud.
The Bedep Botnet size over the course of 60 days. Dips in the graph represent weekends, when some infected machines are turned off.
Global distribution and concentration of Bedep Malware.
Botnet traffic is difficult to consistently filter in advertising platforms because malware authors try to make their fraudulent traffic look as human as possible so that it resembles legitimate traffic. For example, botnet traffic has many of the same characteristics as real traffic, including the use of common browsers, and typical user behavior on a web page (e.g., scrolling, clicking, and mouse movement).
Our move to consistently and confidently cut out the traffic from these botnets, despite any changes in the malware on which they’re based, represents a significant milestone in the defense of our advertising ecosystem.

The art and science of protecting against botnets at scale

Identifying ad fraud malware and protecting ad platforms against botnets is a sophisticated effort that requires deep technical knowledge, diligence, and the ability to think several steps ahead. It’s a game of chess against an opponent that is constantly changing the rules.
In addition, it takes robust and extensive infrastructure to properly analyze malware threats at scale. For example, there are millions of malware programs out in the wild, although not all of this malware is associated with ad fraud botnets. This scenario represents a considerable technical challenge, since the malware, along with a vast amount of botnet traffic, needs to be continuously analyzed. To compound the challenge, there are hundreds of thousands of new malware programs produced each day that our systems need to analyze as well.
Our team has expanded its expertise by working to gain a deep understanding of the Bedep, Beetal, and Changthangi malware families. Subsequently, we have expanded developed the capability to significantly protect our systems against traffic generated by this malware through an automated, scalable, and seamless filter. This filter is already available to all marketers on DoubleClick Bid Manager and Google Display Network (GDN).

A bold move, but there’s more to come

We believe in fighting the good fight in order to stop malicious actors in the advertising ecosystem. We also know that our success is not based solely on sophisticated algorithms or robust, highly-scalable infrastructure. Our success also relies on a team of warrior scientists that combines art and science to innovate and cultivate, relying on creativity and collective wisdom to effect change in unique ways.
This is a really exciting start to the year for us, yet we know that our work is not done yet. We will continue to be vigilant, working hard to protect our systems from fraudsters in 2016 and beyond. Stay tuned.
Posted by Andres Ferrate, Chief Advocate, Google Ad Traffic Quality

Introducing the AdWords app for iOS

Rob Newton — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 21:01:00 +0000

Today, we’re rolling out the AdWords app on iOS to all AdWords customers globally – you can download it from the App Store. With the AdWords app, many campaign activities can now be managed while you’re on the go from the convenience of your iPhone:

Monitor campaign performance like clicks, CTR and CPC
Update bids and budgets
Act on suggestions that may help improve campaign performance
Get real-time alerts and notifications about your billing and ad status
Call a Google expert

Customers like The Honest Company, MuleSoft, and PMG use the AdWords app to easily manage their campaigns, stay in touch with the needs of their customers, and quickly access important business insights – from anywhere.

“Amidst the hectic holiday festivities, this app saved me from having to leave the dinner table to monitor performance and make quick changes to my accounts. That meant more time with my family. I'm excited for what's to come!”
– Josh Franklin, Manager, Search Marketing, The Honest Company

“The app helps me access high level data on the go which can come in handy in the boardroom, or anytime I need to quickly understand how our campaigns are performing. Also, having the ability to make adjustments to our campaigns – such as changing bids and budget – is invaluable.”
– Nima Asrar Haghighi, Director, Digital Marketing & Analytics, MuleSoft

“The consumer shift to mobile means our retail clients' campaigns have to be responsive to meet the needs of consumers at all times of the day. The app makes it easy for us to address issues without being chained to our laptops. PMG has been able to deliver prompt account adjustments from campaign to keyword level for our clients, as well as keep our customer satisfaction rates high.”
– Kyle Knox, Account Manager, PMG

Get started

You can learn more about the AdWords app in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Sugeeti Kochhar, Product Manager, AdWords

How we fought bad ads in 2015

Rob Newton — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 15:00:00 +0000

When ads are good, they connect you to products or services you’re interested in and make it easier to get stuff you want. They also keep a lot of what you love about the web—like news sites or mobile apps—free.
But some ads are just plain bad—like ads that carry malware, cover up content you’re trying to see, or promote fake goods. Bad ads can ruin your entire online experience, a problem we take very seriously. That’s why we have a strict set of policies for the kinds of ads businesses can run with Google—and why we’ve invested in sophisticated technology and a global team of 1,000+ people dedicated to fighting bad ads. Last year alone we disabled more than 780 million ads for violating our policies—a number that's increased over the years thanks to new protections we've put in place. If you spent one second looking at each of these ads, it’d take you nearly 25 years to see them all!
Here are some of the top areas we focused on in our fight against bad ads in 2015:
Busting bad ads
Some bad ads, like those for products that falsely claim to help with weight loss, mislead people. Others help fraudsters carry out scams, like those that lead to “phishing” sites that trick people into handing over personal information. Through a combination of computer algorithms and people at Google reviewing ads, we’re able to block the vast majority of these bad ads before they ever get shown. Here are some types of bad ads we busted in 2015:

Counterfeiters
We suspended more than 10,000 sites and 18,000 accounts for attempting to sell counterfeit goods (like imitation designer watches).
Pharmaceuticals
We blocked more than 12.5 million ads that violated our healthcare and medicines policy, such as ads for pharmaceuticals that weren’t approved for use or that made misleading claims to be as effective as prescription drugs.
Weight loss scams
Weight loss scams, like ads for supplements promising impossible-to-achieve weight loss without diet or exercise, were one of the top user complaints in 2015. We responded by suspending more than 30,000 sites for misleading claims.
Phishing
In 2015, we stepped up our efforts to fight phishing sites, blocking nearly 7,000 sites as a result.
Unwanted software
Unwanted software can slow your devices down or unexpectedly change your homepage and keep you from changing it back. With powerful new protections, we disabled more than 10,000 sites offering unwanted software, and reduced unwanted downloads via Google ads by more than 99 percent.

Trick to click
We got even tougher on ads that mislead or trick people into interacting with them—like ads designed to look like system warnings from your computer. In 2015 alone we rejected more than 17 million.

Creating a better experience
Sometimes even ads that offer helpful and relevant information behave in ways that can be really annoying—covering up what you’re trying to see or sending you to an advertiser’s site when you didn’t intend to go there. In 2015, we disabled or banned the worst offenders.

Accidental mobile clicks
We’ve all been there. You’re swiping through a slideshow of the best moments from the Presidential debate when an ad redirects you even though you didn’t mean to click on it. We’re working to end that. We've developed technology to determine when clicks on mobile ads are accidental. Instead of sending you off to an advertiser page you didn't mean to visit, we let you continue enjoying your slideshow (and the advertiser doesn't get charged).
Bad sites and apps
In 2015, we stopped showing ads on more than 25,000 mobile apps because the developers didn’t follow our policies. More than two-thirds of these violations were for practices like mobile ads placed very close to buttons, causing someone to accidentally click the ad. There are also some sites and apps that we choose not to work with because they don’t follow our policies. We also reject applications from sites and mobile apps that want to show Google ads but don't follow our policies. In 2015 alone, we rejected more than 1.4 million applications.

Putting you in control
We also give you tools to control the type of ads you see. You can always let us know when you believe an ad might be violating our policies.
Mute This Ad
Maybe you’ve just seen way too many car ads recently. “Mute This Ad” lets you click an “X” at the top on many of the ads we show and you won’t see a Google ad from that site again. You can also tell us why. The 4+ billion pieces of feedback we received in 2015 are helping us show better ads and shape our policies.

Ads Settings
In 2015, we rolled out a new design for our Ads Settings where you can manage your ads experience. You can update your interests to make the ads you see more relevant, or block specific advertisers all together.

Looking ahead to 2016
We’re always updating our technology and our policies based on your feedback—and working to stay one step ahead of the fraudsters. In 2016, we’re planning updates like further restricting what can be advertised as effective for weight loss, and adding new protections against malware and bots. We want to make sure all the ads you see are helpful and welcome and we’ll keep fighting to make that a reality.

Posted by Sridhar Ramaswamy, SVP, Ads & Commerce

Use Smart Goals, powered by Google Analytics, to optimize in AdWords

Rob Newton — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 17:01:00 +0000

To advertise smart, you have to measure smart. And a key metric for almost any business is conversions, also known as “that moment when users do the thing that you want them to do.”

Many AdWords advertisers are already measuring their website conversions, using either AdWords Conversion Tracking or imported Google Analytics Ecommerce transactions. Measuring actual conversions is ideal, because it allows you to optimize your bids, your ads and your website with a clear goal in mind.

However, hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses aren't measuring their website conversions today. Some businesses may not have a way for users to convert on their website and others may not have the time or the technical ability to implement conversion tracking.

The Google Analytics team is committed to helping our users use their data to drive better marketing and advertising performance. So, for businesses that don’t measure conversions in AdWords today, we’ve created an easy-to-use solution: Smart Goals. Smart Goals help you identify the highest-quality visits to your website and optimize for those visits in AdWords.

"Smart Goals helped us drive more engaged visits to our website. It gave us something meaningful to optimize for in AdWords, without having to change any tags on our site. We could tell that optimizing to Smart Goals was working, because we had higher sales than usual across our channels during the testing period." - Richard Bissell, President/Owner, Richard Bissell Fine Woodworking, Inc

How Smart Goals Work

To generate Smart Goals, we apply machine learning across thousands of websites that use Google Analytics and have opted in to share anonymized conversion data. From this information, we can distill dozens of key factors that correlate with likelihood to convert: things like session duration, pages per session, location, device and browser. We can then apply these key factors to any website. The easiest way to think about Smart Goals is that they reflect your website visits that our model indicates are most likely to lead to conversions.

Step 1: Activate Smart Goals in Google Analytics

To activate Smart Goals in Google Analytics, simply go to the Admin section of your Google Analytics account, click Goals (under the View heading) and select Smart Goals. The highest-quality visits to your website will now be turned into Smart Goals automatically. No additional tagging or customization is required; Smart Goals just work.

To help you see how Smart Goals perform before you activate them, we’ve built a Smart Goals report in the “Conversions” section of Google Analytics. The behavior metrics in this report indicate the engagement level of Smart Goals visits compared to other visits, helping you evaluate Smart Goals before you activate the feature.

Step 2: Import Smart Goals into AdWords

Like any other goal in Google Analytics, Smart Goals can be imported into AdWords to be used as an AdWords conversion. Once you’ve defined a conversion in AdWords, you’re able to optimize for it.

Step 3: Optimizing for Smart Goals in AdWords

One of the benefits of measuring conversions in your Adwords account is the ability to set a target cost per acquisition (CPA) as opposed to just setting a cost per click (CPC). If you aren’t measuring actual conversions today, importing Smart Goals as conversions in Adwords allows you to set a target CPA. In this way, you’re able to optimize your Adwords spend based on the likelihood of conversion as determined by our model.

Smart Goals will be rolling out over the next few weeks. To be eligible for Smart Goals, your Google Analytics property must be linked to your AdWords account(s). Learn how to link your Google Analytics property to your AdWords account(s) in the Analytics Help Center or the AdWords Help Center. Note that your Google Analytics view must receive at least 1,000 clicks from AdWords over a 30-day period to ensure the validity of your data.

Posted by Abishek Sethi, Software Engineer, and Joan Arensman, Product Manager

Get deeper insight into your automated bidding performance

Rob Newton — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 16:04:00 +0000

Understanding how your automated bid strategies are performing is easy if you know where to look. With three new reporting features now available, you can gain transparency into your bidding and save time troubleshooting issues that may be impacting performance.

Know what’s going on under the hood of your bidding

While automated bidding saves advertisers hours per week while optimizing bids at scale for every auction, it’s still important to keep an eye on your bid strategies and know when they need steering. New status annotations enhance bid strategy statuses with additional insight to help you decide if and how to take action.

For example, if a strategy is still in “Learning” status because you recently created it or changed the composition of its campaigns, we will display the estimated “days left for learning”. This indicates that the bidding algorithms are still calibrating and how much longer you should wait before making any other changes or evaluating what baseline performance looks like.

Meanwhile, if a bid strategy is in “Limited (bid limits)” status due to minimum or maximum bid constraints, we will show you what percentage of impressions or spend is limited to help you understand the extent of the performance impact.

Easily track performance changes back to status or target updates

Status over time reporting maps bid strategy statuses along the bottom of the performance graph. This helps explain what may be influencing bid strategy performance for your chosen date range. For example, if you notice an increase in spend at the same time a bid strategy had a “Limited (not enough data)” status, this may signal that you raised campaign budgets to help drive higher conversion volume and give the algorithms more data to work with to better optimize bids.

Target over time reporting maps your historical targets over performance data to provide better context. For example, a trend line showing a decrease in conversions might initially set off alarm bells. However, if you saw that during that time, you had also decreased your target CPA, that would help explain the performance decline.

Both of these reporting options are now available in the Shared Library when you click into a bid strategy.

We hope these improvements to automated bidding reporting will take the guesswork out of evaluating performance. To learn more about AdWords automated bidding, visit the Help Center, check out our best practices, and read the new guide that explains our unique, auction-time bidding technology.

Posted by Jonathan Wang, Product Manager, AdWords Bidding

Introducing new interactive ads to drive app installs

Rob Newton — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 16:02:00 +0000

Developers are constantly looking for new ways to bring users to their apps. But because people’s attention on mobile is becoming shorter and more intent-rich, finding engaged users of your app is an ongoing challenge — both before and after an install. In fact, we found that one in four installed apps is never even used. We’ve focused our efforts on offering developers advertising tools that engage users and showcase an app at its best. We recently redesigned one of our in-app ad formats, and are building on our desire to create beautiful app ad experiences. That’s why today we’re introducing two new rich, immersive ad formats to our growing suite of creative app install solutions.

Play a game within an ad with Trial Run Ads
Trial Run Ads are an app ad format that lets a user play a game for up to 60 seconds by streaming content from the app before downloading. The immersive demo increases the likelihood that an install is coming from someone who enjoys playing the game. Users get a taste of the game before going through the download process, and the app developer attracts better qualified users who’ve chosen the game based on their experiences in the app.

Trial Run Ads provide:

Ultra-immersive and delightful ads designed for games
The opportunity for gamers to trial before download
More relevant ad clicks, app downloads, and pre-qualified app users

Cookie Jam's Trial Run Ad

Get ultra-creative with customized mobile ads
We’re also launching a beta for Interactive Interstitial ads, which are HTML5 ads that offer a completely customized user experience tailored to each advertiser's app. They give advertisers creative freedom to use HTML5 instead of standard templates and pull in data dynamically. Diversity potential is high with this format and it's not limited to just gaming apps. Interactive Interstitials offer a truly custom experience that can include your app’s value proposition and the functionalities you want to highlight, all painted in your personal branding strategy. This is particularly valuable for advertisers who are looking for higher user engagement in installers.

Interactive Interstitials provide:

A beautiful and flexible canvas for the advertiser to become truly creative
Unique testing and optimization capabilities
The opportunity to bring a piece of the app experience to the user before download
Unique brand building possibilities

Marketers are already taking advantage of these engaging ads to drive app installs. Zalora built a an ad that allowed users to swipe to discover an exclusive offer.

Zalora's Interactive Interstitial allows users to use a finger to
swipe a screen to discover a special promotion.

Customization can be as big or small as you want — from adjusting standard templates to developing a fully custom creative. Marketers can also use their live app content to create compelling, real time ad formats. With more control over layout and interaction, you can A/B test creatives and try various CTAs to increase conversions. Rather than just telling a user about your app, you can offer them an experience unique to your app that inspires them to want to spend time with your app.

Advertisers can use Interactive Interstitials to showcase their latest product offerings through galleries, highlight elements of their personal branding, and to more powerfully demonstrate the value of their app before someone installs.

Zalora showcases a gallery of products that users can
swipe through in its Interactive Interstitial ad.

We understand that experiences on mobile need to be made for mobile, and an ad is no different. We’re continually exploring new and better ways to build out interactive formats for the small screen.

Trial Run Ads and Interactive Interstitials are currently in beta and available to a limited set of advertisers. Reach out to your account manager if you are interested in joining the betas.

Posted by Sissie Hsiao, Director of Product, Display and Pasha Nahass, Product Manager, Display

How to win on Black Friday: insights into store traffic trends

Rob Newton — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 13:59:00 +0000

This holiday season, shoppers will turn to their most important shopping assistant — their smartphone — to research, browse and compare products in countless moments throughout the day. This is especially true as shoppers head into stores for one of the biggest shopping weeks of the year. In fact, mobile searches per user were 11% higher in electronics stores and 8% higher in department stores on Black Friday last year compared to other weekends during the holiday season.¹

To help you understand where shoppers will be and what to expect, we looked at foot traffic patterns in stores across the U.S. during Black Friday last year. We uncovered some surprising findings that should enable you to better connect with shoppers in and near your stores.

Black Friday shoppers don’t exactly rise and shine
Contrary to the notion that most people head to stores in the morning, we found that Black Friday store traffic tends to peak in the afternoon, typically between 2-4 pm.² Additionally, since some stores now open on Thanksgiving Day, we also saw an increase in foot traffic on Thursday evening. In fact, department stores now see their peak traffic on Thanksgiving evening between 6-7pm.

Tip for retailers: Allocate enough budget across campaigns to support the increase in traffic as shoppers head to stores. During the afternoon, when store traffic is heaviest, consider increasing your mobile bids. Use the mobile bid adjustment simulator to size your overall mobile opportunity and adjust your bids accordingly.

Black Friday isn’t the holy grail for all stores
For categories like electronics and cellphone stores, it should come as no surprise that Black Friday drives more foot traffic compared to any other weekend during the holiday season; in fact, store traffic is 2x higher in electronics stores and 1.6x higher in cellphone stores on Black Friday.³

However, there are many stores that don’t see their biggest crowds on Black Friday. Shopping malls, superstores & discount stores, and department stores have the highest store traffic on the Saturday before Christmas, while dollar stores have the most foot traffic on Christmas Eve — perhaps due to last minute stocking stuffers.

Tip for retailers: Use location extension targeting to encourage shoppers, who are near your stores, to choose you. If you already run local inventory ads, which trigger if your product is in-stock at a store nearby, you can add location extension targeting and reach customers who are anywhere from 0.4 to 40 miles from your store.

For more tips and tricks this holiday season, check out our Holiday Shopping Readiness guide and Holiday Shopping Survival guide.

Elizabeth Fabiani, Product Marketing Manager, Google Shopping

¹Google Data, U.S., Aggregated anonymized internal data from a sample of US users that have turned on Location History, from the period November 1 2014 - December 25, 2014. Queries were considered in-store if they occurred within 20 minutes of a user visit to the store.
²Google Data, U.S., Aggregated anonymized internal data from a sample of US users that have turned on Location History, from November 28, 2014, Eastern Standard Time
³Google Data, U.S., Aggregated anonymized internal data from a sample of US users that have turned on Location History, from the period November 1 2014 - December 25 2014.

Introducing Google Compare for U.S. mortgages

Rob Newton — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 17:08:00 +0000

Buying a home is a major financial decision — so when it comes to getting a mortgage, people want an easy way to understand and compare their options online. That’s why we added a mortgage calculator to organic search earlier this year. Yet nearly 1 in 2 borrowers still don’t shop around for their mortgage and often feel like they don’t have enough information to make an educated choice.¹ To help them make confident, more informed financial decisions, we’re introducing the newest addition to our suite of Google Compare products: mortgages, which we announced earlier this year and is now available in California with more states to follow.

Google Compare for mortgages provides a seamless, intuitive experience that connects lenders with borrowers online. Whether you’re a national lender or one local to California, people searching for mortgages on their smartphone or desktop computer can now find you, along with a real-time, apples-to-apples comparison of rate quotes from other lenders — all in as little as a minute. Borrowers can also see ratings and read helpful reviews, and enter relevant information — like loan amount, estimated credit score, or home value — to receive rate quotes that match their needs. They can then visit your website to apply directly online or over the phone through one of your agents or loan officers.

Here’s what some of our partners are saying:

“Zillow Group and Google share the same vision to first and foremost empower consumers with comprehensive access to valuable information that helps them make confident, more informed financial decisions. This partnership allows us the unique opportunity to help borrowers by providing them with the industry’s most accurate, real-time information about home loans and mortgage lenders.” - Erin Lantz, Vice President of Mortgages, Zillow Group.

“We’re thrilled to be a part of Google Compare, further helping to connect prospective borrowers with qualified mortgage providers as the transition to online lending accelerates. The choice and convenience offered to consumers is imperative when loan shopping online, and Google Compare makes the process even easier.” - Doug Lebda, Founder and CEO of LendingTree

Participation in Google Compare is based on a flexible cost-per-lead (CPL) model, however payment isn’t a factor in ranking or eligibility. You can learn more about joining Google Compare by reaching out to your Google account team.

Posted by Nicolas Wk, Director of Product Management, Google Compare

¹Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, January 13, 2015

Appy holidays: ‘Tis the season of downloads, make sure your app is part of this seasons’ activities

Rob Newton — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 15:00:00 +0000

The holiday season is around the corner and it’s a time of opportunity for app marketers — more people will be shopping on their mobile devices in shopping moments, and phone sales generally go through the roof on and around Christmas Day. Millions of apps will be downloaded as people customize their new devices. Shopping also doesn’t end after Christmas passes — the post-holiday season is enormous, with 58% of holiday shoppers planning on taking advantage of post-holiday sales and promotions.¹

Top Tips for an Appy Holiday
For app marketers, the pre and post-holiday bump in traffic and purchases is a gift — so we got our experts together to help you get ready. Here are our 4 top tips to ensure you’re in the right place at the right time this holiday season.

1. Be there for the seasonal mobile bump with Universal App Campaigns.
With just one campaign you can drive app discovery across the entire Google network. Drive app installs at your target CPI throughout this peak period across Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. It’s fast and easy to set up and reaches customers whether they’re already in an app, searching for new apps, watching YouTube, or browsing the web.

2. Enhance your Play Store Presence for Christmas Day
One in four app users discovers an app through search² and now you can run ads exactly where users are searching for apps — on Google Play. And once you’ve gotten people to your Play store listing, make sure you’re turning visitors into installs by running Store Listing Experiments in the Google Play Developer Console. Use experiments to test variants of graphics and text on your Play Store listing and choose the option that drives the most installs.

3. Get Your App on New Phones
Customers personalize their new phones around the holidays. These happy new phone owners will be looking to personalize their gift by installing new apps after unwrapping, and New Device Targeting will allow you to reach them during these exciting moments. Use this easy and quick targeting option in your AdWords app install campaigns within the 'Interest & remarketing' section, adjust your bids based on the value of those users and see your user base grow.

4. Engage holiday shoppers with video
Video is a great medium to reach new app users — the average YouTube user is 2x more likely to download apps.³ It is particularly useful for retailers, as 42% of online shoppers use video as part of their pre-purchase research, and 64% use YouTube to find products.⁴ Make sure you’re using your latest video assets not just for brand building but for driving app installs as well. You can show up alongside relevant content, or target viewers with interests related to your app with YouTube app promo. It’s now easier than ever to control costs with our new new bidding feature that lets you cap at your own target.

We hope with these tips, you have a successful, merry, and appy end to the year!

Posted by Alexandra de Sá Moreira, Global Product Expert, Search Apps

¹Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study, Sep 2015.
²Google / Ipsos, Mobile App Marketing Insights: How Consumers Really Find and Use Your Apps (U.S.), May 2015.
³Internal Google data, 2014.
⁴2 U.S. Statistics, Google Consumer Surveys, March 2014. Surveyed: YouTube, Hulu, ESPN.com, Facebook, comedycentral.com, Tumblr, Instagram, Vimeo, AOL, MTV.com.

Avoid Post-Turkey Crowds and Shop YouTube’s Awesome Stuff Week Gift Grab

Rob Newton — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 07:59:00 +0000

Watchtime for product review videos on YouTube has grown more than 20% in just the past month as shoppers turn to video to research products before the holidays.¹ In fact, one in every four shoppers say online videos are their go-to source for gift ideas.² This week, one of the biggest shopping weeks of the year, we’re helping consumers discover the best products to grab with our third Awesome Stuff Week, Gift Grab.

Creators such as Lamarr Wilson, Unbox Therapy, Feast of Fiction, Erica Griffin and Hot Pepper Gaming, will share their take on the top trending toys, video games, consumer electronics and housewares to help shoppers prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Best of all, they can avoid the post-turkey crowds and cross items off their holiday gift lists by shopping the products in each video.

Lamarr Wilson shares his take on this week's top trending toys

For AdWords advertisers running Shopping campaigns, Awesome Stuff Week provides a new opportunity to showcase products alongside contextually relevant creator content. Show your products on these videos by making sure your Shopping campaigns are opted into search partners within your campaign settings.

Lastly, discover the latest shoppable videos by subscribing to the Awesome Stuff Week YouTube channel and tune in next week when creators reveal the best beauty tips, recipes and last minute holiday gifts, with Awesome Stuff Week Unwrapped.

Vikram Tank, Product Marketing Manager, Art Copy & Code

¹Google Data Oct 17-Nov 16 vs. Sept 17 - Oct 16, 2015. United States. Classification as a "product review," was based on public data such as headlines, tags, etc., and may not account for every such video available on YouTube.
²Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015

Google Helps You Shop Between Holiday Cooking and Tree Trimming

Rob Newton — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 14:00:00 +0000

This fall, shopping-related searches on mobile surpassed desktop, signaling a shift from shopping marathons to shopping moments.¹ To help shoppers more easily discover, browse and buy on mobile this holiday season, we’ve redesigned Google Shopping to be incredibly fast, seamless, and intuitive.

Here’s a look at what’s new:

Helping shoppers narrow down options

Shoppers often don’t know the exact product they’re interested in — forty-percent of shopping searches are on broad terms — so they turn to search to discover and explore.² With the new mobile redesign, if a shopper searches for droids, we’ll show the most commonly searched categories to help her narrow down her search. Similarly, if she searches on Google Shopping for tricycles for kids, we’ll show tricycles grouped by attributes that people commonly shop by: features, brand, and price. This gives her the freedom to discover what she might want in a more organized way, while helping drive more qualified traffic to your site.

Browse by Scrolling and Swiping

Once a shopper’s narrowed down her options, she can now easily browse through lots and lots of products without having to load entirely new pages to see more. She can get a feel for a specific product, such as a Lego Starwars Turbo Tank, that she's interested in by tapping on the product, flipping through images, skimming reviews and scanning product info. She can easily swipe to the next product or dig deeper into specs, features, and even videos to learn more about what you offer.

When she knows exactly what she wants, and searches for a chromecast, for example, we’ll surface more information upfront. She can see which merchants carry the product, which stores have it in-stock, and also get a quick glance at reviews and manufacturer details.

Driving shoppers In-store

Lastly, if she’s out and about it’s important for her to know what products are available nearby. One in four people who avoid stores do so because they don’t know if a product is in-stock.³ Now, if she searches for olaf toys near me or applies the available nearby filter, we’ll show a map of stores closest to her with the toy in-stock.

This new mobile experience makes it easier for shoppers to discover and explore products. To make sure they’re browsing and exploring your products, follow the tips in our Holiday Shopping Readiness and Holiday Shopping Survival guides.

Happy Holidays!

Posted by Karen Corby, Senior Product Manager, Google Shopping

¹Google Internal Data, shopping-related searches defined by those that trigger a Shopping ad, October 2015.
²Google Data, anonymized, aggregated searches that trigger a Product Listing Ad, US, November, 2015.
³Google, Ipsos MediaCT and Sterling Brands, Digital Impact on In-Store Shopping, Published on Think with Google, May 2014.

The Google Display Network ups its commitment to viewability

Rob Newton — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 18:47:00 +0000

For years, brand advertisers have been looking for ways to ensure their online ads are seen. This can be difficult — 56% of all display ads and 46% of all video ads aren’t viewable because they’re below the fold, scrolled out of view, or in a background tab. For several years, we’ve been working to help advertisers address this challenge and today we are introducing 3 key improvements: the upgrade of all CPM campaigns to viewable CPM campaigns; new viewable frequency capping; and supplementary reporting metrics built on the viewability standard.

All CPM campaigns are now viewable CPM campaigns
As we announced in September, we’re furthering our commitment to make viewability the currency of digital advertising by upgrading all CPM campaigns on the GDN to viewable CPM (vCPM) campaigns. We’ve now completed this upgrade, making the Google Display Network (GDN) one of the only media platforms where advertisers don’t pay for an impression unless it’s actually viewable by a user.

Viewable CPM (vCPM) buying was launched in AdWords in 2013 so advertisers could choose to only pay for display and video impressions that meet the MRC defined industry standard for viewability. Fifty percent or more of the ad must appear on screen — for at least 1 second for display ads and 2 seconds for video ads, as measured by Google’s Active View technology. This year, tens of billions of impressions were filtered out before ever being charged to AdWords advertisers because they didn’t meet this standard.

Viewable CPM helps brand advertisers buy efficiently and reach their campaign goals:

Devialet, an audio equipment company based in Paris, wanted to make more consumers aware of its speakers and amplifiers. To broaden its reach, Devialet shifted its campaigns from CPC to vCPM. As a result, Devialet increased its viewable impressions per dollar by 49% and increased its average time spent on site by 50%.

New viewable frequency capping will give advertisers better control
Frequency capping helps you control how many times your ads appear to the same person. When unviewable impressions are counted toward a frequency cap, a user may not see your ad as many times as you intended.

Starting in the next few weeks, frequency capping will only count viewable impressions for display and video campaigns in AdWords. This will help advertisers maintain better control over how often their ads are actually viewable to users. To learn more about setting a frequency cap, visit the Help Center.

New reporting metrics give a better picture of campaign performance
To give advertisers a better picture of how their display and video campaigns are performing, we’ve added supplementary metrics built on the viewability standard, such as:

Total impressions that were viewable
Percentage of impressions that were viewable
Percentage of viewable ads that were clicked

These metrics give advertisers more clarity on which placements and creatives are driving campaign performance when they are viewable to users.

We’ve long advocated for the adoption of viewability as a common currency to help marketers and publishers work together transparently, efficiently, and with accountability. This is another important step along that journey.

Posted by Glenn Wilson, Product Manager, AdWords

Capture more holiday traffic with click share for Google Shopping

Rob Newton — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 19:02:00 +0000

More shoppers are turning to online shopping with each holiday season, increasing the opportunity for you to attract shoppers to your online store. Today we’re launching click share to better help you identify when you’re missing out on traffic. Click share is a new metric that shows the percentage of total possible clicks received by your Shopping ads.

Click share metric for product groups

Let’s walk through an example of how to use click share to identify product groups with potential for more traffic to ensure your ads show prominently enough to maximize traffic to your site on Black Friday. First, add the click share column on the Product groups tab. In this example, you see “winter coats” with a click share of 30%. This means that you only got 30 out of every 100 possible clicks on your “winter coats” ads. Second, take this opportunity to adjust your bids for “winter coats” to make them more prominent. Third, make sure to check back frequently, especially for your most popular products, to closely monitor click share and continue to optimize bids.

There is more you can do to ensure holiday success. In addition to driving traffic, you’ll want to fine-tune your campaigns to reach new shoppers and drive sales. We’ve created two holiday checklists to help you manage your campaigns over the coming weeks and through the new year:

Holiday Readiness Checklist: Get your Shopping campaigns Black Friday-ready to connect with shoppers at the moments that matter and convert them into customers
Holiday Survival Checklist: Follow this checklist to make mid-flight changes to your campaigns and learn how to adjust bids for new trending products

By taking these lists and checking them twice, and tuning your campaigns based on click share insights, you can increase sales this season...and have a happier holiday!

Posted by Dimitris Meretakis, Product Manager, Google Shopping

Drive sales and app downloads with video this holiday season

Rob Newton — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 17:02:00 +0000

The holiday shopping season is upon us once again, and advertisers are at the ready to make sure it’s their products that fly off the shelves. And this holiday, video will play a bigger role than ever in how those products fly off the shelves. Across a wide range of brands and categories, we’re seeing the power of TrueView video for driving consumer intent in addition to driving awareness. In a recent analysis of TrueView campaigns, 57% of campaigns saw lift in consideration and 24% saw a lift in favorability. Plus, 35% of campaigns saw a lift in purchase intent.¹

Video can be an incredibly powerful tool in creating demand for your products. So over the past year, we’ve focused on creating tools on YouTube to help you connect the dots between inspiration and purchase. Today, we’re making these tools readily available to advertisers through AdWords. Here is a rundown of the features we’re launching.

New campaign set-up tailored to your marketing objectives
Setting up a video campaign should be as simple as telling us what action you want consumers to take – and today we’re announcing a way to do that right at the start of the campaign creation process. Whether your end goal is to drive sales, app downloads or to generally build your brand, you can now declare these goals right up front. Further, we’ll tailor the rest of your campaign set-up and optimization for your chosen marketing objective.

Shopping campaign option

App promotion campaign option

Drive app downloads at your set price with target cost-per-acquisition bidding
The holiday season is incredibly important for app promotion, as consumers outfit their new devices with apps. To start an app promotion campaign with video, select the new “app promotion” option to access settings specifically tailored for promoting apps. You can now use target cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding, which lets you define the amount you're willing to pay for a conversion, and then automatically sets your bids to give you as many conversions as possible at that price.

Clients participating in our beta have seen great results, including Com2us, the maker of the game Summoners War, whose Marketing Manager Eric Cho had this to say:

“At Com2us, we use TrueView for app promotion to acquire new app customers at scale across Europe, the Americas and Southeast Asia. Our campaigns are exceeding expectations around volume while maintaining our ROI goals. Target CPA bidding has allowed us to achieve our goals on Android and we look forward to expanding in the future.”

Target CPA bidding

New shopping formats now available in AdWords
And today, two powerful performance-oriented formats are available to all advertisers – both TrueView for Shopping and Shopping ads on YouTube are now available in AdWords.

TrueView for Shopping campaigns create interactive video ads that highlight the value of your products and drive consideration. These TrueView video ads have actionable shopping cards embedded in them which provide an easy bridge to purchase for viewers. They are also a powerful audience solution, enabling you to remarket to viewers who may have visited your site or viewed your other videos.

TrueView for shopping

Shopping ads on YouTube work even lower in the funnel, by enabling shopping cards on creator videos that feature your products. This is a great way to capture demand when viewers are most interested in exploring and researching products. These also allow you to extend the reach of your Shopping campaigns beyond www.google.com.

Shopping ads on YouTube

To extend your Shopping ads to YouTube, make sure your Shopping campaigns in AdWords are opted into search partners.

These new TrueView features are made possible thanks to our recent migration of TrueView video ads into the core AdWords front end, and represents only the first first step towards a simpler, goal-oriented video ad experience. Now get out there and drive some sales and app downloads with video!

Posted by Diya Jolly, Director, Video Ads Product Management

¹TrueView Brand Lift Meta Analysis of US Q3 2015 campaigns
Consideration n=708 studies
Favorability n=118 studies
Purchase intent n=211 studies

Share Google Analytics data and remarketing lists more efficiently using manager accounts (MCC)

Rob Newton — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 16:58:00 +0000

From monitoring account performance at scale to making cross-account campaign changes, manager accounts help many of the most sophisticated AdWords advertisers get more done in less time. To deliver more insightful reporting and scale your remarketing efforts, we’re introducing two new enhancements to manager accounts: Google Analytics account linking, and remarketing tag and list sharing.

Access your data with a single link

You can now link your Google Analytics or Google Analytics Premium account directly to your AdWords manager account using the new setup wizard in AdWords under Account Settings. This streamlined workflow for linking accounts eliminates the need to link each of your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts individually.

Now when you import your goals, website metrics, remarketing lists, or other data from Google Analytics, you'll only need to do it once. And whenever you add a new AdWords account to your manager account, it will automatically be linked with the same Analytics properties.

These enhancements save time so you can focus on optimizing your campaigns. You can learn more about linking your Google Analytics account into your manager account in the AdWords Help Center.

Scale your remarketing strategy

Many advertisers are seeing tremendous success re-engaging customers and finding new ones using Display remarketing, remarketing lists for search ads, and similar audiences. To help scale these efforts across the AdWords accounts you manage, you now have options for creating and sharing remarketing lists directly in your manager account from the new “Audiences” view, including any lists imported from Google Analytics or Customer Match.

You can also create remarketing lists using a manager-level remarketing tag and use them across your managed accounts. This eliminates the need to retag your website and manage multiple lists in each AdWords account. If any of your managed accounts have their own lists, they can be made available for use in your other managed accounts.

These enhancements make it easier and faster than ever before to get your remarketing strategy up and running. You can learn more about sharing remarketing tags and lists in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Vishal Goenka, Senior Product Manager, AdWords

New tools and insights to optimize your Shopping campaigns this holiday

Rob Newton — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 21:00:00 +0000

Last month, we shared our 2015 holiday trends on how shoppers are preparing to shop early and throughout the holiday season. Though Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain key traffic drivers, mobile will make every day a shopping day. As a retailer, you’ll want to prepare your budgets and campaigns for peak traffic drivers but also optimize to reach shoppers throughout the holiday season.

To help you quickly analyze your Shopping campaigns and make the right adjustments, we’re launching a few new features just in time for the holidays:

Identify which product groups to optimize first

A product groups tab view at the campaign and account levels make it easier to compare performance and make changes across all product groups
Product groups filtering helps you select which product groups to optimize (e.g. those with the best cost-per-conversion) without needing to manually review all groups in your account

More insights to make better bidding decisions

Mobile bid adjustment simulator, launched earlier today is available at the campaign-level so you can size up your mobile opportunity as you change your mobile bid modifier
Conversion estimates included in bid simulator provide insight on how many conversions your ads may have received if a different bid was used
Performance metrics added to the subdivision dialog, like clicks and cost per conversion, to help you structure your product groups based on your performance

Let’s walk through how these will help you save time and make your holiday a little less crazy. Imagine you’re an apparel retailer, and you want to check-in on your campaigns a few days before Black Friday with plans to optimize your top selling products.

Firstly, shopping-related mobile searches have grown more than 120% year-over-year with no signs of slowing during the holidays.¹ You’ve noticed a similar surge in your mobile traffic as well. Use the mobile bid adjustment simulator to optimize your mobile bids at the campaign level to see how adjusting your mobile bids can help increase traffic to your mobile site.

Mobile bid adjustment simulator

Now you want to dive a little deeper to optimize your product groups. By taking a look at the product groups tab at the account-level, you use product group filters to identify the “jackets” product group as the product group with highest conversions and lowest cost-per-conversion. Knowing this, you decide optimize the “jackets” product group.

Product group filters at the account-level

A low cost per conversion for “jackets” is a sign that there’s opportunity to scale and increase sales volume. By taking a look at conversion estimates in the bid simulator, you see the impact your bid changes might have on your product group to drive additional conversions and set bid to the conversion level you’d like to get for “jackets.”

Conversion estimates in bid simulator

Lastly, you see site data that a few jacket brands are already gaining traction from shoppers during early-bird sales. You can find out which jacket brands are selling better in your ads by taking a look at performance columns in the product group subdivision dialogue. Sort by total conversions or low cost per conversion to get an idea of which brands require separate, higher bids.

Performance columns in product group subdivision dialogue

And that’s it! This should help you optimize throughout the holidays quickly and efficiently. Now you can get back to your own shopping moments and maybe find a gift for yourself for all your hard work!

For more information, visit our Help Center to learn more about Shopping campaigns, the mobile bid adjustment simulator, and product group filtering. Also check out other ways you can analyze and scale your optimizations using the dimensions tab and scripts.

Posted by Dimitris Meretakis, Product Manager, Google Shopping

¹Google Global search data Q3 2014-Q3 2015, as defined by searches that trigger Shopping ads

Happy 15th Birthday, AdWords!

Rob Newton — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 15:00:00 +0000

AdWords arrived in October 2000 to connect businesses, large and small, with consumers who were rapidly turning their attention online: Google Launches Self-Service Advertising Program.

In the last 15 years, we’ve witnessed tremendous shifts in consumer behavior and advances in technology. Along the way, Google has innovated to bring consumers more immediate, relevant answers in the moments that matter. AdWords started out as an advertising tool for the desktop world that’s transformed through the years with new formats and capabilities. It’s improved to enable businesses to thrive in a world where the smartphone has become consumers’ constant companion — to provide directions, suggestions for new apps to install, and more.

Come take a walk with us down memory lane.

Make every conversion count: cross-device data now included in the Conversions column and integrated with automated bidding

Rob Newton — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 16:00:00 +0000

People turn to multiple devices throughout the day to shop, communicate and stay entertained. From a laptop at work to a tablet in the living room, we move sequentially and seamlessly between many device types to get stuff done. In fact, nearly 40% of online shoppers start their research on a smartphone and make their final purchase on a computer or tablet.¹ That’s why for several years, we've invested in cross-device conversions across Search, Display and Shopping. Advertisers around the world are now capturing the full value of their AdWords campaigns by using cross-device insights to measure up to 16% more conversions.

Starting today, cross-device conversions will begin rolling out at the keyword-level and can be included in the main Conversions column that already includes website sales, phone calls and app downloads. By showing all conversions in one place, advertisers can get deeper insight into all the ways customers are engaging with their business. It’s also easier than ever to take action on these insights: with all of your conversions in the same column, you can quickly enable automated bidding to optimize for the conversions that matter.

To activate cross-device conversions in automated bidding, complete two easy steps in your AdWords account under Tools>Conversions:

Under Settings, make sure the Conversion bid metric is set to “Conversions” instead of “Converted clicks.” As a reminder, cross-device conversions and other controls are not offered for “Converted clicks”.
Click “Include advanced conversions” and check the box to include cross-device and other advanced conversions in your “Conversions” reporting column and automated bidding.

We are committed to helping you gain insight into the new conversion types that are part of a constantly connected, multi-screen world so that you can make the best advertising decisions possible. Visit our Help Center to learn how to factor cross-device conversions into automated bidding. Also read the new guide that explains the unique, auction-time technology that sets AdWords automated bidding apart.

Posted by Wilfred Yeung, Senior Product Manager, AdWords Bidding

¹The Role of Mobile Search on Store Purchases, Google/Ipsos Media CT, August 2015. Purchases were made within the past 3 months.

Google Shopping best practice videos to help you reach more shoppers for the holidays

Rob Newton — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 15:00:00 +0000

As the holiday season approaches, your to-do list can seem never-ending. On top of the festivities of the season, you’re managing your bids, adding new popular products to your inventory, and trying to balance your budget — all in hopes of reaching holiday shoppers at the moment they’re looking to buy. Here at Google Shopping, we want to help you succeed during one of the busiest times of the year by connecting shoppers with your products at the drop of a (Santa) hat.

Earlier this year, we shared Google for Retail, our online hub for businesses of all sizes to get up and running with Google Shopping ads. Today, we’re introducing a few new Google Shopping best practice videos to highlight three tactics that help you turn clicks into customers this holiday season.

Manage your Shopping campaign
After you’ve set up your Shopping campaign, you’ll want to make sure you have your goals, bids, and budgets set for the best results. In the video below, we’ll eliminate the guesswork and walk you through setting up realistic budgets and targets to maximize your reach on Google.

Get more of your products online
When setting up your first data feeds, you may run into issues that prevent your products from appearing on Google. Learn more about how to get your data feed into tip-top shape to show even more of your products online, making it easier for shoppers to find you.

Optimize your Shopping campaigns
Once your Shopping campaign is up and running, you’re ready to think about how to optimize your ads to get the best return-on-investment (ROI). While there are many ways to do this, the key is knowing what to do first. Learn optimization fundamentals including how to drive traffic to your site and optimize that traffic to maximize your profits and ROI.

By managing your Shopping campaigns, fixing your data feed disapprovals, and optimizing your ads, searching shoppers can find all the products you’re selling -- helping you efficiently and effectively get more sales for the holidays, and beyond.

For more information on Shopping campaign best practices, check out the Google Best Practices Help Center or our Google Shopping YouTube channel.

Posted by Kim Doan, Product Marketing Manager, Google Shopping

Seize holiday shopping moments with new tools and insights

Rob Newton — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 14:59:00 +0000

This holiday season, shoppers are acting more quickly and more purposefully than ever before, with 7% less time spent in each mobile shopping session.¹ Yet those same shoppers are making 64% more mobile purchases than last year in the retail category, according to Google Analytics data.² Intent-filled shopping micro-moments will replace shopping marathons this season, and we’re rolling out three new features to help retailers act on these critical moments.

Optimize your shopping bids with remarketing lists

We’re excited to extend remarketing capabilities to both shopping ads (PLAs) and local inventory ads (LIAs) with shopping remarketing lists. Now you can optimize your shopping bids to re-engage high-value customers the next time they shop on Google.com. For example, when those who’ve abandoned their carts on your sites or your loyal customers shop again on Google on desktop or mobile, you can use remarketing lists to tailor your shopping bids and reconnect with them at a more cost-efficient ROI.

Early adopters are seeing great success with shopping remarketing lists:

“Shopping remarketing lists have proven incredibly successful for Magazines.com. We're able to strategically target consumers who did not convert in previous visits, driving 285% higher mobile and desktop conversion rates with 68% lower CPAs, making it one of the most effective features we’ve ever tested."
- Yuly Gonzalez, Sr. SEM Specialist, Rakuten Search

“With Shopping remarketing lists, our client Cruiser Customizing increased their conversion rate by 78% and their ROAS by 66%. We don’t want to have a single Shopping campaign now without shopping remarketing lists attached.”
- Jeremy Brown, Chief Marketing Officer, Metric Theory

Get better insights into the products in high demand online and near your stores

To help you make better decisions about which products to merchandise and promote in your stores, online, and via your Google shopping data feed, we recently rolled out two new tools:

First, with the new Shopping Insights tool, you can identify the products people are actively looking for online and around your stores.* Based on aggregated and indexed data from April to September of 2015, the tool lets you explore the most popular shopping product terms on Google, measure their significance over time, filter for cities, and compare how consumers search for products differently on mobile or desktop.

The Assortment Report uses your existing Google Merchant Center data feed to identify gaps in your product assortment based on the popular products shoppers are clicking on, in real-time, by product category. For example, if you offer toys, you might learn that you’re not yet stocking the Sphero BB-8 App-Enabled Droid from Star Wars, one of the hottest toys right now on Google. This report also provides benchmark selling prices for each of those missing products to help you with sourcing and pricing decisions.

Posted by Archana Kannan, Product Manager, Google Shopping

¹Google Analytics internal data, September 2015
²Google Analytics internal data, September 2015
^{* Available in the US, across all devices}

What are people shopping for near your stores — and across America?

Rob Newton — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 23:36:00 +0000

Today we're launching the beta of our new Shopping Insights tool, another step towards helping retailers connect with consumers in moments that matter, by making data about shopping habits and preferences more accessible.

Shopping Insights shows the products people are searching for across cities, time and devices. While 87% of shopping research happens online, 92% of goods are still sold in retail stores. By better understanding user’s shopping intent online, retailers can make more informed local merchandising and marketing decisions for their stores.

The Shopping Insights tool estimates popularity and trends for a given product by aggregating keyword data from the millions of searches consumers are doing to shop for that product. Further, you can see data for every city available for targeting in AdWords, and compare mobile to desktop patterns to better serve customers near your stores. Here’s a demo of how it works:

Observe and meet local demand

Shopping Insights lets retailers analyze product interest by city and time to understand local demand. As an example, let’s take a look at search interest in Halloween costumes. While Elsa and Olaf from Frozen set the pace last year, this year the battle is shaping up between Minions and Star Wars. Minions were initially more popular, with search interest for Minion costumes over 2.5X higher than Star Wars costumes in July. Following the release of new footage for the next Star Wars movie in late August, search interest for Star Wars costumes briefly overtook Minions, closing the gap to a 10% difference in September.

However, when looking at the city level, we can see significant variance in regional preferences. Let’s compare two popular college towns, Berkeley, CA and Madison, WI. In Berkeley, for example, Star Wars costumes are nearly 3x more popular than Minion costumes, but in Madison, WI Minion costumes are 3x more popular than Star Wars.

In another example of regional trends, interest in emoji joggers first appeared near Atlanta, then moved to New York City over the next several months, peaking during the holiday season last year. Consumers on the west coast haven’t caught on to the trend yet. This type of insight can help you understand how to meet demand for regionally popular products, while carrying less inventory in regions with less interest.

See interest by mobile, desktop, or both

Shopping Insights also gives you a clearer look at the devices people are using during their “I-want-to-know, go, do, and buy” moments, so you can plan your campaigns for the right screens. For instance, searches for Disney Vans shoes have grown a whopping 10X since the launch of the “Young at Heart” line in May. And fans of Disney Vans clearly prefer to shop on mobile, using smartphones 3X more often than desktop to search for the popular shoes.

The Californian roots of both Disney and Vans are also visible in the data; interest was 2X higher in Los Angeles than New York, even though New York has twice the population. In fact, 38% of all searches came from California.

Understand nationwide, regional, and local outliers with featured stories

We will also release featured stories highlighting interesting trends across the nation, based on data mined by our teams. Check out the console war story between ‘xbox one’ and ‘ps4’ or the rising popularity of Birkenstock sandals. We hope these stories inspire your own creative uses of Shopping Insights.

Getting started with Shopping Insights

Shopping Insights Beta is now available in the U.S., covering the 5,000+ most popular products on Google Shopping between April 01, 2014 to September 30, 2015. In the coming months, we'll have fresh updates with new data, insights and stories. It's all part of our long-term commitment to help retailers succeed with deeper insights about users’ intent and context.

To get started visit: shopping.thinkwithgoogle.com.

Posted by Jonathan Alferness, Vice President, Product Management, Google Shopping

2015 Holiday Trends – Shopping Moments Are Replacing Shopping Marathons

Rob Newton — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 13:00:00 +0000

If the idea of shopping on your phone while waiting for your morning coffee sounds familiar, you’re not alone. This holiday season, shopping moments will replace shopping marathons. Rather than rely on day-long mall marathons Black Friday weekend, shoppers are now turning to their mobile phones at hundreds of micro-moments throughout the day, all season long. In fact, more than half (54%) of holiday shoppers say that they plan to shop on their smartphones in spare moments throughout the day like walking or commuting.¹

As we head into this year’s holiday shopping season, we looked at how the rise of these shopping moments will impact retail trends. After analyzing Google data and working with Ipsos MediaCT to survey consumers on their holiday shopping intentions, today we’re sharing our predictions for the digital trends impacting this year’s biggest shopping season.

Big shopping days are becoming smaller
It used to be that people would plan their shopping marathons for days like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Now, shopping happens in the moments between everything else in our lives. Last year, for example, we saw steady consumer shopping interest in “gifts and presents” all season long.²

Source: Google Data, Q4 2014, US

This type of shopping has led to shorter, more purposeful mobile shopping sessions. In fact, while shoppers now spend 7% less time in each mobile session, smartphones’ share of online shopping purchases have gone up 64% over the last year, and 30% of all online shopping purchases now happen on mobile phones.³

The time to start reaching these holiday shoppers is now. We found that 61% of shoppers will have already started researching their purchases before Thanksgiving weekend, up 17% from last year.⁴ While research starts early, the majority of purchasing will take place later into the holiday season.⁵ Why? There is no longer a sense of urgency since everyday is a shopping day.

Mobile will influence more purchases than ever before
Consumers are using their smartphones in all parts of the shopping process - from inspiration to research to purchasing. In fact, shopping-related searches on mobile have grown more than 120% year over year and are fast approaching those on desktop.⁶

In addition to a rise in mobile commerce, we’re also seeing a rise in mobile’s influence on local commerce. People are increasingly using their phones to research and buy products in stores. More than half (52%) of shoppers plan to use a smartphone for holiday shopping this year before they visit a store, and a whopping 82% of smartphone users will consult their phone while in a store.⁷ People are searching 37% more inside department stores than they were last year.⁸

And more people have the opportunity to tap and pay with their phones in stores this season, with new mobile payments platforms available. In fact, in a Google Consumer Survey we found that 40% of people say they are likely to use their smartphones to pay in stores this holiday season.⁹

While big sale days are becoming smaller, one day still stands out in shopping popularity for mobile. Sunday is consistently the most popular day for shopping on smartphones - on average, mobile shopping searches are 18% higher on Sundays than the rest of the week.¹⁰

Source: Google Data, Q3 2015, Global Shopping searches on mobile
as defined by clicks on Shopping Ads

The YouTube Gift Guide
People are also increasingly turning to YouTube to help them shop, looking for advice, inspiration, or product reviews. One in four shoppers (26%) say online videos are their go-to source for gift ideas, and 32% of shoppers say they plan to use online video more this year for holiday purchases.¹¹ Additionally, people in the U.S. are spending nearly twice as much time watching fashion and apparel shopping videos this year over last.¹²

Unboxing videos have become a growing phenomenon, as people turn to YouTube to inform their purchase decisions. In 2015 alone, people in the U.S. have watched 60M hours of unboxing videos on YouTube, totalling 1.1B views.¹³ Our research shows YouTube has become an important part of the purchase process for consumer electronics - a surprising 64% of consumer electronics shoppers watch consumer electronics videos on YouTube one week before they purchase and 65% do so the week after they purchase.¹⁴

To help shoppers discover more of the latest and greatest products, we’ve partnered with popular YouTube creators to bring you Awesome Stuff Week: a series of week-long celebrations highlighting shoppable videos on YouTube. Tune in on Monday to watch our next set of shoppable videos focusing on “gadgets.”

As shopping decisions are being made quicker and consumers’ expectations are higher, marketers today need to think carefully about where customers are discovering, researching and ultimately purchasing their products. By understanding these patterns and by focusing on moments of intent - on both mobile and video - marketers will win customers this holiday season.

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

¹Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015; Shoppers defined as people who intend to shop this holiday season with smartphones. n=778
²Google Data, October 2014–January 2015, United States.
³Google Analytics data, United States. Sept 2014 v. Sept 2015
⁴Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015 Base: Holiday shoppers n=2004
⁵Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015. Base: Holiday shoppers n=2004
⁶Google Global search data Nov 2014-Oct 2015, as defined by searches that trigger Shopping ads
⁷Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015
⁸Aggregated anonymized internal Google data from a sample of US users that have turned on Location History. Queries were considered as being "from" a location if they occurred within one hour of a user visit to the department store. September 2015 vs. September 2014.
⁹Google Consumer Survey, October 2015, n=500
¹⁰Google search data, Global, Q3 2015, mobile shopping searches as defined by clicks on Shopping ads
¹¹Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015
¹²YouTube data, Sep 2014 vs. Sep 2015, United States. Classification as a shopping video was based on public data such as headlines, titles, tags, etc and may not represent all apparel shopping videos on YouTube.
¹³YouTube data, January–October 2015, U.S. Classification as a "haul" video was based on public data such as headlines, tags, etc., and may not account for every "haul” video available on YouTube.
¹⁴Google Millward Brown CE Study, YouTube video analytics, Dec. 2014

Reaching users across Search, Play, YouTube and the Google Display Network with Universal App Campaigns — an easy way to promote your Android app

Rob Newton — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 18:49:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we announced the global availability of Universal App Campaigns, a powerful way to reach potential app users across our entire network -- Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network (GDN). We’re pleased to share that starting today, it’s even easier for developers to grow their user base at scale by creating universal app campaigns directly from the Google Play Developer Console.

Universal app campaigns are the one-stop-shop campaign type that scales your reach and maximizes Android app installs across Google’s entire suite of ad platforms. You also save valuable time because we’ve automated campaign set-up, optimization and ongoing account management to help you achieve the app install goals that you have set, such as volume and cost per install (CPI).

With universal app campaigns, your app is promoted on YouTube to build your brand and drive installs on the platform with over a billion users. Your ads can also reach audiences across 650K apps that use the AdMob platform and 2M+ web sites in the Google Display Network. And importantly, universal app campaigns tap into intent-rich searches like “fitness tracker” and “productivity tips” that are happening throughout the day on Google Search and “adventure games” and “puzzle games” on Google Play so your app can be seen when a user is most likely to be looking for a new app to download.

You can get started in AdWords or the Google Play Developer Console with a few simple inputs:

A few lines of ad text to describe your app and a YouTube URL (if you have a video)
The locations and language that you wish to reach
Your daily budget and target cost-per-install (CPI)

We’ll pull in app images, videos and app descriptions from your Google Play store listing to generate ad formats that look great wherever they are placed.

From there, our systems will automatically optimize your campaigns and use dynamic learning to maximize app install volume at your target cost-per-install. How does our dynamic learning system work? We test different versions of your ad text and app images in each of the eligible Google properties and networks to determine the best-performing variations. Throughout each day, we also actively adjust bids to get you more installs and optimize your targeting to the right audiences. Because our systems methodically update and search for new targeting segments, creating a universal app campaign is a low-maintenance, automated way to continuously get new users.

Universal app campaigns intro video

Developers are already taking advantage of the simplicity and install volume you can drive with universal app campaigns.

José Maria Pertusa, CMO of Linio shared that, "Universal app campaigns are an easy way to promote our app across Google Search, Google Play, the Google Display Network and YouTube. We were looking for a way to take advantage of the reach and scale of Google's networks and expand into new markets without having to manage multiple campaigns. With universal app campaigns, we only had to set up one campaign that drove more than 10,000 new installs in one month and install volume is continuing to trend up over time. We're also seeing a 20% lower CPI compared to other channels."

"We wanted to accelerate growth in new markets, and Universal app campaigns helped achieve that goal in a simple and scalable way. With just one campaign, we were able to reach athletes across Google Search, Google Play, the Google Display Network, YouTube and AdMob. It was quick and easy to set up, and within the first month, we doubled paid install volume in key countries while maintaining our target CPI goals. Universal app campaigns will continue to be a core part of our global user acquisition strategy.” - Andrew Touchstone, Director of Marketing at Strava

This is an exciting time for developers as apps continue to help people find information and complete everyday tasks. At Google, we’re more committed than ever to partnering with developers on this journey and providing you with all the app promotion tools and best practices that you need to drive growth for your businesses.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Director, Product Management, Mobile Search Ads

Shopping Assortment Report in Merchant Center gives retailers insight into demand for popular products they don’t stock

Rob Newton — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 18:06:00 +0000

We know that retailers are always interested in new opportunities to meet online customer demand -- especially during the busy holiday season. Today, we’re excited to introduce the Shopping Assortment Report in Google Merchant Center to help you plan your product assortment and reach even more shoppers online.

With the Shopping Assortment Report, you can quickly discover the top 100 products that you don’t already offer in your Merchant Center product feed for each Google Product Category. You can also see benchmark selling prices for these products. This information can be helpful in identifying new brands and products to add to your assortment, and reach even more customers with in-demand products. The data is based on the popularity of these products on Google Shopping, offering a near real-time view into online consumer demand for shoppable products.

Already, retailers are seeing success with the new Shopping Assortment Report. Daniel Dutton, Strategy leader at Target, says “Google's new Assortment Report has already become a useful tool for us to identify white space opportunities, from newly emerging products we didn't already carry, to out-of-stock products to prioritize for restocking.”

With this fresh and detailed information from the Shopping Assortment Report, you can:

Identify key products that are missing from your feed. Identify popular products you do sell, but may have forgotten to include in your data feed, or may have the incorrect GTIN associated with the product.
Expand your product offerings. Identify popular products you currently do not sell, but may wish to source from suppliers and add to your product feed.

Whether you’re looking to add more products to your inventory or research pricing, the Shopping Assortment Report can help you reach even more shoppers online this holiday season, and beyond. For information on how to get started, check out our Help Center article.

Posted by Matt Henderson, Product Manager for Google Shopping

Enhancing the Google Display Network with new innovations

Rob Newton — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 13:30:00 +0000

Consumers have higher expectations than ever because of mobile — they want everything right, and they want everything right away. To connect with consumers in the intent-rich moments when they want to buy, find or do something, marketers are increasingly turning to programmatic advertising — which uses data and technology to reach the right person at the right time. The Google Display Network (GDN) brings this sophisticated technology to all advertisers so you can be there in the moments that matter the most for your brand.

Today we’re introducing several tools that further enhance what the GDN offers for display advertisers.

More transparency: take action with AdWords audience insights
When you understand your customers well — like their age, location, and interests — you can make more informed decisions about your marketing programs. AdWords audience insights give advertisers aggregate information about people on your remarketing lists, including demographics, interests, locations, and device usage.¹ Since these reports are available right in AdWords, you can quickly and easily take action on the insights. For example, if most people who converted on your site are jazz enthusiasts, you may wish to add this affinity audience to your campaign. Or, if many of your customers are females between the ages of 25 and 34, you might want to customize your ad creative to appeal to this demographic. Learn more.

Example: AdWords audience insights shows 30% of customers on this remarketing list are 25-34 years old
compared to an average of 19.9% in the US.

BASE, a Belgian telecommunications company, used AdWords audience insights and discovered cycling enthusiasts were twice as likely as the average customer to buy a mobile phone subscription. Based on this insight, BASE engaged with cycling enthusiasts on the GDN and doubled its conversions. BASE now uses AdWords audience insights to inform its campaigns, online and offline.

Sony PlayStation discovered classical music enthusiasts were likely to engage with its brand using AdWords audience insights. Sony then connected with this audience on the GDN and drove a 31% higher view-through rate than with its average affinity audience. This allowed Sony to capture more views for its budget. Now, Sony uses AdWords audience insights to uncover the best audiences for its new campaigns.

More accountability: the GDN is going 100% viewable
Most display ads — 56% in fact — never had a chance to be viewed because they were below the fold, scrolled out of view, or in a background tab. Soon, we’ll make the GDN one of the only media platforms where advertisers don’t pay for an ad impression unless it was viewable. This means your media dollars will only be spent where they can have impact. In the next few months, all campaigns that buy on a CPM basis will be upgraded to be viewable CPM (vCPM).

More impact: a fresh approach to dynamic remarketing ads
People use devices of varying shapes and sizes, engaging with content that can be horizontal, vertical, tapped, swiped or pinched. This means ads must be flexible so they can show across varying placements. Today, we introduced enhancements to dynamic remarketing so ads can be automatically re-shaped and re-sized to fit all device types. Ads are also touched up to look great on any mobile or desktop site, or app. For example, if your logo is predominantly blue and yellow, AdWords may use these colors to shade the border and background of your ad. We’ll even try out varying color combinations and use the ones that drive the best performance. As always, you have control to make changes to these selections based on your personal style and preferences.

Meeting consumer expectations requires technology to answer their needs the moment they have them, wherever they are, whatever kind of device or screen they are using. Programmatic advertising ensures that brands are there in those important moments when decisions are made and preferences are shaped. Our hope is that the GDN brings this enterprise-level technology to all advertisers so you can be there at the moments when it matters most for your brand.

Posted by Brad Bender, VP of Product Management, Google Display Network

¹All insights are based on anonymized, aggregated data.

Today at IAB Mixx: a preview of new capabilities coming to YouTube advertising

Rob Newton — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 19:14:00 +0000

Over the past 10 years of YouTube, video viewership has come a long way. In fact, according to new commissioned custom research conducted by Nielsen, the time 18-49 year olds spend on YouTube grew by 44 percent, while the time they spend watching traditional TV fell by nearly 10 percent over that same time period.

YouTube has become the place the world comes to watch, share and engage with video. And we want to keep creating even better experiences for the viewers, advertisers and creators who turn to YouTube every day. So today at IAB Mixx, we announced new products that point toward the future of our video ad platform, specifically around interactivity, mobile, and measurement.

Turn YouTube into your virtual showroom
Over the course of the year, we’ve been working hard to make videos more interactive, shortening the distance between the time a viewer sees an ad and their actual purchase. First we launched Cards, which let you share product information directly within your videos across all screens. We took this feature further with TrueView for shopping, which is a bit like “automatic” Cards – simply connect your Google Merchant Center feed to your TrueView campaign to dynamically insert product cards within your in-stream ads, based on the products that are most likely to lead to a conversion.

To help advertisers reach all the other product-focused content on YouTube – from unboxings, hauls, product reviews and how-to videos – today we’re announcing Shopping ads for YouTube. These will let you show a click-to-buy ad within partner videos on YouTube, going beyond your own videos to transform any relevant video into your digital storefront. Similar to Shopping ads on Google, you only pay when a user clicks on your ad.

We’ve kept the format similar to Cards and TrueView for shopping, so users can easily recognize and click on the “i” icon at the top right of a video to view the Shopping ads. Shopping ads on YouTube are built off of your existing product feed in Merchant Center. They will enter an auction similar to Shopping ads on Google search and are selected based on a variety of contextual signals.

Shopping ads on YouTube

Shopping ads on YouTube provide an entirely new revenue stream for creators, providing another way to monetize product-focused videos. They also provide a more interactive experience for viewers, letting them shop directly from videos. Stay tuned as we roll this new capability in the coming months.

Driving long term success for mobile apps with TrueView for app promotion
Mobile viewership on YouTube continues to grow. In fact, the average viewing session on mobile is now more than 40 minutes, up more than 50% year over year. We’re focused on creating ad formats that help you reach viewers across all screens, and today we’re making YouTube an even better place to promote your mobile apps.

Building off the success advertisers are seeing with app promotion in in-stream ads on YouTube, we’re introducing TrueView for app promotion for our in-display format as well. This format reaches potential users when they’re exploring content on YouTube. Early results from brands promoting their apps with in-display point to strong performance both in cost per install and lifetime value.

TrueView in-display for app promotion

We’re also enabling app promotion ads in our dedicated Gaming app, because what better place to promote gaming apps than in YouTube gaming content? And in the coming months, we’ll bring the ability to bid by cost per install. You tell us what you want to pay for a download, and we’ll optimize for that price. In an early beta, Smule used target CPA bidding to increase installs by 85%.

Expanding Brand Interest to YouTube Search
We’re also focused on providing better measurement, helping you understand whether your investments are driving results. Our Brand Lift solution, for example, helps you measure interest by monitoring lift in organic keyword searches related to your brand on Google.com.

Starting today, Brand Lift will look not only at searches on Google.com, but will take YouTube searches into account as well. With this update, you’ll be able to see if your ad is driving searches for organic video content related to your brand on YouTube. Measuring interest is an important part of determining impact, and is a unique benefit of advertising on Google and YouTube.

Reach the right audience on YouTube with Customer Match
Finally, I’d like to call out our new targeting product, called Customer Match. Announced yesterday, Customer Match helps you reach your existing customer base with the right message across three of Google’s largest properties: Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail.

Advertisers looking to grow their brand can also use Similar Audiences with Customer Match to reach prospective customers across YouTube and Gmail based on the interests and characteristics of their existing customer base. With Similar Audiences, you can leverage your customer email lists to discover new audiences that are most like the customers you already have. These new targeting features enable advertisers to connect with – or exclude – customers to drive the best results for their brand.

Here’s to the next 10 years
As we head into our second decade as the place the world comes to engage with video, I’m excited to see us continuing to move fast, to build new things and to help marketers build brands. We can’t wait to see what you’ll do with these new tools.

Posted by Diya Jolly, Director, Video Ads Product Management

Google brings you closer to your customers in the moments that matter

Rob Newton — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 04:00:00 +0000

Mobile has changed the game for both consumers and brands. Consumer expectations for immediacy and relevance are higher than ever, and successful brands are those that connect with people in the moments that matter most to them -- the I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do, and I-want-to-buy moments. Google is a company built on meeting people’s needs in the moment. Through our ads innovations, we’ve brought that ability to businesses large and small.

On Monday afternoon at Advertising Week’s Times Center Stage, I’ll be announcing two new products, Customer Match and Universal App Campaigns, to help you be there and be relevant in those intent-rich moments that truly matter.

Reach your most valuable customers with Customer Match

70% of online consumers agree that the quality, timing, and relevance of a brand’s message influences their perception of a brand.¹ Google is in a unique position to connect consumers with your business in the most relevant ways. Whether they’re searching on Google, checking promotions on Gmail, or watching videos on YouTube, we can deliver the most relevant information based on what they’re doing, wherever they are, when they’re looking, and on any device they’re using. Today, we’re building on these capabilities with new ads innovations to deliver even more relevance.

When it comes to your most valuable customers, they expect even more from you. And now, Google can help you reach customers that you already have a relationship with -- like those in your loyalty program or who have made a previous purchase -- in ways that are most relevant to their intent and context.

Customer Match is a new product designed to help you reach your highest-value customers on Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail -- when it matters most. Customer Match allows you to upload a list of email addresses, which can be matched to signed-in users on Google in a secure and privacy-safe way. From there, you can build campaigns and ads specifically designed to reach your audience.

Let's say you’re a travel brand. You can now reach people who have joined your rewards program as they plan their next trip. For example, when these rewards members search for “non-stop flights to new york” on Google.com, you can show relevant ads at the top of their search results on any device right when they’re looking to fly to New York. And when those members are watching their favorite videos on YouTube or catching up on Gmail, you can show ads that inspire them to plan their next trip.

Using Customer Match, you can also generate Similar Audiences to reach new customers on YouTube and Gmail who are likely to be interested in your products and services. For example, you can drive awareness on YouTube for new non-stop flights by showing TrueView ads to prospective customers who have similar interests and characteristics to your rewards members.

With Customer Match, your brand is right there, with the right message, at the moment your customer is most receptive. Only Google can help you do this to delight your most loyal customers in the moments that truly matter.

Customer Match and Similar Audiences will be rolling out to all advertisers over the next few weeks.

Promote your apps with unparalleled reach

People discover new apps in many ways: online searches, recommendations while watching their favorite videos, and in-app suggestions. If your business has an app, you need a scalable way to reach the customers that are most likely to install your app -- across a variety of channels.

Starting today, Universal App Campaigns will be available to all developers and advertisers as a new AdWords campaign type that helps you connect with app users across Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network (GDN). In just a few simple steps, you can promote your app with unparalleled reach across the world’s largest network and platforms.

Let’s say you’ve built an adventure game. With Universal App Campaigns, you have unparalleled reach: you can drive installs on YouTube, the platform with 1B+ users who watch hundreds of millions of hours of content everyday. Your ads can also reach specific audiences across 650K apps and 2M+ websites in the GDN. And importantly, Universal App Campaigns tap into intent-rich searches like “adventure games” and “puzzle games” that are happening throughout the day on Google Search and Google Play so your app can be seen when people are looking to download something new.

All you need to do is give us your desired cost-per-install and we do the rest. Universal App Campaigns are the one-stop-shop campaign type that scales your reach and maximizes Android app installs across Google’s entire suite of ad platforms. We’ve automated campaign set-up by pulling in your app images, videos, and app description directly from your Google Play store listing to generate ad formats that look amazing wherever they’re placed.

From there, our systems will optimize your campaigns using dynamic learning to maximize app install volume at your target cost-per-install. By testing different versions of your ad text and app images in each of the eligible Google networks, we determine the highest-performing variations so only your best ads show. Learn more.

The energy and buzz at Advertising Week 2015 (Join the conversation) reinforces what an exciting time it is to be a marketer. I’m privileged to get to build products that help brands tell their stories and connect with consumers in the moments that really matter to them.

Posted by Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce

¹Google/Ipsos, "Consumers in the Micro-Moment," March 2015.

Google Hotel Ads makes it easier for more hotels to participate

Rob Newton — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 16:01:00 +0000

Over the past several months we’ve made improvements to hotel search across Google, to help travelers find information more quickly and to enable hotels to generate more qualified leads. As a continuation of these efforts, we’re announcing a few more changes to Hotel Ads on Google: broader availability for the Google Hotel Ads Commission program, an expansion of the Book on Google feature to more partners, and the inclusion of more amenity information within Google search. With these changes, we’ll be retiring the dedicated site for Hotel Finder this week, as users are now able to access the hotel information they need right from Google search.

Making it easier for more hotels to generate qualified leads from Google
Earlier this year we started testing the Google Hotel Ads Commission Program with a small set of independent hotels. With this program, these hotels are charged on the industry-standard commission basis rather than cost-per-click, making it easier for smaller, independent hotels to use Google Hotel Ads. Today, we’re announcing that more hotels can participate in this program now that we’ve partnered with leading hotel technology solutions providers.

Seekda, one of the participating hotel technology solutions providers, helps us offer hotels a risk-free way to reach a massive audience efficiently. “Google Hotel Ads allows hotels to be there when a traveler is ready to book, and pay only when a booking is made or consumed,” says Klaus Niederacher, General Manager and COO at Seekda. “This new commission model gives smaller chains and independent hotels the option to participate in the highly effective Google Hotel Ads, without having to manage CPC bids and budgets.”

So far, the program has proven to be successful at driving bookings for hoteliers. According to Scott Koehler, Senior Vice President, Product & Operations of TravelClick: “Since March, hotels enrolled in TravelClick’s Demand Services program have seen, on average, a 56 percent year-over-year increase in revenue driven by Google Hotel Ads. The evolution from a pay-per-click to commission model has increased hotel revenue.”

We currently work with DerbySoft, Fastbooking, Sabre Hospitality Solutions, Seekda, TravelClick, and Trust International and will be integrating additional hospitality technology providers in the future.

Making bookings easier for hoteliers and consumers
In 2013, we launched Book on Google on mobile devices to make it easier for users to book hotel rooms directly from their phone. Now, we’re expanding the availability of Book on Google, bringing it to desktop and tablet devices and making it easier for more hotels to participate.
With Book on Google, Google facilitates the booking payment transaction. The hotel partner owns the guest relationship, including sending the confirmation email, answering post-booking questions, and handling changes to the reservation or cancellations.

“Given the successes that our hotel clients have experienced with Google Hotel Ads, we look forward to offering additional Hotel Ads features to our hotel clients globally, including Book on Google,” said Scott Koehler, Senior Vice President, Product & Operations of TravelClick.

Book on Google is available to all Hotel Ads partners and works for users in the U.S.

Bringing more hotel information to search

Earlier this year we announced improvements to hotel search across Google so users can find information like availability, prices, and reviews right in the search results and in Google Maps.

This month, we’re adding information about hotel amenities for locations in the U.S. and we’re working to add this information for 24 more countries through next year. This means that users will now see whether a hotel has things like free WiFi, free breakfast, parking availability, a pool, or a business center, right in search.

We’re focused on helping travelers find information and choices about hotels, while making it easier for them to select and book the hotel that’s right for them. We’re also committed to helping partners connect with travelers when they are ready to book, across devices and Google platforms. We hope the changes announced today will make planning that next trip an even easier click away.

Tom Mulders, Senior Program Manager, Travel

Google forwarding numbers arrive in Canada

Rob Newton — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 16:00:00 +0000

The ability to call a business is often critical in helping potential customers complete a purchase. In fact, 61% of mobile searchers say it's extremely important to be able to call a business during the purchase phase of the shopping process.¹ Measuring these phone calls to your business is essential for understanding the full value of Google search ads and making informed decisions for acquiring new customers. That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of Google forwarding numbers in Canada.

A "Call" button in a search ad on a mobile device

Canada, say hello to Google forwarding numbers

Google forwarding numbers are an important step toward measuring the phone calls you receive through Google search ads. When you use Google forwarding numbers with your call extensions and call-only campaigns, we’ll dynamically assign a unique phone number to your ad. When a customer calls that number, AdWords will route the call to your business phone number while providing you with useful information about the caller’s area code, call duration, and whether the call was answered.

Many people who search for local businesses prefer to call a phone number with a recognizable area code, which is why Google forwarding numbers will show a local Google forwarding number, where available. For example, if your business is based in Vancouver, your ads are eligible to use a “604” area code with your Google forwarding number.

Canadian advertisers like belairdirect and 1-800-Got-Junk are already using Google forwarding numbers to improve performance on their call ads:

"As marketers, we are always looking for new ways to leverage technology in order to be more efficient and measure the full value of our ad campaigns. Now, with Google forwarding numbers, we're able to gain valuable insights into the consumer behavior behind calls to make our campaigns and call centers more useful for current and future customers. Furthermore, we've identified that calls that last over 10 minutes are more likely to result in someone signing up for an insurance policy. We can now count these as call conversions to optimize for higher-quality calls." Anne Fortin, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Strategic Relationships, belairdirect

“Call extensions and call-only campaigns help customers reach our service representatives more quickly to schedule a junk pick-up. So far, we’ve been able to generate thousands of leads and now with insights from Google forwarding numbers in Canada, we can monitor call details and filter calls by duration. This gives us vital information on which campaigns are driving the right calls and how we can better invest our advertising spend." Keegan Morrison, PPC Account Manager, 1-800-Got-Junk

Clicks that lead to calls from your website

While call extensions and call-only ads are very effective, many customers also call your business after clicking through a Google ad and learning more about the products and services you offer on your website. Website call conversions is a powerful tool that dynamically inserts a Google forwarding number on your website to identify and measure the calls that occur after a Google ad click. When someone clicks on your website’s phone number or dials it directly from their phone, you can attribute the call and call value back to the keyword and ad that drove the customer.

Advertisers like Blinds.com are already using website call conversions to gain a more holistic picture of their AdWords performance:

“It’s a great idea to implement Google’s website call conversions, particularly if you have a call center that handles over 15% of sales or if you’re faced with the challenge of attributing offline calls to online spend. With website call conversions, we’ve attributed 56% more revenue to mobile ads and measured 173% higher average order value. With these insights, we’ve been able to increase and optimize spend towards keywords that are generating the most call conversions. We’re looking forward to rolling this out to Blinds.ca in Canada.” Michael Nicholas, SEM Specialist

Maximize call value

In addition to measuring call conversions, Google forwarding numbers also allow you to assign a conversion value. For example, a business might assign a revenue value to calls that last over 5 minutes. By measuring these calls, you can automatically optimize your keyword bids to drive more valuable calls using Target ROAS. This flexible bid strategy factors in signals like device, location, and time of day to make auction-time bid adjustments that maximize call conversion value, while reaching your business goals.

Learn more

With the launch of Google forwarding numbers, you can now report on call metrics and conversions, measure website call conversions, and optimize your bids to drive more valuable phone calls. You can learn more about each of these products in the AdWords Help Center and read our best practices for maximizing performance with calls.

Posted by Amit Agarwal, Product Manager, AdWords

¹Think with Google, The Role of Click to Call in the Path to Purchase, September 2013
*In some cases, a local Google forwarding number may not be available. When this happens, your ad will show a toll-free Google forwarding number instead

New reporting columns for multi-channel advertisers

Rob Newton — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 20:00:00 +0000

In April, we introduced improvements that help multi-channel advertisers more easily manage reporting for specific campaign types. For example, if you want to see performance columns for Display, you can quickly filter your view to see only your display campaigns. Today, we introduced another important enhancement to AdWords - TrueView is joining Search, Shopping and Display campaigns within the core AdWords interface. Now we are adding three new reporting columns to make it easier to report across all of these campaign types.

Introducing new ad interaction columns

As we add more campaign types into AdWords, we want to help you surface key insights across all of the campaigns you manage. That’s why we’re rolling out three new reporting columns to help you quickly report on some of the most important ad interactions that occur across all of your campaign types.

Starting this week, you’ll notice the following new columns:

Interactions - An interaction is the main action people take with your ad format— such as clicks for text and shopping ads, views for video ads, and engagements for Lightbox ads.
Interaction Rate - Interaction rate is used to measure how often people interact with your ad after it’s shown to them—for example, clicks divided by impressions for text ads, or views divided by impressions for video ads.
Avg Cost - Average cost is the average amount you've paid for your ads divided by total interactions—clicks divided by cost, or views divided by total cost.

New interaction columns help you measure metrics across your campaign types

When viewing multiple campaign types, these columns give you a more uniform and quick way to view key metrics for your campaign types in a single column. For example, for search, the primary metric you might want to view is clicks. And for video, your primary metric is views. Now, you can use the Interactions column to quickly see a combined metric for clicks and views for each of these campaign types within a single column.

Additionally, to make reporting by specific campaign type easier, you’ll now see your Total rows broken out by campaign type, instead of by network. And you will also see total rows for only the campaign types you manage.

Total rows are now broken out by campaign type

Getting started

Over time, you may start seeing these columns in other areas of AdWords. To learn how to start using the new ad interactions columns in your AdWords reporting, check out our Help Center.

Posted by Pallavi Naresh, Product Manager, AdWords

The power of video meets the capabilities of AdWords – all TrueView campaigns now in AdWords

Rob Newton — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 18:08:00 +0000

You know how you have to go to a special section within AdWords to create and manage your TrueView video campaigns? And jump back and forth when you want to report and optimize across all your campaigns? And you still can’t take advantage of AdWords bulk tools for your video campaigns? Well, good news, friends: those days are now over. TrueView is joining Search, Display, and Shopping campaigns within the core AdWords interface.

With the simplicity of a single interface and a more consistent experience, AdWords makes it easier for you to optimize across campaign types. Plus, you can take advantage of powerful bulk management tools to save time and effort when working on multiple TrueView campaigns. And now that all campaign types share the same structure, we can bring you new features for video, faster than ever before.

Now if you’ll follow us, we’d love to show you around…

In the top left corner, you can find the campaign type selector. This is useful to see only campaigns of a certain type. For instance, selecting “Video” gives you a view of your campaigns that looks similar to AdWords for video – meaning you’ll see only the tabs and columns that are most relevant for managing video campaigns. And best of all, we remember your column preferences whenever you switch among views, so you don’t need to change them around each time you toggle campaign types.

Campaign type selector

We’re also replacing targeting groups with ad groups, the basic building blocks for Search, Display, and Shopping campaigns. Now every ad group will have a single TrueView format, either in-stream or in-display. Though each ad group has only one format, campaigns can have multiple ad groups so you can still run both in-stream and in-display ads in the same campaign. To create a new campaign, just click the +CAMPAIGN button, click the new Video campaign type, and then create new ad groups within each campaign by clicking +AD GROUP.

Ad group creation

Now that TrueView has joined the party in AdWords, you’ll have access to a trove of goodies designed to help you manage, optimize, and report on accounts with lots of campaigns. For instance, bulk UI editing lets you modify information for multiple campaigns at once – directly from the UI, and bulk uploads let you download a snapshot of your campaigns, make changes en masse, and upload the changes live to your account. And report scheduling gives you the ability to set up a schedule for reports to run automatically, and have them emailed regularly to account users.

Bulk edits

Reporting for video campaigns is getting more powerful as well, as you’ll now have the ability to filter your results to isolate things like campaign name, label, cost, and conversions.

Filters

You’ll also see popular video features in familiar places in AdWords. For example, video remarketing is now in the AdWords shared library and YouTube account linking is in the Linked accounts section. Plus you’ll be able to see analytics for your video ads within the new "Videos" tab, and manage your targeting within the "Video targeting" tab.

Creating remarketing lists

Linking YouTube channels

Customers who’ve previewed the new interface found it saves them time and offers more powerful reporting. "As avid users of TrueView, we were eager to beta test the new TrueView in AdWords, and see how the change impacted our most complex campaign setups," said Pixability CTO Andreas Goeldi. "The increased functionality allows for improved workflow, better reporting, and significant time saved."

Whether your goals are to drive direct response or to build your brand, you now have a single, unified tool to address your full range of marketing goals. Starting today, you’ll be able to upgrade your campaigns to the new ad group structure, and say goodbye to those days of going to “All Video Campaigns” to get to your TrueView campaigns. To upgrade, just head to AdWords for video by clicking All video campaigns (once more, for old time’s sake) and click into the Upgrade Center to easily switch over all your campaigns in one fell swoop. And don’t worry – all your historical stats and targeting will carry over (just drill down to the campaign level to see them). If you’d rather not upgrade your campaigns yourself, no problem – we’ll automatically upgrade your campaigns, starting in six weeks.

And if you’re a video type of person (we certainly are!), check out all the content of this blog post in video form here.

Posted by the fka AdWords for video team
Lane Shackleton, Group Product Manager
Ammar Ibrahim, Product Manager
Avi Fein, Product Manager