Google Data

Cross-posted from The Keyword

A free and open web is a vital resource for people and businesses around the world. And ads play a key role in ensuring you have access to accurate, quality information online. But bad ads can ruin the online experience for everyone. They promote illegal products and unrealistic offers. They can trick people into sharing personal information and infect devices with harmful software. Ultimately, bad ads pose a threat to users, Google’s partners, and the sustainability of the open web itself.

We have a strict set of policies that govern the types of ads we do and don’t allow on Google in order to protect people from misleading, inappropriate, or harmful ads. And we have a team of engineers, policy experts, product managers and others who are waging a daily fight against bad actors. Over the years, this commitment has made the web a better place for you—and a worse place for those who seek to abuse advertising systems for their own gain.

In 2016, we took down 1.7 billion ads that violated our advertising policies, more than double the amount of bad ads we took down in 2015. If you spent one second taking down each of those bad ads, it’d take you more than 50 years to finish. But our technology is built to work much faster.

Last year, we did two key things to take down more bad ads. First, we expanded our policies to better protect users from misleading and predatory offers. For example, in July we introduced a policy to ban ads for payday loans, which often result in unaffordable payments and high default rates for users. In the six months since launching this policy, we disabled more than 5 million payday loan ads. Second, we beefed up our technology so we can spot and disable bad ads even faster. For example, “trick to click” ads often appear as system warnings to deceive users into clicking on them, not realizing they are often downloading harmful software or malware. In 2016, our systems detected and disabled a total of 112 million ads for “trick to click,” 6X more than in 2015.

Here are a few more examples of bad ads we took action against in 2016:

Ads for illegal products

Some of the most common bad ads we find online are ads promoting illegal activities or products. Although we’ve long had a policy against bad ads for pharmaceuticals, last year our systems detected an increase online. We disabled more than 68 million bad ads for healthcare violations, up from 12.5 million in 2015.

Similarly, we saw more attempts to advertise gambling-related promotions without proper authorization from regulators in the countries they operate. We took down more than 17 million bad ads for illegal gambling violations in 2016.

17M ads removed for illegal gambling violations

Misleading ads

We don’t want you to feel misled by ads that we deliver, so we require our advertisers to provide upfront information for people to make informed decisions. Some ads try to drive clicks and views by intentionally misleading people with false information like asking, “Are you at risk for this rare, skin-eating disease?” or offering miracle cures like a pill that will help you lose 50 pounds in three days without lifting a finger. In 2016, we took down nearly 80 million bad ads for deceiving, misleading and shocking users.

1,300+ accounts suspended for tabloid cloaking

Bad ads on mobile

If you’ve ever been on your phone and suddenly, without warning, ended up in the app store downloading an app you’ve never heard of, a “self-clicking ad” could be to blame. In 2015, we disabled only a few thousand of these bad ads, but in 2016, our systems detected and disabled more than 23,000 self-clicking ads on our platforms, a huge increase year over year.

Ads trying to game the system

Bad actors know that ads for certain products—like weight-loss supplements or payday loans—aren’t allowed by Google’s policies, so they try to trick our systems into letting them through. Last year, we took down almost 7 million bad ads for intentionally attempting to trick our detection systems.

In 2016, we saw the rise of tabloid cloakers, a new type of scammer that tries to game our system by pretending to be news. Cloakers often take advantage of timely topics—a government election, a trending news story or a popular celebrity—and their ads can look like headlines on a news website. But when people click on that story about Ellen DeGeneres and aliens, they go to a site selling weight-loss products, not a news story.

To fight cloakers, we take down the scammers themselves, and prevent them from advertising with us again. In 2016, we suspended more than 1,300 accounts for tabloid cloaking. Unfortunately, this type of bad ad is gaining in popularity because people are clicking on them. And a handful of scammers can pump out a lot of bad ads: During a single sweep for tabloid cloaking in December 2016, we took down 22 cloakers that were responsible for ads seen more than 20 million times by people online in a single week.

Promoting and profiting from bad sites

When we find ads that violate our policies, we block the ad or the advertiser, depending on the violation. But sometimes we also need to suspend the website promoted in the ad (the site people see after they click on it). So, for example, while we disabled more than 5 million payday loan ads last year, we also took action on 8,000 sites promoting payday loans.

Here are some examples of common policy violations we saw among bad sites in 2016:

• We took action on 47,000 sites for promoting content and products related to weight-loss scams.
• We took action on more than 15,000 sites for unwanted software and disabled 900,000 ads for containing malware.
• And we suspended around 6,000 sites and 6,000 accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods, like imitation designer watches.

6,000 sites and 6,000 accounts removed for attempting to sell counterfeit goods

Publishers and website owners use our AdSense platform to make money by running ads on their sites and content, so we have strict policies in place to keep Google’s content and search networks safe and clean for our advertisers, users and publishers. When a publisher violates our policies, we may stop showing ads on their site, or even terminate their account.

We’ve had long-standing policies prohibiting AdSense publishers from running ads on sites that help people deceive others, like a site where you buy fake diplomas or plagiarized term papers. In November, we expanded on these policies, introducing a new AdSense misrepresentative content policy, that helps us to take action against website owners misrepresenting who they are and that deceive people with their content. From November to December 2016, we reviewed 550 sites that were suspected of misrepresenting content to users, including impersonating news organizations. We took action against 340 of them for violating our policies, both misrepresentation and other offenses, and nearly 200 publishers were kicked out of our network permanently.

In addition to all the above, we support industry efforts like the Coalition for Better Ads to protect people from bad experiences across the web. While we took down more bad ads in 2016 than ever before, the battle doesn’t end here. As we invest in better detection, the scammers invest in more elaborate attempts to trick our systems. Continuing to find and fight them is essential to protecting people online and ensuring you get the very best from the open web.

Posted by Scott Spencer
Director of Product Management, Sustainable Ads

Cross-posted from The Keyword

A free and open web is a vital resource for people and businesses around the world. And ads play a key role in ensuring you have access to accurate, quality information online. But bad ads can ruin the online experience for everyone. They promote illegal products and unrealistic offers. They can trick people into sharing personal information and infect devices with harmful software. Ultimately, bad ads pose a threat to users, Google’s partners, and the sustainability of the open web itself.

We have a strict set of policies that govern the types of ads we do and don’t allow on Google in order to protect people from misleading, inappropriate, or harmful ads. And we have a team of engineers, policy experts, product managers and others who are waging a daily fight against bad actors. Over the years, this commitment has made the web a better place for you—and a worse place for those who seek to abuse advertising systems for their own gain.

In 2016, we took down 1.7 billion ads that violated our advertising policies, more than double the amount of bad ads we took down in 2015. If you spent one second taking down each of those bad ads, it’d take you more than 50 years to finish. But our technology is built to work much faster.

Last year, we did two key things to take down more bad ads. First, we expanded our policies to better protect users from misleading and predatory offers. For example, in July we introduced a policy to ban ads for payday loans, which often result in unaffordable payments and high default rates for users. In the six months since launching this policy, we disabled more than 5 million payday loan ads. Second, we beefed up our technology so we can spot and disable bad ads even faster. For example, “trick to click” ads often appear as system warnings to deceive users into clicking on them, not realizing they are often downloading harmful software or malware. In 2016, our systems detected and disabled a total of 112 million ads for “trick to click,” 6X more than in 2015.

Here are a few more examples of bad ads we took action against in 2016:

Ads for illegal products

Some of the most common bad ads we find online are ads promoting illegal activities or products. Although we’ve long had a policy against bad ads for pharmaceuticals, last year our systems detected an increase online. We disabled more than 68 million bad ads for healthcare violations, up from 12.5 million in 2015.

Similarly, we saw more attempts to advertise gambling-related promotions without proper authorization from regulators in the countries they operate. We took down more than 17 million bad ads for illegal gambling violations in 2016.

17M ads removed for illegal gambling violations

Misleading ads

We don’t want you to feel misled by ads that we deliver, so we require our advertisers to provide upfront information for people to make informed decisions. Some ads try to drive clicks and views by intentionally misleading people with false information like asking, “Are you at risk for this rare, skin-eating disease?” or offering miracle cures like a pill that will help you lose 50 pounds in three days without lifting a finger. In 2016, we took down nearly 80 million bad ads for deceiving, misleading and shocking users.

1,300+ accounts suspended for tabloid cloaking

Bad ads on mobile

If you’ve ever been on your phone and suddenly, without warning, ended up in the app store downloading an app you’ve never heard of, a “self-clicking ad” could be to blame. In 2015, we disabled only a few thousand of these bad ads, but in 2016, our systems detected and disabled more than 23,000 self-clicking ads on our platforms, a huge increase year over year.

Ads trying to game the system

Bad actors know that ads for certain products—like weight-loss supplements or payday loans—aren’t allowed by Google’s policies, so they try to trick our systems into letting them through. Last year, we took down almost 7 million bad ads for intentionally attempting to trick our detection systems.

In 2016, we saw the rise of tabloid cloakers, a new type of scammer that tries to game our system by pretending to be news. Cloakers often take advantage of timely topics—a government election, a trending news story or a popular celebrity—and their ads can look like headlines on a news website. But when people click on that story about Ellen DeGeneres and aliens, they go to a site selling weight-loss products, not a news story.

To fight cloakers, we take down the scammers themselves, and prevent them from advertising with us again. In 2016, we suspended more than 1,300 accounts for tabloid cloaking. Unfortunately, this type of bad ad is gaining in popularity because people are clicking on them. And a handful of scammers can pump out a lot of bad ads: During a single sweep for tabloid cloaking in December 2016, we took down 22 cloakers that were responsible for ads seen more than 20 million times by people online in a single week.

Promoting and profiting from bad sites

When we find ads that violate our policies, we block the ad or the advertiser, depending on the violation. But sometimes we also need to suspend the website promoted in the ad (the site people see after they click on it). So, for example, while we disabled more than 5 million payday loan ads last year, we also took action on 8,000 sites promoting payday loans.

Here are some examples of common policy violations we saw among bad sites in 2016:

• We took action on 47,000 sites for promoting content and products related to weight-loss scams.
• We took action on more than 15,000 sites for unwanted software and disabled 900,000 ads for containing malware.
• And we suspended around 6,000 sites and 6,000 accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods, like imitation designer watches.

6,000 sites and 6,000 accounts removed for attempting to sell counterfeit goods

Publishers and website owners use our AdSense platform to make money by running ads on their sites and content, so we have strict policies in place to keep Google’s content and search networks safe and clean for our advertisers, users and publishers. When a publisher violates our policies, we may stop showing ads on their site, or even terminate their account.

We’ve had long-standing policies prohibiting AdSense publishers from running ads on sites that help people deceive others, like a site where you buy fake diplomas or plagiarized term papers. In November, we expanded on these policies, introducing a new AdSense misrepresentative content policy, that helps us to take action against website owners misrepresenting who they are and that deceive people with their content. From November to December 2016, we reviewed 550 sites that were suspected of misrepresenting content to users, including impersonating news organizations. We took action against 340 of them for violating our policies, both misrepresentation and other offenses, and nearly 200 publishers were kicked out of our network permanently.

In addition to all the above, we support industry efforts like the Coalition for Better Ads to protect people from bad experiences across the web. While we took down more bad ads in 2016 than ever before, the battle doesn’t end here. As we invest in better detection, the scammers invest in more elaborate attempts to trick our systems. Continuing to find and fight them is essential to protecting people online and ensuring you get the very best from the open web.

Posted by Scott Spencer
Director of Product Management, Sustainable Ads

A few weeks back, Paul Muret, Google’s VP of Display, Video and Analytics, made several announcements about enhancements to the DoubleClick platform to support Programmatic Direct deals. Paul also shared that the number of Programmatic Direct deals transacted on DoubleClick Ad Exchange tripled in 2015¹ alone.

Everyone knows that programmatic is growing and is increasingly becoming the way we transact digital advertising. But what’s the deal with programmatic deals, or as we say, Programmatic Direct?

To answer that question, we dug into the data to analyze the key drivers of Programmatic Direct growth on our platforms. You can explore some of the data for yourself, with our interactive report: The State of Programmatic Direct.

Looking through Ad Exchange data from October 2014 to December 2015, one thing became incredibly clear: In every region, across every platform and publisher category, there are fascinating trends of adoption to be found.

Programmatic Direct has gone mainstream…

Depending on whom you ask, the history of programmatic exchanges can be traced back nearly a decade. However, it was only a few years ago that some of the world’s largest global spenders started making big commitments to programmatic and “programmatic” became ANA’s Marketing Word of the Year.

It hasn’t taken as long for advertisers and publishers to use programmatic technologies to transact the deals they’d traditionally buy and sell directly. In reviewing the data from DoubleClick AdExchange, we found that:

• 90+ marketers on the Ad Age Top 100 Global Marketers list made Programmatic Direct deals in 2015².
• More than half of the publishers in the US comScore top 50 list from December 2015 offered their inventory through Programmatic Direct deals³.

… On every screen

Programmatic may have been born on the desktop, but Programmatic Direct is taking off on mobile — probably not a surprise if you’re reading this article on your phone. Programmatic Direct impressions served on mobile and tablet grew 4x faster than desktop in the period surveyed⁴.

… In every region

The growth of Programmatic Direct isn’t limited to any specific country or region. So, where is it well adopted and where is it growing fast?

• Programmatic Direct impressions in Ukraine, Turkey and Spain each more than doubled in just 12 months⁵.
• Japan was the strongest adopter in APAC but Taiwan and Indonesia saw Programmatic Direct impressions grow more than 20% monthly⁶.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we dig through the data to share more insights. You can also explore our interactive research report to find additional trends, like how quickly Programmatic Direct impressions on mobile apps grew for game publishers in Japan. To get started, take a look at the infographic below.

Posted by Carlo Acenas
Associate Product Marketing Manager
Yamini Gupta
Sr. Product Marketing Manager ^{1 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, year end 2014 to year end 2015.
2 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014-Dec 2015. Minimum $1K spend.
3 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014-Dec 2015. Cross-referenced with comScore 50 US list, December 2015.
4 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014 – Dec 2015.
5 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014 – Dec 2015.
6 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014 – Dec 2015.}

A few weeks back, Paul Muret, Google’s VP of Display, Video and Analytics, made several announcements about enhancements to the DoubleClick platform to support Programmatic Direct deals. Paul also shared that the number of Programmatic Direct deals transacted on DoubleClick Ad Exchange tripled in 2015¹ alone.

Everyone knows that programmatic is growing and is increasingly becoming the way we transact digital advertising. But what’s the deal with programmatic deals, or as we say, Programmatic Direct?

To answer that question, we dug into the data to analyze the key drivers of Programmatic Direct growth on our platforms. You can explore some of the data for yourself, with our interactive report: The State of Programmatic Direct.

Looking through Ad Exchange data from October 2014 to December 2015, one thing became incredibly clear: In every region, across every platform and publisher category, there are fascinating trends of adoption to be found.

Programmatic Direct has gone mainstream…

Depending on whom you ask, the history of programmatic exchanges can be traced back nearly a decade. However, it was only a few years ago that some of the world’s largest global spenders started making big commitments to programmatic and “programmatic” became ANA’s Marketing Word of the Year.

It hasn’t taken as long for advertisers and publishers to use programmatic technologies to transact the deals they’d traditionally buy and sell directly. In reviewing the data from DoubleClick AdExchange, we found that:

• 90+ marketers on the Ad Age Top 100 Global Marketers list made Programmatic Direct deals in 2015².
• More than half of the publishers in the US comScore top 50 list from December 2015 offered their inventory through Programmatic Direct deals³.

… On every screen

Programmatic may have been born on the desktop, but Programmatic Direct is taking off on mobile — probably not a surprise if you’re reading this article on your phone. Programmatic Direct impressions served on mobile and tablet grew 4x faster than desktop in the period surveyed⁴.

… In every region

The growth of Programmatic Direct isn’t limited to any specific country or region. So, where is it well adopted and where is it growing fast?

• Programmatic Direct impressions in Ukraine, Turkey and Spain each more than doubled in just 12 months⁵.
• Japan was the strongest adopter in APAC but Taiwan and Indonesia saw Programmatic Direct impressions grow more than 20% monthly⁶.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we dig through the data to share more insights. You can also explore our interactive research report to find additional trends, like how quickly Programmatic Direct impressions on mobile apps grew for game publishers in Japan. To get started, take a look at the infographic below.

Posted by Carlo Acenas
Associate Product Marketing Manager
Yamini Gupta
Sr. Product Marketing Manager ^{1 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, year end 2014 to year end 2015.
2 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014-Dec 2015. Minimum $1K spend.
3 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014-Dec 2015. Cross-referenced with comScore 50 US list, December 2015.
4 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014 – Dec 2015.
5 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014 – Dec 2015.
6 DoubleClick Ad Exchange data, Oct 2014 – Dec 2015.}

Mobile is where search starts today for many consumers. Last year for the first time, more Google searches took place on smartphones than on desktops and laptops globally¹. Mobile is where consumer micro-moments really thrive: in the I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do and I-want-to-buy moments where decisions are made and preferences are shaped. Brands that help consumers in these intent-rich moments will win.

To help brands be there and be useful, we’re pleased to announce that support for three new mobile tools are in the works for DoubleClick Search users: AdWords expanded text ads, call-only ads and call metrics.

Optimized ads for the mobile-first world

Expanded text ads were announced yesterday by Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President of Ads and Commerce at Google, during his Google Performance Summit Keynote. They’re the biggest change to mobile ad formats since AdWords launched over 15 years ago.

Expanded text ads give advertisers improved control over the longer headline field, increased character limits across all text fields, and a simplified display URL workflow.

Based on early testing, some advertisers reported increases in clickthrough rates of up to 20% compared to current text ads. Expanded text ads in AdWords provide nearly 50% more ad space, so you can showcase more information about your products and services right on the search results page.

Expanded text ads aren’t available widely just yet. We’re working with the AdWords team and we plan to have full support quickly once campaign management for expanded text ads becomes publicly available.

Until then, here’s what DoubleClick Search customers who are taking part in the AdWords beta can expect in three key areas:

• Campaign management: Expanded text ads won’t appear in the DoubleClick Search interface at this time.
• Bid optimization: Expanded text ads are included in automated bidding for DoubleClick Search for all AdWords beta users.
• Measuring results: Engine and conversion stats for the expanded text ads will be attributed to the correct keyword in DoubleClick Search. Aggregate reporting (at the ad group level and above) will incorporate stats from expanded text ads.

Even if you’re not in the AdWords beta, it’s a good idea to start planning now for this upgrade. Review Google’s Creatives that Click to learn about best practices.

Connect with calls

While the mobile web and apps continue to grow, calls remain an important way for consumers to connect with your business. In fact, 33% of mobile searchers have called a business after doing a related search on their smartphones in the past three months².

Today we’re announcing full support for AdWords call-only ads and call metrics in DoubleClick Search. Support for these features starts immediately and you should see them in your account now.

Put your business phone number and a “call now” button in your mobile search ads, and more customers will call you directly instead of visiting your web site.

These ads are a great way to connect to consumers in their I-wanna-talk-to-a-human moments. In fact, Forrester Research recommended Google solutions in its recent report Capture Customers With Click-to-Call³:

“Google has the longest tenure with click-to-call and provides the greatest reach of all possible media outlets, so we recommend building your click-to-call foundation on it.”
- Forrester Research, February 2016

Until now, call-only ads were created by selecting a checkbox in call extensions. These new call-only ads replace this option.

With call-only ads, you can bid based on the value of a call to your business, and tailor your ads for phone calls to let people know they can reach your business easily without needing to visit your site.

And, with call metrics, you can use a Google forwarding number to see how many calls were generated, how long they lasted, and other details that will help you measure the value of phone calls, right in DoubleClick Search.

Learn how to create call-only ads in DoubleClick Search in our Help Center, or discover new ways to Drive More Calls to Your Business with Google’s best practices.

Looking ahead

These three new features are our latest steps toward helping DoubleClick Search customers stay ahead in a mobile-first world. They join other mobile innovations such as cross-device conversions, cross-device bid strategies, and app-install campaigns that help you put your apps in users’ hands. We hope they’ll help your brand succeed with search in a mobile-first world.

Posted by Amit Varia
Product Manager, DoubleClick Search

^{1 Google Internal Data, for 10 countries including the US and Japan, April 2015
2 The role of mobile search on store purchases, Google/Ipsos Media CT, August 2015, n=1327 Mobile Searchers 18+, who have conducted a purchase-related search on a smartphone in the past 3 months
3 Capture Customers With Click-To-Call. Forrester Research, February 2016}

Our goal has always been to help publishers and advertisers thrive and create sustainable businesses. For many years Google has used optimization and machine learning techniques to improve the performance of our ads products, and now we’re happy to share that we’ve been extending those techniques to DoubleClick Ad Exchange customers. Today we are introducing Optimized Private Auctions and optimized pricing in the Open Auction to help our publisher partners grow their revenue and give programmatic buyers greater access to premium inventory.

More control of Private Auctions

Private Auctions were developed to help publishers negotiate higher prices by creating special segments of inventory for preferred buyers. As deal volume has grown, we discovered an additional opportunity for publishers to make even more money with Private Auctions. On average, 5% of Private Auction impressions on our platform have an Open Auction buyer willing to pay more than the Private Auction deal price. If all of these bids from Open Auction buyers were able to win their auctions, publishers would see a significant lift to their programmatic revenue.

Optimized Private Auctions, now available to all publishers using DoubleClick Ad Exchange globally, give publishers the ability to allow high-value Open Auction bids to compete against Private Auctions. Full transparency is available to buyers, who can see in the DoubleClick Ad Exchange UI which of their Private Auctions are being optimized.

Greater accuracy with optimized pricing in the Open Auction

In addition to helping publishers maximize revenue from Private Auctions, we’ve been experimenting with optimized pricing to help publishers set price floors in the Open Auction that more closely reflect the value of their inventory.

The Open Auction tends to have a large price gap between what a buyer bids and what they pay. We’ve observed more than a 50%¹ price gap between bid and closing prices in many cases. Publishers see this gap as a revenue opportunity and try to close the gap by applying manually-calculated price floors. This is difficult to do well and can lead to lost revenue, or to complex implementations such as offering the same query repeatedly at different price floors that can increase user latency and hurt advertiser performance. We think there’s a better way.

Optimized pricing in the Open Auction uses historical data to automate the post-auction analysis and updating of floor prices that publishers already do, and takes it a step further. Not only does our technology use signals like ad unit and device, it also calculates audience-based floors, so publishers can fully benefit from building valuable audiences. And as we’ve always done, if there is a floor applied to an impression, whether publisher or algorithmically set, we share it with buyers in our bid requests.

In our experiments to date, we have applied optimized pricing to about 15% of transactions, creating over 5% lift in revenue for publishers using the Open Auction. As we expand our experiments with optimized pricing, we will monitor its performance to ensure advertisers continue to get great ROI.

Increasing price transparency

While Optimized Private Auctions and optimized pricing in the Open Auction help publishers get more value for their inventory, they raise important questions. In our conversations, programmatic buyers and sellers have expressed a strong desire for greater transparency and openness in how advertising is valued and prices are set. As the programmatic ecosystem continues to grow, we look forward to partnering with buyers and sellers in an open discussion on price transparency in the industry.

Posted by Jonathan Bellack Director, Product Management

^{1 Google internal data, desktop and mobile web impressions in North America}

Publisher digitally recreates the experience of reading a glossy print magazine and attracts more brand advertisers with component-based native ad formats.

Aller Media is a leading, Scandinavian publisher that owns a variety of media outlets including KK.no, a landmark fashion and lifestyle magazine. With more of its users on mobile devices, KK.no invested in a responsive website to deliver contextually relevant experiences. But its ads, particularly the custom native formats, didn’t respond to the user’s context in the same way as its content.

In late 2015, KK.no partnered with DoubleClick to build fully responsive, component-based native ads. The result: beautiful and seamless user experiences across mobile and desktop, increased ad viewability and greater impact for advertisers.

“With Native Ads on DoubleClick, KK.no saw over 85% growth in ad viewability on mobile without compromising user experiences. They actually love it. It’s a part of how they consume the content on the site.”
Kirsti Engedal Alfheim, Head of Ad Operation, Aller Media

Visit DoubleClick.com to learn more and watch the video.

Posted by Nataliya Kozak
Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

Danielle Landress
Associate Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

People want great experiences wherever they’re consuming content – on the web, in apps, on every screen. Savvy publishers have responded by building smart, responsive websites and new app interaction models. But improving the content experience alone is not enough. Publishers need to evolve their advertising as well, from boxy banners to flexible and contextually relevant native ads that scale. To help them do that, we’re extending our native ads for apps solution to work across all screens – on the web and in apps – making it easier for publishers to set up, deliver, and measure directly-sold native ads everywhere.

Reducing complexity to scale beautiful native ads across screens

Running native ads across all of a publisher’s digital inventory has, until now, been an operationally complex process requiring hours spent manually coding and compiling individual ad creatives from advertiser-provided assets.

Now, DoubleClick for Publishers supports native creatives that easily scale and adapt to different content layouts on different screens. Instead of providing rigid, pre-defined ad creatives, advertisers can give publishers components that make up their ads – image, headline, copy, etc. Publishers set up a central library of native styles suited to their content and DoubleClick automatically compiles the creative from the components, applying the right style based on where users are consuming content.

These native creatives can run both in traditional banner slots and a new, responsive fluid ad slot in Google Publisher Tag and the Google Mobile Ads SDK. And ActiveView and third-party measurement are fully supported.

Flexing The New York Times’ native advertising strategy

Last year, The New York Times launched “Flex Frames”, a new suite of natively styled ads developed in-house. The goal was to extend innovative storytelling and beautiful user experiences to ads across all of their content platforms.

“We think better designed ads that play off the functionality and user experience of our site will allow us to grow our business.”
-Sebastian Tomich, Senior Vice President of Advertising & Innovation, The New York Times

.

Flex Frames was a hit with users and advertisers alike: CTRs were up 4-5X compared to regular 300×250 in-line units, and advertisers jumped at the chance to take advantage of new in-line video inventory.

Scaling Flex Frames, however, proved challenging. The team was dedicating too many hours to coding and compiling ads for review by advertisers.

The New York Times turned to DoubleClick’s new solution to serve these native ads more efficiently wherever their users may be – in apps, on the web, or even on AMP pages. By overlaying audience data, the team is able to optimize the creative presentation to match the editorial experiences that individual readers respond to the most, delivering compelling user experiences and great results.

“Performance on mobile is surpassing desktop, and that’s a big opportunity. We see our partnership with Google and DoubleClick as the answer to scale and that’s been the biggest challenge for advertisers trying to innovate today,” says Tomich.

The New York Times isn’t the only publisher benefitting from this technology. Today, more than 200 publishers globally, including Aller Media in Norway and Grupo Expansion in Mexico, are using DoubleClick to deliver fully responsive native ads across all their web and app properties.

DoubleClick’s goal has always been to help publishers thrive and deliver great advertising experiences with the least complexity. With our growing investment in native solutions for publishers, we’re excited to power ad experiences that are more engaging and seamless for users everywhere, unlocking brand spend in a way that’s sustainable and scalable.

Learn more about Native Ads on DoubleClick in our Help Center and experience their responsiveness in this interactive demo.

Posted by Tom Bender Product Manager, DoubleClick

As Jonathan said a few weeks ago, our goal has always been to help publishers thrive and create sustainable businesses with advertising. First Look was developed to help publishers maximize the revenue from all of their inventory by enabling them to give trusted programmatic buyers the opportunity to bid on 100% of their inventory — even ahead of sponsorships and reservations. It’s simple to set up with no required code changes, zero added latency, and it works across all channels and formats. Since its preview in October 2015, 300+ publishers have leveraged First Look to grow programmatic revenue.

“First Look has been a great compliment to our monetization [strategy] and our ad stack. Since implementing it, Gannett has seen a 15% lift in eCPM of our programmatic channel.”
-Tim Wolfe, VP of Revenue Operations, Gannett

Publishers like About Inc. and Frankly Inc have also seen significant results with First Look.

“Given the appetite for First Look inventory, we have realized a material lift in programmatic revenue since the product was made available.”
-Scott Mulqueen, Vice President of Programmatic & Audience monetization, About, Inc.

“By leveraging First Look, we have been able to expose more inventory and maximize yield on premium users and content through a seamless & easy implementation. As our programmatic stack continues to mature, we see great potential for higher cpms and greater volume.”
-William Ammerman, Head of Advertising, Frankly Inc.

It’s been almost a month since we released First Look to all publishers and we’re happy to help them achieve higher yield for every impression while maintaining their user experience. If you want to learn more about Gannett’s strategy and approach to using First Look read more on DoubleClick.com.

Posted by Alex Shellhammer
Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

The television industry is in the midst of a massive change. The rise of new content models and connected devices has led to more choice than ever–both for content creators and consumers. But with this choice and opportunity comes new challenges to solve as well.

I spoke to the TV industry at the Closing General Session of the National Association of Broadcasters Show. In the keynote I discussed the rebirth of TV and how we’re helping Broadcasters and Distributors with discovery, monetization and content creation.

Discovery

Announcing new ways to find where and when to watch your favorite shows.

There are now more ways to watch your favorite TV shows than ever before. This shift has some even saying that we’re in the “golden age” of television. And what we’re seeing is that more and more, viewers are turning to their phones to find out what to watch, where to watch it and when it’s available — in fact, searches for TV shows and films on mobile have grown more than 55% in the past year alone.

Last year we launched video actions in Search to help viewers find direct options to watch the shows they are looking for on programmer and distributors mobile apps and sites or stores like Google Play.

Today, I’m excited to announce that, coming soon, Google Search will have live TV listings. So now if you’re looking for a movie or TV show like The Big Bang Theory, we’ll not only show you the apps and sites where you can find the latest episode, but also show which channel you can turn your tv to later in the evening or week to catch it live.

Monetization

Announcing personalized TV ads with DoubleClick Dynamic Ad Insertion

Viewers no longer expect content personalized to them, they demand it. And that includes ads.

Today we are taking big steps to bring new addressable advertising capabilities to TV Broadcasters and Distributors by announcing DoubleClick’s Dynamic Ad Insertion. This makes ads hyper relevant for viewers across any screen that they watch. By creating individual streams for every viewer using server side ad insertion, we are able to deliver a better, more personalized viewing experience that looks and feels as seamless as TV today.

And not only will this work for both live and on-demand TV but it works across directly sold and programmatic.

We put this technology to the test with two of the highest rated TV events in the last year: the Rugby World Cup Finals on TF1, the leading network in France, and the Republican Presidential Debates on Fox News, a leading news network in the US. Politics and sports are pretty personal topics, so it’s only appropriate that TF1 and Fox News created a fully addressable viewing experience for the millions of viewers that tuned in using Dynamic Ad Insertion.

Announcing smarter TV ad breaks

Today we’re also announcing that DoubleClick for Publisher clients will soon be able to seamlessly enforce the level of control that has been firmly established in TV — across all inventory, whether it was sold directly or indirectly. That means, we are able to honor competitive separation – so two automotive ads don’t appear in the same commercial break – and other rules like making sure an alcohol and children’s cereal ad don’t appear in the same commercial break.

This has been major blocker to enabling programmatic to work for TV. And now you no longer need to turn down attractive opportunities from advertisers interested in transacting programmatically because of compliance concerns.

Announcing New TV Partners

DoubleClick is focused on building advertising solutions that meet the changing needs of the TV ecosystem. We’re proud of our longstanding partnerships with industry leaders like AMC Networks in the US and Globo in South America.

Today we add three more to the list: we’re happy to welcome MCN, Roku and Cablevision as partners. They’ve all signed on to use DoubleClick for Publishers to serve ads and monetize cross-screen TV and video content.

“As the conventional TV and digital video worlds converge, people are watching more content than ever across a variety of screens. At Cablevision, we’re focused on developing innovative solutions that deliver the best experience for our viewers in this new cross-screen world and unlocking new opportunities for our advertisers. We are enthusiastic about using Google’s DoubleClick for seamless advertising delivery across our set-top boxes and connected devices. Together, we are enabling more personalized and relevant ads with addressable and dynamic ad insertion.”
- Kristin Dolan, Chief Operating Officer, Cablevision

Content creation

Announcing Autodesk collaboration to enable 10x improvement in rendering efficiency

Autodesk software has been behind the past 21 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects and we’re bringing this capability to Google Cloud Platform. Yesterday we announced (link) that Autodesk, maker of industry-leading 3D animation and modeling software, is collaborating with Google on a new cloud-based rendering solution called Maya^® for Google Cloud Platform ZYNC Render. This allows artists to focus on creating incredible TV & movie content using the tools they already know, while shifting even the largest rendering jobs seamlessly to the cloud.

TV is the midst of a revival. And just like other media types which have been reimagined for the digital age like music, the arrival of this ‘new TV’ was preceded by change and tumult. But TV’s past was built on a rich history of creativity and innovation, and I’m incredibly optimistic that TV’s future will be as well. Our job is to help make that future become the present and we are excited to partner with the TV ecosystem to build it.

Posted by Daniel Alegre President of Global Partnerships, Google

The television industry is in the midst of a massive change. The rise of new content models and connected devices has led to more choice than ever–both for content creators and consumers. But with this choice and opportunity comes new challenges to solve as well.

I spoke to the TV industry at the Closing General Session of the National Association of Broadcasters Show. In the keynote I discussed the rebirth of TV and how we’re helping Broadcasters and Distributors with discovery, monetization and content creation.

Discovery

Announcing new ways to find where and when to watch your favorite shows.

There are now more ways to watch your favorite TV shows than ever before. This shift has some even saying that we’re in the “golden age” of television. And what we’re seeing is that more and more, viewers are turning to their phones to find out what to watch, where to watch it and when it’s available — in fact, searches for TV shows and films on mobile have grown more than 55% in the past year alone.

Last year we launched video actions in Search to help viewers find direct options to watch the shows they are looking for on programmer and distributors mobile apps and sites or stores like Google Play.

Today, I’m excited to announce that, coming soon, Google Search will have live TV listings. So now if you’re looking for a movie or TV show like The Big Bang Theory, we’ll not only show you the apps and sites where you can find the latest episode, but also show which channel you can turn your tv to later in the evening or week to catch it live.

Monetization

Announcing personalized TV ads with DoubleClick Dynamic Ad Insertion

Viewers no longer expect content personalized to them, they demand it. And that includes ads.

Today we are taking big steps to bring new addressable advertising capabilities to TV Broadcasters and Distributors by announcing DoubleClick’s Dynamic Ad Insertion. This makes ads hyper relevant for viewers across any screen that they watch. By creating individual streams for every viewer using server side ad insertion, we are able to deliver a better, more personalized viewing experience that looks and feels as seamless as TV today.

And not only will this work for both live and on-demand TV but it works across directly sold and programmatic.

We put this technology to the test with two of the highest rated TV events in the last year: the Rugby World Cup Finals on TF1, the leading network in France, and the Republican Presidential Debates on Fox News, a leading news network in the US. Politics and sports are pretty personal topics, so it’s only appropriate that TF1 and Fox News created a fully addressable viewing experience for the millions of viewers that tuned in using Dynamic Ad Insertion.

Announcing smarter TV ad breaks

Today we’re also announcing that DoubleClick for Publisher clients will soon be able to seamlessly enforce the level of control that has been firmly established in TV — across all inventory, whether it was sold directly or indirectly. That means, we are able to honor competitive separation – so two automotive ads don’t appear in the same commercial break – and other rules like making sure an alcohol and children’s cereal ad don’t appear in the same commercial break.

This has been major blocker to enabling programmatic to work for TV. And now you no longer need to turn down attractive opportunities from advertisers interested in transacting programmatically because of compliance concerns.

Announcing New TV Partners

DoubleClick is focused on building advertising solutions that meet the changing needs of the TV ecosystem. We’re proud of our longstanding partnerships with industry leaders like AMC Networks in the US and Globo in South America.

Today we add three more to the list: we’re happy to welcome MCN, Roku and Cablevision as partners. They’ve all signed on to use DoubleClick for Publishers to serve ads and monetize cross-screen TV and video content.

“As the conventional TV and digital video worlds converge, people are watching more content than ever across a variety of screens. At Cablevision, we’re focused on developing innovative solutions that deliver the best experience for our viewers in this new cross-screen world and unlocking new opportunities for our advertisers. We are enthusiastic about using Google’s DoubleClick for seamless advertising delivery across our set-top boxes and connected devices. Together, we are enabling more personalized and relevant ads with addressable and dynamic ad insertion.”
- Kristin Dolan, Chief Operating Officer, Cablevision

Content creation

Announcing Autodesk collaboration to enable 10x improvement in rendering efficiency

Autodesk software has been behind the past 21 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects and we’re bringing this capability to Google Cloud Platform. Yesterday we announced (link) that Autodesk, maker of industry-leading 3D animation and modeling software, is collaborating with Google on a new cloud-based rendering solution called Maya^® for Google Cloud Platform ZYNC Render. This allows artists to focus on creating incredible TV & movie content using the tools they already know, while shifting even the largest rendering jobs seamlessly to the cloud.

TV is the midst of a revival. And just like other media types which have been reimagined for the digital age like music, the arrival of this ‘new TV’ was preceded by change and tumult. But TV’s past was built on a rich history of creativity and innovation, and I’m incredibly optimistic that TV’s future will be as well. Our job is to help make that future become the present and we are excited to partner with the TV ecosystem to build it.

Posted by Daniel Alegre President of Global Partnerships, Google

Today, Daniel Alegre, Google’s President of Global Partnerships, will share an update on new partnerships for DoubleClick’s video business and announce two new features for broadcasters in DoubleClick for Publishers in his keynote at the NAB Show. The new features are Dynamic Ad Insertion, enabling ads to be personalized for each unique viewer watching live or on-demand TV programming; and smarter ad breaks that give broadcasters and distributors greater control.

Personalized TV ads with DoubleClick Dynamic Ad Insertion

Addressable TV advertising, with ads tailored for individual viewers, has long been on the wish list for broadcasters, distributors and advertisers. Tailored ads tend to perform better for advertisers, since they reach the right audience with the right message. They also mean more relevant and useful ads for viewers.

Dynamic Ad Insertion in DoubleClick is a big step towards bringing addressable advertising to TV broadcasters and distributors. Rather than a “one-size-fits-all” approach, this feature lets broadcasters create individual streams using server-side ad insertion, which can then seamlessly deliver tailored ads, across both online screens and set-top box video on demand. This builds on our experiments with dynamic ad insertion into live linear TV through the Google Fiber set-top-box that we announced at last year’s NAB Show.

Some of our partners have already put this new feature to the test, with Dynamic Ad Insertion supporting two of the highest profile TV events in the last year: the Rugby World Cup Finals on TF1, the leading network in France, and the Republican Presidential Debates on Fox News, a leading news network in the US. For the millions of viewers that tuned in, TF1 and Fox News were able to deliver a fully addressable viewing experience using Dynamic Ad Insertion.

Smarter TV ad breaks

Daniel will also announce new capabilities for DoubleClick clients that will give them more control over what ads run together during ad breaks, a long-time standard for television. This could mean being able to separate competitors’ ads, like making sure that two automotive ads don’t appear together. It could also help broadcasters comply with other rules, like ensuring an alcohol ad and children’s cereal ad don’t run in the same break. This new capability will be available across all of a broadcaster’s ad inventory, direct sold and programmatic.

New partnerships

DoubleClick is focused on building advertising solutions that meet the changing needs of the TV ecosystem. We’ve had the good fortune to work with some of the leading brands in TV like AMC in the US and Globo is South America on advertising technology tailored for TV. Today we add three more to the list: we’re happy to welcome MCN, Roku and Cablevision as partners. They’ve all signed on to use DoubleClick for Publishers to serve ads and monetize cross-screen TV and video content.

“As the conventional TV and digital video worlds converge, people are watching more content than ever across a variety of screens. At Cablevision, we’re focused on developing innovative solutions that deliver the best experience for our viewers in this new cross-screen world and unlocking new opportunities for our advertisers. We are enthusiastic about using Google’s DoubleClick for seamless advertising delivery across our set-top boxes and connected devices. Together, we are enabling more personalized and relevant ads with addressable and dynamic ad insertion.”
- Kristin Dolan, Chief Operating Officer, Cablevision

You can watch the live stream of Daniel’s keynote at 9 AM PT here.

Posted by Rany NgDirector of Product Management, Video & TV Advertising, Google

This is part five of a five-part series introducing the creative process for data-driven campaigns as outlined in our new guide: The Creative Process for Programmatic: A Guide for Marketers.

Until quite recently, the launch of an ad campaign marked an end-point for most of the parties who created it. Once the campaign was out in the world, it was time to crack a few celebratory beers and move onto the next thing: whether that meant coming up with new creative executions that built tangentially on the campaign’s success, or scrapping it for something new entirely.

Today, data-driven marketing empowers brand advertisers and agencies to closely monitor not just how successful a campaign is after launch, but which elements are driving that success. Teams can optimize live campaigns mid-way through the flight and make tweaks to improve performance and update assets for future flights, rather than starting from scratch each season.

As data-driven campaigns have become more sophisticated so, too, have the tools for measurement. It’s no longer just about CTR: now, teams can measure elements such as post-view and view-through conversions as well as engagement metrics such as video completes and interaction rates. This paves the way for more specific and nuanced KPIs, allowing teams to consider what success means for individual campaigns and brands as a whole.

The new creative process is significantly more iterative and cyclical than what we saw in the past:

• Teams are now actively involved in the evolution of the campaign, closely monitoring which audiences respond to which elements of data-driven creative and proactively optimizing on the fly.
• There are greater opportunities for learning, as teams work together to analyze why audiences may be responding favorably (or not-so-favorably) to different elements.
• Teams can use these learnings for future campaigns and, at the same time, pull in learnings from other data-driven campaigns to inform the work that’s currently live.

You can learn more about this campaign, as well as get a full picture of best practices for data-driven creative campaigns, in our new guide The Creative Process for Programmatic: A Guide for Marketers.

Join us for a webinar on our creative research, focused on how agencies can bring data-driven creative to life. Thursday, April 21st @ 12pm ET. RSVP here.

Posted by Becky Chappell Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

Today we’re announcing that First Look is available to all DoubleClick for Publishers clients globally and that we’ve begun testing exchange bidding in Dynamic Allocation.

Our goal is to help publishers thrive and create sustainable businesses with advertising. With the transition to mobile, publishers only have a split second to deliver the most relevant and highest paying ads to maximize their overall yield. Research shows that an extra 1 second of load time on mobile can result in 58% higher bounce rates.¹ That’s why we’ve been working on two new features that use the power of real-time bidding and the efficiency of server-side connections to generate greater revenue for publishers without compromising user experience.

Higher revenue with no client side code or added waiting

A few months ago, we announced the Beta of DoubleClick for Publishers First Look. Since then, we’ve had over 200 partners test the feature and the results have been great. Publishers like Gannett, Grupo Zeta, Gumtree, Sankei Digital, Scripps, Time Inc., and Zoopla have seen their programmatic revenue increase by double-digit percentages. Today, we’re happy to open this feature to all our DoubleClick partners.

“We want to monetize all of our inventory and all of our audiences to the greatest extent that we can. Since implementing First Look, we’ve seen a 15 percent lift in eCPMs of our programmatic channel.”
-Tim Wolfe, VP of Revenue Operations, Gannett

Testing server-side connections for more accurate pricing

While First Look makes it easy for publishers to capture new revenue from high-paying buyers, we are also testing a new technology to help publishers manage yield between multiple exchanges and supply-side platforms (SSPs).

Exchange bidding in Dynamic Allocation will allow publishers to invite trusted third-party exchanges and SSPs to submit real-time prices using industry-standard RTB calls. These prices will be considered along with bids from the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and the publisher’s reservation campaigns to pick the highest-paying ad. Exchange bidding also empowers publishers with unified and accurate reporting on the revenue they are earning from each exchange/SSP. And just like First Look, exchange bidding works with no additional client-side code.

We are working on this new technology with exchanges like Index Exchange and Rubicon Project, along with a select group of publishers including About.com, Hearst, Meredith Corporation, and Zillow. Before we scale exchange bidding to more partners, we will evaluate the results from our pilot testing and consult with participating buyers, sellers, and exchanges/SSPs to ensure that this solution helps the programmatic marketplace continue to grow and thrive.

With First Look and exchange bidding in Dynamic Allocation, we are continuing to help publishers get the highest yield for every impression without sacrificing user experience.

Posted by Jonathan Bellack Director, Product Management

^{1.Soata Case study: Mobile pages that are 1 second faster experience up to 27% increase in conversion rate”}