Google Data

We get it.  You’re busy.  Staying on top of your AdWords game is important, but there are only so many hours in the day (or week {or month}) to read guides and watch webinars.

That’s why the Google Best Practices team put together a brand new newsletter.  It’ll be an email per month, and we’re designing it to take approximately three minutes to read in its entirety.  We want the insights and recommendations in it to be worth the time you put into reading it.  Even if it only takes three minutes to read, we want those to be three valuable minutes.

Whether it’s a quick video or recommendations on using a new feature, we hope to include the type of insights that make you better at doing what you do, all while getting you back to doing what you actually do as quickly as possible.

Sign up here.  We hope it’ll be time well spent.

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

As a reminder, all advertisers will need to use Upgraded URLs in place of destination URLs starting on July 1, 2015. If you do not use tracking parameters in your destination URLs or only use auto-tagging, you can wait for the auto-upgrade starting on July 1st.¹

Today, we’d like to share tips to help you take advantage of the benefits of Upgraded URLs, and stories from advertisers who are succeeding with the new and improved URL system.

Tips for upgrading your URLs

1. To track audience, location and mobile performance, add the new ValueTrack parameters to your tracking templates using the advanced upgrade.²
2. Keep your ads running even while you make important edits to your tracking using the new shared tracking templates. For example, if you launch a new promotion, add your new tracking parameters to your campaign level tracking template – saving you time and avoid losing potential new business.
3. If you make frequent tracking updates across your account, use the advanced upgrade and shared tracking templates. This lets you make tracking updates in one place and apply them to your entire account, campaign or ad groups.

To learn more about the benefits of Upgraded URLs, check out this video.

Early success

From time savings to reliable and scalable tracking management – here are some of the success stories we’ve heard from advertisers who are using Upgraded URLs.

“Our clients like to move fast, which means a lot of changes to landing pages and tracking that we need to append onto our URLs. Upgraded URLs let us be nimble with these changes, without the risk of losing our ad history or triggering a review. The new value track parameters let us see deeper insights into our business, and we can set them at the account level for easier implementation. I absolutely recommend upgrading to any advertiser.” — Sean McEntee, Account Lead at 3Q Digital

“Upgraded URLs let us set different final URLs for mobile and desktop under the umbrella of a single ad. This gives our teams and our advertisers’ businesses a more reliable way to update tracking and helps ensure customers land on the appropriate page, rather than relying on URL redirects.” — David Gong, Director of Strategic Accounts at PMG

Upgrade today

If you haven’t updated your URLs yet, check out our blog or the upgrade guide to learn how you can upgrade them today. As always, please contact us at any time for help with the upgrade.

Posted by Leo Sei, Product Manager, Google AdWords

As we continue to enhance our display ad formats to make them more engaging, we also strive to maximize click quality. In 2012, we introduced confirmed clicks on banner ads to prompt users to verify that they actually meant to click on an ad. Over the past year, we’ve expanded on those efforts to provide greater automation and require less work from users. Now, to make the experience even more seamless, we’re automatically blocking ad clicks in several instances that frequently lead to accidental clicks. Here are three new updates we’ve made:

1. Blocking clicks that happen close to the image edge: On mobile image ads, we’ve identified the image border as an area prone to accidental clicks when users are trying to click or scroll to adjacent content. Now, they must click on a more central part of the image to navigate to an advertiser’s website or app. 
2. Blocking clicks on the app icon: On in-app interstitial ads, users will no longer be able to click on the app icon of an install ad given its proximity to the ad close button. Instead, users must click on the call-to-action button to visit an app store page and install the app.
3. Adding a clickability delay: Ads will only become clickable after they’ve been onscreen for a short period of time. This gives users enough time to examine the content of an ad and helps eliminate accidental clicks from users who didn’t expect to see an ad.

A better experience for both users and advertisers

These latest click quality enhancements improve the user experience by keeping them within their desired website or app and not involuntarily taking them to another page. They also benefit advertisers by reducing costs from accidental clicks and improving conversion rates. To date, we’ve seen a 15% average conversion rate lift on display ads by driving more qualified clicks with these updates.

In the long run, advertisers can further improve performance by re-investing spend saved from accidental clicks back into their display campaigns. To learn more about display campaigns and ad formats, visit our Help Center and read more on best practices, as well as our latest ad placement policies for apps and websites to maximize click quality.

Posted by Pasha Nahass, Product Manager, Mobile Display Ads

At any moment in the day, Google Play Music has music for what people are doing  – whether you’re working, working out, or working it on the dance floor – offering curated radio stations that deliver the right song at the right time. Our team of music experts, including the folks who created Songza, crafts each station song by song so listeners can just enjoy the music, effortlessly.

This new ad-supported version is great for advertisers interested in connecting with consumers through premium content and delightful mobile experiences. This Google Play Ads inventory is available through the Google Display Network (GDN), which gives advertisers access to engaging and beautiful ad units such as TrueView video ads and Lightbox ads – all mobile-optimized, seamless across screens, and simple to set up. As part of the GDN, advertisers can use keywords, affinity audiences and remarketing to reach the right people at the right time.

Many advertisers are already investing in this new music inventory, including the media agency Omnicom. Steve Katelman, EVP of Global Strategic Partnerships at Omnicom shared that: “We want to reach customers where they’re spending the most time, so music is a critical part of our media mix. As a launch partner for Google Play Music, Omnicom Media Group can offer our clients an invaluable head start in delivering engaging, high-impact brand messages on mobile and the web to music-loving consumers.”

To get started with ads on Google Play Music, set up your campaign in AdWords or Doubleclick Bid Manager today.

Posted by Elias Roman, Product Manager, Google Play Music

Since the delivery of cross-device reporting in AdWords last year, advertisers around the world have seen an uplift in conversions reported when including cross-device data. Today, we are excited to share conversion uplift benchmarks across multiple industries and in four countries. These are additional conversions that would otherwise not have been attributed in AdWords when using single-device measurement methods. We hope these insights inspire you to capture “leaked” conversions from your own campaigns.

Click the image to view full infographic

To help marketers understand the full value of their advertising, we calculate cross-device conversions across both search and display, a feature that Google is uniquely positioned to deliver. And starting today, we’re bringing cross-device measurement to DoubleClick, so marketers can now measure all of their campaigns across the web.

As marketers across many countries and industries recognize how people interact with content across devices, we wanted to share more perspectives from businesses already using the data, information about how the product works and best practices for getting started.

Customer Stories and Product Insights

Vivint, a smart home technology provider, always assumed it had many customers visiting on one device and converting on another–but it never had quantifiable proof. With AdWords cross-device conversion measurement, Vivint discovered mobile display was driving 23% more conversions than it was seeing via same-device measurement. It also discovered that by taking into account these cross-device conversions, its CPA was actually 19% lower than same-device reporting indicated. As a result, Vivint has begun shifting more of its marketing resources into cross-device initiatives.

For fashion brand Charlotte Russe, understanding consumer interaction across devices is a top priority because of the mobile-first nature of its target audience: young women. Using cross-device measurement on the Google Display Network, Charlotte Russe saw 8.5% more conversions than it would have using single-device measurement. It also learned its mobile CPA was 7.8% lower than single-device metrics indicated. As a result Charlotte Russe is adjusting its bids to value mobile more, with the goal of increasing its mobile presence.

By including cross-device conversions in the overall performance report from a President’s Day marketing push, La-Z-Boy was able to measure 31% more conversions from its mobile display remarketing campaign. This means each dollar it spent on its GDN program is driving more value than single-device metrics indicated. La-Z-Boy is increasing its focus on these insights so it can make more informed bid and budget decisions.

Michael Griffin, CEO of Retail search agency Adlucent, analyzed cross-device data for 16 retailers and found that, on average, 30% more search conversions could be attributed to smartphones. “We recommend using this data to optimize mobile bid modifiers and budgets at the most granular level possible and make adjustments frequently. Without taking cross-device conversions into consideration, you could be losing new customers, revenue and market share.” 

Shreya Kushari, SVP, Search Marketing & Performance Media at global marketing and technology agency DigitasLBi, shared that her team is seeing cross-device reporting uncover between 10-25% more estimated total conversions for search ads across client accounts. “With this gauge, we have a better sense of how consumers are interacting with our ads across devices which enables a more complete assessment of the impact of our search investment.”

Cross-device conversions are estimates based on aggregated, anonymized data from a sample set of users that have previously signed-in to Google services. This data is then extrapolated to represent the broader population and only reported if it reaches a strict, highly conservative confidence level. To learn more about how the product works, visit our Help Center or watch this helpful video.

Best Practices Checklist
To help marketers optimize across multiple devices in AdWords, we’ve created a new Best Practices Checklist.

This checklist will show you how to:

• Capture all possible conversions through smarter conversion tracking and better site experiences
• Report on all cross-device conversions for a deep understanding of your performance
• Set bids and messaging that align with users and their place in the conversion journey

To get started with cross-device measurement, just setup conversion tracking, and conversions will appear in the Estimated Total Conversions column when enough data has been collected. We hope these insights help you measure the moments that matter.

Posted by The Inside AdWords Team

Starting on July 1st, all advertisers will need to start using Upgraded URLs in place of destination URLs. If you’ve already updated your URLs to Upgraded URLs, then you’re all set and no further action is required. If you haven’t upgraded yet, read on to find out what will happen to your ads¹ and URLs starting July 1, 2015, and your options for the upgrade.

What happens starting July 1, 2015

Starting on July 1st, please prepare for the following changes:

1. Destination URLs can no longer be edited or created. Any new URLs will need to be created using the new Upgraded URL fields.
2. Destination URLs will be automatically moved to the new final URL field for any ad groups in your account that do not contain cross-domain redirect URLs.² In your AdWords account, you will receive an alert informing you of any remaining ad groups that were not upgraded.
3. Any ads with destination URLs that have not been updated to Upgraded URLs will stop serving in a few months. We’ll let you know 30 days before your ads stop serving by email and with an alert in your account.

Frequently asked questions

See answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about the upgrade below.

Q: Do I need to upgrade if I don’t use URL tracking, or if I only use auto-tagging?

A: No, you can wait for the auto-upgrade starting on July 1st. Our system will automatically move your destination URLs into the new final URL fields, and your reporting columns will update to reflect these changes. During the auto-upgrade, your ad performance statistics will not be reset, and your ads will not be required to go through policy review.

Q: Which URL types will not automatically be upgraded and eventually stop serving?

A: URLs that fall under this category include those that contain the following: cross-domain redirects, the “{copy}” ValueTrack parameter, tracking parameters using “{}” that are not an AdWords ValueTrack parameter, or a domain different from the one used in your ad’s display URL. Please manually upgrade these URLs prior to July 1st. 

Q: How do I upgrade my cross-domain URLs?

A: Use the basic or advanced method with help from our upgrade guide for these URLs, making sure to upgrade both your paused and active URLs. Please work with your third party tool provider if you need help.

Q: Will my ad stats be reset during the upgrade?

A: To preserve your ad stats, use the automated or basic upgrade methods, or wait for our system to auto-upgrade your URLs. Your performance statistics will be retained and your ads will not need to go through policy review.

If you don’t mind re-setting your ads stats and taking full advantage of the benefits of Upgraded URLs, then use the advanced upgrade method. This lets you use the new tracking templates and the ValueTrack parameters. Any changes made after this upgrade will not reset your ad stats.

As a reminder, you can still access all historical performance statistics for your removed ads through your AdWords reports.

Q: I use dynamic tracking in my URLs, what do I need to do?

A: You will need to manually upgrade your URLs using the basic upgrade method before July 1st. Learn more.

For additional details, please see the FAQ on our upgrade guide.

Help with the upgrade

We know that this update requires some work from you, and we’re here to help. Here are some resources to help you pick the best upgrade option and guide you through the process.

• Upgrade guide: learn how to upgrade your URLs at https://g.co/ads/upgradedurls
• AdWords Editor 11.1: use Editor to upgrade your URLs
• HOA: watch step-by-step instructions for upgrading your URLs using bulksheets
• URL builder: build URLs using the new Upgraded URLs format
• URL tester: test your landing pages and tracking templates

We look forward to your continued success with AdWords. Please contact us at any time for help with the upgrade.

Posted by Leo Sei, Product Manager, Google AdWords

Here’s what’s been updated:

Google Shopping Feed Specification

• Units & Quantity attributes are now available for the US
• We tightened guiding principles around the ID Attribute and GTINs
• We disentangled Apparel and Variants attributes and expanded the requirements to Brazil. This revamped section is called: ‘Detailed Product Attributes and Item Groupings’
• We are releasing stable numeric Google Product Category IDs that can also be provided as values for the Google Product Category attribute
• We expanded the Shipping requirements to Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Japan to enable total price displays to users in these countries 

Google Shopping Product Taxonomy

• We simplified many Google Product Taxonomy paths by rolling up a number of categories to their parent nodes
• Most of the categories under Activewear are now included with their non-active counterparts, for example, ‘Active Skirts’ will now be found under ‘Skirts’
• We added more categories to the verticals ‘Food, Beverages & Tobacco’ and ‘Mature’
• Some verticals have undergone significant rework, and you may wish to revisit your provided Google Product Categories

Learn more.

Beginning September 15, 2015, we’ll start enforcing the feed specification update globally with the exception of shipping. Given that specifying accurate shipping rates can be more complex, we’re providing more implementation time for this change — shipping enforcement will begin February 1, 2016. All Product Taxonomy changes are recommended and not required.

You can submit the new attributes starting later this week. We encourage you to review the new feed specification, as some of these updates will require changes to your current product data. To find a list of all changes, view the updated feed specification in the Merchant Center Help Center.

To deliver the best online shopping experience for your customers, always make sure to comply with our Google Shopping policies and legal requirements while participating in Google Shopping to avoid any product or feed disapprovals.

Posted by Angelika Rohrer and Patrik Reali, Google Shopping Team

Manage your campaigns at scale

Creating reports and making quick changes to campaigns across multiple accounts can be incredibly time consuming. To help you manage and report on all of your campaigns at scale, from a single view, we’ve added a new “Campaigns” view to the manager account dashboard.

The campaign-level actions you’re familiar with at the individual account level are now available at the manager account level. You can add columns, apply segments, and set filters to report on campaign performance for up to 20 selected accounts. Or, you can take action by quickly updating daily budgets and enabling or pausing your campaigns across those accounts. You can also create a new campaign for any individual account right from your manager account.

Create better, more insightful reports

Data freshness in the manager account dashboard now matches the rest of AdWords. This means you no longer have to navigate to individual accounts for the most up-to-date reporting metrics. To make the dashboard reports more useful, you can now select a custom date range beyond the last 90 days, and compare it to any period you want. We’ve also added more reporting columns, including conversions, as well as the ability to chart performance directly in the dashboard.

To help you explore your account data in more meaningful ways, we’ve added advanced segmentation and filtering tools. Quickly slice your data based on what matters most to your business, such as by network, click type, or device. Then, apply filters to help identify new opportunities or to simply see the data you’re interested in.

If you use sub-manager accounts, there’s also a new dropdown to help you refine your dashboard to only show performance data across directly linked sub-manager and individual accounts, all linked sub-manager and individual accounts, or all linked individual accounts.

Navigate faster between accounts

Finally, we’ve made it easier to find the account you want to view. You can now search for or select the manager account or individual account you want to jump to by expanding the dropdown at the top of your AdWords account.

Customer stories

Many customers are already seeing early success with these enhancements to manager accounts.

“Our product line recently expanded, resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of AdWords accounts we manage. However, the ability to identify meaningful trends in campaign performance and take action where it’s most impactful — all from a single view — not only saves us 4-5 hours each week, but also gives us more confidence in the health of our accounts.” — Katherine Doty, Global Search Marketing Manager at Rosetta Stone

“We have over 90 individual AdWords accounts and rely on a strong campaign naming convention to effectively manage all of them. Thanks to the new campaigns view in our manager account, we can now manage and optimize all our campaigns from a single view. This saves us countless hours since we no longer have to click through and manage our campaigns, account by account.” — Jeremy Legrand, Head of SEM at Kaymu

New enhancements, new name

To simplify our naming convention and align with these new enhancements, we’ll no longer use “My Client Center” and “MCC” to refer to AdWords manager accounts. Throughout the year, you’ll see these changes reflected across the AdWords Help Center and in our future communications.

You can take a tour in AdWords of the new enhancements, or learn more about manager accounts in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Zak Stern, Product Manager, AdWords

The good news is that while technology makes the consumer journey more fragmented, it also makes it easier to measure brand impact. At Google, it’s our mission to help you measure all of the moments that matter — from first impression to final conversion.

That’s why last year we launched our Brand Lift solution, giving you insights into what impact your YouTube ads have on the consumer journey – from awareness, to ad recall, to brand interest – in a matter of days, not weeks or months.

So how is our one-year-old doing?  In the first year, we’ve run more than 10,000 studies on YouTube campaigns.  In April, we published an analysis showing the results Brand Lift has measured on YouTube, and found that 94% of campaigns saw a lift in ad recall, with an average lift of 80%.  Not bad for a toddler!

Today, we are excited to announce that we’re expanding Brand Lift to include measuring lift in consideration, favorability and purchase intent for your ads. Our survey methodology will quickly tell you how your YouTube ad resonates at different points in the consumer journey:

• Did my ad break through with consumers?
• Are they more aware of my brand after seeing my ad?
• Is their consideration of my brand higher after my campaign?
• Are consumers more favorable towards my brand after seeing my ad?
• Has their intent to purchase from my brand risen?

And because more than half of YouTube traffic occurs on mobile devices, we’ve expanded Brand Lift to measure the impact of ads served on YouTube’s mobile app as well.

With these additions, you can measure more of the moments that make up today’s consumer journey, giving you a more complete view of how your YouTube campaigns drive impact.

Happy birthday Brand Lift!  Hope you like the new features we got you.

Posted by Samir Pradhan, Product Manager, Brand Lift

There’s no question that today we’re facing a consumer behavior shift that has huge implications for how brands should reach and engage customers – especially on mobile. Already, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.¹ But it’s not just the fact that there is more mobile usage; mobile devices are actually changing the way people engage with brands – online and offline.

This change in behavior has fractured the consumer journey into hundreds of short decision-making moments. Consider these three figures:

• We’ve seen a 20% increase in mobile’s share of online sessions across the web in the past year.²
• Over the same time period, we’ve seen an 18% decrease in time spent per visit across the web.³
• In other words, as mobile accounts for more sessions, sessions are getting shorter overall. But there’s a lot happening in these sessions: In the past year, mobile conversion rates have also increased by 29%.⁴

In essence, we no longer research purchases in long dedicated sessions on a laptop or desktop. Instead, we reach for our devices in the moment, we access information faster than ever before, and as a result we make more informed decisions… more quickly. In fact, 60% of online consumers say they are making purchase decisions more quickly because of online research now compared to a few years ago.⁵

For example, have you ever stopped in the middle of a conversation to look something up about what you just heard? Sixty percent of smartphone users report having done the same thing.⁶ And 66% of smartphone users turn to their smartphones to learn more about something they saw in a TV commercial.⁷ Overall, 65% of online users say they are looking up information online more now compared to a few years ago.⁸

Have you done a quick search to find the nearest coffee shop? Eighty-two percent of smartphone users turn to a search engine when looking for a local business.⁹

Or do you turn to your phone to get instructional help, say, while in the midst of doing a home repair? Ninety-one percent of smartphone users turn to their smartphone for ideas while doing a given task.¹⁰

Do you use your phone inside a shoe store to inform which running shoes to get? You’re not alone: 82% of smartphone users consult their phones while in a store deciding what to buy.¹¹ And thanks to the rise of mobile devices, decisions are happening in more unusual places, too: 39% of consumers report having made a purchase in their kitchen, another 28% in their car.¹²

These are just a few examples of what we call “micro-moments” – those intent-rich moments when we want to learn, find, do or buy something, and we take immediate action – increasingly on our phones.  And in those moments, we have higher-than-ever expectations for the ads, content and experiences we get back. Whatever need we have in that moment, we want it addressed right, and right away.

To help marketers better understand this consumer behavior and its implications, today we’re launching new qualitative and quantitative insights at thinkwithgoogle.com/micromoments.

This initiative presents a collection of stories of real people and their real micro-moments – like when Mabel sought hairstyle inspiration while getting ready, and when Giana’s in-store research convinced her to buy a higher-priced medicine. Through these vignettes, and the related data, insights and content, we hope to shed light on why the intersection of consumer need and consumer context is at the heart of the mobile opportunity.

We hope you enjoy the stories and insights. This is just the beginning. Over the course of the coming months we’ll provide strategies and examples of how to connect the dots between intent and context, in order to win all the moments that truly matter.

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

“Where’s the nearest location?”
Last year we enhanced location extensions to show up to three different locations for a business in a single ad unit. This improvement offers consumers the flexibility to choose which of your locations is most convenient for them.

“What businesses are near me?”
Starting today, we’ll show three or four different businesses for location-related searches like “nearby auto repair.” Each ad unit will feature click-to-call and directions right at people’s fingertips. This new format organizes the information that your on-the-go customers need so they can easily compare options and take action, like calling your business or visiting your store.

If you have location extensions enabled in your account, you’ll be eligible to show these new mobile ad formats.

The wonderful world of extensions
With a world of information at their fingertips, consumers want what they want, right when they want it, so it’s essential that ads are fine-tuned to be relevant to people’s contexts.  In addition to location extensions, there are many types of extensions in AdWords that can make your ads more useful and engaging — and they deliver, on average, a 10% increase in click-through-rate.⁴  Showing more than one extension on an ad tends to see even higher engagement than that.

Search ads can trigger up to four extensions at the same time. This means your ad can show when and where a product is available at a nearby store, or show an app extension for someone on her mobile device. Here are some tips for best ways to use extensions for your business:

• Sitelinks Try to enable at least six sitelinks for both desktop and mobile users.  Briefer sitelinks are generally the most effective, so try to keep them short and crisp.
• Callouts Like sitelinks, you’ll want to keep these short.  They’re best used with specific and concrete information, like sizes or rates.
• Reviews As long as you’re quoting or paraphrasing from a reputable third-party source, you can apply one review to your entire account.  These are possibly the fastest extensions to put into place.

The specific extensions that are displayed in each auction are a function of previous performance, user context and available space on the page, among other factors  Enable whatever makes sense for your customers and the AdWords system will decide the best combination of those options to maximize the value you get from your extensions.

Ad extensions done right
For Accor Hotels, a strong combination of extensions led to a 14% increase in incremental conversions.  Accor Hotels’ use of the right extensions for their business helped them meet their goals of driving online and offline conversions, giving customers the information they were seeking, and reinforcing customer trust.

This ad for Novotel, Accor’s four-star International midscale brand for business & leisure travelers, checks off all of the right boxes.  Sitelinks drive online conversions, a location extension (with a phone number) allows for an offline customer interaction, while customer ratings and social extensions reinforce customer trust.

For more details about the new format of location extensions, head over to the Help Center.  And for more ad extensions Best Practices, check out our full collection on the Help Center.

Posted by Ayush Agarwal, Product Manager, AdWords

TrueView for shopping allows you to showcase product details and images – along with the ability to click to purchase from a brand or retail site – all within your video ad. It’s available for TrueView in-stream video ads on YouTube. And since we know that 50% of views on YouTube come from mobile devices, we’ve made sure that it works seamlessly across mobile phones, desktops, and tablets.

Built on the cards platform we announced last month, TrueView for shopping enables advertisers to scale the manual process of connecting individual products with individual videos. Thanks to the first-ever integration of the Google Merchant Center into video ads, advertisers need only connect their campaign with a Merchant Center feed to dynamically add products to their in-stream videos, customized for each user through contextual and audience signals like geography and demographic info.

Brands that have participated in our early tests of TrueView for shopping have seen strong results for driving interest and sales. Online home goods retailer Wayfair, for instance, saw a 3X revenue increase per impression served when compared to previous campaigns. And beauty retailer Sephora took advantage of this new ad format to drive +80% lift in consideration and +54% lift in ad recall, and an average view time of nearly two minutes.

We’re excited to bring TrueView for shopping into our buying front end in the coming months. If you’d like to get started with TrueView for shopping today, please contact your Google account manager.

Posted by
Avi Fein, Product Manager, YouTube Ads
Pete Lidwell, Product Manager, YouTube Ads
Jean-Yves Delort, Technical Lead, YouTube Ads

Labels

Based on your feedback, AdWords Editor now has full support for labels. Labels are an effective way to organize objects in your account, like campaigns and keywords, into meaningful groupings so you can quickly and easily filter and report on the data that’s most relevant to your business.

Now you can create, edit, or delete labels using the Labels tab under the Shared library in AdWords Editor. Assign or remove labels to and from your campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and ads in their respective data views. You can also filter your views using labels as well as export and import any account changes related to labels.

Upgraded URLs

Earlier this year, we introduced Upgraded URLs to help you save time when managing URL tracking information, reduce how often Google crawls your website, and provide access to new ValueTrack and custom tracking parameters. To help you upgrade to the new system by July 1st, we’ve added support for Upgraded URLs. You can now upgrade your destination URLs using AdWords Editor, and once you’ve upgraded, manage your final URLs and tracking templates at scale. You can learn more about how to upgrade your URLs in our Help Center article.

Call-only ads

Call-only ads represent an easy and efficient way for mobile consumers to connect with your business over the phone. Now you can create and manage these ads in AdWords Editor.

Ads in mobile apps

By showing ads in mobile apps, you can reach the growing number of people using mobile devices to play games, listen to music, and stay entertained. Under “Keywords and targeting,” you can now choose to show your ads for certain categories of apps, including specific apps (or placements) and mobile app categories, like Games and Shopping.

Parental status and custom affinities on the GDN

Demographic targeting enables you to reach people across the Google Display Network (GDN) who are likely to be within a particular demographic group. In addition to gender and age, you can now select to reach your customers based on their parental status.

We’ve also added support for custom affinity under Audiences. Using custom affinity audiences, you can create your own affinity audiences, tailored to your business, to reach the right customers who are interested in your products or services.

And much more…

This latest version of AdWords Editor also features improvements to the search bar, more localization support, and enhancements to overall UI navigation. You can learn more about all the new features in our Help Center article.

Upgrade to AdWords Editor 11.1 today!

Posted by Geoff Menegay, Product Manager, AdWords Editor

With so many ads on the internet, learn how to design effective display ads that will break through the noise, inspire people to take action and drive strong engagement.

To help get your creative juices flowing, we’ve put together a new best practices checklist, Put Your Best Image Ad Forward. This checklist covers how to:

• Craft the right message to the right customer
• Choose eye-catching visuals and animation to quickly gain a person’s attention
• Balance your overall design with color schemes, art elements and text
• Prioritize and test your display ads

Since consumers shift their attention in the blink of an eye, you want your display ads to leave a lasting impression. View our checklist now to create high-impact display ads.

Check out these and other Google Best Practices over at g.co/GoogleBP.

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing