publishers | Google Data

New tools and insights to optimize your Shopping campaigns this holiday

November 9th, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords

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

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

Identify which product groups to optimize first

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

More insights to make better bidding decisions

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

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

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

Mobile bid adjustment simulator

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

Product group filters at the account-level

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

Conversion estimates in bid simulator

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

Performance columns in product group subdivision dialogue

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

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

Posted by Dimitris Meretakis, Product Manager, Google Shopping

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

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Payment IDs now available in DoubleClick Ad Exchange

November 5th, 2015 | by Stephen Kliff | published in Google DoubleClick

Last week, the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) announced the “Verified by TAG” initiative to help increase transparency of digital advertising transactions across the industry. We’re fully supportive of both programs outlined in TAG’s announcement and we’re currently in the process of applying for TAG Registration. To support the adoption of Payment IDs across the ecosystem, starting today our version of Payment IDs is available in DoubleClick Ad Exchange to all buyers globally.

Currently, if a programmatic buyer finds they’ve bought fraudulent inventory, there is no way to directly identify the supply source responsible for the fraud. The Payment ID system we proposed to the TAG Anti-Fraud working group fixes this problem by asking all supply sources (e.g. ad exchanges, ad networks, supply side platforms) of advertising inventory to create and provide unique and persistent anonymous identifiers that link every impression to who is paid in their accounting systems. If a buyer finds invalid activity from any source in their supply chain, these Payment IDs will help the buyer to identify who is responsible and blacklist those suppliers from their campaigns.

We’ve always invested heavily to keep DoubleClick Ad Exchange free of invalid activity and ensure that money spent on our platform only goes to support legitimate publishers, app developers, and content creators. To show our commitment to a better ads ecosystem, accelerate the adoption of Payment IDs, and help DSPs start integrating them, we’ve implemented the standard as it exists today, and we’ll continue to work closely with TAG and others in the industry to formalize an industry-wide Payment ID program. When the TAG Anti-Fraud Working Group has finalized the broader industry standard, we’ll happily make any changes to ensure we are compliant with TAG’s efforts.

“Google has been at the forefront of the fight against digital ad fraud, and this announcement advances our work together to develop an industry-wide Payment ID system. We look forward to continued collaboration with Google and other programmatic leaders through the TAG Anti-Fraud Working Group to create a fully transparent digital ad supply chain that will expose the bad actors and cut off their financial support.”
Mike Zaneis, CEO, TAG

Leading programmatic buyers, DoubleClick Bid Manager, Dstillery, Magnetic, MediaMath, Rocket Fuel, The Trade Desk, and Turn have all committed to integrating Payment IDs into their systems in the coming months.

Posted by:

Vegard Johnsen
Product Manager, Google Ads Traffic Quality
Chetna Bindra
Product Manager, DoubleClick Ad Exchange

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Native Ads on DoubleClick boost Trovit’s mobile CPMs by 120%

October 29th, 2015 | by Stephen Kliff | published in Google DoubleClick

As consumers spend more and more time on their mobile phones, providing ad experiences that respect their context is more important than ever before. Accordingly, publishers are increasingly embracing native ads — highly customized advertising units that seamlessly integrate in a user’s content experience without being disruptive. However, creating and delivering these ads can be a challenge. That is why earlier this year we launched Native Ads on DoubleClick, and publishers like Trovit are beginning to see the results.

European publisher Trovit, a classified search engine for property, jobs, cars, products and holiday rentals, had over 50% of its total traffic in some countries coming from mobile devices. To grow mobile revenue while delivering better ad experiences to users, Trovit tested native ads on their apps, powered by DoubleClick, in two of their markets. Based on the promising tests, they expanded their native ads strategy to six more markets. The results: net revenue grew significantly with CPM growth up to 120% in certain markets.

Learn more about Trovit’s strategy and how DoubleClick helped here.

Posted by Nataliya Kozak
Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

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Happy 15th Birthday, AdWords!

October 28th, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords

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

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

Come take a walk with us down memory lane.

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

October 27th, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Wilfred Yeung, Senior Product Manager, AdWords Bidding

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

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

October 26th, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Kim Doan, Product Marketing Manager, Google Shopping

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Forbes, Washington Post and DoubleClick partner to help publishers respond to requests for 100% viewable impressions

October 22nd, 2015 | by Stephen Kliff | published in Google DoubleClick

Earlier this year, research from Google showed that nearly half of all display and video ads were not viewable. This has helped move forward the ongoing industry discussions around shifting digital ad buys from served impressions to viewable impressions. Simultaneously, advertiser demand for 100% viewable impressions, where advertisers only pay publishers for impressions that are viewable based on the current industry standard as defined by the MRC, has continued to grow.

To help publishers tackle this complex issue, we partnered with experts from The Washington Post and Forbes along with the DoubleClick for Publishers and Active View teams at Google to create an educational case study that surfaces key issues publishers should consider as they respond to RFPs for 100% viewable impressions.

The illustrative scenario in the case study walks through how a sales director at the fictional publisher, The Hourly Report, responds to a RFP from the fictional advertiser, Eh-Okay, for a commitment to provide 100% viewable impressions. The case study references two fictional viewability measurement technologies, Ad Chemist and Bridge, along with Google’s Active View solution, to represent the fact that there’s more than one way for advertisers and publishers to measure viewability.

“At Forbes, we’ve been preparing to transact on viewable impressions for about three years. Done right, viewability will be good for the advertiser, consumer and the ecosystem. Partnering with Google on initiatives like this are a great way to analyze the best approach to deliver a viewable campaign. From technology choices and ad placements to client relationships and overall sell-through rates, each element of a viewable campaign carries significant weight, and the case study we put together demonstrates that.”
-Alyson M. Papalia, VP Digital Advertising Strategy & Operations, Forbes Media

“The potential for an ad to be seen is an extremely reasonable expectation for a marketer and their agency…especially from a premium publisher such as The Washington Post. As the concept is still relatively new, challenges exist with making it an absolute reality. It is key that we are on the forefront of helping to aggressively move the conversation and process forward, and partnering with Google and DoubleClick on efforts like this case study to help educate the industry is a key step in the right direction.”
-Jed Hartman, Chief Revenue Officer, The Washington Post

We’re strong believers that the viewability discussion should be just a starting point for publishers and advertisers: understanding whether an ad had a chance to be seen is the first step on the path to ultimately being able to measure whether it had impact. Adopting a single industry standard for viewability – like the MRC defined standard that Google supports – is a critical first step along the path to transacting media exclusively based on viewable impressions.

^{Read the full case study on DoubleClick.com}

	Lauren Ashcraft Strategic Account Manager, Revenue Solutions
	Justin Pang Strategic Partnerships Lead

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Seize holiday shopping moments with new tools and insights

October 21st, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords, Google Merchant

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

Optimize your shopping bids with remarketing lists

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

Early adopters are seeing great success with shopping remarketing lists:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Archana Kannan, Product Manager, Google Shopping

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

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

October 20th, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords

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

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

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

Observe and meet local demand

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

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

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

See interest by mobile, desktop, or both

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

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

Understand nationwide, regional, and local outliers with featured stories

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

Getting started with Shopping Insights

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

To get started visit: shopping.thinkwithgoogle.com.

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

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2015 Holiday Trends – Shopping Moments Are Replacing Shopping Marathons

October 20th, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords, Youtube

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

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

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

Source: Google Data, Q4 2014, US

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

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

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

October 14th, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Universal app campaigns intro video

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

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

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

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

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

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Introducing the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project, for a faster, open mobile web

October 7th, 2015 | by Stephen Kliff | published in Google DoubleClick

Cross-posted from The Official Google Blog

Smartphones and tablets have revolutionized the way we access information, and today people consume a tremendous amount of news on their phones. Publishers around the world use the mobile web to reach these readers, but the experience can often leave a lot to be desired. Every time a webpage takes too long to load, they lose a reader—and the opportunity to earn revenue through advertising or subscriptions. That’s because advertisers on these websites have a hard time getting consumers to pay attention to their ads when the pages load so slowly that people abandon them entirely.

Today, after discussions with publishers and technology companies around the world, we’re announcing a new open source initiative called Accelerated Mobile Pages, which aims to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web. We want webpages with rich content like video, animations and graphics to work alongside smart ads, and to load instantaneously. We also want the same code to work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can appear everywhere in an instant—no matter what type of phone, tablet or mobile device you’re using.

The project relies on AMP HTML, a new open framework built entirely out of existing web technologies, which allows websites to build light-weight webpages. To give you a sense of what a faster mobile web might look like, we’ve developed this demo on Google Search:

Over time we anticipate that other Google products such as Google News will also integrate AMP HTML pages. And today we’re announcing that nearly 30 publishers from around the world are taking part too.

This is the start of an exciting collaboration with publishers and technology companies, who have all come together to make the mobile web work better for everyone. Twitter, Pinterest, WordPress.com, Chartbeat, Parse.ly and LinkedIn are among the first group of technology partners planning to integrate AMP HTML pages.

In the coming months we’ll work with other participants in the project to build more features and functionality focused on some key areas:

Content: Publishers increasingly rely on rich content like image carousels, maps, social plug-ins, data visualizations, and videos to make their stories more interactive and stand out. They also need to implement ads and analytics in order to monetize the content and to understand what their readers like and dislike. The Accelerated Mobile Pages Project provides an open source approach, allowing publishers to focus on producing great content, while relying on the shared components for high performance and great user experience. The initial technical specification—developed with input and code from our partners in the publishing and technology sectors—is being released today on GitHub.
Distribution: Publishers want people to enjoy the great journalism they create anywhere and everywhere, so stories or content produced in Spain can be served in an instant across the globe in, say, Chile. That means distribution across all kinds of devices and platforms is crucial. So, as part of this effort, we’ve designed a new approach to caching that allows the publisher to continue to host their content while allowing for efficient distribution through Google’s high performance global cache. We intend to open our cache servers to be used by anyone free of charge.
Advertising: Ads help fund free services and content on the web. With Accelerated Mobile Pages, we want to support a comprehensive range of ad formats, ad networks and technologies. Any sites using AMP HTML will retain their choice of ad networks, as well as any formats that don’t detract from the user experience. It’s also a core goal of the project to support subscriptions and paywalls. We’ll work with publishers and those in the industry to help define the parameters of an ad experience that still provides the speed we’re striving for with AMP.

We hope the open nature of Accelerated Mobile Pages will protect the free flow of information by ensuring the mobile web works better and faster for everyone, everywhere.

Posted by David Besbris
Vice President Engineering, Search

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

October 5th, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords, Google Merchant

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Matt Henderson, Product Manager for Google Shopping

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Boost your business with a Certified Publishing Partner

October 1st, 2015 | by Stephen Kliff | published in Google DoubleClick

Today we’re excited to launch our new Certified Publishing Partner program.

Certified Publishing Partners are trained experts on AdSense, DoubleClick for Publishers, and DoubleClick Ad Exchange who could help you earn more from your sites while also saving you time. Whether you’re just starting out with ads, fine-tuning your existing ad setup or looking for brand new revenue sources, Certified Publishing Partners are ready to help you achieve your goals. They know how to make online ads work harder for you so you can spend more time creating and publishing your great content.

Get superior account management

Certified Publishing Partners are experts at account management services such as:

Full-service ad operations, implementation and testing
Mobile, web, app and responsive design and development
Content moderation
Video integration
Monetization
Ad customization
Feel confident

When you see the Certified Publishing Partner badge it means that a partner has been carefully vetted and meets Google’s rigorous qualification standards. They have received high rankings in client satisfaction. They are, in short, a trusted business partner.

The Certified Partner Program is officially open for business today. Learn more about the program and see a list of our partners. Then let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Posted by Sahar Golestani
SMB Publishing Marketing Manager

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Enhancing the Google Display Network with new innovations

September 30th, 2015 | by Rob Newton | published in Google Adwords

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹All insights are based on anonymized, aggregated data.

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