We've moved! Check out the new Google Ads blog.

We've moved!

Check out and subscribe to the new Google Ads blog.

This post originally appeared on the DoubleClick Search Blog

Ah, the 4th of July: a time for day-long picnics at the park, fishing trips by the lake, night skies filled with fireworks -- and of course, shopping. If you’re a search marketer focused on retail, you know that holidays like the upcoming 4th of July can be an enormous opportunity to capture additional traffic from shoppers looking for the best deals online. So while you’re planning your annual hot dog eating contest, we want to help you start a new tradition this year to win in retail, using integrated solutions from DoubleClick Search. Today, we’re offering up a few retail-ready features to make sure you kick off your holiday search campaigns with a bang:

Manage your product inventory, along with your barbecuing.
There’s no need to step away from the grill: with inventory-aware campaigns, create and update your search ads, keywords, and bids automatically, based on your product inventory. And seamless integration with Google Merchant Center means you can leverage your existing feeds, with no extra work, at no extra cost. Set up rules that let you:
  • Expand your reach by automatically creating new ad groups, ads, and keywords based on product availability. And with deep coverage across your product catalogues, we’ll generate those highly relevant long-tail keywords that can be a chore to manage manually. In fact, we’ve seen that inventory-managed keywords more than doubled return on ad spend for heavy users(1).
  • Cut out the repetition in managing existing campaigns, by tying the behavior of ads and keywords to your inventory levels. For example, you can pause keywords when a related product is out of stock, and reactivate them when it’s back in stock, or update ad copy to align with promotions and style changes. You can also change landing page URLs when the links in the feed change.
  • Express rich customization with ad templates that enable granular product-level messaging at scale. We’ve seen that this rich customization delivers higher conversion rates by attracting only the most qualified clicks.
Plan a PLA picnic: you bring the fruit salad, we’ll bring the richer search ads.
With our fully integrated solution, DoubleClick Search makes creating and managing Google Shopping Product Listing Ads (PLA) campaigns as easy as apple pie. Incorporate product-rich information and measure, optimize, and report on PLA performance using the same familiar workflow you use with the rest of your ads:
  • Integrate with Google Merchant Center to easily view Merchant Center feeds in the DoubleClick Search UI, and to preview exactly what products fall under a product target.
  • Save time and upload product targets in bulk, using our standard upload sheet workflow to quickly create product targets for your highest revenue-generating products.
  • Analyze PLA campaign success with existing reporting features from DoubleClick Search. For example, track budget and key KPIs for PLA campaigns using our budget pacing reports. And with full PLA integration, your reports reflect the same Floodlight or Google Analytics conversion data you use for the rest of your campaigns, to give you a more accurate view of attribution.


Light up your most fiery landing pages through A/B testing.
Which landing page is worthy of a fireworks show? With DoubleClick Search landing page testing, identify and drive traffic to the highest ROI landing pages; then, calculate the exact impact of your landing page optimizations and update your ads immediately to boost results:
  • Easily split your search ads traffic across multiple landing pages to get just the insights you’re looking for. In addition to evenly splitting traffic across your search ads, you can define custom traffic splits (for example, a 90-10 split).
  • Analyze and compare through historical reporting from previously completed tests to help you determine the exact impact of your landing page changes.
Host a cross-channel block party, get search and display talking.
It’s the perfect opportunity to mingle with the neighbors. With display remarketing from search ads -- a cross-channel feature from the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform -- use paid search clicks from DoubleClick Search to show consumers display ads across major ad exchanges via DoubleClick Bid Manager, or across the Google Display Network, all with an easy and tagless workflow. With this feature, you can:
  • Quickly take advantage of new opportunities before they're gone, with a turn-key setup on one integrated platform. Set up your remarketing lists in 4 easy steps, and begin remarketing to users to quickly deliver the right message to the right consumer, soon after they’ve left your site. And with instant conversions, immediately report on the impact of your remarketing efforts, and fine-tune your approach to improve performance.
  • Convert browsers to buyers. Re-engage consumers who visited your website, but left without making a purchase. For example, you can reach consumers who placed a pair of sparklers in their shopping cart, but did not complete the checkout process.
  • Increase loyalty or reinforce brand messages. Re-engage consumers by introducing new product categories from the same brand. For example, show a display ad for Brand X lawn chair to someone who previously purchased Brand X outdoor umbrella after clicking on the brand’s search ads.
  • Up-sell to converted audiences. For example, after a consumer purchases tickets to an amusement park in Anaheim, CA, show him/her display ads for hotel deals in Anaheim.

Don’t miss a beat this year. With solutions from DoubleClick Search, connect to in-market audiences with the right messages, and report on it all in real-time to capture even more seasonal opportunities. Now that’s certainly something to celebrate!

Posted by Kim Doan, Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick Search

1. Google internal data, 2013
Labels:

In today’s world of constant connectivity, people are switching between multiple devices throughout the day. This multi-screen reality creates new opportunities for marketers to reach customers across devices anytime, anywhere. In February, we launched AdWords enhanced campaigns to help advertisers capture these new opportunities and manage their ad campaigns more effectively.

With less than a month until the auto-upgrade on July 22, advertisers have already upgraded more than 4.5 million campaigns. We realize that the upgrade takes some work, so we appreciate the effort that many of you have put into the process. Many industry leaders and advertisers have shared their progress, results and stories with us.  Here are just a few examples:
  • M&M’S - Working with its agency partner, The DuMont Project, M&M’S brand MY M&M’S reported very strong results after upgrading to enhanced campaigns, including a 41% increase in conversion rates, 22% increase in revenue, and 31% boost in ROI for search campaigns. Across search and display, MY M&M’S reported a 15% boost in ROI. They initially thought that combining desktop and tablets into one category might negatively impact sales. But, they very quickly realized that the combination actually led to a higher ROI. The company also reduced the number of campaigns they managed from over 100 to 50 - saving five hours a week on campaign management.
  • Colombo & Hurd - This small Florida-based law firm worked with its search software and agency partner, WordStream, to upgrade its campaigns. The two teams completed the upgrade - including a full update of Colombo & Hurd’s mobile, location, and time bidding strategies - in less than 30 minutes. Since upgrading to enhanced campaigns, Colombo & Hurd reported that mobile click-through rates rose by 53%, CPCs fell by 13%, and mobile conversion rates increased by three times.
  • American Apparel - The retailer needed an easier, better way to reach customers wherever they are, whenever they’re searching for American Apparel items or stores. With enhanced campaigns, they used the proximity bidding feature and set mobile bid adjustments at 100% for a certain radius around their stores. Since upgrading, they’ve seen impressive results, with mobile conversions growing 2X and aggregate click-through-rate increasing by 7%. They’ve also found value in new features that are part of enhanced campaigns like upgraded sitelinks and sitelink reporting.
  • Third party ad platforms - Many search engine marketing platforms and agencies have integrated with enhanced campaigns to help their clients take advantage of the powerful new features. One provider recently published a detailed guide to help advertisers with the upgrade, and shared the positive progress it was seeing across clients. They noted: “We’ve seen positive results from advertisers that have opted to migrate early. Recently, a large financial services company successfully migrated to enhanced campaigns on [our] platform and optimized to increase leads by 64% while lowering their CPL by 37% across a significant portion of their campaigns.” They also observed that in the first month after upgrading, CPCs dropped by 2%, while clicks increased by 6%.
Since the earliest days of the rollout, dozens of search marketing companies have offered advertisers advice on transitioning to enhanced campaigns. Some advice (like the help provided by many of the companies above) has been extremely valuable, while some has been more speculative. Every advertiser is different, so the important thing is to review your own metrics and iterate based on your business goals. No two accounts are alike, so it’s important to get started to see how enhanced campaigns can best work for you. The key benefits that we’ve consistently heard from industry leaders and advertisers are:
  1. Better decision making made possible through improved reporting by device and location, as well as more detailed reporting on ad extension performance.
  2. Time savings by reducing the number of campaigns required to manage varying user contexts.
  3. Improved campaign management through features such as bid adjustments, device-specific formats and flexible bid strategies. 
  4. New ways to align with your business goals and operations with the ability to schedule the specific dates, days of the week, or times of day for your extensions and sitelinks, at either the ad group or campaign levels.
  5. Better ways to engage with mobile consumers using mobile-preferred creative and sitelinks, as well as proximity bidding to reach people who are nearby and on the go.
You can read about enhanced campaigns best practices and other advertiser stories on the enhanced campaigns website.

We’re learning from your feedback as we continue to improve AdWords for this new world of constant connectivity. It’s more important than ever for every business to reach customers across devices in a relevant way, and we’re hard at work building new features and improvements to help you do that successfully with AdWords.

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

Richer information about your business can help potential customers understand why your product or service is right for them. Advertisers have long found it valuable to show positive reviews, awards, or accolades in their ads. Today, we're bringing this capability to your search ads. With review extensions (beta), you can show accolades from reputable third parties right in your search ads.


You can submit either a direct quote or a summary of a key point from a review, as shown above.

It's important, both for you and for users, that the reviews provided be high-quality:
  • Content displayed in review extensions must come from a reputable 3rd party source, and must comply with standard AdWords policies.  
  • It’s your responsibility to ensure that you’re allowed to use a specific review in your ads.  
  • To protect users and other businesses from deceptive claims, we use automated and human-based systems to confirm the validity and policy compliance of all review extensions.  
Currently, review extensions are available globally in English only.  Please stay tuned for updates as we expand to other languages.  We're looking for more advertisers to participate and soon we'll be adding support for review extensions in the AdWords interface. If you would like to participate in the beta, please contact your AdWords representative.

Posted by Lakshmi Kumar Dabbiru, Software Engineer, AdWords
Labels: ,

Brand Advertisers often know who they want to reach, but connecting online with the audience that matters most to their brand at scale has proven to be a challenge. To help address this, we’re excited to announce the launch of Affinity Segments in AdWords and YouTube, which have been designed with TV-style audiences in mind to help solve the problem of connecting with ideal customers online. To understand someone’s affinity, our system takes into account the types of pages a user visits, along with how often and how long they spend there, associating interest categories with each person’s browser. Optimized for reach and frequency, Affinity Segments helps advertisers reach those most likely to enjoy their brand.

Make life easier
With Affinity Segments, we make it easy by helping brand advertisers reach their ideal audience via 80 unique lifestyle segments based on Interest Categories and Demographics . Brands can now reach their target audience at scale based on their interests – such as green living, fashion, or travel – and watch engagement grow.

And it doesn’t stop there. We know that as an advertiser you’re probably used to buying audiences offline for TV, and we know how challenging buying an online audience can be. To make life even easier for you, we defined our affinity segments the same way you target your TV audiences, so you can achieve massive reach online using the same segments you use on TV.

Mazda Canada drives success using Affinity Segments
Like most advertisers out there, Mazda Canada has been on the lookout for a solution that would enable them to reach precise audiences at scale. Over the past decade, the Mazda6 has undergone a few key redesigns – 2013 marked the launch of an all-new model combining Mazda’s signature design style with SKYACTIV Technology, its cutting-edge performance and fuel-saving technology, as well as some innovative safety features including Smart City Brake Support and Rear Cross Traffic Alert. The launch of this flagship vehicle demanded an innovative marketing approach: to build awareness of these technological advancements, inform consumers of the car’s new features, and drive them to the Mazda6 website to engage directly with the brand.


They knew their target audience: male urban professionals who are typically interested in technology and up-to-date on all the latest gadgets and automotive advancements.

Mazda Canada decided to give Affinity Segments a try, selecting the “technophile” segment to connect them with their ideal tech-savvy customers, who have demonstrated an interest in technology through visits to various websites focused on new gadgets.  By targeting the technophiles segment across Google Display, Mazda reinforced the messaging and impact of its television campaign geared to the same type of audience. Mazda saw impressive results and reached 10X more users than they were able to with previous campaigns, greatly exceeding their expectations.

“Affinity Segments delivered perfectly for this campaign in allowing us to reach many users in a short period of time who we knew would have a predisposition to appreciate the Mazda6’s technology upgrades.” said Michael Tsang, Interactive Marketing Manager at Mazda Canada. As a result of their overwhelming success, Mazda Canada decided to integrate Affinity Segments into their online media mix for their other car models and as a vital component for their advertising efforts.

Connect with the people who care
Affinity Segments offer broader reach by encompassing the broad passions that reflect a user’s lifestyle rather than niche curiosities.  Our wide variety of segments let you reach your perfect audience – from hardcore gamers, to foodies, to luxury shoppers, we have a high-reach segment designed to connect you with your ideal customers. If there isn’t a segment that is a perfect fit for your brand’s needs, you can contact your account manager to create a custom segment just for you.
Consumers can also update their own interest categories through Ads Settings – which gives users control over the ads they see online.

Learn More
Just like Mazda, you too can use Affinity Segments to expand your reach across the Google Display Network and focus on engaging with individuals who match what your brand is all about – delighting customers and creating future brand advocates.

To find out how to get started with Affinity Segments today, visit our Help Center for more information.

Posted by Diya Jolly, Senior Product Manager
Labels: , ,

Last Tuesday, Rachel Witalec and Simon Rosen, Global Sales Strategy Leads, shared tips for getting more out of your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts by using them together. During the webinar, they showed why it’s important to link your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts (which is now even easier to do) and how to see Google Analytics data in AdWords as well as AdWords data in Google Analytics. They also presented a live demo of the reports and how to use them.

If you missed the webinar, you can check it out here:



Read on below for answers to some of the top questions we received during the webinar:

Why should I link my AdWords and Google Analytics accounts?
Linking your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts is an important practice to ensure the two measurement tools can work together to help you get the most from your advertising. The bottom line is that linking Analytics and AdWords gives you powerful information that can tell you where you should be spending more or less based on real ROI data. When you link accounts, the data can flow both ways - from Google Analytics to AdWords (for example, engagement metrics or remarketing lists), and from AdWords to Google Analytics (for example your AdWords cost data). In particular, you can take advantage of powerful features such as:
We covered this topic in detail during the webinar, so watch the video above to learn more.
Could you share the list of resources that were provided during the webinar?
Of course! Here are the links and resources we shared:
What are the best practices around importing Google Analytics Goals? If i’m using AdWords Conversion Tracking should I also import goals?
If you’re currently using AdWords Conversion Tracking, there are still benefits to also importing some of your goals from Google Analytics. In particular, some goals (such as engagement goals) can’t be tracked with AdWords Conversion Tracking, so importing these into AdWords can complement your Conversion Tracking data. However, it’s important not to import any goals that you are already tracking through AdWords Conversion Tracking as this can create double-counting and duplication, which would make your conversion data hard to interpret.

Is it possible to link a My Client Center (MCC) account to Google Analytics?
At this time it’s not possible to link an MCC to Google Analytics. Each individual AdWords account within an MCC needs to be linked to the appropriate Google Analytics property. Learn more here.

How do I import Google Analytics engagement metrics into AdWords?
The process for importing the metrics is straightforward, but it’s important to note that there are a couple of additional steps needed beyond linking the AdWords and Analytics account. The full set of instructions can be found here.

I have noticed discrepancies between the data in my AdWords and Google Analytics accounts, do you know why?
AdWords and Google Analytics differ in some very important ways regarding how they measure and report on data. It’s important to understand these key differences, which are outlined here. Additionally, there are key differences between AdWords Conversion Tracking and Google Analytics, which are covered in detail here.

Can someone help me get more support with AdWords and Google Analytics?
Yes, Google partners with a global network of certified partners to help. For AdWords, you can get support directly from Google or you can work with a Google Certified Partner to help with your AdWords management. You can learn more about both of those options here. If you’re looking for help with Google Analytics, you can tap into our global network of Google Analytics Certified Partners, who offer paid services for anything from Google Analytics tag implementation to product training to more strategic support. Learn more here.

What is a tag?
Tags are tiny bits of website code that let you measure traffic and visitor behavior, understand the impact of online advertising and social channels, use remarketing and audience-based marketing, test and improve your site, and more. The tags we mentioned in the webinar are AdWords Conversion Tracking and Google Analytics. These both help you understand the performance of your digital campaigns. While AdWords tracks the performance of your Google AdWords campaigns, Google Analytics tracks the performance of any traffic to your website -- such as from email marketing campaigns or social media. You can learn more about how they’re different here and through some of the content in the webinar.

What is a conversion?
A conversion is an action that a customer takes on your website that has value to your business, such as a purchase, a sign-up, or a view of a key page. These actions are called conversions because a customer's click translated -- or converted -- to business. Think of it as the cha-ching! from your cash register. A conversion happens when someone clicks your ad and then does something that’s valuable to your business, such as an online purchase or a call to your business from a mobile phone. Conversions help you understand how much value your ads bring to your business. You can read more here. 

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Product Marketing Manager, Google Analytics
Labels:

Many businesses advertise to find new customers, and optimizing advertising campaigns to reach the right people will increase marketing effectiveness and ROI. Google Analytics helps marketers achieve this by offering insights into customer behavior on an advertiser’s websites, apps, and other properties. By linking AdWords and Analytics accounts together, these rich insights from Analytics can flow into AdWords.

Today, we’re happy to announce some useful improvements making it easier for Google Analytics and AdWords account owners to link their accounts.


Here are a few specific benefits of combining AdWords and Analytics data:
All of these features depend on linking AdWords and Analytics accounts, and this process is now easier than ever before. Previously, linking accounts involved multiple steps on many pages spread out between two products, and this process has now been consolidated into just a couple steps all in one linking wizard.



Once the new linking process launches to all Analytics accounts in the coming weeks, you’ll be able to create additional links from the Admin section of your Analytics account. (If you’re logged in to your AdWords account, you can also link accounts by going to Tools and Analysis > Google Analytics and following these same instructions.)  Just click AdWords Linking in the Account column, and then click the New link button to start the linking wizard.

To take advantage of simplified account linking, benefit from combining data in both products, and get more out of your marketing campaigns, follow the steps above to link your accounts or learn more in our help center.

Posted by Chris Morgan and Matt Matyas, Google Analytics Team
Labels: ,

Along with a user's query, context signals like location, time of day, and device have become increasingly important in showing people the right ads with their search results. With enhanced campaigns, it's now easier to reach people in the moments that matter across all screens, with ads that are more relevant to a user's intent and context. Now we're incorporating another powerful capability to tailor your search campaigns for different audiences – remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA). With this feature, you can modify your search ads, bids, and keywords based on your visitors' past activity on your website. As we transition out of the beta test of RLSA, announced in July 2012, we'll be making the feature available to all advertisers using enhanced campaigns over the next few days.

Combining intent, context, and audience for better search ads 
Search ads work great because they're relevant to the user's intent and context. And users who have recently visited your website often find your ads to be even more relevant. RLSA brings intent, context, and audience together to let you tailor your search campaign when past site visitors are searching on Google for your brand, products, and services. Here are some ways to improve your campaign performance using RLSA.
  1. Increase ad visibility for high value customers by adjusting your bids. For example, you could increase your bids by 20% for visitors who have previously researched high-end cameras while on your site when they subsequently search for ‘cameras’ on Google. And you could increase your bids by 40% for past site visitors who have previously purchased high-end equipment from your site. It's easy to set up RLSA bid adjustments and they combine with other enhanced campaigns bid adjustments for location, device, and time.

  2. Expand your reach and results with broader keywords. For example, bidding on broad keywords such as ‘gifts’ or ‘presents’ during a holiday season might not convert well enough to meet your ROI goals. But if you use RLSA to run those keywords just for repeat customers, they may convert better and allow you to grow your total sales with a profitable ROI. 
Advertiser success with RLSA
Advertisers in the beta have seen strong results with RLSA. Here are some examples:
  • Tirendo, a European online tire retailer, saw a 161% conversion rate increase with RLSA, leading to a 22% overall sales increase. And the incremental conversions were efficient, with a 43% lower average cost per order than previous campaigns. Read more.
  • WorldStores, a leading UK home furnishings and garden store, increased total orders 8% by using RLSA to increase bids for past site visitors. Conversion rates for this segment were 130% higher and average cost per conversion was 43% lower, even with the higher bids.
Tags and list management
RLSA shares the same site-wide Google Remarketing Tag and list management tools as remarketing on the Google Display Network (GDN). So you can start using RLSA immediately if your website is already tagged for remarketing on the GDN.

Transparency and control for users
We believe users should have transparency and be in control their ad experience. That's why we provide adjustable Ads Settings and inform users when an ad has been influenced by a past visit to a particular advertiser's website.

Learn more
For help getting started with RLSA, check out this article in the Help Center. You can also join us at tomorrow's Learn with Google Webinar: Reaching the Right Audience with Remarketing on Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at 1pm ET.

Posted by Rahul Lahiri, AdWords Product Manager
Labels: , , , , , ,

Many of you start each day by asking: What is driving a change in my clicks or cost? What campaigns or ad groups saw the the largest moves? Did any of my recent changes break something?

To help answer these questions, we’ve created the top movers report to show you which campaigns and ad groups have experienced the largest changes in clicks and cost, and highlight changes you made which might have contributed to those moves. Even if your overall account performance metrics appear unchanged, the top movers report will look inside your campaigns to highlight big moves that might have been easily overlooked.

How it works
To view the top movers report, click the Dimensions tab, then View: Top movers. The report compares performance for two consecutive time periods of equal length, and finds the campaigns and ad groups that experienced the largest change between the two periods. You can compare periods of 7, 14, or 28 days, or look at reports generated in the last 90 days.

The report will start by finding up to 10 of the largest moves in clicks or cost and present a summary at the top. If a top mover saw an increase, it goes into the “Top increases” category. If it’s a decrease, it goes into the “top decreases” category. When changes aren’t significant enough to be a top mover, they will roll up into “Other changes.”


The table below will give details for each top mover. When possible, we offer a “possible cause” for the move, like “bids were increased” or “new keywords were added”.


Note that “possible causes” only considers changes made to your account. It won’t tell you, for example, if your competitors have raised their bids or introduced new ads.

Top movers is our latest effort to save you time and money by helping you understand changes in performance.  For additional information about using this new report, visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by David Rodriguez, Product Manager, AdWords
Labels: , ,

As we continue to expand our advertising solutions, our goal is to provide a great user experience for both advertisers and consumers. We know that advertisers are always looking for new ways to reach their customers with compelling ads that drive engagement and conversions. Today, we are excited to announce the launch of dynamic remarketing to all clients with a Google Merchant Center account. We are also currently piloting this new feature in the travel and education sectors and plan to expand availability to more sectors later this year.

Beautiful, tailored ads to reconnect with customers
Dynamic remarketing lets you automatically create beautiful, customized ads that connect with shoppers across the web, by reminding them of items they've seen on your site. You can build ads quickly with dozens of templates to choose from that you can customize to reflect the design elements of your brand. We have also made it easy to get started by automatically creating dynamic text and display ads for you.

Sample dynamic ads (see more here):


Advertisers have seen great results compared to their traditional remarketing campaigns:
  • Sierra Trading Post, a U.S. retailer of outdoor gear and clothing, saw a 2x higher clickthrough rate and a 5x higher conversion rate
  • As Europe’s premiere “heavy metal online shop,” EMP Merchandising grew conversion rates by 230% and decreased their cost of sale by 30%.
You can read more about other client successes on Think Insights.

Optimizing dynamic ads to drive performance
Dynamic remarketing delivers tailored ads across the web that combine the layouts, products, messages and offers that your customers are most likely interested in, based on what they viewed on your website. You can benefit from our:
  • Auto-optimized layouts which predicts the best performing layout for each impression
  • Product recommendation engine which optimizes the combination of related and popular products that show in your ads [Learn more]
  • Real-time bidding algorithm which helps boost performance by calculating the optimal bid for each impression
For help on getting started reference this Help Center article.

Making it easy for advertisers
Managing campaigns more efficiently is just one of the many benefits of remarketing with Google. Last year, we introduced a site-wide remarketing tag and remarketing with Google Analytics that both made it easy to get started with your campaigns. You can also use the tag to discover new customers similar to your site visitors with Similar Audiences, which has been recently made available to all clients in AdWords.

Remarketing drives great ROI for advertisers, it can also bring publishers significant revenue lift, as studies have shown, and compelling ads for consumers. We’ve also given consumers options to exercise control over their ad experience with features like the Ads Settings and Mute this Ad.

To learn more about what remarketing with Google can do for your business, register for our upcoming Learn with Google Webinar: Reaching the Right Audience with Remarketing on Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at 1pm ET.

Posted by Aitan Weinberg, Group Product Manager
Labels: , ,

This post originally appeared on the DoubleClick Search blog.

Since launching our inventory-aware campaign solution in DoubleClick Search back in August, we’ve been busy improving the tool with new ad template functions and in-UI instruction management. Today, we’re excited to announce the ability to automatically create and optimize campaigns, based on your Google Merchant Center feeds. We know that keeping your search campaigns up-to-date with changing inventory can be time-intensive and cumbersome. With this new feature, we wanted to deliver a simple solution for this complex problem, to help you go faster, with smarter tools that streamline your workflow. With inventory-aware campaigns, manage even the deepest product catalogs with just a few clicks, helping you create new search campaigns on the fly.




How inventory-aware campaigns work
Inventory-aware campaigns in DoubleClick Search automatically create ad groups, ads, and keywords based on the settings you provide. Our system monitors your Google Merchant Center feeds for changes, and makes any necessary updates automatically to ensure you don’t miss any opportunities. This means that when the newest prices, descriptions, and landing pages are sent to your product feed, DoubleClick Search will pick up the changes and apply them to your campaigns, without the need for you to set them up manually.

Creating inventory-aware campaigns
Creating an inventory-aware campaign is simple, with a flow that's similar to manual campaign creation.


After linking your Merchant Center account to DoubleClick Search, you can create a new campaign and be up and running in three easy steps:
  1. Select an engine account in the left-hand navigation of your DoubleClick Search account 
  2. Click New above the table of existing campaigns, and then select Inventory campaign from the dropdown. 
  3. Complete the configuration steps for how your ad groups, ads, and keywords will be generated.
To learn more about this update to inventory campaigns, visit the Help Center article, and stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog to follow more developments on our inventory-aware campaigns.

 Posted by Kim Doan, DoubleClick Search
Labels:

Originally posted on the Google Analytics blog

Every customer journey is different — a customer may see your display or video ads, receive an email, and then click through to your site from a search ad or organic search listing. Often, viewing display ads can attract your clients’ interest in your product and brand even if no click occurs. Traditionally, measurement technology separated out impressions or “view throughs” from clicks, but this separation missed out on valuable data on the impact of display advertising.

Thanks to our integration with the Google Display Network (GDN), Google Analytics can now break down the separation between clicks and impressions and give a more complete view of the customer journey. When a user views display ads on the GDN, or video ads on YouTube, and later visits your website and converts, these interactions with your brand can now be captured in Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels reporting.

GDN Impression Reporting is now available through limited whitelist. Please reach out to your Google Analytics Premium point of contact to request feature activation. Please note that we cannot guarantee access, but we will do our best to provide this feature to as many users as possible. Please also note that this data will only surface in the Multi-channel Funnels reports in Google Analytics. For more information on how to enable the feature in GA please see our help center article.

Read on below for more tips on how to make the most of this new feature.

How does Display fit on the conversion path?
By enabling GDN Impression Reporting in Google Analytics, you can learn how your display impressions assist your conversions.


In the Multi-Channel Funnels Overview Report you will see two additional conversion metrics. Impression Assisted Conversions shows how many of your conversion paths were touched by a display impression. Rich Media Assisted Conversions shows how many of your conversions had a rich media interaction on the path to conversion. Rich media interactions are user interaction with YouTube or rich media ad formats, such as ad expansion, video control (such as play, pause, and resume), or switching a video ad to full screen.

With the new Interaction Type selector you can now immediately filter your reports based how your users interacted with your marketing.

  • Select Impression to see conversion paths from customers who saw your GDN display ads but did not click on them.
  • Add Direct to the mix, to see who saw an ad and then visited your site directly to convert on a relevant transaction or Goal.
  • If you want to focus on Rich Media interactions, you can select this interaction type to see how your users convert after interacting with your rich media and YouTube ads.

How do I quantify the impact of display on the conversion path?
In the Multi-Channel Funnels Top Conversion Path report you can see two new path elements, which indicate the presence of a display interaction. The “eye” symbol indicates a pure display impression from a non-interactive display image. This means a user has been exposed to your display ad on the journey to conversion, without clicking on it. The “movie” symbol indicates a user has interacted with one of your Rich Media ads, such as a YouTube video ad.


Now you can see how many conversion paths, and how much associated value, has been driven through paths which benefited from a display impression or rich media interactions. To better quantify your brand targeted display efforts, consider breaking out these campaigns using custom channel grouping.



Assigning partial credit to valuable display interaction touchpoints
You can use the custom model builder from the Attribution Modeling tool to assign partial credit to these display events. Consider giving these events on the user’s conversion path more credit, and compare this against your baseline model.

We also added a new set of dimensions to help you define valuable custom segments for your analysis. Want to see how many users are watching your TrueView video ads fully? Just create a custom segment using one of our new dimensions, TrueView. The full list of new dimensions is:
  • Above the Fold: This dimension uses the Google Active View measurement solution. The value is “Yes” if the ad was in the visible area of the screen when the page was loaded.
  • Video Played Percent: The value can be “>=25%”, “>=50%”, “>=75%”, and “100%”, allowing you to see how much of a video ad was watched.
  • TrueView: If a user has watched more than 30 seconds of an ad, or watched the ad completely, this will have a value of “Yes.” This is a payable event.
Enabling GDN Impression Reporting in Google Analytics
Once we have whitelisted your account, please ensure you have successfully linked your AdWords account to your Google Analytics account. Linking accounts takes just a few moments. Under ‘Data Sources’ > ‘AdWords’ you can then see an entry for each linked AdWords account. In the row there is a toggle switch named ‘GDN Impression Reports’, which turns the display impression data from the Google Display Network On and Off. Data is recorded from the time the switch is turned On.


We hope these new tools will help you understand the full impact of your display campaigns through Multi-Channel Funnels and Attribution. Please reach out to your Google Analytics Premium point of contact to request feature activation.

Posted by Stefan F. Schnabl, Product Manager, Google Analytics
Labels: ,

Ads that provide detail and precision can help people make more informed decisions. Sitelinks help people find information deeper in your site so they can get to where they want to go faster. In February 2012, we improved sitelinks by using text from other ads in your account or My Client Center to create sitelinks with additional detail. Today, we’re going one step further by enabling you to nominate specific text for your sitelink descriptions from within your AdWords account. This will allow you to control the descriptions that display when this sitelink format shows.


In our testing, users have reported that sitelinks with additional detail were more useful and relevant, and clickthrough rates were significantly higher than the same ad with traditional 2- and 3-line sitelinks.

The new sitelink format with additional detail is available only in enhanced campaigns with upgraded sitelinks. Enhanced campaigns enable you to reach people with the right ads in the right context - location, time of day and device type - without setting up and managing numerous campaigns. All campaigns will be upgraded to enhanced campaigns on July 22nd.

After upgrading to enhanced campaigns, you will have the option of adding extra text to your sitelinks - simply fill out both lines of the "Description" field when creating a new sitelink or editing an existing sitelink.


Note that your ads won't always show sitelinks, and when they do, the format that appears could vary.

The core guidelines for sitelinks remain the same with these improvements:
  • Sitelinks cannot violate the duplicate sitelink URL policy
  • Sitelink text cannot use keyword insertion
  • In addition to this 4 sitelink view, there is also a 2 sitelink variation
To learn more about sitelinks with additional detail, check out the sitelinks article in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Conrad Wai, Product Manager, Ad Formats
Labels: ,

Originally posted on the official Google blog

Ten years ago we launched AdSense to help publishers earn money by placing relevant ads on their websites. I can still remember the excitement and anticipation as AdSense went live that first day.  Our small team huddled together in a cramped conference room, and right away we saw that publishers were as excited about AdSense as we were.

Fast-forward 10 years, and AdSense has become a core part of Google’s advertising business. The AdSense community has grown to include more than 2 million publishers, and last year alone, publishers earned more than $7 billion from AdSense. AdSense is a community that thrives because of all the content creators we are so fortunate to partner with. Their stories inspire us to do our part to make AdSense great.

On this occasion, it’s especially inspiring to hear the stories of partners who have been with us since the very beginning—like a retiree in New Zealand who was able to pursue her dream of writing about her garden, a tech support expert in Colorado who can spend more time with his kids, and a theme park reviewer who now sends employees around the world to test and review rides—all thanks to money earned from AdSense.

As part of our 10th anniversary celebration, we hope you’ll tune into our live Hangout on Air today at 10 a.m. PDT (5 p.m. GMT) on the AdSense Google+ page. I look forward to joining several of our partners to share stories from the early days of AdSense, talk about how we’ve all grown since then, and discuss the future for publishers and online advertising. And if you want even more 10th anniversary celebration, just visit our AdSense 10th anniversary page at any time.

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, SVP, Ads and Commerce
Labels:

This week, we published some of the reasons advertisers have already upgraded more than 3 million legacy campaigns to enhanced campaigns. If you have already upgraded all of your campaigns, then you are all set!  If you still have some legacy campaigns in your account, this post will cover what will happen to campaigns that are auto upgraded starting on July 22, 2013.

Default upgrade path
We strongly encourage everyone to upgrade before July 22, 2013 so your campaigns are set up as you'd like. If you don't, then the AdWords system will upgrade them using the following default settings.

Campaigns will be configured, like all new AdWords campaigns, to reach customers across all devices. Upgraded campaigns require a mobile bid adjustment setting, which influences your bids, ad position, and click volume on mobile devices. The table below shows how the mobile bid adjustment will be set depending on the devices targeted by a legacy campaign. Of course, you're free to change your default mobile bid adjustment and all other campaign settings after a campaign is automatically upgraded.

Legacy campaign device targeting
Default mobile bid adjustment
Any campaign that targets computers
Set based on bids from similar advertisers
Campaigns targeting tablets only
Set based on bids from similar advertisers
Campaigns targeting mobile devices only
+0% (same bids across all devices)
Campaigns targeting tablets and mobile devices only
+0% (same bids across all devices)

Special cases
What we've described above covers the vast majority of legacy campaigns. But there are some special cases with different default upgrade settings, like a legacy campaign that runs ads on the Google Display Network and uses device-specific targeting. Details on these special cases are in the AdWords Help Center.

Upgrade quickly and easily today
If you're upgrading one or multiple campaigns, we recommend that you use the AdWords upgrade center. It's quick and takes you step-by-step through the process. Learn more or visit the upgrade center now.

We're here to help
We want you to be successful with AdWords, so please contact us if you’d like any assistance with the upgrade to enhanced campaigns. For more details, tips and resources on succeeding with enhanced campaigns, please check out our help center articles and enhanced campaigns website.

Posted by Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President of Engineering

Labels:

In many ways, Google Analytics and AdWords were made for each other. AdWords helps advertisers reach an audience and reports on advertising performance, and Google Analytics can tell you what actions your users take when they actually get to your site. You may have a high clickthrough rate (CTR) in AdWords, but what if you could see that 70% of those users left immediately after arriving on your landing page? While understanding the conversion rate of AdWords ads is critical, it’s also important to understand what happened to the users that did not convert or complete the action you wanted them to. For example, did users ‘bounce’ after landing on your site or did they view a few other pages and then leave? How much time did they spend on your site? Which keywords drive the majority of your Ecommerce revenue?

Thanks to built-in Google product integrations that provide unique insights into your data, you can view reporting and data in Google Analytics that directly relates back to your advertising in AdWords. Understanding how to use both of them together will help you refine your AdWords campaigns and improve the performance of your business.


Next Tuesday, join Rachel Witalec and Simon Rosen, Global Sales Strategy Leads, for a detailed look at how to use Google Analytics and AdWords together. In this webinar, we'll show you why it's important to link your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts, how to see both Google Analytics data in AdWords and AdWords data in Google Analytics, and walk through a live demo of the reports and how to use them. You'll learn how to make your marketing more effective by analyzing Google Analytics data, such as bounce rate, pages per visit, conversion rate, and Ecommerce revenue in conjunction with AdWords factors, such as keyword performance, ad copy, ad groups, and more. The webinar will also include a live Q&A section.

Date: Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Time: 10am PDT / 1pm EDT/ 6pm GMT
Duration: 1 hr
Level: 101 / Beginner
Register: Register here

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Google Analytics team
Labels: , , ,

The Auction insights report gives you valuable insight into how your ad performance compares with that of other advertisers.  For example, based on the impressions you’re eligible for, you can see how often your competitors’ ads are appearing above yours or whether one of your competitors has a higher impression share than you on an important keyword.

Before today, you could only get this data one keyword at a time - making it hard to see the bigger picture of where you stand relative to your top competitors.  Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ve added some exciting new functionality to the Auction insights report that will make it easier for you to get a bird’s eye view of your competitive landscape.


Now, in addition to running an Auction insights report on a single keyword you can also run a report on any of the following scenarios:
  • Groups of keywords.  For example, you may want to run a report on all keywords that contain a certain brand term, or that have the same label.  Simply filter your keyword list, select the keywords you want to include, and run an Auction insights report on the selected terms to see how your performance on those terms compares to that of your top competitors.
  • Individual or multiple ad groups.  You’ve probably already arranged your keywords into meaningful groupings within ad groups.  For example, if you sell men’s wear, you may have an ad group for “Father’s Day gifts” with keywords all about Father’s Day.  Now, from the ad groups tab, you can select one or more ad groups to run an Auction insights report.  This will show you how your performance on all eligible keywords within those ad groups compares to advertisers who most commonly compete with you on those terms.
  • Individual or multiple campaigns. Sometimes you may be interested in a high level picture of who’s competing with you across a wide range of topics.  In those instances, you can select one or more campaigns from the campaigns tab, and run an Auction insights report there to see how the competitive landscape looks at that high level.
We hope that these new features provide you additional insights to help you optimize your campaigns more efficiently.  We are rolling this feature out today and you should expect to see it in your account within the next few hours.

For more information on how to run an Auction insights report, how to interpret your data, or create a filter, visit the AdWords Help Center.  You can also join us for our Hangout on Air Tuesday, June 25th at 10:00 AM PST/1:00 PM EST where we will cover a few of the great things you can do with the new functionality in this report.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Product Manager, AdWords
Labels: , ,