(Ad)Word of the Day: Ad Scheduling

If you want your ads to only run during certain times of the day or week, consider using ad scheduling, today's (Ad)Word of the Day.

Ad scheduling lets you control the days and times your ad campaigns appear. You may also choose an advanced mode, which allows you to raise or lower your bids for a campaign at certain times of the day.

Ad scheduling can help you better target your ads by selecting the times when you want to show ads. For example, if you offer special late night deals, you can set up an ad group to show those ads only between 10pm and 3am. You can also set different bids for different hours, so if you have better conversion rates during certain hours, you can set your bids higher to try and get more impressions and clicks during that time.

For more information, check out the article on ad scheduling in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Monday, July 13, 2009 at 11:26 AM

New Interface Thursday: Introducing spreadsheet editing

Many advertisers use spreadsheets when managing their AdWords campaigns to streamline tasks such as changing bids, creating keyword lists, and adjusting destination URLs. As a result, we decided to work on a way for you to use spreadsheets directly in your account, and today this feature is available in the new AdWords interface.

You can access spreadsheet edit mode from the Keywords tab in any ad group. You'll find it under the More actions menu.

In the past, you might have used power posting to enter your keywords with bids and destination URLs. Now, with spreadsheet editing, you can accomplish the same tasks from a spreadsheet view. Even if you use another spreadsheet application, it's very easy to transfer your work into AdWords - simply copy and paste directly from your spreadsheet into your account.

Like in a spreadsheet, you can use formulas to edit your keywords and bids. For example, if you want your ad to show on the first page, but your bid is lower than the first page bid, you can set up a formula to address this.

Here, I've set my Max CPC to be 120% of the first page bid (Cell G2). To apply this to all of my keywords, I can just copy and paste. Keep in mind that only the values are saved back into AdWords, not the formulas.

Questions? Attend a new interface webinar tomorrow

We'll be holding another free webinar about the new AdWords interface tomorrow, July 10th at 11a.m. PDT. If you're looking to get up to speed quickly, it's a great way to spend an hour on Friday. If you can't make it tomorrow, we have one on Thursday, July 16th at 10a.m. PDT as well. You can register for either webinar on the New Interface Webinars site.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Thursday, July 09, 2009 at 4:52 PM

AdWords system maintenance on July 11th

On Saturday, July 11th, 2009, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT due to system maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Wednesday, July 08, 2009 at 3:37 PM

Help customers find their way with new Google Maps gadget

As an AdWords advertiser, it's important for you that potential customers find you on the Internet. If your business has one or more physical locations, it's just as important that customers can find where you are.

To help your customers find your business locations, you can now add customized directions to your website from Google Maps. With the Google Maps directions gadget, you no longer need to write out and update multiple sets of directions from the North, South, East or West. After all, customers are looking only for directions from their specific location, and they may not know which direction they're coming from.

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We wanted to make the process of implementing the gadget on your web site easy for you. You can pre-fill the "To" field with one or multiple addresses, a generic zip code or even a set of latitude-longitude coordinates. Customers only need to enter where they're coming from and are able to print their directions with a single click. And if they would prefer not to drive, the gadget also provides walking and public transit directions.

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Take a look at how Legoland California, Emeril Lagasse, and Harvard University are using the gadget. Then test and create your own directions gadget here. The Google Maps gadget is available in 23 languages.

If you're interested in learning more, head over to the Google Lat Long blog for a more detailed walkthrough of the gadget's features.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Tuesday, July 07, 2009 at 12:01 PM

Use YouTube to drive awareness and conversions

If you'd like to expand your advertising to YouTube, consider using YouTube Promoted Videos. You can make a video about your business and then promote that video alongside relevant YouTube search results. Similar to AdWords, YouTube Promoted Videos lets you decide where you'd like your videos to appear on YouTube, place bids in an automated online auction, and set daily spending budgets.

Last week we launched "Call-to-Action," a new feature that allows you to add a clickable overlay to your Promoted Videos. This allows you to drive viewers to a website off-YouTube, which can help you drive more conversions and generate engaged, well-targeted traffic for your brand or product.

You can learn more about this new conversion feature of by visiting the recently launched YouTube Biz Blog. To start using Promoted Videos today, visit ads.youtube.com.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Monday, July 06, 2009 at 1:12 PM

New Interface Thursday: You said it, we're fixing it!

We released the new AdWords interface early to get your feedback on it as soon as possible. And you haven't disappointed us! We receive thousands of comments every month covering likes, dislikes, and ideas for ways to further improve the AdWords interface. We read your comments carefully to prioritize the areas to work on next.

And we've made a lot of progress on the top issues our advertisers reported, so today we wanted to share these improvements with you.

Less horizontal scrolling

When working with certain browsers and monitor resolutions (especially 1024x768), you told us you needed to scroll back and forth in order view data tables and controls. We've now condensed the layout of AdWords pages and width of columns in order to eliminate the need to scroll horizontally. If you're still encountering this issue, please let us know.

If you'd like to further condense the view of your account, remember that you can customize your columns. Try hiding columns that aren't important to you and move other columns around to quickly compare important metrics side-by-side.

Support for Safari 4 and Firefox 3.5

Those of you working with the newest versions of Safari and Firefox will be happy to know that the new AdWords interface now works with these browsers. We'll continue to work to support the latest versions all major browsers in the future.

Faster load times

One of our most important goals with the new interface was to improve the efficiency of day-to-day campaign management tasks. We've heard from some advertisers that while integrated reports and roll-up tabs help them quickly access and act on important data, the data didn't always load as quickly as they'd hoped.

We've worked to improve the speed of the interface with the latest releases, and hope you can now see a noticeable improvement. However, our work isn't done, and we'll continue to focus on shortening load times with upcoming launches. For the fastest experience, we recommend using the following browsers: Chrome, Firefox 3+, Safari 4, or Internet Explorer 8.

Searching for keywords

We heard many of you are looking for quick ways to search for keywords, ad text, or campaign names within your account. In previous posts, we talked about how you can use filtering to focus on the data that matters to you.

While text filters allow you to search and act directly on the data you see, they also take a few clicks to set up for the first time. To help you work more quickly, we've added a new shortcut that lets you quickly search by text under the 'Filter and views' menu on any tab.

Try it on your Keywords tab to quickly find all keywords containing a specific term.

Educational materials

You told us you'd like more help with transitioning to the new interface. In addition to New Interface Thursdays and our new interface website, we recently started a series of free educational webinars, featuring the product team. Sign up now for the next webinar on July 10.

If you haven't been using the new AdWords interface to manage your campaigns due to a specific annoyance, now's a great time to to log in and see how the interface has improved. And please, keep your feedback coming. Just click on the Send Feedback link at the top right corner of your account to share your thoughts.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Thursday, July 02, 2009 at 2:35 PM

Google Ad Planner has a new look

On June 24, Google Ad Planner turned one year old, and what a busy year it's been. Marketers and media planners worldwide now manage tens of thousands of media plans with Google Ad Planner. Additionally, with publishers directly contributing their own site data and sharing their Google Analytics traffic numbers, we continue to provide you the most accurate data measurements for your media planning. We've also steadily released a variety of new features over the year based on your feedback, including pre-defined audiences, more site filters, and additional demographic data.

To celebrate these milestones, we've given Google Ad Planner a facelift. Starting today, you can find sites and manage your media plans even faster with the redesigned Google Ad Planner interface.

Screenshots of old vs. new Ad Planner interface

We've kept all the best features from before, but the new interface streamlines your research and media planning by making features easier to find and use. Simply enter the URL to jump directly to a site's profile page and see Ad Planner's rich profile data for the site. We've also improved your campaign management by allowing you to easily merge and copy media plans.

We hope you'll take advantage of the new Google Ad Planner interface. Visit www.google.com/adplanner to check out our new look and to find out more information about Google Ad Planner.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 10:45 AM

New version of the AdWords API

For those of you who use the AdWords API, we are happy to announce the launch of the latest version of the API, v2009. This version offers more speed, scale, and flexibility to developers, at a lower cost. Since v2009 is a production beta, developers can sign up for access and will be whitelisted on a rolling basis. For full details on what you'll find in v2009 and how to get started, visit the AdWords API blog.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 1:28 PM

AdWords click measurements accredited by MRC

We're pleased to announce today that the click measurement systems in Google AdWords has now been accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC). MRC accreditation certifies that Google's click measurement technology adheres to the industry standards for counting interactive advertising clicks and that its processes supporting this technology are accurate.

The industry guidelines were developed over the past three years in an effort coordinated by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the MRC. We're proud to be one of the founding members of this group, which established the first ever industry guidelines governing how interactive advertising clicks are counted and how invalid clicks are detected and handled. The audit against these guidelines was conducted by a CPA firm engaged by the MRC to perform the audit. You can view the IAB / MRC Click Measurement Guidelines here.

We look forward to continuing to work with the rest of the industry in promoting rigorous standards and practices in click measurement and analysis. As ever, our Ad Traffic Quality team continues to work hard on protecting advertiser ROI. To read more about our work in this area, please visit our Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursday: Exploring campaign settings

A few of the changes we've made in the new AdWords interface improve how you manage your campaign settings. In today's post, we'll cover these changes.

Edit Settings for Multiple Campaigns

Have you ever wanted to quickly see which of your campaigns are running on the Google Content Network? Or compare ad scheduling settings for multiple campaigns at once?

Now you can, using the new account-level Settings tab. On the All Online Campaigns page, click the Settings tab to see the primary settings for all your campaigns in a single table.

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Some settings, like campaign name or daily budget, can be changed directly in the table using in-line editing. To edit advanced settings such as location targeting and ad scheduling, simply click on the setting you'd like to change and you'll be taken directly to the Settings tab for that particular campaign.

You can also use bulk editing to change settings for multiple campaigns at once. Say, for example, you'd like to copy the Networks & Devices settings from one campaign to three others.

Simply select all four campaigns, click Edit, then use the copy-down button to copy the setting across all selected campaigns.

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Better Organized Settings

We've also changed how campaign settings are grouped together within the campaign-level Settings tabs for easier navigation.

The Audience section contains settings to specify the audience you want to reach. Language, location, and demographic targeting for the Google Content Network are now grouped together in this section.

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The Bidding and Budget section now contains advanced settings such as position preference and delivery method in addition to campaign mainstays like daily budget and bidding option.

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Finally, you'll notice a new campaign setting in the Advanced Settings section: frequency capping, which lets you limit the number of times your ad is shown to the same unique user on the Google Content Network.

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New Interface Webinars

If you want more help learning the new interface, we're holding two free webinars in the next week to help you get up to speed. During the 1-hour sessions, we'll walk you through the new interface, show you the new features, and answer your questions.

The first webinar is tomorrow, Friday, June 26th at 11 AM PDT. Following that, the next one is on July 1st at 9:30 AM PDT. You can register on our new interface webinars page.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 5:14 PM