Understanding retailers and their relationship to real-time 
In a recent post, we announced a study we ran with Forrester to understand how retailers were leveraging real-time data in their online advertising efforts. What we learned was that they believe real-time data presents both opportunities and challenges. Retailers see the potential for including this type of data in their campaigns, but they also think it can be too much work to respond to changes that can come and go in an instant.

DoubleClick Search makes real-time easy 
At DoubleClick Search, we want to make it easy to integrate real-time data into your campaigns. We’ve worked hard to build tools that give you the data you need to make quick decisions for your business. We also want to make your campaign optimization easy and automated, so you don’t need hours of planning to respond to sudden changes in demand.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll share stories of how advertisers are using real-time data to reach customers in their time of need, faster. This first post in our series is on the real-time gap and how DoubleClick Search helps you to bridge it. The “real-time gap” is the difference between retailers’ current SEM practices and their best possible performance.

Fact: Real-time data is important 
Any number of factors can affect consumer demand for your products and services—many of which are unpredictable. Heat waves and cold snaps appear unannounced, fashion trends crop up, and wild card sports teams make it into the playoffs. From weather concerns to new shoes to baseball playoffs, search queries give marketers insight into what matters most to people in a specific moment. And with today’s proliferation of smartphones and tablets, consumers search all day, every day, providing real-time data on what’s happening right now.

Barriers to adoption for real-time data 
If real-time data is so important, you would think that all retailers would integrate it into their campaigns, but it turns out there are a few common barriers to adoption.

First, many retailers believe it takes too much time and energy to respond to unplanned events. One respondent in our Forrester study explained: “I’m sure there are quick wins to be had. But we don’t have the experience or manpower needed to chase everything.” Another said, “I have so many demands on my time, managing for something unexpected isn’t convenient for me.”

Retailers also need to re-think what’s “good enough” when it comes to speed and real time feedback. Our Forrester research shows that only 20% of retailers have access to real-time click and conversion data, and that over half do not see data updated for a week. Despite this reality, 84% of these retailers who consider driving sales as a goal feel their marketing programs are either “effective” or “very effective” at achieving their goals. But, data received once a day (or even less frequently) means there are unlimited missed opportunities to capture revenue, brand awareness, or reduce cost. 



DoubleClick Search makes real-time easy
We want to make it easy to collect and act on real-time data. Our smart bid optimization understands your goals, gets conversion information in real-time, and adjusts bids multiple times per day to meet those goals. And with conversion data from all channels, delivered in real-time, DoubleClick Search can react quickly to changing market conditions by optimizing based on real-time attributed conversion data.

Real-time data in action
Here’s just one example of how real-time data can positively affect sales. This is an excerpt from a recent iProspect report.

The chart below shows how one of iProspect’s clients, a top luxury apparel brand (let’s call it Brand X), looked to real-time data and execution to maximize its marketing during a busy shopping season. Brand X holds a highly anticipated three-day sale twice per year. In 2012, it used an SEM platform that did not offer real-time conversion insights or intra-day bidding. A year later, when it switched to DoubleClick Search, a tool that reacted more quickly, the difference was immense. The overall result: the company more than tripled revenue on the first day of the promotion year over year while decreasing cost per clicks (CPCs) by over 60%. 

Three-day Promotion: Better Results With Real Time 

Source: iProspect proprietary data 

Your partner for real-time data
At DoubleClick search, we want to be your partner in delivering real-time data to improve your advertising performance. In our next post in the series, we’ll talk about how retailers are taking advantage of real-time data to optimize text ads and Shopping Campaigns for their products.

In July, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):

As part of our mission to offer the most actionable data and reporting, from all sources, DoubleClick Search lets you report on Google Analytics goals. You may not know that we also have the capability to use Google Analytics Goals as targets for DoubleClick Search bid-strategies. When you create a bid strategy in the Doubleclick Search Performance Bidding Suite, you can optimize to conversions and revenue based on Google Analytics goals and transactions. This feature extends the flexibility of DS bid strategies, which already support optimization to Floodlight activities and formula columns. This release also extends bid optimization support to goals based on site analytics metrics such as pages per visit and visit duration.

Make better decisions based on user behavior insights 
Google Analytics goals make it possible to have user behavior prior to purchase drive your bidding decisions. Conversion windows vary by vertical. Some customers finalize their purchases/actions within minutes or hours, while other customers may take days, weeks or even months to research before converting. If you understand the propensity of a user to convert based on their session behavior, you can bid more for keywords that drive higher quality customers. This is where site analytics data comes in as it provides useful post click data such as "users from ad group X spend an average of 5 minutes on the site after clicking".

Our Google Analytics integration gives you access to powerful new metrics to enhance bid optimization and create custom models that not only include the final conversion but also values keywords that lead to pre-conversion user behaviors including time on site, pages viewed, etc. 

Getting started with Google Analytics goals 
Getting started with Google Analytics goals & DoubleClick Search bid-strategies is simple. They work in the same way as the DoubleClick Floodlight-targeted bid strategies you are already familiar with. Just create a new bid strategy using the wizard and select Conversions, Revenue, or Advanced targeting as the goal. Then Google Analytics can be selected as a conversion source (shown below).



If you want to mix Floodlight Tags and Google Analytics Goals in the same bid-strategy, first define the relative value of the Tags and Goal inside the formula column. For example, suppose you wanted a ROAS strategy for your travel agency. Your main objective is to drive revenue from ticket and package sales, but you value a user spending 10 minutes reading about vacation packages at $1.50 since you expect they will return later to buy. The following formula column would capture this valuation:


In the above formula: FL=Floodlight, GA=Google Analytics

Once you've created this formula columns, create a new bid strategy, in step 2 select the conversion source to be "formula column". If you haven’t linked your Google analytics account with DS, you can find a step by step guide here. If you are interested in using the site analytics level goals, please follow the guide here (note: you only need to complete Step 1: Transferring Property). To learn more about DS bid-strategies and Google Analytics integration, please check out our help center article.

In April, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search:

• Bid strategies that can recommend and optimize mobile bid adjustments
  Bid strategies that target conversions or revenue can now optimize AdWords mobile bid adjustments based on the bid strategy’s goal. If you prefer a more hands-on approach, you can set your bid strategy to recommend mobile bid adjustments. Learn more.

• Use keyword parameters in ads
  You can customize your Google AdWords and Bing Ads ads by using dynamic text parameters in DoubleClick Search (DS). A customized ad is more likely to appeal to potential customers because it's more relevant to their search queries. Ad parameters also allow updates to ads without having to go through the engine’s validation and approval process. This feature works with both manual campaigns and inventory campaigns. Learn more.

We also made the following feature updates:

• Bid strategies for PLA campaigns
  To optimize bidding on Product Listing Ads, you can now apply a return-on-investment (ROI) bid strategy to product targets, an ad group with product targets, or an entire campaign. You can even use the same bid strategy to manage bidding for both keywords and product targets and let DS determine the ideal bids for reaching your ROI goals. Learn more.

• Executive Reporting: Tables can show how performance has changed over time
  When comparing performance over time in an executive report table, you can now show the change as an actual amount or percentage.

• Use formula columns that contain Google Analytics goals in bid strategies
  If you need greater control over how conversions are combined and weighted in your bid strategy, you can create a formula column that defines your own key performance indicators (KPIs), and then add a bid strategy that optimizes to the formula column. Now, formula columns that include data from Google Analytics conversion or revenue columns can be used in a bid strategy.

• New location and device-targeting columns for campaigns and ad groups
  New bulksheet columns for Bing Ads ad groups more accurately reflect the way Bing Ads organizes the inheritance of location targets and device targets. Also, bulksheet columns for location and device targeting have been updated to be consistent across all engine accounts.

• New reporting resource in the DS API
  DS has added a new resource type to its API that contains the list of all columns an advertiser has created, such as Floodlight columns, Google Analytics columns, or formula columns. Once you retrieve the list of columns, you can request reports for the metrics that the columns contain. Learn more about working with saved columns from the DS API.

• Saved views include segmentation selection
  When you save a report view that is segmented, DS now saves the segmentation selection as well. This only applies to new views that you create going forward. Existing views cannot save the segmentation selection.

• Fresh, new look
  We’ve added more space and softer colors to make DoubleClick Search easier on the eyes. This is the same look in many of the other Google products you know and love.

We also want to let you know about a change in product functionality:

• Fewer AdWords search queries available in the search query report
  Google now removes the search query from the referrer on ad clicks that originate from SSL searches on Google.com. Learn more about this change. The search query report in DS won’t be able to display search queries for these clicks. Instead, you’ll see Other queries. Learn more about how encrypted searches affect the DS search query report.
  
  The AdWords search terms report lets you see search queries that generated ad clicks along with key performance data. And the Search Queries report available in Google Webmaster Tools provides aggregate information about the top 2000 queries, each day, that generated organic clicks.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

• Support for the new AdWords “Search Network with Display Select” campaigns
  AdWords has launched a new campaign type, “Search Network with Display Select”, which is helping advertisers gain up to 15% more customers than search campaigns alone. Any new campaigns that you create in DS will automatically be “Search Network with Display Select” campaigns. DS will continue to support legacy “Search & Display Networks” campaigns for a few months. Learn more.

We also made the following feature updates:

• Include impression share in executive reports
  You can now add a chart to an executive report that displays the impression share metric for your Google AdWords keywords. With impression share metrics, you can easily report how many of the overall potential impressions you’re capturing.

• Improved targeting settings for Bing Ads ad groups
  We made some improvements to clarify that a Bing Ads ad group can override the campaign’s location and device settings independently. In other words, you can override one or both of these settings when you create or edit a Bing Ads ad group.

• Segment Google Analytics goals by device
  When a reporting table includes columns for Google Analytics goals, you can now segment the table by device as well as by ads.

• Bid strategies for PLA campaigns
  To optimize bidding on Product Listing Ads, you can now apply an ROI bid strategy to product targets, an ad group with product targets, or an entire campaign. You can even use the same bid strategy to let DS optimize your bids across both product targets and keywords to reach your ROI goals. Learn more.

• Formula columns: new functions, new columns, and new aggregation options
• New functions
  We have added 18 functions that you can use in formula columns: 14 for manipulating strings, 2 for specifying relative dates, and 2 for error handling. In addition, to_number(), to_percent(), and to_money() can now convert localized strings into numbers. See a list of all functions in the new function list for DS formula columns.
• New columns You can now use the Status and Keyword_match_type columns in a formula column. These columns are considered to be enumerated columns because they always contain one of a few values pre-defined by DS. Make sure that any functions you create refer to one of the pre-defined values that the column can contain.
  Here’s an example function that outputs "Brand-Broad" for keywords that are labeled with the “Brand” label and have been defined with a broad match type: If(and(Has_label("Brand"),keyword_match_type="Broad"),
  "Brand-Broad","Brand")
• New aggregation options When you create a formula column, you can specify how the summary row in a reporting table aggregates data from a formula column. Previously, a summary row always summed the raw data in the individual rows and then applied the formula to the sum. Now you can specify that a summary row applies the formula to each row and then sums the formula results.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

In January, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search:

• Inventory Product Listing Ads campaigns
  This release introduces a new type of campaign: an inventory Product Listing Ads (PLA) campaign, which makes it easy to scale up your PLA advertising with detailed reports and bidding on each of your individual products. Inventory PLA campaigns automatically generate ad groups and granular product targets for Product Listing Ads from data in your Merchant Center account. Learn more.

• Reporting API
  You can now use the DoubleClick Search API to programmatically download reports. You can combine the API data with data you already have about your products, customers, and business goals (from a CRM system, for example) to complete the picture of your search advertising impact. Learn more.

• Assess your bid strategy’s health
  The new Bid strategy health column displays messages about issues that prevent a bid strategy from performing optimally. If you click the message, DS navigates to the location in the UI in which you can address the issue. Learn more.

We also made the following feature updates:

• Google Analytics metrics and goals in Executive Reporting
  If you use Google Analytics to track your conversions, you can now enhance your executive reports with GA metrics and goals for multiple advertisers. For example, you can create a single chart that compares GA new visits with overall revenue for all of your advertisers.

• More actions and notification options in automated rules and bulk edits
  We made the following improvements to automated rules and bulk edits (including scheduled edits):
• You can now perform bulk edits and automated rules on a list of product targets.
• Change bid strategy and Change mobile bid adjustment % are new options when setting up a bulk edit or automated rule for campaigns or ad groups.
• When setting up your actions and alerts for a rule, you have more options for when to receive an email. For example, you can choose to receive emails only when a problem occurs.

• Improved support of targeting settings for Bing Ads ad groups
  When you create or edit an ad group in a Bing Ads engine account, you'll notice that the Languages, Locations, and Devices settings have been changed to more accurately reflect the way Bing Ads organizes these settings.

Be sure to attend the New Feature Review monthly webinar to see these features in action. There are sessions on February 6, so register today!

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

• Executive Reporting
  When it’s time to present performance data to your clients or executives, instead of manually downloading detailed data and distilling it into useful summaries, you can now create an executive report in DoubleClick Search (DS). DS executive reports are a powerful new way to create custom visual reports to analyze data and share with your end clients, teammates, and managers. Learn more.

• Analyze performance for all keywords or ads at the advertiser level
  You can now see the performance data for all of an advertiser’s keywords or ads across all engines. Most DS customers have multiple engine accounts, so this feature makes it easier to understand aggregate/overall performance. In the DS UI, simply navigate to an advertiser and click the Keywords tab or Ads tab. Learn more.

We also made the following feature updates:

• Better summary data for your bid strategies
  The bid strategy summary page now focuses on conversions, revenue, and bid strategy status by displaying the Bid strategy performance view by default. In addition to displaying goal type, target metric, and constraints, the Bid strategy performance view has been updated with new columns that show the conversion and revenue statistics relevant to that bid strategy. Learn more.

• Apply bid strategies to campaigns/ad groups via bulksheets: You can now use the Bid strategy column in a bulksheet to apply existing bid strategies to campaigns or ad groups. This makes it much easier to apply bid strategies to multiple campaigns and ad groups. Learn more.

• Use bulksheets to create, change, and delete labels
  There’s a new bulksheet that makes it easier to create multiple labels at once, and it also allows you to change and delete labels. Learn more.

• Segment sitelink performance data by campaign
  You can now view sitelink performance by campaign in a single view. For example, if you applied a sitelink to 3 campaigns in a single AdWords engine account, you can see a list of the campaigns with the number of sitelink clicks in each campaign. Learn more.

• Faster sync We reduced the time needed to sync engine changes into DS.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

• Optimize to Google Analytics conversions: When you create a conversion-based bid strategy in DoubleClick Search (DS), you can now optimize to conversions based on Google Analytics goals. This feature extends the conversion options for DS bid strategies, which already support optimization to Floodlight activities and formula columns. We’re adding another layer of flexibility by allowing you to use the conversions you track on Google Analytics to get the most out of your keyword bidding in DS.

We also made the following feature updates:

• New Google Analytics columns: By linking your DS and Google Analytics accounts, you can add columns to your DS reports that display data from Google Analytics. With this update, DS added the following columns: GA bounce rate, GA pages / visit, GA avg visit duration, and GA new visits %. DS also renamed some of its existing columns to align with the column names in Google Analytics. Learn more.

• Updates to formula-column operators: The Days() and Months() operators in a formula column can now count backwards in addition to counting forwards. For example, if today is October 15, clicks.for_date_range(today(), days(-14)) returns the number of clicks from October 1 to October 14. Also, you no longer need to nest IF operators to evaluate multiple conditions and outcomes. For example, now you can write an IF operator like this: If(Impr / Num_days() < 10, "Very low run rate", Impr / Num_days() > 500, "Very high run rate", "").  Learn more.

• New macros: DS has added new macros that you can use to pass additional information to your landing pages. Specifically, you can now pass the name and ID of the ad group, campaign, and engine account containing the keyword that was responsible for a click. See the available DoubleClick Search macros.

• Download negative keywords and edit for upload: You can now download negative keywords and edit them for upload in DS. To help with creating negative keywords, we added templates specifically for negative keywords in the Help Center.

• Easier to upload offline conversions: When you upload offline conversions using bulksheets, you can attribute those conversions to visits by just specifying the click ID. To attribute the conversion to a keyword, you can specify just the keyword ID. Learn more.

• DoubleClick Natural Search now reports on HTTPS-encrypted searches: DoubleClick Natural Search now reports on encrypted natural searches in DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM), with the value Not provided. In addition, conversions can be attributed to encrypted natural searches, so you may see fewer paid search or display conversions. Learn more and see an example.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

• Manage AdWords upgraded sitelinks: DS now supports AdWords upgraded sitelinks, which make it easy for you to reach customers with deeper information about your site or product. Upgraded sitelinks appear in your ads just like non-upgraded sitelinks, but they’re easier to manage and provide more detailed reporting. You can create and edit upgraded sitelinks in the DS UI or by upload, choose whether a sitelink is mobile preferred, specify start and end dates, and more.

• Optimize bids to custom metrics using formula columns: The DS Performance Bidding Suite now supports the optimization of bids based on formula columns. Use the flexibility of formula columns to first define your own performance metrics, and then easily set up bid strategies that optimize to those metrics.

• Manage Product Listing Ads in DS: Retail advertisers can now create and manage AdWords Product Listing Ads campaigns directly in DS and take advantage of the powerful features for managing search campaigns efficiently and delivering maximum ROI. You can easily view Merchant Center feeds and define product targets based on those feeds, preview the products that match your criteria in campaigns and product targets, and use DS bulksheets to upload large amounts of product targets at once.

• Create match type-specific ad groups in inventory campaigns: These ad groups give you the power to more easily manage negative keywords, report by match type, enforce the bid you set, and more.

• Run landing page tests with device ValueTrack parameters: Depending on your parameter settings, you can now run a landing page test for one device on a keyword that uses device ValueTrack parameters. This is great for running tests on keywords in AdWords enhanced campaigns, where you can use the ifmobile or ifnotmobile parameter to specify different landing page URLs for each device type.

• Use special characters in template functions:  When using a template function for ads or keywords in inventory campaigns, you can now include “, [, and ] as special characters in your static text, as long as you escape them. Special characters make it easier for you to clean up data from the Merchant Center feed to prepare it for inventory-aware campaigns. To use these characters in a text string, they must be preceded by a backslash (\”, \[, \]).

• New ROUND() template function for inventory-aware campaign templates. When you add ad templates in an inventory campaign, you can now use ROUND() as a function to round number values from the Merchant Center feed to a given decimal point. This allows you to shorten or round numeric values like price in ad copy, making it easier to fit ad copy character limits. For example, if the price listed for a given item is 25.79, ROUND(PRICE,0) outputs 26, while ROUND(PRICE,3) outputs 25.790.

Our star student: VivaKi. In the search for the best deals, online shoppers can quickly get distracted. VivaKi implemented DoubleClick's display remarketing from search ads to make sure they didn’t lose their audience. With a turn-key setup on one integrated platform, the VivaKi team set up their remarketing lists in just a few clicks, and were ready to begin reaching customers with display ads via DoubleClick Bid Manager. As a result, VivaKi increased conversions by 32% for a leading insurance company, and reduced CPA by 66% for an automotive client.

Take notes on the important details, using labels across your entire campaign Don’t get lost in all the “noise”. Highlight the need-to-know details using labels from DoubleClick Search to categorize, manage, and report on your most important campaigns, ads, groups, or keywords at a glance.

Our star student: The Search Agency. The Search Agency used labels from DoubleClick Search to break out of their existing campaign structure and easily track and manage attributes most important to them. Matt Grebow, Director of Paid Search at The Search Agency, notes: “Labels help us quickly identify account segments that are important to our clients, and provide the flexibility to adjust these segments along with any shift in business focus.” Beyond simply tagging different campaign attributes, we’ve seen our customers use labels in unique ways with other DoubleClick Search features, including combining labels with automated rules to manage their promotion schedules.

Ace your “report” card with better measurement from DoubleClick Find out how your campaigns are stacking up with insights from our real-time, holistic reporting solutions. With a single view of your customer across display, rich media, mobile, video, and more, discover what’s working, hone in on new opportunities, and find your spot on the digital marketing honor roll.

Our star student: Digitas. In a dynamic search space, waiting 24 hours for reports to be updated, then mashing up and matching data from those separate reports, can feel like nails on a chalkboard. “I think the biggest factor that goes into our decision-making process for a platform is its ability to handle data, “Sean McDonald, Vice President and Group Director at Digitas, remarked. “DoubleClick really allows us to view the data all in one place, and make decisions based off of what’s best for our clients, rather than what's best for our individual teams.” With reporting by device type, quickly compare how campaigns are performing on desktop computers, mobile devices, and tablets, down to the individual keywords. For cross-channel insights, use DFA Attribution tools to better analyze conversion paths.

Ready for the next lesson? Play teacher’s pet and tune in to the DoubleClick for Advertisers blog later this week to learn how DoubleClick Bid Manager can help advertisers engage with in-market consumers during the Back to School season, and get set up for success for the upcoming holidays.