Calling all CPG marketers:

Are you marketing a brand next year?  Will TV be part of your strategy...or at least, do you hope it will be?

Let’s make 2012 the year we learn more from our TV campaigns.

As the next webinar in our series, the Google TV Ads team would like to join us on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 to demonstrate how brand marketers are getting smarter about their TV buys.  Highlighting real use-cases, members of the Google TV Ads sales team will show how Google TV Ads can support each stage of the product life cycle, including:

• Enabling macro and micro level targeting at launch
• Segmenting your audience on TV to drive growth
• Analyzing post-campaign attribution and improved ROI metrics

We hope you can join us!

What: CPG Webinar: Make Your TV Campaign Smarter
When: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 2:30pm EST/11:30am PST
Register here

For more information on Google TV Ads, visit us today at google.com/tvads

Posted by David Kagan, Product Marketing Manager, Google TV Ads

Over the past year, Google TV Ads has been investing in new features to help our advertisers make smarter decisions about their TV campaigns.

The Google TV Ads team would like to invite you to a webinar on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 to discuss the changing landscape of TV advertising for B2B marketers and how features that tie TV to online can help you better reach the B2B consumer on TV. Members of our B2B sales team will specifically cover:

• The changing TV landscape - reaching the B2B consumer on TV today vs. in the ‘Three Network World’
• How Google TV Ads is working to make your TV buy smarter, including:
• Search Triggers: Harnessing the power of Google Search to influence your TV buy
• Web Attribution: Linking TV ad exposure to website visitation

We hope you can join us!

What: Making B2B TV Buying Smarter Webinar
When: Wednesday, November 9, 2011  2:30-3:00pm EST/11:30-12:00pm PST
How: Register here

Not a B2B marketer?  Don't worry!  This is just the first in a series of upcoming webinars from Google TV Ads.  Stay tuned for more announcements in the near future. 

Posted by David Kagan, Product Marketing Manager, Google TV Ads

When Searches take place online, business usually follows.  Advertisers utilizing Google’s AdWords and Insights for Search data have watched this pattern emerge for years, and we’re excited to now bring similar capabilities to our TV advertisers. As of today, we are pleased to announce the launch of Search Triggers, a new tool offered by Google TV Ads that uses national search trend data to control when and how you deliver your TV ads.

Let’s take a look at how this works. Suppose you own a business that sells grills.  The summertime is when you generally run television advertising.  But what if it’s a rainy weekend? By tapping into the power of search data, Search Triggers watches for real-time changes in the demand for terms you specify, such as “grills” or “charcoal.”  When query volume spikes or declines, the Search Triggers tool automatically adjusts your daily budget up or down accordingly each day so that you’re delivering the right message with appropriate frequency at the right time.

Using search data to optimize your TV campaigns is another way that Google TV Ads is working to make your TV buy smarter.  For more information, or to get started with Google TV Ads, visit google.com/tvads.

Update: Read more about Search Triggers on Mashable

Posted by Jody Shapiro, Google TV Ads Product Manager

       Since announcing our inventory partnership with DIRECTV in August 2010, Google TV Ads has offered advertisers the ability to place their TV spots on a broad selection of national inventory across 11 its networks.  Today we are pleased to share that we have grown our DIRECTV reach to include five new networks.  Now when you plan your TV campaign with Google TV Ads, you will have more inventory from the following networks with which to target your audience on:

• FOX Soccer Channel: America's premier destination for the world's game, FOX Soccer Channel offers unprecedented coverage of live and premier world-class soccer, news and original shows throughout the year.
• Gospel Music Channel: The only network with a truly non-controversial programming slate of movies, dramas, comedies and music, Gospel Music Channel is America's favorite channel for uplifting entertainment.
• Logo: Appealing to a broad range of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender viewers and their friends and family, Logo features a vast library of major film titles, documentaries, and quality original shows and specials.
• RFD-TV: Devoted to rural issues, concerns, and interests, much of the programming of RFD-TV is concerned with the culture of farming and agriculture.
• TV Games: The leading horse racing television network in the U.S

       Adding these networks expands our already strong reach on DIRECTV, which includes networks such as the TV Guide Network, Fox Business Network, Current TV, and more. Along with our previously announced operator partners including Dish Network, Verizon FiOS, and ViaMedia, Google TV Ads now offers the ability to reach up to 35M households across the US.

For more information on how to get started with Google TV Ads, visit www.google.com/tvads today.

Posted by Sanjeev Das, Software Engineer, Google TV Ads

*Network descriptions sourced from the Cable Advertising Bureau

Earlier this year we announced a strategic inventory agreement with Viamedia, a provider of advertising sales services to some of the fastest growing cable and telco operators in the US. Today we are pleased to announce that we have completed integration of Viamedia’s two million households into the Google TV Ads platform, making inventory available on 64 networks across their operator partners. With this integration, the household reach of Google TV Ads has now nearly tripled since the beginning of the year.

For those customers that already have Google TV Ads campaigns up and running, there’s nothing you need to do at this time. When eligible, your campaigns will automatically include Viamedia inventory, maximizing reach while staying within your desired budgets.

For more information or to learn more about advertising with Google TV Ads, visit www.google.com/tvads.

Posted by Kevin Buskirk, Technical Account Manager, Google TV Ads

We’ve all heard the old adage about not knowing which 50% of your advertising is wasted. Well, TV advertisers often tell us this is absolutely true. And with the proliferation of online ad formats that are highly targeted and measurable, the impact of TV ads can feel even more abstract by comparison. It doesn't help that typical TV buys are often slow to provide data, and that data is often very limited.

The good news is that TV advertising technology has been advancing rapidly, helping advertisers better understand how TV helps them achieve their marketing objectives. Platforms like Google TV Ads are bringing targeting, measurement and speed to TV like never before. Unfortunately, too many advertisers don’t know these solutions exist.

It’s time that changed. To that end, we’re excited to announce the launch of an advertising campaign to spread the word about Google TV Ads and its ability to make your TV buy smarter.

If you frequent sites like AdAge or MediaPost, you are likely to see our campaign over the next couple of months.  You can also check out our new campaign website at google.com/smarterTVads.

Posted by Eric Meyerson, Head of TV and Video Ads Marketing 

We announced our partnership with DIRECTV this past summer, and this week we completed integration to extend the reach of Google TV Ads into 30M homes, soon to grow to 35M. Partnering with DIRECTV, the largest satellite provider and second largest TV distributor in the US, enables us to offer multi-distributor airings on Bloomberg Television, Cartoon Network (West), Centric, Chiller, Current TV, Discovery Fit and Health, Fox Business, Fuel, Ovation, Sleuth and TV Guide across all dayparts, every day.

We're excited about what this enables for advertisers -- more reach, across more operators with no additional work. We'll automatically make sure your ads air across distributors including DIRECTV to maximize the reach on each of your targets while staying within your budgets. We're working quickly to integrate our Verizon FiOS and ViaMedia partnerships to elevate reach to 35M homes, or almost one-third of TV viewing homes in the US.

Extending Your Reach with Google TV Ads 
Increasing the reach of your TV campaigns across this new inventory is a simple process: target any of the networks where we have DIRECTV inventory, and your campaign will be eligible for airings across all of our partners including DIRECTV. It has never been easier to buy airings across multiple operators while reaching a targeted and measurable national audience.

We’re thrilled to continually add reach for our advertisers and work with a growing number of committed partners. Stay tuned for future announcements and learn more about Google TV Ads at our website: www.google.com/tvads.

Posted by Trevor O'Brien, Product Manager for Google TV Ads

Posted by Jody Shapiro, Product Manager for Google TV Ads

2011 is proving to be a big year for video, both online and offline. In fact, TV viewing in the US has held steady at an average of 5 hours per day while online video usage surged by 45% this year to over 4 hours per month.* Video consumption is positioned to only continue growing as consumers crave more information and entertainment across numerous devices.

Naturally, this trend increases the importance of video for businesses, but we know that getting started with video advertising can be a formidable challenge. First and foremost, how do you create a compelling and effective video ad on a reasonable budget?

That’s why we’re excited to announce Google’s extended partnership with SpotMixer which allows Google AdWords and TV Ads customers to create custom ads absolutely free of charge. Your ads can be aired across TV and online video sites as many or as few times as you wish. This offer represents our increased commitment to advertisers who want to leverage video to increase brand awareness and ROI.

Integrated directly into Google AdWords, SpotMixer provides a simple and powerful ad creation tool that takes your existing AdWords campaigns and converts text ads into a tailored video or TV ad. From there, select from a variety of professional templates which set the pacing, transitions, effects and design of the ad. SpotMixer also provides a full gallery of stock images, videos and music in addition to allowing the use of your own photos, text, and logos.

Viola, you now have a custom ad for use across Google TV Ads and Google’s Display Network including YouTube.

Already have a TV or video ad? Upload it directly into SpotMixer to edit the entire ad or just select parts to improve aesthetics and effectiveness. Once you’re done, SpotMixer will provide the correctly timed formatted file to download onto your computer then upload directly into your Google TV Ads or AdWords ad library.

Imagine the power of this free tool which allows 100% of your budget to go straight to your media plan rather than ad creative.

Test different calls to action
•  Customize different ads for your various target segments (for example, customize one ad version for female consumers and another for male)
• Get specific in your tracking -- build ads with different phone numbers and tracking URLs to test effectiveness of different media placements
• Run seasonal ads throughout the year

Create integrated campaigns
• Create :15 and :30 versions of your ad to run on TV and online
• Try bookending with two :15 seconds ads

The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination and business goals. Find SpotMixer in your AdWords account in two ways:
Via Google TV Ads campaign page -- select ‘New Ad’ and click on the link to SpotMixer
Via Google AdWords -- select ‘New Ad’ and access SpotMixer via the Video and Audio section of Display Ad Builder.

2011 promises to be an exciting year for video advertising and along with our partners at SpotMixer, we hope these tools put you on the path to success.

*Nielsen Three Screens Report, Q1 2010 and Nielsen Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.), January 2011


Post by Neha Mandal, Product Marketing Manager for Google TV Ads

Founded in 1985, SelectQuote.com pioneered an impartial, pressure-free way to shop for term life insurance from competing insurance companies. The company has long since utilized television to drive awareness and inbound queries but in 2008, it added Google TV Ads to its media mix to enhance those efforts.

“Right out of the gate, we saw positive results -- lots of incremental calls and efficient media costs,” says Kim Terrill, director of broadcast media for SelectQuote.com. However, Kim admits that tracking had become challenging with over 25 unique phone numbers mapping to various ads. SelectQuote decided to simplify and use just one phone number even though that meant not being able to track which networks were bringing in which calls.

Around this time, Google TV Ads began experimenting with its call attribution feature which automates the analysis and attribution of incoming customer calls and produces reports detailing call metrics for each spot aired. Using Google technology, the feature analyzes and understands which ad drove which calls, even if multiple ads drive viewers to the same phone number. After SelectQuote's call logs were uploaded into the system, Google matched incoming calls with aired spots based on date, time, historical call volumes and a host of other factors. "We started to see trends and were able to identify the targets that brought in the highest and lowest cost-per-lead (CPL) on a consistent basis, Kim notes. "I could adjust my budgets and bids at anytime based on this data to easily manage to a desirable CPL.”

Google expands operator footprint in the start of 2011 with 18 cable providers, 68 networks, and 2M additional homes

We’re excited to start off 2011 with a strategic agreement that continues to grow the reach of Google TV Ads. Our newest inventory partner, Viamedia, is a provider of advertising sales services to partners including 18 of the top 30 cable operators in the US. By partnering with Viamedia, Google adds 2 million homes to the TV Ads system on 68 popular cable networks across 18 cable operators.

This continued growth of our platform means 35 million cable, satellite, and telco homes in the US are now integrated into Google TV Ads. Our platform now offers 1,200 GRPs and 1.5 billion available impressions each week for advertisers to target through one simple interface.

Both Viamedia and Google are forward-looking in our approach to television advertising, making this a natural collaboration. We are thrilled to to welcome our new partners and offer our advertisers greater reach across the television universe.

Posted by Mark Piesanen, Strategic Partner Development for Google TV Ads