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Google TV Ads Power Users Series - Part 2 of 3

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 | 6:02 PM

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We’re back with another installment of our power users series, where we unveil advanced features and tips that can help advertisers better manage and optimize their TV campaigns. Today, we’ll cover some newer features that are designed to give advertisers more control over where and how ads air within a given campaign. More control is always a good thing, right?

For those of you who have already run several Google TV Ads campaigns, you may have experienced certain campaigns being over-saturated on a couple of networks. Because our auction optimizes for efficiency and value, advertisers may find that their campaign delivers more frequency on a few networks rather than spreading evenly over all of your selected targets. There are now two advanced settings that allow more control over reach and frequency. Within the ‘Settings’ tab of your campaigns, select ‘I prefer my ads aired more often on the national networks’ which will direct the system to try winning spots on our largest national partners first. Note that with this setting, you are opting for a larger reach rather than frequency or efficiency.

The second advanced setting that falls into this bucket is also within the ‘Settings’ tab. Choosing ‘I prefer my ads spread more evenly across networks and times’ will attempt to optimize for reach within your targets. Rather than allowing the auction to accumulate as many of the most efficient spots as possible, this setting assumes that you would rather pay a bit more to have a larger reach across a more varied set of networks and dayparts.


Often times, advertisers want to target specific programs, but have strict daypart restrictions; a situation that was previously tricky to solve for as it required manual blocking of programs that fall within undesirable dayparts. We recently released a feature that makes this much easier and more efficient for advertisers. Just like you can select flights dates for a campaign, you can now choose to simply block specific days and times, also through the ‘Settings’ tab of any campaign. Once you’ve blocked time periods at the campaign level, you are free to target any networks and programs you wish, and our system will ensure that you never air during restricted times!


Finally, you can now block Paid Programming uniformly across an entire campaign. This may not always be the best option if Paid Programming is efficient and produces a positive ROI on your campaigns. However, if you know such content is ineffective, you can now universally block that content from any campaign within the ‘Settings’ tab.


Now that you’re armed with more controls and better targeting capabilities, we hope that you will achieve even greater success using Google TV Ads. Check back next week with our third and final installment of the Power Users series.


Posted by Katie Mason, Associate Account Manager for Google TV Ads

ooVoo and Gotham Direct Prove that TV Drives Online Activity

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 | 4:19 PM

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These days, people are consuming more media than ever before. Consumers continue to spend hundreds of hours per month watching TV, but are increasingly surfing the internet at the same time. Marketers are wondering: does television impact online activity? Recently, we worked with video conference provider ooVoo and its agency Gotham Direct to answer that exact question. To find out the extent to which television advertising drives online activity, ooVoo launched its first TV campaign through Google TV Ads from October 2008 - January 2009 while closely monitoring website traffic, downloads and ooVoo-related search queries.

Read our in-depth case study and watch our video to learn more. We've also included a summary of our findings below.



Impact on Web Traffic
ooVoo and Gotham Direct utilized Google Analytics to track unique visitors to ooVoo's main site and download page during the time their campaigns were running. From the figures below, we found a steady increase in direct hits (those who typed the URL directly into the browser) as the number of TV impressions increased. We measured nearly a 500% increase in web traffic compared to the pre-campaign traffic.



The chart above shows the number of unique hits to ooVoo.com (blue dots), overlaid with our predictive model of cumulative TV impressions (solid red line) along with 95% confidence bands (gray). Our holiday-adjusted model shows a strong relationship betweenooVoo's TV campaign and increase in website traffic.

Branded Search Query Growth
We also used search query data (Google searches containing “ooVoo” related keywords) to measure the effect ooVoo's TV ads had on search behavior. In the figures below, we observed an immediate tripling in query volume after the TV campaign started in early October.


This chart shows daily TV impressions overlaid with the volume of ooVoo-related Google searches. Search queries were relatively flat prior to the TV Campaign beginning, and increased steadily during the TV campaign.

ooVoo and Gotham Direct were able to use data to prove that television is incredibly effective in driving viewers online to learn more about what they saw on TV. “Substantiating the theory that TV does drive people online brings a new dimension to the power of television,” says Shattuck Groome, managing partner at Gotham Direct. “This is what it means to bring clients accountability and value for every marketing dollar spent.”

To learn more about these results and how others are finding success with Google TV Ads, visit our website at www.google.com/tvads.

Senior Quantitative Analyst for Google TV Ads

Set-top box data reveals learnings about network audiences

Friday, May 1, 2009 | 12:32 PM

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Google TV Ads recently launched an audience data reporting feature which allows advertisers to better understand if their ads reach their desired audience using anonymous set-top box data in combination with anonymized demographic and marketing data from such companies as Equifax and Nielsen. As our advertisers have been learning about who is watching their ads, here at Google we have done some analysis of our own in order to better understand what types of audiences are watching what shows.

We've found that sometimes the audience that you'd expect is watching a certain program or network, but other times intuition can be a poor guide in matching television viewers and the programming that interests them -- that's where data can be useful. Here are a few interesting and suprising examples we'd like to share.

Skiers are looking for excitement
We learned that skiers are found in a greater proportion on BBC America's Top Gear, a long-running series about cars, than on Tru TV's Ski Patrol, a show that follows ski patrolmen and their daring rescues of skiers and snowboarders. So while an advertiser can certainly reach skiers on Ski Patrol, one can also reach them through programming one might not naturally think of. Google TV Ads data helps advertisers discover previously overlooked networks and programs to reach their audiences.

Chefs prefer travel to interior design
We also learned a bit about gourmet chefs and their TV viewing habits. Would food aficionados be more drawn to programming on home design or travel? Foodies care a lot about their kitchens, but they are always on the look out for new recipes from other countries. Bottom line -- it's hard to say. Our analysis showed that in fact the Travel Channel reaches a higher proportion of those interested in gourmet cooking than HGTV. Data settles the debate.

Same network, different audience
A given network does not reach the same audience all the time. We looked at the gender breakdown of households watching TNT during a certain week. Monday night attracted 60% more women only households than men only households while the scenario was reversed on Thursday with 20% more men than women watching the network. This suggests that it is important to know what shows you're advertising on; buying spots broadly across a given network may not always give you access to your target audience.

Learning from these insights
We're intrigued by what we're learning from the set-top box data and thrilled to see advertisers using the data to identify where their ads should run to best reach their desired audience. By focusing investment on reaching right viewers, advertisers can get more out of their campaigns.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Marketing Analyst for Google TV Ads

Media Planners Gather to Learn More About Google's Products

Monday, March 16, 2009 | 2:50 PM

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Last week we hosted Video View, Google's first event designed specifically for the media planning community, in our New York offices. This event brought together over 200 media planners and executives from the agency world to learn more about Google TV Ads, the Google Content Network, and YouTube. Themes that emerged from the event focused on: targeting your audience with precision and the growing convergence between online and offline media.

Marketing the President
To kick-off the event, keynote speaker Jim Margolis, senior strategist to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, talked about the importance of consistency in driving a message to consumers, as well as the significance of media convergence in reaching your audience. "We embraced technology from the very start… what we did online and what we did on traditional media such TV had to go together, and if it was to work then they had to feed off each other," Margolis said. He also discussed the campaign's strategy in harnessing new technologies such as cell phones and YouTube to organize voters young and old.

Reaching Your Audience With Google TV Ads
The TV Ads team focused on how to do more with less in this challenging economy. Matt Derella, a senior sales manager from the TV Ads team, talked about how to use audience search and program targeting features on Google TV Ads to reach your target customer more efficiently. Matt said: "You plan in IMAX, knowing everything about your target customer. But you are forced to activate in black and white. With Google TV Ads, you can plan and activate in IMAX, and target who you're looking for."

The 2009 Google Video View Summit gave attendees a unified view of how Google can help them reach their audience efficiently using the strength of Google TV Ads, Google Content Network, and YouTube. You can learn more about our event at the Video View brand channel: http://www.youtube.com/videoview09.

Posted by Deeksha Hebbar for Google TV Ads

Google TV Ads Summit Brings Together Industry Leaders to Discuss Innovation in TV Advertising

Monday, February 2, 2009 | 2:15 PM

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Last week, we hosted the 2nd annual Google TV Ads Summit in Google's New York offices. This event brought together over 200 industry professionals, thought leaders and executives from the world of TV advertising and media. We've posted a highlight reel and photos from the event to give you an an inside look. Themes that emerged from the event focused on: doing more with less, using data to make decisions and utilizing new media to continue connecting with audiences beyond television.

New Economy Brings New Mindset
To kick-off the event, keynote speaker Kim Kadlec, Chief Media Office of Johnson & Johnson urged the audience to embrace the new economy and learn to do more with less. "This environment gives us the opportunity to automate some parts of media planning and buying, in order to activate more overall sales," Kadlec said. She believes that fear is a choice, and she urged the audience to embrace the changing environment to find ways of driving business forward.

Data Rules
It was clear from many conversations that making data driven decisions is becoming increasingly important. Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC Universal said: "We would like to deliver what our advertisers want. Set top boxes are the treasure trove for all of us." A panel focusing on response-focused advertising stressed the vital need for more data and information. Greg Smith, COO of Neo@Ogilvy said, "Our clients are not asking us to re-invent ourselves...but they certainly are asking for more insight from the data."

New Platforms, New Possibilities
Leaders on the cutting edge from YouTube, blip.tv, Joost and VivaKi discussed the convergence of offline and online video, a hot topic of the night. Jack Klues, Managing Partner at VivaKi noted, "Advertisers are prepared to spend money on the right target, right program, right time regardless of the absolute audience size." Panelists agreed that audience viewing habits are changing radically, and advertisers should take advantage of new scalable media like online video to augment TV ad reach.

Jeff Zucker also commented on NBC Universal's partnership with Google TV Ads: "We're really proud to be doing what we're doing with Google...The way we've done business for the last 25 years has got to continue to evolve."

The 2009 Google TV Ads Summit truly opened up the conversation on innovation and gave attendees a unique glimpse into the TV industry. We hope you will check out event highlights captured in the video below.



Posted by Neha Mandal for Google TV Ads

Conference Spotlight: ERA @ Las Vegas, NV

Friday, October 3, 2008 | 4:51 PM

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Last week, Googlers headed out to Las Vegas to talk one thing...direct response (DR). Team members from Google TV, Print and Audio were on hand to speak to the thousands of attendees at the Electronic Retailing Association (ERA) convention. It was truly thrilling to meet so many marketers who were interested in and open to new ways of buying and tracking their media.

While most of us were busy meeting new folks at our booth, Bruce Falck, Head of Audio Ads, and Grace Davis of TV Ads, participated on two very interesting panels. Here are some of the highlights:

In the Radio Council session, "The Sourcing Challenge: How to Know Where Your Website Traffic is Coming From," participants discussed the growing number of consumers who are using the Internet to research purchase decisions. As offline channels continue to be significant drivers of online activity, attribution for driving consumer action online is a key challenge that must be addressed.

Bruce highlighted the innovative steps Google is taking towards providing advertisers with better measurement of their radio campaigns and consumer response. One tool that can help you start to develop insights into the source of your consumer response is our Traditional Media Effectiveness Tracking Page.

At the panel entitled, "DRTV 3.0: How Advanced Advertising Technologies are Reshaping DRTV," Grace Davis from Google TV Ads spoke directly to DR advertisers' main concern-- driving positive return on investment (ROI)-- and explained how Google TV Ads helps to do exactly that. The flexibility of Google TV Ads makes it easy to test and optimize for ROI, because advertisers can easily experiment with new networks and dayparts to find the most efficient inventory.

Learn how Carat Fusion, a DR agency, has been using Google TV Ads to increase ROI for their clients in this success story video.

Thanks to all of you who joined us at ERA, and we look forward to seeing you at upcoming industry events!

Posted by Hayeon Kim, Marketing Manager for Google Audio Ads

Ad Lengths Deliver on Different Objectives

Friday, September 19, 2008 | 11:10 AM

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With Google TV Ads, you can choose to air a 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, or 120-second ad. But which length is right for your message?

We analyzed data from millions of anonymized set-top boxes to compare how different ad lengths impact the number of impressions (views) an ad receives.
The chart below shows four different ad lengths along the horizontal x-axis (15-, 30-, 45- and 60-second) with the corresponding level of impressions on the vertical y-axis ("Baseline Impressions" represents the number of impressions received by a 15-second ad):


(Click on the image for a full-size version)

This analysis shows that a 60-second ad reaches only about 4% more viewers than a 15-second ad. Therefore, a longer ad doesn't necessarily buy more viewers -- it buys roughly the same viewers, but for more time.

If you have a complex message, you can use longer ads to engage viewers for a greater period of time. But if you want to maximize reach with a less complex message, you'll benefit from spreading out more frequent, shorter ads.

Posted by Dan Zigmond, Technical Lead for Google TV Ads

Insights from TV Tuning Behavior Data

Friday, July 25, 2008 | 4:08 PM

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This is the first post in a series we'll share throughout the year featuring insights we've derived from data on television audience tuning behavior.

Each week, Google processes data from millions of anonymized set-top boxes (STBs), including which channels each STB was tuned to, second-by-second. This data is provided by our partner, EchoStar. We're then able to provide advertisers with next-day reports of how many impressions were delivered to each ad airing, as well as tuning metrics, such as what percentage of the audience stayed tuned to their ad from beginning to end.

We've been looking at this data since before Google TV Ads launched, and have learned some interesting things about how viewers engage with TV commercials. The first thing we've learned is that on average, between 5-15% of viewers tune away from a channel as soon as a commercial break begins. The chart below shows the percentage of the total audience tuned to a given channel before, during and after a commercial break:

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

The section labeled from "Begin" to "End" shows the duration of the commercial break, and the section highlighted in gray shows when one particular commercial actually aired. We can see that about 4.5% of the audience tunes away almost as soon as the break starts, and another 0.5% or so leave during the commercials. You can see from the gray section on the chart labeled "Ad Airing" that about 0.5% of the audience left during this particular commercial.

So if such a small percentage of viewers tune away during commercials, why should we care about what they do? Well, behavior during commercials generally follows a very consistent and predictable pattern. So when viewers tune away from an ad, they are voting with their remote controls. These "votes" can be useful information, because they might tell us when viewers aren't finding certain ads interesting or relevant, and they bring us closer to understanding when TV ads are relevant to viewers. The animation below shows how many STBs tuned away from a commercial during each of the 30 seconds an ad aired. Each image in the animation is an average of all airings during one of the first 10 weeks of 2008. The peak tune-away is at second three, after which the tune-away rate gradually declines. This basic shape is remarkably consistent. If we look at the average per-second tune-away for all commercial week-by-week, we see very little change to the overall pattern.

(Click on the image to see animation)

Many factors affect audience behavior, including the nature of the programming, the time of day, the day of week, and, of course, the personality of each viewer. But ads themselves can also have an impact. If we could ensure that viewers were seeing only the advertising messages most relevant to them, everyone would benefit.

Posted by Dan Zigmond, Technical Lead for Google TV Ads