Every week we’ll be providing a brief update on the latest Google product and feature updates relevant to our agency partners. To see past updates, look for the “This Week in Product Updates” label.

What happens when you give creative minds a video camera? A one-of-a-kind album launch that brought together up and coming performers with the world renowned band, Weezer -- and separately, 125 exceptional online video talents vying for a place at the Guggenheim Museum. Read on for creative inspiration, as well as critical updates on the Keyword Tool and Bid Simulator, additional holiday planning resources, and details of Google Health’s new look.

Tip of the week

• Being in the holiday spirit (is it really only September?), we'd like to share that the videos from this summer's ThinkHoliday event are now on YouTube. Take a peek for tactics and learnings to help you prepare for this year's holiday shopping season.
  

Search

• New Keyword Tool Update: We’ve discontinued access to the previous version of the Keyword Tool in favor of the new Keyword Tool. The new version contains a number of additional benefits including Search-based Keyword Tool functionality, flexible search options, and enhanced filtering. It is the default keyword tool in the AdWords interface, and is also accessible outside of AdWords.
• New Bid Simulator Metric: We will soon be adding a new metric to the AdWords Bid Simulator called "estimated top impressions,” representing the estimated number of impressions your ad would have received in the top position above the Google.com search results (vs the right hand side of the page) had you used different bids. For more information, success stories and more, please refer to the Help Center.
  

Display

• YouTube Homepage & Promoted Videos: Clients big and small can now get their time in the spotlight with ads on the YouTube homepage with Promoted Video Ads. A few days each quarter, we open up the YouTube homepage to Promoted Video advertisers. With homepage exposure of roughly 45 million impressions and 18 million unique visitors a day in the U.S., you and your clients can make a big splash. Be sure to read up on all the ways your ads can show up on the homepage, should the opportunity arise.
• Behind the scenes of Weezer's new album launch: Guest blogger Ben Patterson of DashGo gives us a behind the scenes look at how Weezer creatively used YouTube for its new album launch, and the reach of this campaign.
  

TV

• Fall line-up for Google TV Ads. Episode 1: Reaching more potential customers: For the next 4 weeks, the TV ads team will be sharing tips and resources. In this week's episode - Generate demand for your brand and drive online actions with Google TV Ads. In conjunction with online campaigns, Google TV Ads enables you to run a highly efficient, fully integrated marketing campaign, reaching your offline audience with ultimate precision. See how Gotham Direct increased traffic to ooVoo.com by 500% with Google TV Ads.
  

Did You Know?

• This Week in Search, 9.17.10 Edition: Check out This Week in Search to see recent enhancements when searching for media, such as director and cast links in movie search results, the Google Beat and more.
• Google Heath, the Power is Yours: As consumers look to take control over their heath, Google Health has become a central place online to store and share medical data. Based on your feedback, we are proud to announce the Google Heath redesign, including an easier-to-use dashboard, more focus on wellness goals and more. We’ve also formed new partnerships with device and mobile apps developers so there’s nothing holding you back!
• Shortlist for YouTube Play announced: Earlier this year we announced YouTube Play, a joint initiative with YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum, in collaboration with HP, to discover and showcase exceptional online video talent. We received 23K submissions from 91 countries, and narrowed the field down to 125, 20 of which will be selected for display at the Guggenheim Museums in NYC, Berlin, Bilbao and Venice from October 22-24, 2010, as well as on the YouTube Play channel. Be sure to check out the shortlist here.
• New security feature for orgs using Google Apps: In order to increase the security of the cloud, we announced a free, two-step verification process for Google Apps Premier, Education and Government Edition users. We'll be rolling this out to all Apps users in the coming months. Visit the Google Enterprise Blog for the complete announcement.
  

Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Team

We'll be at SMX East in New York City from October 4-6, 2010. Our booth (number 325!) will include representatives from Google AdWords, AdSense and Analytics, Mobile Ads, TV, YouTube and Webmaster Tools.

In addition, we have speakers in 9 sessions or workshops, including:

• Othar Hannson, Senior Staff Software Engineer, on "Google Instant’s Impact On SEO & User Behavior"
• Jeremy Hylton, Software Engineer, on the panel "The Real Time & Social Search Landscape"
• Jesse Haines, Group Marketing Manager, Google Mobile Ads, on the panel "Mobile Search Ads"
• Baris Gultekin, Group Product Manager, Google AdWords, on "Google's Keyword Research Tools"

Be sure to enter the discount code smx10google to save 10% on the cost of your event pass.

Posted by Amanda Matuk, Events Team

Cristina is a person who interacts with media all day long. In the morning, she browses beauty sites before biking to work. Over lunch, she reads a Colombian newspaper to check in on the results of the presidential elections, and then texts her friend about dinner plans from her iPhone. She searches for restaurant recommendations, meets her friends at the restaurant, and finally goes home to watch her favorite telenovelas. Connected with technology and her culture, Cristina is a modern Latina, proud of being Hispanic and American at the same time.

Why should marketers care about Cristina, and others like her? Hispanics are the fastest growing US population, and their buying power is projected to reach $1.4T by 2013¹. Hispanics are also coming online extremely quickly: the total time Hispanics spent online grew by 6.9% in 2009², 3.9 times faster than the general market rate.

To connect with Hispanics like Cristina online, it’s important to understand a few key myths about the market.

Myth #1: I need to have a Spanish-language website in order to market to Hispanics.
While 22% of Hispanics speak only Spanish and another third prefer it, most US Hispanics are comfortable with English³ and feel that English sites are more comprehensive⁴. While a Spanish-language website can be an asset, it won’t make or break the success of your campaign so long as you think carefully about your message and present a compelling value proposition on your site.

Myth #2: The return on investment from Hispanic marketing isn’t big enough.
Hispanic advertising campaigns are often more cost-effective than main-market campaigns. Online CPCs and CPMs tend to be much cheaper due to low competition, and Hispanics are actually more likely than their general market counterparts to take action based on search and banner ads⁵. Moreover, over half of online Hispanics complete a purchase at least once a month⁶, so direct response marketers can engage as deeply as brand builders can.

Myth #3: My general market campaign covers the Hispanic market.
Hispanics may be comfortable with English content, but marketers are missing the opportunity to win Hispanics’ loyalty if they use their general market campaign as a catch-all. Hispanics value their identity, and 66% of US Hispanics appreciate being marketed to in a culturally relevant way⁷. A recent campaign by Ford demonstrated how bilingual marketing can improve sales: Ford’s marketing team doubled the incremental lift of their English creative when they rolled out dual-language, culturally relevant creative⁸ in a recent direct mail campaign.

Interested in learning more about Hispanics in the US? Email multicultural@google.com to stay in touch, and keep an eye out for fresh primary research in Q4 and Q1.

Posted by Meghan Sherlock, US Hispanic Specialist

[1] Selig Center for Economic Growth, Terry College of Business, The University of Georgia. "The Multicultural Economy 2008." January 2009.
[2] Comscore, April 2009. “U.S. Hispanic Internet Audience Growth Outpaces Total U.S. Online Population by 50 Percent.”
[3] Juan Tornoe. “Hispanic Marketing Is Not Spanish Marketing.” http://nglc.biz/2010/07/22/hispanic-marketing-is-not-spanish-marketing/. July 2010. http://advertising.aol.com/sites/default/files/webfm/research/HispanicCyberStudy-2010.pdf.
[4] AOL Hispanic Cyberstudy. 2010.
[5] “Search ads”: ARAnet Adfusion survey conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, provided by eMarketer, March 16 2009. “Banner ads”: eMarketer. “US Internet Users Likely to Read And Take Action After Viewing Banner Ads, by Race/Ethnicity.” June 2009.
[6] RTO Online, Hispanic Internet Usage Report, February 2009.
[7] Alvaro Cabrera, Executive Director of Integration at Diest, Inc. June 25, 2009. “10 Things You Should Know About US Hispanics.” http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2009/06/10-things-you-should-know-about-us-hispanics.html.
[8] Deliver Magazine. August 2010. “Talk, Don’t Translate.”

Software development often occurs inside a sandbox, defined as a confined virtual environment in which one or several developers can freely and safely experiment with untested code and new technologies. Just like children making castles inside a playground sandbox, software developers are able to build, tear down, and start all over again, without worrying about harming existing stable tools and platforms.

Many of the teams at Google have applied the sandbox mentality to advertising experimentation, encouraging agencies, marketers, and ourselves to think beyond what's expected. While this can sometimes be a daunting task, we've found that regularly communicating new technologies and platforms to our partners, with the goal of inviting experimentation, can produce wondrous results. We've just released a video version of Creative Canvas, our annual compilation of the best, most innovative awesomeness in marketing. The video celebrates exciting work created by a broad spectrum of agencies and clients, utilizing the YouTube API, Google Maps, Google Moderator, and much more. Many of these campaigns are the result of a fervent and enduring commitment to experimentation and risk-taking.

You can't build a castle if you're not willing to roll up your sleeves. So get in there, just play nice.

Posted by Janine Gianfredi, Agency Marketing Manager

In early August, we announced that the updated Keyword Tool was nearing the end of its beta phase. Today, we wanted to let you know that we’ve fully launched the updated Keyword Tool.

What does that mean for you? It means we’ve combined the best features from two previous keyword tools into one. The previous Keyword Tool and Search-based Keyword Tool are no longer available in AdWords. The updated Keyword Tool is now the only Keyword Tool available in AdWords, so you can now simply call it “The Keyword Tool.”

The Keyword Tool’s benefits include:

• Flexible search options: Search by any combination of keyword, website/URL, and category (where available) and receive a single set of results.
• Easy Keyword Refinement: Filter results by word or keyword match type.
• Negative keywords: Easily add keyword ideas as negatives right from your keyword list. Just click on a keyword and use the drop-down menu to select and save your negative keyword.
• Advanced options: View statistics for mobile search and use data filters based on local searches, search and ad share, and more.

In addition to these improvements, we’ve also changed how we calculate Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches. Statistics in these columns are now based on Google.com search traffic only. Previously, they also included traffic from search partners. We've updated these statistics based on advertiser feedback, and hope you find them more helpful for keyword selection.

While we recommend using the Keyword Tool while signed in to AdWords, you can also access the tool without signing in. We hope you like the new streamlined version of the tool and we look forward to bringing you more features soon.

Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager

Last week, YouTube and SEMPO hosted a social marketing panel, "How to run a successful social campaign," for SEMPO's San Francisco and Los Angeles working groups. The panel featured speakers from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Athena East, and highlighted the unique products available to marketers, and best practices for executing measurable, impactful social advertising strategies.

Derek Gordon of Yield Software was there, and shared what he learned in today's Mediapost Search Insider column.

Click here for his complete update.

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Did you know that a user spends an average of just eight seconds on a website before deciding whether to stick around (Marketing Sherpa)? If you’re an e-commerce site, this means you have to be faster than Usain Bolt - the world record-holder for the 100m dash.

Next week, find out how Google can help you capitalize on those eight seconds and improve your online shopping experience. Visit the Google Commerce Search team at Shop.org’s Annual Summit, held in Dallas, Texas from September 27 - 29.

If your organization plans to attend the show, be sure to visit Google in Booth #120 and attend the Big Ideas session Wednesday at 12:45 PM featuring Nitin Mangtani of Google Enterprise, who will be speaking about search insights for today’s e-commerce technology.

The Google Commerce Search team will be joined by Product Search, AdWords, and the Google Affiliate Network. We can’t wait to show you the many different ways we can help your business.

Posted by Guillaume De Zwirek, Google Commerce Search team

Every week we’ll be providing a brief update on the latest Google product and feature updates relevant to our agency partners. To see past updates, look for the “This Week in Product Updates” label.

When my husband and I adopted our two cats, Rambo and Chuck Norris, I half-jokingly gave him Cats for Dummies to help him with the adjustment. Little did I know that he would read it cover-to-cover, and implement the training tactics exactly as instructed. What resulted, though, was nothing short of a miracle - cats that don’t scratch furniture.

You may ask, “Why are you telling me this?” Because, Google just released a “for Dummies” guide, and if a “for Dummies” guide works for cats, it can surely work for conversions.

In addition, be sure to check out the updates on monthly charging limits for unchanged budgets, a new CPG whitepaper and Google Display Network campaign, and Google Earth’s new website.

Tips of the week

• Check out the new "Improving Online Conversions for Dummies Guide," which explains how to make sure clients' ads appear for searches most likely to convert to sales. Next, visit the YouTube Video Tool Box channel for tips and tricks for creating, improving and running video ads.
  

Search

• Monthly charging limits for unchanged budgets: Last week we introduced a monthly charging limit for campaigns automatically calculated based on daily budget, and will be rolling it out over the next several weeks. For the complete update, visit the Inside AdWords Blog. To learn more about this change, please see our FAQs on the monthly charging limit and on what happens when you change your budget.
• Global roll-out of AdWords Campaign Experiments: We're pleased to announce that AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE) has begun rolling out globally, and is now supported in the AdWords API. Visit the Inside AdWords Blog for the full announcement, as well as the AdWords API Blog for a complete update on AdWords API v201008.
  

Display

• Expandable templates now available in Display Ad Builder: We launched four new expandable templates in Display Ad Builder that allow you and your clients to show off more offers and product information. For more information on Display Ad Builder, visit the Google Display Network site, and click here to watch a demo.
• WATCH THIS SPACE: We're pleased to share the launch of a new campaign called "WATCH THIS SPACE," which talks about our vision for display advertising. Visit the Official Google Blog to hear what Neal Mohan, VP of Product Management, has to say about how we're simplifying display advertising, delivering better performance, and opening the display ecosystem. In addition, check out the campaign's website to learn more about what's happening in display advertising at Google and what's to come.
  

TV

• Broadcast your business through TV for All contest: We're pleased to announce the second annual TV for All contest, where small & medium businesses have the opportunity to win $25,000 in national advertising with Google TV Ads and online video partner sites, including YouTube. The full announcement can be found here, and contest rules are at www.youtube.com/tvforall.

Reporting & Analytics

• Changes to reporting in My Client Center: For My Client Center users, we're introducing a new interface for the Client Reports tab. Visit the Help Center for a complete list of updates, and the Inside AdWords Blog for additional details on migrating to the new interface.

Industry Resources

• Just released - CPG whitepaper on digital shopper marketing: Google's CPG Marketing team shared the release of a sponsored white paper titled "Clicking Through the Path to Purchase: Best Practices in Digital Shopper Marketing," authored by the In-Store Marketing Institute and in co-sponsorship with the digital shopper agency Catapult. The comprehensive report summarizes the rise of digital and examines various strategies like online couponing, search, social media, product reviews, mobile and more. A copy of the whitepaper is available here for download.
• New posts from our friends in Google Retail: Our friends over at the Google Retail Blog released 2 posts this week with valuable data for agencies working with retail clients. First, see what role search plays is researching purchases. Then, learn what the buzz is about for group buying sites.

In other news

• Take a “Trip” to Earth: Have you been traveling lately? To say, someplace like Earth? If not swing by because we’ve recently released Google Earth v5.2, and moved it to a brand new website all its own. The new digs include images, tours, tutorials and more. And, if you are en route, check on the 3D globe from your mobile phone.
• This Week in Efficiency: Love the auto completion of texting? Google Scribe brings this timesaver to documents. Based on what you’ve already typed, Google Scribe provides related word or phrase completion suggestions. What’s more, the suggestions also indicate correct or popular phrases to use. Interested in getting in on this keystroke saver? Download the Google Scribe Extension and find out how to activate the feature here.
  

Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Team

Editor's Note: Yesterday's post by guest blogger Ben Patterson of DashGo showed how the creativity of Weezer, combined with the power of YouTube, resulted in a successful album launch (with great traffic for rising artists to boot). Ben also provided details on the reach of this campaign, which he shares with us below:

From a media perspective, DashGo is 100% focused on what is typically called "digital marketing" but I prefer to just call "marketing." The web is where opinions and decisions are made today - especially for content. Reality TV isn't a success until it's "gone viral." Movie studios blame or applaud Twitter for opening weekend box office. Today you have to find an audience, they no longer find you. YouTube and the community of YouTubers offered my client, Weezer, an indie rock band, that opportunity.

Last week, Weezer launched their new album, Hurley. In addition to an untold number of news articles, the YouTube videos with Weezer got over 5 million video views within the first 24 hours. I believe that we were successful because Weezer was willing to step outside a comfort zone and that opened up their music to millions of people. Tracking trends on Twitter and Facebook showed thousands of mentions and tens of thousands of hits to the new Weezer.com. Best of all, the new album Hurley hit the top 10 on iTunes charts and #1 on Amazon MP3.

To see the full story, please visit yesterday's post or the Official YouTube Blog.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest blogger is Ben Patterson. Ben is the founder of DashGo, Inc. a digital marketing and distribution platform servicing music, video and podcast content. Clients include Weezer, This American Life and Delicious Vinyl. Last week Weezer launched its new album, Hurley, with the YouTube community.

This has been cross-posted from the Official YouTube Blog.

It all started at VidCon.

VidCon is an event I attended this past July. My company, DashGo, markets, distributes and manages catalogs for indie labels and bands, and the vast majority of our content is audio. VidCon was eye-opening: an army of YouTube content creators--some meeting for the first time following years of online sharing and collaboration--pumped energy into the room. In panel discussions, everyone credited their success to two entities: YouTube and other YouTube users.

One of my clients is Weezer, an alternative-rock band known for hits, including “Buddy Holly,” “Beverly Hills” and “Pork & Beans.” Weezer's always been a fan of innovation and collaboration and is no stranger to YouTube. Back in 2008, Weezer went on a Hootenanny tour, inviting fans to perform alongside them with whatever instruments they could play. Rivers Cuomo, lead singer, co-wrote a song with hundreds of YouTube content creators in a project called "Let's Write a Sawng." And, of course, Weezer invited a number of YouTube content creators to appear in their own "Pork and Beans" video, a video viewed over 20 million times.

Weezer was getting ready to launch their new album, Hurley. Our concept for the band this time was simple. Instead of inviting YouTube content creators to invade a Weezer video, we’d flip the tables. Rather than make our own video a needle in the haystack we decided to build a whole stack of needles. First we all asked our friends and co-workers about their favorite YouTube content creators. We asked fans on Twitter and Facebook who they liked on YouTube. Then I sent an email to the dozens of recommended YouTube content creators letting them know Weezer was interested in participating in their programs. Acting, performance, interview, make-up, comedy--whatever they wanted Weezer to do, Weezer was game.

The response was overwhelming, especially considering I sent the request out six days before shooting was to begin. Two weeks later, the shooting was done and each YouTube partner prepared his or her own video. Weezer wouldn't see anything until the videos went live on 9/14.

We were amazed by the range of creativity. The Gregory Brothers AutoTuned Weezer's "Memories." Weezer got to cover StSanders' "Kiss Shreds,” a band favorite, and the Magic Hugs guys brought them back to their days as a brand new band. Four of the videos made it into the Top 20 chart within 24 hours. We were also featured on YouTube’s Music Tuesday showcase.

Weezer reached more than 10 million folks if you count the aggregate number of subscribers of the participating content creators. That's more than triple the ratings of most late night talk shows. Ray William Johnson alone gets more viewers per episode than Comedy Central's Tosh.0. And best of all, the new album Hurley hit the top 10 on iTunes charts and #1 on Amazon MP3.

Of course, none of this would be possible without all of the content creators who invited Weezer into their channels. A huge thanks to them and their fans for letting Weezer into your house for the day. And we thought you’d enjoy this outtake:



Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, who recently watched “I spanked Weezer.”

We're pleased to announce that AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE) has begun rolling out globally. Whether you're looking to assess the impact of new keywords, different bids, or a new landing page, ACE lets you run split test experiments that deliver valid impact measurements regardless of changes in demand, competitor movements, or other sales and marketing activity that can complicate traditional before-and-after measurement approaches.

In addition, ACE is now supported in the AdWords API so developers can begin integrating this valuable feature into their AdWords applications. Visit the AdWords API blog for a quick snapshot of what’s available and stay tuned for a deeper dive on ACE for developers coming soon.

For additional information on ACE, check out the complete post on the Inside AdWords Blog and visit the Help Center FAQ. Not seeing it yet in your Campaign tab under settings? Hold tight - users outside the US should see it in a week or so.

Posted by Mark Martel, Product Marketing Manager

For those of you who use My Client Center (MCC) to manage your client accounts, we’re introducing a new interface for the Client Reporting tab. Over the last few months, we’ve developed a new reporting interface to help you get your reports faster, easier, and more securely. A complete list of updates is available in the AdWords Help Center.

For additional details on migrating to the new interface, visit the Inside AdWords Blog.

Note: these changes will only affect reporting for MCC users. If you use the AdWords Reports Center in an individual AdWords account, see our earlier post to learn about the reports that have moved to the Campaigns tab.

Posted by Jason Shafton, Product Marketing Manager

Every week we’ll be providing a brief update on the latest Google product and feature updates relevant to our agency partners. To see past updates, look for the “This Week in Product Updates” label.

With the school year now in full swing, nothing makes the transition easier and more fun than back-to-school supplies. This week’s update does just that - provides some great resources and updates to add to your digital pencil case, such as Google Instant, a new version of AdWords Editor, global research, and statistics in Blogger.

And if a teacher (or client) happens to stump you, just submit the question to Elmo - he’s always happy to help!

Search

• Just Launched - Google Instant: Last week we launched Google Instant, an innovative new Google.com interface that creates an interactive search experience for users by predicting their query as they type and instantly showing updated results. For a complete update on changes to the users' search experience, please visit the Official Google Blog. For details on how this may affect advertisers, visit the Inside AdWords Blog.
• New version of AdWords Editor now available for Windows and Mac: Last week we released the latest version of AdWords Editor, 8.0.1, for Windows and Mac, making it easier for you to manage your account and take advantage of location extensions. Visit the agency blog for the complete update.
  

Reporting & Analytics

• This week in AdWords Reporting: We've begun moving reports out of the Report Center and adding statistics and features to the Campaigns tab. Review the Inside AdWords blog post for helpful resources and new features, test out the functionality yourself, and send along your feedback.
  

Industry Resources

• Google AgencyLand Library has gone global: Global resources have now been added to The Library in Google AgencyLand. Download research Google has conducted with partners on campaign effectiveness and consumer behavior. Be inspired by creative examples and innovative media plans from advertisers across the pond. Search by country or filter by category to find the information you're looking for. Is your agency not yet on AgencyLand? Sign up here.

In other news

• Can you tell me how to get ...: Ever wonder how exactly to get to Sesame Street? Here’s your chance to ask! In partnership with Sesame Street, Elmo will answer your burning questions right on YouTube. Just upload your video question to the Moderator gadget on Sesame Street’s YouTube channel and vote on the ones you think Elmo should answer by September 15th. He’ll answer the top-voted questions in a few weeks.
• Get the 411 in Realtime: News junkies and social media mavens rejoice – Realtime Search has arrived. See up-to-the-second social updates, news articles and blog posts about hot topics around the world directly on the new Realtime homepage. You can pinpoint results by location, time, and more. Try it out and watch the informational video.
• Track that Blog: With Blogger Stats you’ll get a real time stats service that's fully integrated with Blogger. What’s more, you don't need to do anything to enable it – just look on the new Stats tab on your blog’s dashboard. Read up on all of the cool features to gain insight into your loyal (and perhaps not so loyal) followers.
• Five Years Later, Reflections of Katrina: For the 5th year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we highlighted a collection of videos on the YouTube homepage created by New Orleans area residents. In partnership with the New Orleans TV station ABC 26, we invited Gulf Coast region residents to reflect on the five years since Katrina and submit videos using YouTube Direct on ABC 26’s website. A selection of videos will also be featured on abc26.com, ABC 26’s YouTube channel, as well as a broadcast on ABC 26.
  

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Every week we’ll be providing a brief update on the latest Google product and feature updates relevant to our agency partners. To see past updates, look for the “This Week in Product Updates” label.

We worked up a storm heading into Labor Day, launching a bidding tools resource, YouTube channel and video exclusions, Analytics and mobile ads updates and Google Alerts in Realtime. Looking for a way to kick the back-to-work blues? Get moving to the Google Beat!

Search

• New resource - Conversion-based bid management tools: We developed a new guide outlining Google's conversion prediction technology, details of our advanced bid management products (Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC), and how to choose which product is best for you and your clients. You can download the resource here.

Display

• Ad Planner 1000, July 2010: The DoubleClick Ad Planner team released the July 2010 Ad Planner 1000. Visit the DoubleClick Advertiser Blog to learn more about seasonal trends that may impact the sites you choose to include in clients' media plans.
• YouTube Channel and Video Exclusions via AdWords: We launched video and channel exclusions in AdWords as way for you to prevent your clients’ ads from showing on specific channels and videos. Such targeting excludes may be beneficial for those clients interested in performance improvement or ensuring association with brand-appropriate content. For more details visit the Inside AdWords Blog.

Mobile

• New Development in Mobile Ads - Hyperlocal Ad Features: We rolled out a new advertising feature that gives hyperlocal distance information in search ad results on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. Ads show a marker with distance between the user and the business as well as the business address and phone number. Clients must have location extensions enabled and be opted in to iPhone and other mobile devices with full Internet browser to take advantage of this new format. Visit the Help Center and the Google Mobile Blog for more mobile updates.

Reporting & Analytics

• Updates - weighted sort and tools to debug tracking code: Last week the Google Analytics team released weighted sort, which allows you to weight sort on a computed metric by the number of data points, bringing you the most interesting and actionable rows first. In addition the team launched a debugging version of the Analytics Tracking code called ga_debug.js to verify tracking code setup. Visit the Google Analytics blog for the complete updates.

Industry Resources

• Think Holiday with Google webinar - deck now available: The deck from last month's "Think Holiday" webinar is now available for download on the Google Retail Blog. Take a look at what trends we're seeing, including an increase in private sales and group buying sites, the role of smartphones in the shopping landscape, and how new 'friends' engage with your brand.
• New POV on integrated DR marketing: We developed a POV in partnership with the digital agency Razorfish on how to approach the concept of quantifying online's impact on in-store sales. Visit the agency blog to learn more and download a copy.

In other news

• Hot off the Cyber-press: Now it’s even easier to stay in the know about topics important to you with Google Alerts in Realtime. You can create an alert specifically for “updates” to get an email the moment your topic appears on Twitter or other short-form services.
• Get the Google Beat: With data from Google Trends, Google Insights for Search and more, the Google Beat will gives you a snapshot of the topics that prompted people to turn to the web over the past week. Check out this week’s premier video and subscribe to the Google Beat YouTube channel.

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Today, we announced the launch of Google Instant, an innovative new Google.com interface that creates an interactive search experience for users by predicting their query as they type and instantly showing updated results.

This new interface applies to both search results and related ads. Therefore, we expect increased user engagement with our search services, including ads.

For a complete update on changes to the users' search experience, please visit the Official Google Blog. For details on how this may affect advertisers, visit the Inside AdWords Blog.

Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Team

In order to make it easier for you to manage your account and take advantage of location extensions, we’re releasing a new version of AdWords Editor, 8.0.1, for Windows and Mac.

AdWords Editor 8.0.1 now supports location extensions, our new and improved way to run local ads. To support this change, we've transitioned the local business ads in your AdWords account to ads that are compatible with location extensions, added the Extensions tab in the AdWords Editor interface, and removed the Local Business Ads tab. This new Extensions tab should help make it easy for you to create and manage your location extensions. Learn more.

To help you focus on just what you need when you’re managing your AdWords account, AdWords Editor 8.0.1 also introduces collapsible and expandable panels, progress bars for tasks that can take some time, improved adding of My Client Center accounts, simplified exception requests, and more helpful error messages.

To learn more about all of the new features in version 8.0.1, such as support for campaigns using target CPA and enhanced CPC bidding options, read the release notes.

If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically, as soon as it's available for you. After you install the new version, you’ll need to download your account again. To preserve your comments and unposted changes, select the 'Backup then Upgrade' option in the automatic upgrade prompt, then import the backup file after downloading the account. We’re launching version 8.0.1 to all users over the course of the next few weeks, so don’t worry if you don’t get it right away.

If you’re not using AdWords Editor, you can visit our website to download it. Find more information and answers to your AdWords Editor questions in our Help Center.

Originally posted to the Inside AdWords Blog.

Posted by Jason Shafton, Product Marketing Manager

While "top" lists are usually reserved for the end of the year, we've already reached two significant milestones in 2010, and wanted to share them with you at this "midway" point (or 2/3 point to be precise):

1. Happy 2nd Anniversary - back in March, the blog reached its second anniversary. We celebrated in style by giving it a makeover - sprucing up the right navigation bar with a shorter list of labels, links to content by job roles, a Twitter feed, and links to other useful Google blogs for the agency community. Have ideas on how to further improve the blog? Be sure to share them with us.
2. The blog hits 300...posts! - on August 6th, our post on SES San Francisco brought us to another milestone. 300 posts! That means we've been bringing you about 10.3 posts a month on topics ranging from product launches, upcoming events and trainings, best-in-class case studies and research, and quick tactics to improve account performance. Anything you'd like to see in the next 300 posts? Let us know!
   

And while we're on the topic of milestones, our friends over at the Fast.Forward. channel now have over a quarter million channel views (not to mention 1700+ videos from more than 185 companies). If you haven't visited the channel in a while, be sure to browse the newest videos, check out the latest consumer trends, access free tools to improve marketing performance, and through a short survey, share your perspectives on marketing spend.

Thank you for being loyal readers over the past 29 months. We look forward to continuing to share tips, tactics and stories with you to help you grow clients' accounts.

Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Team