As festive shoppers deck the halls earlier each year, putting their bargain detective hats on in search of products that provide the best value for each dollar spent, marketers have had to change the way they think about reaching these savvy shoppers. Because while a shopper's first interaction with a product, the First Moment of Truth (FMOT), used to occur when that person saw a product on the store shelf for the first time, the advent of the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) -- the online moment at which a person first develops an opinion about a brand, prior to encountering it in the physical world -- is changing the way marketers think about the digital path-to-purchase.

In turn, the Shopper Marketing Agencies (SMAs) that work closely with marketers to capture mind and market share during each holiday shopping season and beyond have been working hard -- using rich data and deep understanding and insights -- to help companies evolve their digital marketing strategies to 'win' this newly defined and important moment in time. They are a vital part of a vital marketing transformation, which has changed the game for modern marketers.

We've always valued our relationship with these SMAs -- but it occurred to us, as this uber-busy season approached, that it would benefit consumers, advertisers and SMAs alike to work even more closely together, delving deeply into understanding the ZMOT model as applied to shopper marketing and digital brand activation along the path to purchase.

To do this, we formed The Google Shopper Marketing Agency Council. This group is comprised of leading SMAs, including Arc WW, DraftFCB, Integer, Mars, Momentum, RPM Connect, Saatchi & Saatchi X, Shopper Sciences, ShopWork, The Marketing Arm, Triad Media, TracyLocke, and Upshot -- and its goal is to advance understanding of how online and offline behavior drives purchase consideration and decision-making, and to overcome the challenges related to communicating this transformation.

We're looking for this group of marketing innovators to help guide the way Google engages and partners with SMAs and the industry in general, and are sure it will help us better support SMAs in search of the best way to help their clients' brands win the ZMOT. Stay tuned for news and updates!

Posted by Stephanie Redish-Hofmann, Google Agency Team

Google’s Dan Taylor presents at Digiday Agency event Dec. 12, 2011

It’s that time of year again, the time to reflect on 2011 and think about resolutions for the new year. We may not be able to help you lose those extra 5 lbs., but we can inform some New Year’s resolutions for your business.  


This week, Google’s Dan Taylor presented at the Digiday Agency event on the 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Display Advertisers. See video and summary below. 







 
Resolution # 1: I will be strategic in how I use remarketing

Remarketing is like plugging a leaky bucket, where the leak is website visitors leaving your site, and the plug is display ads that bring past visitors back to your site.

There are many ways to ‘plug’ the leak, but we offer up the follow strategies to be the most effective in doing so.

• Target based on audience: Layering demographic targeting on top of remarketing campaigns can help you tailor the message even more. For example, have one message for men, and a different one for women.
• Target based on intent: You can send a general message to homepage visitors and product-oriented reminders to visitors that browsed product pages but didn’t make a purchase. Using a creative with dynamically related products is a great way to do this.
• Expand your list sources: Some of our most effective remarketing customers use several sources to get their lists, such as YouTube mastheads and channels, their main website and campaign landing pages. Expanding the lists enables you to reach more potential customers. 

Resolution # 2: I will use video to its full potential 

Video is a great way to reach customers, yet it is often underutilized. Here are the best ways to use video to its fullest potential.  

• With the latest changes to the YouTube homepage, we’ve pivoted the YouTube site experience to focus on channels and a socially-driven feed, the contents of which are controlled by the left hand sidebar. This gives marketers a powerful opportunity to enhance their brand exposure.
• Through the new AdWords for video front end, we’ve drastically reduced the time it takes to create a video. Easily run click-to-play or TrueView in-display formats across Google Display Network.
• We’ve also found that rich media, in tandem with video, is more effective than simple Flash. When you’re running rich media campaigns, think about including video to increase purchase intent.

Resolution # 3: I will fuse social media with display

Making display ads social increases the conversation with your customers. Here are some ways that this can be accomplished:

• Make social media a primary destination: Try linking Trueview ads back to a similarly branded channel for a great social experience.
• Social interactions within the banner: Actually having users interact with the banner (by playing a game, watching videos, etc.) and then having them share their experiences through social media continues the conversation.
• Bring social media endorsements in the banner:  This is becoming more popular, and is a great way for friends to share recommendations.

Resolution # 4: I will go mobile with my display campaigns 

Just as users are now moving more and more to a multi-screen experience via desktop, mobile, and display, so must marketers think about a display strategy that isn’t siloed.

• Tablet targeting: Users expect more from tablet ads and are increasingly using these for online shopping. We support tablet targeting including zeroing in on tablet audiences by device, location, time of day and contextually.
• Get smarter with smartphone targeting: Finding what’s right for your business is key here. With so many format options to choose from that are specific to mobile devices (click to video, click to map, click to call) it’s worth it to think what could be the most effective for your business.

Resolution #5: There’s a perfect ad for everyone.

It’s really the biggest resolution we’re focused on at Google that encompasses all the other ones and it’s adopting the philosophy that ‘There’s a perfect ad for everyone.’

Our recipe for the perfect ad for everyone is driven by simplicity and also by the technology that’s enabling us to customize the advertising experience for everyone at scale.

There’s a simple recipe to the perfect ad: The right person + the right message + the right time + the right context = the perfect ad.

What are your new year’s resolutions for your business? Let us know by tweeting @GoogleDisplay.

At last Thursday’s webinar on Goals, we we explored one of the most fundamental analytics topics: how to translate your business objectives into measurable actions on your website. You sent in your questions, and we heard from many users that you want more guidance on turning all that data into insights.

Please read on for answers to your top questions, and watch the recording of the webinar here:




How do I do data analysis?
Performing data analysis requires understanding what your company defines as success before you can even start to figure out which reports and metrics to use. The best place to begin is to think about why you have a website, what you’re trying to achieve (lead generation, site engagement, sales, et cetera), and how those objectives map to specific metrics in Google Analytics. For example, if you  have an ecommerce website, you might want to track which types of users purchased and which types of users didn’t purchase. If you have a site with lots of content, you might want to understand where users came from before watching a video (e.g., were they referred by a blog post, or did they click on a paid search ad?), or you might be interested in how users moved through your site before getting to a certain page.

Once you’ve figured out your business objectives and defined your questions it’s all about finding those metrics in the reports. We have a lot of great 60-second YouTube videos that walk through different reporting and analysis techniques.

Why should I use Goals if I don’t have a product to sell?
You created your website with the hope that users would come and visit. Even if you aren’t selling anything, you can use Goals to help you dive deeper into your site performance and learn where your users might be having trouble. For example, you might want to ensure that visitors to your site are able to find directions to your physical location, or you might want to be sure that they view a particular piece of content on your site. You could set up a Goal for that page, and then use Goal Flow in the Flow Visualization tool to see how users get there. You might then determine that it's too hard for users to find the information that they need. The specific metrics that you should use will depend on the purpose and goals for your site.

Which types of Goals should I use?
There are four different Goal types to choose from in Google Analytics: URL destination, Time on Site, Pages per Visit, and Event. URL destination goals are best for goals based on a visit to a key page of your site, such as a “thank you” page after a purchase. Time-on-Site or Pages-per-Visit goals are best if you’re more interested in determining site engagement. Event goals should be used if you want to track specific actions such as watching a video, listening to an audio clip, or downloading a PDF. Note that the first three types of goals can be set up with no changes to your tracking code, but if you want to use Event goals, you’ll need to set up Event tracking. And don’t forget that if you’re an online retailer, or if your conversion process pulls in dynamic monetary values, Ecommerce in Google Analytics allows you to track transactions and the order value of every purchase made on your site.

What are good trends to measure for websites without a shopping cart?
A "conversion" isn't just a sale -- it's about all of the reasons why your site exists; it’s any action you want your visitors to take based on your business objectives. Analytics users often want to compare themselves to industry trends or best practices -- but the truth is that in many cases the best benchmark is your own website performance. You should define your own business goals, then develop some key performance indicators, or KPIs, and track them from month to month or quarter to quarter. It may also be helpful to set up simple surveys that ask your visitors if they’ve succeeded in finding the information that they were looking for on your site.

How do I set up Google Analytics for my site?
For some websites, all you need to do is copy and paste the standard JavaScript code to every page of your site -- Google Analytics will automatically generate this standard code for you, so it’s very easy to implement. Read more about this in our Help Center. Other sites, such as those that span multiple domains or subdomains, require additional lines of code. If you have this type of site, you should check out our documentation on all the different implementation scenarios. Use these guidelines with your webmaster to get the code implemented properly. If you need additional help, you should consider contacting one of our certified partners for advice and assistance with all aspects of Google Analytics.

What are Goal match types/settings?
There are three match types for URL destination goals: head match, exact match, and regular expression match. Exact match is used when you have a static URL (a page that does not change based on user actions) -- you can just enter the URL as it appears on your site and Google Analytics will track the goal. Head match is used if you have a URL that has dynamic values at the end, such as session IDs. Head match will record goals for whatever URL you enter into the interface -- plus anything that comes after that. Finally, regular expression match is used for completely dynamic URLs or to capture multiple URLs in one goal. Check out our Help Center article on setting up Goals to get more information about which match type is right for you.

How do we determine what goal value to set?
Goal value is what each action is worth to you. Ask yourself how much it’s worth to have someone sign up for your email newsletters, knowing they'll now get consistent messaging from your business. You may want to start with a larger objective that has a monetary value, like landing a big client, then map out the smaller steps leading up to that sale. For example, it may take an average of 25 lead forms filled out on your site to drive one sale. The value of a filled-out lead form would then be equal to an average sale divided by 25.  It may take some time to determine these attribution amounts, and you shouldn’t be afraid to adjust your Goals and Goal values periodically!

How do we test alternate landing pages?
Once you’ve set up Goals, you may discover that certain pieces of your funnel are losing lots of visitors. Small improvements to those pages could have a dramatic impact on your conversion rates. Fortunately, we have a great tool called Google Website Optimizer that allows you to test different variations of the same page so you can improve the effectiveness of your website and your return on investment.

What are the top 5 metrics to share with the CEO?
There aren’t really 5 golden metrics that will work for every single company and every single CEO. You’ll need to do some brainstorming and discovery to understand which metrics in Google Analytics map to your business objectives. Think about your business strategy -- for example, are you looking to reach customers who are on-the-go? Then it’s probably helpful to track the percentage of visits and conversions coming from mobile, so you can tell the CEO about the success of your mobile strategy. Do you want to make sure that you’re getting a good return on your marketing investments? Then you should consider tracking the percentage of conversions coming from advertising vs. other sources (this is a good place to use Multi-Channel Funnels!).

Although it may take some work to determine the relevant metrics, it’s worth the effort to ensure that you are presenting information that tells the right story about your business. Once you’ve defined your metrics, you can use Google Analytics dashboards to pull everything together in an easy-to-read format. So dive into the Google Analytics reports and find your story!

Please also check our help center for further details on all of your questions.

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Google Analytics team

Each day, people watch more than 3 billion videos on YouTube - the equivalent of every American watching about 9 videos a day. U.S. online consumers now spend as much time online as they spend watching TV. With the consumer shift to online media consumption, many of our marketing partners wonder how online video ads measure against traditional TV ads. Do traditional and new media ads complement each other? Which format drives recall most effectively?

To get answers, we partnered with Ipsos to measure the relative and combined effects of YouTube in-stream ads and TV ads on ad recall and brand metrics across six advertiser campaigns.

After conducting tests of 15- and 30-second spots on YouTube pre-roll instream ads and TV ads, the results revealed that YouTube and TV ads work better together. People who watched both YouTube and TV ads showed a 2X increase in brand recall than people who only saw TV ads. Those that only watched a YouTube ad had a brand recall rate 1.5X those who only watched a TV ad.

























Hotels.com, one of the advertisers that participated in the study, uses YouTube video ads to drive incremental reach for TV campaigns. “Our customers are online today, so it only makes sense for e-commerce brands like Hotels.com to find entertaining and engaging online formats to interact with our audience” says Vic Walia, senior director of brand marketing for Hotels.com. “YouTube video ads is a great distribution vehicle for us to efficiently maximize our reach, but the fact that is has the added impact of improving our overall ad recall metrics is a tremendous win.”

This study comes on the heels of our multi-screen research, which found that brand recall jumps dramatically for consumers shown ads across all screens - TV, PC, smartphone and tablet devices. As more people consume media across multiple devices, having a multi-channel campaign strategy helps reach consumers at different points throughout the day.

To learn more about our study, download the infographic and slides from Think Insights or check out our video. And, when planning your media buys, consider using a combination of YouTube ads and TV ads to help you achieve higher ad recall than TV ads alone. You can find out more information about YouTube video ads here.

Posted by Lizzy Van Alstine & Christina Park, Google Research and Marketing

Is your client's website performing as well as it could be? Do you want to get more out of your digital marketing campaigns, including AdWords and other digital media? Do you feel like you have gaps in your current Google Analytics setup?



We’ve heard from many of our users who want to go deeper into their Analytics -- with so much data, it can be hard to know where to look first. If you’d like to move beyond standard “pageview” metrics and visitor statistics, then please join us next Thursday:

Webinar: Reaching Your Goals with Analytics
Date: Thursday, December 1

Time: 11am PST / 2pm EST

Sign up here!

During the webinar, we’ll cover:

    •    Key questions to ask for richer insights from your data
    •    How to define “success” (for websites, visitors, or campaigns)
    •    How to set up and use Goals
    •    How to set up and use Ecommerce (for websites with a shopping cart)
    •    How to link AdWords to your Google Analytics account

Whatever your online business model -- shopping, lead-generation, or pure content -- these tools will deliver actionable insights into your buying cycle.

This webinar will be led by Joe Larkin, a technical specialist on the Google Analytics team, and it’s designed for intermediate users of Google Analytics. If you’re comfortable with the basics, but you’d like to do more with your data, then we hope you’ll join us next week!

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Google Analytics team

As savvy brand advertisers and marketers, you are most likely using YouTube Promoted Videos and in-stream ads to reach your audiences online, but are you reaching viewers on the go? Over 50 percent of mobile device users enjoy viewing video content on their web-enabled smartphones, and YouTube is the #1 video site visited by people on the move. Are your online video ads optimized to reach these mobile users?  Hop over to our AdWords blog to learn more about using mobile video ads.



Posted by Nicky Crane, Product Manager.

AdWords Editor version 9.7.1 is now available for Windows and Mac. This new version includes performance improvements and several new options for editing and targeting your campaigns. A few highlights:

    •    Faster downloading for large accounts, and faster cut, copy, and paste (including drag-and-drop).
    •    A new tool for changing the capitalization of selected text in one step.
    •    More AdWords settings available within AdWords Editor, including advanced location settings, user interest category targeting, and Wifi traffic targeting.

For a complete list of changes and instructions, visit our release notes.

If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically. If you're not already using AdWords Editor, you can visit our website and click "Download AdWords Editor." To learn more about AdWords Editor, visit our Help Center.

As you may already know, last Monday we announced Google+ Pages for businesses, a collection of tools and products to help clients get closer to customers. We’re offering two awesome opportunities for you to learn more about getting your business on Google+:

Wednesday: Learn with Google Webinar: Getting Your Business on Google+
Wednesday November 16, 2pm ET. Register here.
Join our live webinar hosted by Google+ experts to learn more about how you can bring your company and customers closer together using Google+. Key topics that'll be covered include:
    •    Setting up a Google+ Page for your business
    •    Best practices and early use cases for using Google+
    •    Promoting your Google+ Page
    •    Improving the performance of your ads with +1 annotations

Thursday: Help Desk Hangouts
Thursday November 17, 12pm - 3pm ET. Visit our Google+ Your Business page.
Still have questions? Talk face-to-face with a Google+ expert using our group video chat product, Hangouts. Learn technical tips, content strategies, and potential use cases for your business.

Check out how Zen Bikes uses Google Plus in this awesome video!

Quick pop quiz:
1. Based on search history, consumer demand for pretzels peaks in what month of the year?
2. How much (in $) does search add to the world’s GDP?
3. In 2011, what percent of people dreamed and brainstormed about their next vacation?
4. What percent of the daily queries on Google.com have never been seen before?

These are just a few questions that can be answered* on the new Think Insights with Google, our information and resource hub for marketers and agencies. The site is fresh out of beta and sporting a playful new look, helpful tools, more studies, the latest trends and exciting videos. We invite you to visit the site, take a look around and see what’s new.

While you’re there, check out our new Real-Time Insight Finder - centralized access to our insights tools that can support you in your planning process. For example, it’s not surprising that more people search for diets in January than December, but do you have any idea how big the difference really is? And how is it trending from last year? Spot the trend in minutes to inform your next media strategy, brand positioning or just to look smart in your next client meeting.


Although we’ve made a lot of enhancements to Think Insights based on initial user feedback, we’re always trying to iterate and improve. So please don’t be shy! Join the conversation by adding the Think with Google page on Google+ to one of your circles.

Think Insights is forward-thinking and rooted in data. We hope you’ll use it as a one-stop shop for consumer trends, marketing insights and industry research.

*Answers to pop quiz (they can all be found on Think Insights in less than 60 seconds):
December, Real Time Insights Finder Tool
$540 billion directly to global GDP, The Impact of Internet Technologies: Search Study, Jul 2011
50%, 5 Stages of Travel Interactive Infographic
16%, Search Fact & Stat

In 2009, we launched the DoubleClick Ad Exchange as a way to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, drive performance for our advertiser and publisher partners, and open up the display marketplace. In the two years since, exchange-based trading has taken off -- we’ve seen the volume of trades on our own exchange grow by more than 150% in the past year. At the same time, display, as a medium, has evolved.

Display started as just banner ads on websites, but has grown to include a range of formats as diverse as the web itself -- rich media ads that bring a page to life, in-stream ads that play before your favorite online video, and ads that run in the mobile version of your daily newspaper. To reflect this growing diversity, we have been expanding the types of formats in the Exchange. We support the most popular types of rich media ads, including units that run in-page with video, or expand when you click or mouse over them. It’s also possible to buy ads across the mobile web. Earlier this year, we announced that in-stream video formats were coming to the Exchange, and we’ve seen huge demand since launch: the number of buyers for in-stream video has tripled over the past quarter.

Today, we are announcing another step forward -- in the coming weeks, AdMob developers will be able to make their in-app inventory available on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Initially, a small number of pre-qualified buyers will be able to compete for this inventory. Over time, we'll be rolling it out more broadly. Ultimately, this will give app developers and publishers access to a wider pool of buyers like demand-side platforms and agency trading desks, improving their potential returns, and helping grow the overall mobile web economy. And marketers on our Exchange will be able to buy, in real time, ads that run inside people’s favorite mobile games, news apps and more. With this important addition, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange will be truly cross-format...and will become the first exchange to support this full range of ad formats.

VivaKi, one of our key partners on the Exchange, is gearing up to start buying in-app ads on the Exchange. “We are delighted to be working with Google as they open up the DoubleClick Ad Exchange to include AdMob in-app inventory, and to deliver this opportunity to our clients,” says Kurt Unkel, Senior Vice President, VivaKi Nerve Center. “We anticipate this experience will help us bring mobile to scale to our partners, and will provide insight into the operational elements and the creative assets that work best in this environment.”

A cross-format exchange is just one of the ways we’re looking to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, but one we think will create tremendous value for advertisers and publishers. We will continue to work with our partners to help them get the most out of what the evolving display market has to offer -- today, tomorrow, and in the years ahead.

Posted by -- Chip Hall, Director, DoubleClick Ad Exchange

Since the initial launch of Google+ just a few months ago, we’ve welcomed over 40 million people and introduced more than 100 new features. For all these people, one important part is still missing - your client's business.

We want to help your clients make the same kinds of lasting connections with customers online the way you can in real life. That’s why we are introducing Google+ Your Business, a collection of tools and products to help your clients get closer to your customers. At the heart of this is Google+ Pages, your business’s identity on Google+.

We've begun to dabble into some of the great features for Google+ Business on some of our own pages.



Google+ Pages: Have real conversations with the right people

To get your client's business on Google+, you first need to create a Google+ Page. On your page, you can post updates and news about your business, engage in conversations with your customers, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1’s you have across the web. Here are a few features of Google+ Pages that we think will help you build relationships:
Hangouts
Sometimes you might want to chat with your customers face-to-face. For example, if you run a bookstore, you may want to invite an author to talk about her latest novel, or if you market a cosmetics line, beauty specialists might want to hold how-to sessions for makeup tips. Hangouts make this easy, by letting you have high-quality video chats with nine customers, with a single click. You can use Hangouts to get product feedback, help solve problems or simply get to know people better, all in real time.

Circles
Circles allow you to group followers of your Page into smaller audiences. You can then share specific messages with specific groups. For example, you could create a Circle containing people who are your most loyal customers and offer them a special discount.


+1 button and Google+ badge: Inspire current customers to recommend new ones
Google+ Pages also help you deliver your great content to users in a way that’s easy to share with their friends. We introduced the +1 button as a way for your customers to recommend your business across the web - on Google search, in your ads, on sites across the web and on mobile devices. Now, your customers can +1 your Page, recommending your actual brand -- not just an individual ad or a site -- directly to their friends.

To help your customers find your page and start sharing, we have two buttons you can add to your site by visiting our Google+ badge configuration tool:

The Google+ icon is a small icon that directly links to your Page.

In the coming days, we’re introducing the Google+ badge, which lets people add your page to their circles, without leaving your site, to start getting updates from your business via Google+.


Make your +1’s count, improving the performance of your ads
Coming soon, we will also make it possible to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns for your site, so that all your +1s -- from your Page, your website, ads and search results -- will get tallied together and appear as a single total.

Consumers will be able to see all the recommendations your business has received, whether they are looking at an ad, a search result or your page, meaning your +1’s will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day. In the coming days. you'll be able to link your page to your AdWords campaigns by following the instructions in the AdWords Help Center.

Bringing Google+ to the rest of Google
Our ultimate vision for Google+ is to transform the overall Google experience-- weaving identity and sharing into all of our products. Beginning today, we’re rolling out a new experimental feature, Direct Connect -- an easy way for your customers to find your Google+ Page on Google search. For eligible pages, when someone searches for your business with the ‘+’ sign before it Direct Connect will send them directly to your page. For example, try searching for ‘+YouTube’ on Google. Users will also be prompted to automatically add Pages they find through Direct Connect to their circles. Direct Connect will not work for everyone.

Just the beginning
We wanted to help you get your business on Google+ as soon as possible, so we’re opening the field trial for Google+ Pages to everyone today. Creating a Google+ Page only takes a few minutes. To get started, you’ll need a personal Google+ profile. If you don’t have a Google account, it’s very quick and easy to join. And if you are looking for inspiration, check out some of the companies that are already starting to set up their Pages:

To learn more about how Google+ works for your business, check out the Google+ Your Business site. We’re just getting started and have many more features in the coming weeks and months. To keep up to date on the latest news and tips, add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. If you have ideas on how we can improve Google+ for your business, we’d love to hear them.

Posted by Dennis Troper, Product Management Director, Google+ Pages

Missed the Think Mobile webinar on Nov. 2nd?

The recording is now available on the Google Business Channel on YouTube:

Whether it’s do-it-yourself spider napkin rings for Halloween or tips on planting an edible garden, HGTV provides ideas and entertainment to people passionate about home improvement. When promoting the next season of Selling New York, it made sense that HGTV try out YouTube TrueView video ads to reach the right audience - paying only when a viewer has chosen to watch its ad.

More brands like HGTV are using TrueView ads to reach engaged viewers than ever before. Last year, we predicted that 50 percent of all online display advertising campaigns would include a cost-per-view video ad by the year 2015. One year later, it’s looking like it wasn’t such a crazy prediction. TrueView video ads have become one of our fastest growing YouTube ad formats, with 50 percent of all in-stream ads now being skippable - a 4X increase since February.

TrueView in-stream now delivers more than 18 years of video each day for advertisers - that’s a lot of interested viewers. You can see what one looks like here.

Viewer’s choice
With TrueView video ads, we’re focused on developing an ecosystem that benefits everyone - partners, advertisers, and viewers. TrueView ads give viewers choice and control over which ads they want to see and when. From research conducted with market research firm Ipsos, only 2 percent of viewers surveyed preferred ads they watch from start to finish without the option of skipping. In fact, 9 in 10 survey participants felt that TrueView in-stream ads lead to a more enjoyable YouTube experience.

For advertisers, TrueView combines the brand engagement of video with the precision of online advertising. We are seeing view rates - or the percentage of viewers who choose to watch an advertiser’s message - hold steady at 15-45 percent. And, similar to search ads, campaigns can be easily controlled and managed with Google AdWords for video.

Viewer choice has translated into real benefits for our YouTube partners, helping partners such as The Onion, Michelle Phan, Machinima, and Howcast, make more money from their content. On average, TrueView in-stream ads reduce audience drop-off by 40 percent when compared to regular pre-roll ads.

Expanding TrueView
Today, we’re unveiling more ways viewers, advertisers, and partners can benefit from TrueView. We’re now working with publishers on the Google Display Network to run TrueView in-stream ads within their own video content.

We will also bring two existing formats to TrueView - YouTube Promoted Videos and Google Click-to-Play, beginning November 17. With this change, cost-per-view ads will span YouTube, video.google.com, and the Google Display Network.


Who’s getting results from TrueView?
Back to HGTV - by reaching the right audience on YouTube with creative ad content, HGTV achieved a 45 percent view rate for their TrueView in-stream ads, meaning that 45 out of every 100 people chose to watch their ad. Hear more about how HGTV used TrueView in this video:

Political marketers have also been early adopters of TrueView in-stream video ads, testing a wide range of creatives to understand which messages resonate with which audiences. Communications firm Harris Media has used TrueView ads for US Senate candidate Ted Cruz (Texas) and Florida Governor Rick Scott. The New Media Firm built awareness for the New Jersey Education Association and Senate Bill 2718 with TrueView ads.

Advertisers and agencies including HP, Lionsgate, Morpheus Media, O2, HISTORYTM, and Vodafone have all used TrueView to reach their marketing objectives, from launching a product to increasing brand awareness.

To learn more about our TrueView family of ad formats, visit here or watch this introductory video.

Posted by Baljeet Singh, Senior Product Manager at YouTube

Yesterday, we announced Dynamic Search Ads, a new way to target relevant searches with dynamic ads generated right from your website. We hope you’ll find Dynamic Search Ads to be a useful tool in your toolbox to scale up clients’ campaigns quickly, discover unwanted gaps in keyword coverage, or keep search campaigns in sync with your clients' fast-changing inventory.

In addition to the details on the Inside AdWords blog and in the AdWords Help center, we wanted to share a few answers here to common questions that you or your clients might have.

Q. So Dynamic Search Ads are typically producing incremental traffic gains of 5-10% with satisfactory ROI. What’s typical implementation look like?
A. During our pilot, a typical implementation would have max CPC bids initially set at approximately 75% of a campaign’s average, budgets were not constrained, the whole site was targeted, and negatives were used. For these implementations, it was typical to see increases in traffic of 5-10% with satisfactory ROI across a wide range of clients.

Q. Which clients are most likely to see greatest results?
A. Dynamic Search Ads have greater potential for advertisers with large, fast-changing inventories where it can be challenging to keep AdWords campaigns in sync with what’s actually in-stock.

Q. How do Quality Scores for Dynamic Search Ads relate to Quality Scores for keyword-based campaigns?
A. They’re tracked independently and do not affect one another.

Q. Are there any mechanisms to avoid inadvertent policy violations with the dynamic ad headlines?
A. Filtering technology is used to help avoid inadvertent trademark and other policy violations in the ad text headlines.

For another perspective on Dynamic Search Ads from an agency involved in the pilot, please visit the RKG blog for their analysis and usage strategies.

Dynamic Search Ads are available in all languages and countries, but are in limited beta. To get Dynamic Search Ads enabled in your clients’ accounts, please contact your Google representative. If you don’t have a representative, you can sign up using our interest form.

We’ll be listening closely to how you’re using Dynamic Search Ads, as well as your results, suggestions, and unanswered questions. As with all our betas, we value and welcome your feedback.

Posted by Baris Gultekin, Director, AdWords Product Management

Not sure how to most effectively leverage and measure your mobile marketing campaigns? Well, you’re not alone. While mobile is an incredible new way to distribute content and reach customers on the go, it also presents a unique challenge when it comes to measuring the impact of our mobile efforts (like applications, advertisements or mobile-optimized websites).

Tune in on November 2nd for Google’s Think Mobile webinar, Mobile Advertising: Right Person, Right Time, Right Message - Finally!, led by Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist. Avinash will share tips and best practices for mobile marketing campaigns, new metrics unique to mobile, and how best to measure mobile ads and websites.

                 • When: Wednesday, November 2, 2011 9-10:30am PST/ 12-1:30pm EST
                 • How: Register here

Posted by Jaime Mayer, Large Advertising Marketing Manager

Advertising is about getting your message in front of the right people. Whether you need to increase brand awareness or maximize ROI on direct response campaigns, your challenge continues to be about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. How can you do this intelligently, and at scale? Audience Solutions on the Google Display Network (GDN) provides the insight you need, connecting potential customers by with exactly what they are looking for -- when they are ready to buy.

Please join Google in our upcoming webinar to learn more about audience targeting strategies for your campaigns using Audience Solutions on the Google Display Network. We’ll discuss:

Last week at OMMA Global, Aitan Weinberg, Sr. Product Manager for Audience Solutions, presented on “Raising Awareness & Driving Sales with Audience Solutions.” The session discussed the ability to reach the right customer at the right time with the right message as being one of the most important elements of a campaign. See it here:


When selecting a vendor for audience targeting, Aitan reviewed 5 ways to help increase ROI for your campaigns:

1) Remarketing complements search campaigns
2) Use demographics to tailor every creative
3) Leverage Audience Insight reports
4) Review a collection of campaigns for a blended CPA
5) Understand your share of user and determine levers to reach everyone

To hear more tips on how to leverage audience data, make sure to watch the full presentation.

Posted by Desiree Motamedi, Product Marketing Manager

Since we announced the new version of Google Analytics in March, you may have noted an acceleration of new features and improvements. It’s part of our ongoing goal to make Google Analytics even more robust, flexible and powerful, and to enable you and your clients to get from data to insight to action more quickly.

We’re pleased to announce the availability of Google Analytics Premium - it’s everything customers value today in Google Analytics - with the addition of the guarantees, support and extra power that some of our largest customers have asked for. You can read more about it on the Google Analytics blog.

One of the new features soon available through Google Analytics Premium is a suite of attribution modeling tools that enable marketers to test their attribution hypotheses. As strategic advisors to brands that are investing and optimizing digital strategies, we want to keep you up to date with Google Analytics as you may see increased demand for Google Analytics skills and knowledge.

We’ll be offering additional training specifically for agencies, but in the meantime we’re hosting a webinar to introduce you to the features, explain options to partner with Google Analytics, and provide an opportunity to ask us questions. You can sign up here for the UK friendly time zone and here for the NA friendly time zone.

Title:  Introducing Google Analytics Premium
Date:  October 12th, 2011
Time:  8am PST / 11am EST / 4pm GMT - register for this time
             11am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm GMT  - register for this time

If you would like to continue to be notified of future Agency webinars on Google Analytics, please subscribe to the brand-new Google Group: Analytics for Agencies.

There are exciting developments ahead in analytics, and the value of insight to drive optimization and investment is just beginning. We’re building Google Analytics to help solve marketer challenges, and we really hope you’ll join us on this journey.

Posted By: Enrique Muñoz Torres, Product Manager, Google Analytics Premium

Last week, we shared examples of how direct response marketers are driving strong results with display advertising. But you’ve heard it before -- beyond driving immediate clicks and conversions, display builds brands. And as digital budgets accelerate, we’re seeing that for an increasingly growing number of brands, display advertising has become an ever-important part of their strategy. In fact, in the recently conducted Advertiser Intelligence Reports study, by Advertiser Perceptions, advertisers are planning on spending more digital display dollars in the next 12 months for brand goals than direct response (1).

So this week, we’re turning our attention to pioneering brands who used display advertising as a critical component in their overall marketing mix to connect with their audience, engage them emotionally, and as a result, drive meaningful results. Let’s take a closer look.

Animal Planet attracted 1.6MM viewers for the season premiere of River Monsters, putting it in the #1 spot among its target audience, by running an integrated video and rich media campaign across YouTube, AdMob, and the Google Display Network. (read case study)


Volvo drove an 88% lift in purchase intent for its new S60 sedan by leveraging the YouTube homepage and masthead unit, interactive video ads on AdMob, and standard IAB ads on the Google Display Network. (read case study)


Sealy reinvented its Posturepedic brand using YouTube promoted video ads and in-stream video ads, which drove 46% of its website traffic during the first week of the campaign. (read case study)


At OMMA Global this week, we shared a simple framework for brand building that we developed after analyzing the campaigns of our most successful brand advertisers. These “better practices” focus on three key areas: connecting with the right consumer at the right moment, delivering an engaging message, and measuring the metrics that matter.

Connecting with the right consumer at the right moment. As consumers continue to access the internet more frequently throughout the day, from a multitude of devices, it’s increasingly important for brand marketers to create device-inclusive, rather than device-specific, campaigns. And by targeting a combination of audience and contextual signals, it’s now easier than ever to reach the right person, at the right time, on the right device through the Google Display Network or DoubleClick AdExchange.

Engaging them emotionally. The best display ads don’t just leverage sight, sound, and motion, but also harness display’s interactive capabilities that drive deep engagement with a brand. Our research shows that rich media ads drive significantly better brand performance than standard Flash ads--1.7X for brand awareness, 2.7X in purchase intent, and 5X increase in brand favorability (2). We also see that newer ad formats, like mobile display and in-stream video, are even more effective at moving consumers down the brand funnel. Lastly, we’ve seen masthead ads on the YouTube homepage garner an 11% interaction rate and drive a 4X lift in engagement compared to standard ads (3).

Measuring more robustly. Looking beyond simple clicks and conversions, brand marketers use Campaign Insights to measure increased awareness and interest through the lift in search queries and website visits. Paired with Google Analytics and Multi-Channel Funnels, advertisers can see a complete picture of the chain of online and offline media that drives brand engagement. And to close the loop, many of our brands match geo-targeted display campaigns to offline sales to measure the true impact of a display ad campaign.

More and more studies show that brand marketers who focus on these three levers see the the greatest return on their display ad investment. With display’s ability to connect more precisely with your target consumer, engage more emotionally with interactive messages, and measure robust metrics along all parts of the purchase funnel, it’s no wonder that display builds brands.

Watch this space.
google.com/watchthisspace

(1) Advertiser Intelligence Reports (AIR) study, Advertiser Perceptions, August 2011
(2) The Brand Value of Video and Rich Media Ads, DoubleClick, September 2011
(3) YouTube Homepage Impact Study, Compete, December 2010

Posted by Brian Zeug, National Sales Director, Display and Video

Few would argue that online display advertising is playing an increasingly important role in the marketing mix. While we frequently talk about how the vast majority of our top advertisers have run a Google display campaign in the last year while continuing to increase their investment, today we’re shining a light on some specific examples.

For each brand we’re highlighting today, display was an integral part of their broader marketing strategy. To make it work, they tapped into a robust display advertising toolbox and applied targeting, creative, measurement and optimization solutions that made the most sense for their campaign objective. Let’s take a look at the results.

Airbnb increased the number of nights booked from 800,000 to 2 million with help from remarketing on the Google Display Network and TrueView video ads on YouTube.  (Read case study)

Earlier today we announced several exciting new additions to Google+, including many on mobile. We’d like to announce one more addition for our AdWords advertisers, +1 on the Google Display Network.

Since its introduction on search results and search ads, the +1 button has been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily. Starting early October we’re expanding that to include display ads across the web on both desktop and mobile. For the first time, you’ll be able to run social-enabled ad campaigns that work across millions of sites in over 40 countries around the world.

If you’re running display ads through the Google Display Network you may begin seeing the +1 button and personal annotations with your ads. With a single click, people can recommend the ad’s landing page to their friends and contacts.

Incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it.

For example, take Elaine, who sees an ad for discount flights. She +1’s the ad, thinking her friends might value similar deals. Now when Elaine’s friends and contacts are logged into Google and see the discount flight ad on any of the millions of GDN partner websites, they’ll see Elaine’s picture across the bottom of the ad with a note saying she +1’d it.

On desktop, the +1 button and recommendations will appear at the bottom of display ads, then fade out until the viewer hovers over the ad. The viewer can also close the overlays by clicking the ‘x’.

On mobile, the +1 button will replace the existing ‘g’ logo and recommendations will appear for several seconds, then fade out.

Elaine’s friends and contacts will also be more likely to see the ad. Because a recommendation from a friend is such a strong signal of relevance, the Google Display Network gives ads that have been recommended an extra boost by including them in the auction for any page a friend visits. Of course, if you’re targeting specific placements or audience segments (including interest categories and remarketing lists), your ads will only show on pages that match those restrictions. Additionally, your ads will never show on any placement or category on an exclusions list.

What’s even better is that the +1 button on display ads will work together with +1 buttons on search results, search ads, and websites. A single +1 applies to the same content across the web, no matter where it appears.

On the Google Display Network (GDN), the +1 button will be added to image, animated GIF, Flash, Display Ad Builder ads and select mobile inventory. You can also choose to include the +1 button on your DoubleClick Rich Media ads, which can run on or off the GDN.

We’re confident from our initial experience with the +1 button on search that this’ll be a great addition to your GDN campaigns. However, if you’re not sure that you want the +1 button and recommendations associated with your ads, starting today you can opt-out at the campaign level in AdWords under campaign settings.

To learn more about the +1 button and how it affects your ads and search results, visit our +1 button site.

Posted by Eider Oliveira, Senior Software Engineer

Today, we’re excited to announce Adwords Editor 9.5! This version supports Campaign Experiments, Location Extensions, and plenty of other features to boost your productivity while managing your AdWords campaigns. We've highlighted the key changes below, and you can see the complete list of feature updates in the AdWords Editor Version 9.5 release notes.

AdWords Editor Version 9.5 highlights:

Campaign Experiments
You can now do the following to maintain your campaign experiments:

• Apply and edit an experiment status (e.g. “control only”, “experiment only”, “control and experiment”) at the ad group, ad, or keyword level.
• Apply and edit a Default Max. CPC, Display Network Max. CPC, or Max. CPM bid multiplier at the ad group level.
• Apply and edit a Max. CPC bid multiplier at the keyword level.
• Import and export experiment status and bid multipliers in both CSV and XML formats.

Location Extensions
Version 9.5 supports new and existing location extensions. You can create new manual location extensions for any address, modify existing locations, and download/upload location extensions in CSV and XML formats.

Background Download
If you’re working on several large accounts, you can now download them in the background while you’re working on another open account. This can be a great timesaver by allowing you to continue working rather than waiting for the download to finish.

We also listened to your feedback and made several usability improvements, including improved revert functionality and streamlined Add Multiple Items workflow.

The next time you log into your AdWords Editor account, you will be prompted to upgrade. You may also download Version 9.5 from the AdWords Editor website. After you install the new version of AdWords Editor, you will need to download your accounts again. To preserve your comments and unposted changes, select the Backup then Upgrade option in the automatic upgrade prompt and save the backup file to your computer. Then, re-download your account and import the backup file to AdWords Editor. A small portion of users may need to manually uninstall the previous version of AdWords Editor.

For more information, check out the release notes and visit the AdWords Editor Help Center.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

(Cross-posted from the Inside AdWords blog)