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Once upon a time, marketers believed that shoppers made up their mind about a product in about the time it takes to read this sentence.

The three to seven seconds a shopper considered a product on a store shelf, it was claimed, was a critical moment -- what P&G termed the “First Moment of Truth,” or FMOT ("eff-mot") -- the moment when all the advertising a consumer has seen for a brand will either pay off with a purchase, or not.

Since then, FMOT has become one of those ideas, like “tipping point” and “purple cow,” that we all know (at least by name). It’s one of three widely-accepted “moments of truth” for a product -- the other two being when the consumer sees an ad for the product (the stimulus) and when she uses it for the first time (the experience).

These concepts still hold true today; they may be even more relevant given the continued emergence of strong store brands. But thanks to the web, we’re seeing the rise of an additional class of critical brand interactions -- a new “MOT” -- the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT), which occurs after the consumer sees an ad for a product but before a purchase is made in store. Precisely, it occurs at the moment when a shopper goes online to research a product and decides whether to make a purchase.

Growth in everything from review queries and coupon redemption to mobile usage strongly indicate that this phenomenon is real. But what we wondered is, what does this phenomenon mean for marketers? To find out, we spent a lot of time talking to industry experts and leading-edge marketers, and conducting primary market research, to learn as much as we can about ZMOT ("zee-mot").

Now we’re excited to drive industry discussion and pass our findings to marketers in a new free ebook, Winning the Zero Moment of Truth.



We explore:
  • Typical ZMOT moments that happen every day across any industry
  • Why marketers should consider ZMOT as important as “the ad” and “the shelf”
  • Seven steps to winning at ZMOT, including exercises to identify relevant moments for your brand
If you’re interested in learning more about the consumer behavior that’s changing the way marketers think about branding and online commerce, you can download Google’s free marketing strategy ebook Winning the Zero Moment of Truth. We encourage you to join the conversation, and check out the enhanced video version of the book, at www.zeromomentoftruth.com (#zmot). We hope you enjoy our work, and that it can help you navigate your own moments of truth.

Posted by Jim Lecinski, Author and Chief ZMOT Evangelist, Google
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Mobile, video and rich media advertising are changing the way that businesses capture user attention, bringing together the power of sight, sound and motion to engage audiences like never before. To build awareness for the new season of their popular River Monsters series Animal Planet, the ‘Surprisingly Human’ TV network, launched an integrated media campaign across platforms to bring the show to life with the broadest audience possible - driving more than 900k YouTube video views in the weeks leading up to the premiere.

The River Monsters campaign ran across both YouTube and the AdMob network, bringing a sneak peak of the upcoming season to users whether they were on a desktop computer or their mobile phone. Rich media display ads on YouTube enabled the star of the show to pop out of the YouTube Channel to introduce new creatures to potential viewers, while video advertising offered a glimpse at upcoming episodes of the new season.

On the YouTube desktop website, users were able to interact with the River Monsters whether they were searching for their favorite video, watching partner content or browsing the homepage. Ads led visitors to a custom mimicry gadget on the Animal Planet Brand Channel, where the host of the show jumped out of the ad to highlight the most exciting portions of the featured video:



In-Stream Ads on YouTube are also available in the YouTube Android app, enabling Animal Planet to extend this engagement opportunity to mobile users. Including Interactive Video Ads on the AdMob network further expanded the mobile campaign - giving users the opportunity to watch a preview of the River Monsters show, share the video through social media, learn more on the show’s mobile website and watch additional videos, all from within the mobile ad.



To stir up even more excitement on the day of the premiere, a Rich Media Masthead on the YouTube homepage revealed clips from the upcoming episode and reminded users to tune in:



The River Monsters campaign was hugely successful:
  • YouTube advertising generated more than 930,000 video views on the River Monster clips
  • Nearly 2,000 users subscribed to the River Monsters Brand Channel
  • Mobile In-Stream Overlay Ads received more than 3 million impressions, with 84% of mobile users completing the video
  • Interactive Video Ads on AdMob generated another 6 million impressions, with 75,000 users engaging with one of the interactive elements in the ad creative
The combination of compelling rich media and video advertising on both desktop and mobile created an engaging experience that increased social buzz around the show and led to a premiere that exceeded expectations.

Posted by Vicky Homan, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads
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Google offers the world's largest online video audience, based on users of Google.com search, our partnerships with top video publishers across the Google Display Network, and the reach of YouTube, the world's largest video property. On YouTube alone, users generate 3 billion video views daily and upload 48 new hours of video per minute. The online video market is huge for users, and we believe this means it also holds a lot of potential for online advertisers.

For those of you who are already passionate about this large and growing market, we’ve just launched a Video page on Ad Innovations -- your destination for exploring our latest advertising developments.

On this page, you can learn about new video innovations that can help you prepare your campaigns and promote your business.

Prepare a campaign

Promote your clients' businesses

  • TrueView video ads by YouTube - Give users choice and control over which advertisers' messages they want to see and when. Pay only when a user chooses to view your ad, increasing your view count on YouTube
  • Video extensions - Include click-to-play videos for trailers, previews, and product demonstrations that play right below your ads on Google.com
  • Media Ads - Discover new ways to target, pay for, and experience video ads on Google.com

Check out the new Video innovations page for more information. We’ll keep adding items to this page as we bring new video advertising features to you.


Cross-posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords blog
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Last week we brought together top marketing executives, industry visionaries and agency leaders to discuss vehicles shoppers resounding return to the auto marketplace and how new consumer behaviors apply to brand marketer’s strategies today and in the future at Google’s Think Auto 2011: Green Light, Go! event.

Guy Kawasaki, author of ‘Enchantment,’, John Ross, CEO of Shopper Sciences, and Google’s Lorraine Twohill, VP of Global Marketing, gave their thoughts on the how to reach the ‘constantly connected’ auto consumer and how this affords greater opportunity to deliver relevant and engaging brand experiences.

If you missed the live stream, you can watch the recorded session on the Google Business YouTube channel, here. Be sure to visit the Think Auto site where you can see presentations and videos from the event.

Posted by the Google Auto Team
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Last week, we participated in an IAB Interactive Insights Webinar titled, “The Arrival of Real-Time Bidding.” In this webinar, Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management for DoubleClick Ad Exchange joined guests from Forrester Research, Inc. to define real-time bidding (RTB) and walk attendees through its impact on the marketplace for online ad inventory.

Joining from Forrester Research, Inc. were Senior Analyst Joanna O’Connell and Analyst Michael Greene. Joanna explored how advertisers view the RTB trend and Michael explored how publishers view it. Scott, our foremost expert on RTB, discussed how Google works with advertisers and publishers on RTB.

If you missed the webinar, watch it here:



Cross-Posted from the DoubleClick Advertiser Blog by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager
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When Unilever launched it’s new Lynx Excite product, they commissioned simple but powerful advertising creative. The video ads promoted a fragrance so irresistible it causes angels to fall from the sky. Unilever knew from the start that they wanted the film to work across a variety of formats, reaching not just TV viewers but also cinema visitors and mobile users.

For the mobile component of the Lynx Excite campaign, they were immediately drawn to the AdMob platform. AdMob enables advertisers to engage with mobile users across mobile platforms to maximize reach with their target audience.



In order to provide the most engaging experience possible for mobile users, Unilever built a robust HTML5 mobile landing page for the campaign. Mobile banner ads led users to an extended advertising experience, where a rotating halo enabled navigation through the microsite. A visitor could view the television ad, see exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and enjoy interactive features including tips, tricks and tools.

Through AdMob, the ads achieved results that far surpassed expectations. In all, 149 million impressions were served and 690,000 unique visitors accessed the content. On all devices, users spent approximately two minutes actively engaging with the Lynx brand storytelling. In terms of this phenomenal reach and high levels of engagement, the mobile advertising achieved
unprecedented results for Unilever.

Cross-Posted by Vicky Homan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team, Mobile Ads Blog
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Description: The rise of the mobile web represents one of the most dramatic consumer behavior transformations in history. Join the live stream to learn more:
Today’s smartphone users are searching, browsing, buying and “app-ing” more, and the pace of this growth is only increasing. What does this mean for today’s and tomorrow’s marketers?

Watch and find out as Rory Sutherland Vice-President of Ogilvy, Charles Dunstone, Founder and CEO of Carphone Warehouse and Ian Carrington, Mobile Advertising Sales Director Google discuss mobile’s global industry, the future of mobile, and why marketers need to reshape their strategies to reach the always-connected, “mobilized” consumer.

Posted by Google Mobile Team
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There are more than 2.4 million conversations about brands every day. More than half of consumers involved in these conversation say they’re likely to make a purchase based on what they talk about.

It turns out that while most people still talk about brands face to face, their conversations are informed by the Internet more than any other media source. And, when they’re online, users go to search sites more than any other. This is even more true after conversations, especially those sparked by TV. People follow up by searching for more information and prices more than any other online activity including social media.




We we partnered with Keller Fay to see what effect the Internet and search has on a word of mouth. We looked at how media and marketing channels provided content before, during and after consumer conversations by surveying 3,000 adults across 12 categories.

Posted by the Google Agency Team
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Following his keynote address titled “There’s a Perfect Ad for Everyone” at New York’s IAB Innovation Days @ Internet Week, Neal Mohan, our VP of Display Advertising was interviewed by Willow Duttge.

In his interview, Neal shed further insight into the new user revolution taking place in digital media and what it means for advertisers and publishers. Here are a few key takeaways from the interview:
  • There’s a big opportunity for advertisers and publishers to deliver an enhanced user experience by employing dynamic rich media formats, delivering ads customized for each user, adopting user-centric metrics to measure campaign success, and offering users much more control over their advertising they see.
  • Initial steps publishers and advertisers can take today toward this user-centric goal include looking closely at and listening to their audiences and experimenting with new formats and user experiences.
  • The mobile revolution presents new opportunities for advertisers and publishers looking to connect with users in new and more meaningful ways.





And if you missed the livestream of Neal's keynote, watch it here.

Posted by Google Display Team
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Recently we had a chance to catch up with Matthew Mierzejewski of Rimm-Kaufman Group (RKG) to discuss his experience managing Product Listing Ads for his clients.

Founded in 2003, RKG is a data-driven online marketing firm that specializes in paid search marketing, multichannel attribution management, and display advertising. RKG has 170 clients that range from start-ups to the Fortune 500 and that include both B2C and B2B direct marketers. In August of 2008, RKG was named to Inc. Magazine's list of the Top 500 Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America.

Matthew Mierzejewski, RKG’s VP of Client Services, has been working with Product Listing Ads for clients since they launched last year, and he’s offered to share some of his results and recommendations for other saavy marketers here:

Inside AdWords (IA): What initially drew your interest to Product Listing Ads?
Matthew Mierzejewski (MM): We have many retail clients who are looking for scalable ways to increase their presence in search. Because Google managed the targeting for Product Listing Ads, we wanted to see how much incremental traffic we could gather outside of our existing keyword-targeted campaigns. Also, the prominent ad listings with highly relevant product images are an extremely attractive ad space to play in.

IA: Was the implementation challenging?
MM: Most of our retail clients are already using Merchant Center to get free traffic in Google Product Search. For those clients, the basic CPC implementation was pretty simple. Furthermore, working with Google to implement some additional attributes was helpful and has allowed us to accurately track and improve our ROI.

IA: How much incremental traffic should an advertiser expect from Product Listing Ads?
MM: It varies a fair amount based on product category and bid level, but we see some clients getting up to 10% additional traffic from Product Listing Ads. These are clients who have already done a lot of work with their core keyword-targeted accounts, so it was great for them to have another tool available.

IA: How do the conversion rates for Product Listing Ads compare to keyword-target text ads in search?
MM: We've seen conversion rates up to 10% higher on Product Listing Ads compared to average text ad conversion rates. Taking it one step further and looking at queries that serve both a Product Listing Ad and a text ad to the same product-level landing page, we're seeing Product Listing Ads in some cases with a 30% higher conversion rate. With all other elements being held equal, we conclude that since the user is able to see the exact item of interest, price, and often a promotional message, they are more likely to convert per click in Product Listing Ads versus text ads.

IA: How do the costs for Product Listing Ads compare to keyword-targeted text ads in search?
MM: In general, where the data is significant and we're bidding effectively to ROI targets, we're bidding and paying up to 15% more on Product Listing Ads compared to text ads. Though, as I called out earlier, in many cases we're seeing a greater return on Product Listing Ads traffic, so we can afford to be slightly more aggressive [with our bids].

IA: How do results vary between clients who use cost-per-click (CPC) pricing versus those who use the cost-per-action (CPA) pricing?
MM: We don’t see much difference in terms of conversion rates between CPC and CPA pricing. Though, in general, clients who use CPC pricing have been able to get more volume than those who are using CPA pricing. We like the idea of CPA pricing, but if we optimize our CPC bids we’re able to meet our ROI goals just as easily. It’s all a matter of testing and optimizing.

IA: Who do Product Listing Ads work best for?
MM: Advertisers with products that already do well in natural product search are ideal, since they know that users are already searching for their products. In general, when a user’s query can closely match a specific product in your Merchant Center feed, you’ll do better. For example, canon eos 60d will do better than men's suit coat. Think of it as objective versus subjective user intent that a robot would have a hard time parsing out.

IA: What advanced tips do you have for an advertiser using Product Listing Ads?
MM: Advertisers should be using some combination of, if not all available, Merchant Center parametersavailable to them: adwords_grouping, adwords_labels, adwords_publish, and adwords_redirect. Those attributes should be used to set up granular product targets inside of AdWords. Segmenting those bids will ensure proper ROI goals can be met. Sometimes this means using multiple attributes together to get the best result.
Finally, you should consider utilizing promotional messages for various product targets. These can easily differentiate your ad from the competition and can lead to higher CTRs and CRs if you can afford the offers.
We’d like to thank Matthew and RKG for taking the time to talk to us about their experience with Product Listing Ads so far. To learn more, including how to get started and best practices, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Cross-posted from the Inside AdWords blog
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As vehicle shoppers make a resounding return to the auto market, Think Auto will arm advertisers with new ideas & tools to help capture these shoppers. The ‘constantly connected’ lifestyle of today’s consumer affords greater opportunity to deliver relevant and engaging brand experiences. How do these new consumer behaviors apply to brand marketer's strategies today and in the future?

Tune in and find out as Google's Lorraine Twohill, VP of Global Marketing, introduces 5 concrete principles to drive both positive brand image and product usage.
  • Live streaming begins on June 21, 2011 at 12:35pm EST
  • Register here
  • Following us? Use #thinkauto2011 for this event
We'll reveal new insights on today's automotive shopper during the 'Path to Purchase' section uncovering new consumer behavior during the vehicle shopping process.

Guy Kawasaki, the final keynote speaker and author of 'Enchantment,' will be sure to excite the audience as he explores new thinking on influencing and igniting action, both through individual interactions or marketing at scale. Hope to see you there.

Posted by the Google Auto Team
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Want to help your clients' sites stand out? Make it easy for visitors to recommend pages on Google search by putting the +1 button on your sites and ads.

How do you make sure the experience is user friendly? Where should you position the +1 button? How do you make sure the right URL is getting +1’d?

Join Timothy Jordan, Google Developer Advocate, on Tuesday, June 21, 3pm EST, to find out. He’ll be talking to webmasters and developers about the technical implementation details and best practices to ensure +1 has maximum impact - covering topics like:
  • Getting started
  • Best practices
  • Advanced options
  • Measurement
  • Q&A
Registration: is required for this event. Please click here to register.

Posted by the Google +1 Team
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Internet Week is a busy time in Manhattan, with over over 150 events taking place across the city, bringing together a mass of web-focused individuals. YouTube’s stake has included a keynote speech at OMMA Video, where we defined the reach of YouTube First Watch and the effectiveness TrueView video ads. And now we’re also refreshing an old favorite.

YouTube Show & Tell is an online gallery that showcases the best campaigns on YouTube. We’re thrilled to partner with the Art Directors Club, a group that draws on over 90 years of experience to curate content on an ongoing basis, to recognize the work on YouTube that exhibits exceptional excellence and craft.

Our mission doesn’t stop with merely recognizing great examples; in our “Creatives’ Corner,” we have gathered some of the ad industry’s greatest creative minds to give their thoughts on specific campaigns, the current ad industry landscape, and their thoughts on where we can all go from here.

We hope that Show & Tell continues to serve as a source of inspiration and instruction in great marketing for the advertising and agency communities. Take a look!



Posted by Mark Sabec, who recently became addicted to the Bic Flexperience
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If you're as excited out about all things digital as we are, then you're probably also excited about Internet Week going on now in New York. We, in particular are looking forward to hearing the latest in the world of online video from the best and the brightest, including our own Baljeet Singh, who is about to deliver the keynote speech at OMMA Video. As Senior Product Manager for YouTube advertising, Baljeet has some exciting insights about how online video is getting bigger, smarter, and better. He'll give audiences a view into why online video is increasingly valuable, how it reaches new audiences, and how it gives viewers choice.

Specifically, Baljeet will walk through YouTube's TrueView video ads which let users decide whether to watch or skip ads, and unveil First Watch, our latest offering reaching 15M people per day.Not familiar with First Watch? Think of it this way - every advertiser knows that YouTube’s homepage is a great way to reach a massive audience at scale. In fact, a daily reach of 50M impressions in the US, rivaling that of Glee's season premier this Fall. Yet many people don't immediately go to YouTube homepage, or come directly to video watch pages, missing the homepage entirely.

Now with First Watch, advertisers can make sure they capture people coming through the ‘side door’, as they watch their first YouTube video of the day. We developed First Watch as a broad reach opportunity for advertisers to engage with viewers at the start of the video viewing experience. First Watch displays an advertiser's InStream or InVideo ad on the first YouTube partner video a viewer sees.

We're thrilled to see the industry innovating in the online video space, and even more excited to be a part of that by bringing you new ways to reach your audiences. Are you at OMMA Video today? Make sure to ask Baljeet about First Watch or TrueView Video Ads.

Posted by Neha Mandal, YouTube team
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On, Thursday, June 9th, at 9:15AM ET, Neal Mohan, VP of Display Advertising, will deliver his predictions about the next phase of the display advertising revolution, in a keynote at IAB Innovation Days in New York. Tune in for a live stream on google.com/watchthisspace

Summary of the keynote:
Display advertising is going through the biggest change in its history. However, of the billions of display ads users see today, how many do they really love? As an industry, we speak of connecting with consumers, but we focus primarily on targeting, reach, efficiency, DSPs, DMPs and SSPs. While, these technical Innovations are critical to move our industry forward, we need to start focusing more on the experiences we deliver to consumers.

In a world in which ads are becoming optional for users, the key to our industry’s success in future will be delivering ads that people love, remember and share.

The talk, titled "There's a Perfect Ad For Everyone" will stream live starting at 9:15am ET, on google.com/watchthisspace (and you can watch it in, well… a display ad).

For those of you on the west coast, a recording will be available shortly after the keynote.

Posted by the Agency Blog team
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We’ve just released a new My Client Center (MCC) feature called multiple links, which makes it easier for agencies, SEMs, AdWords API developers, other 3rd party providers and clients to work together while taking advantage of the benefits of the MCC structure. It enables up to five MCCs to link to and manage a single AdWords account as necessary. Multiple links also removes the distinction that Google currently has between UI/API and API-only links.

FAQs to help you make the most of this feature:

  • How will the process change for linking an MCC account to a child account? The process for linking remains the same. The only change is that when you click on the button “Link Account,” you will no longer see the radio button asking you to identify the access level you require (‘User Interface and API’ or ‘API only’)
  • Now that there are up to five MCCs linked to an account, which MCC will be the bill-to? Even though an AdWords account can be linked to up to five MCCs, there will still only be one active budget at a time. Same as today, each budget can be associated with only one Manager Defined Order and each MDO can in turn be associated with only one MCC. Hence, for each budget period, at most one MCC will be billed for the account.
  • Will having up to five MCCs linked to an account impact who is doing account management? Anyone who has access to any of the MCCs linked to an account may make changes.
  • Is there any chance that two users of different MCCs could make conflicting changes to the account? Yes, this may happen. To reduce the chances of conflicting changes being made, we recommend having clear communication amongst all users about roles and responsibilities for account management.
Additional FAQs for multiple links can be found in the MCC section of the AdWords Help Center.

In addition, if you wish to learn more about multiple links and optional-login accounts in detail, we’ll be hosting a webinar on Wednesday, June 8 2011 at 9amPST / 12pmEST. Register here. Event password: googleMCC.

Posted by Agency Blog Team
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...learn more about recommending content across the web. Read the full post on the Official Google Blog here.

Posted by: the Agency Blog Team