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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)
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In June we launched the +1 button for websites, making it easier to recommend content across the web. In July, the +1 button crossed 2 billion daily views, and we also made it a lot faster. Today the +1 button appears on more than a million sites, with over 4 billion daily views, and we're extremely excited about this momentum.

It's just the beginning, however, and today we're launching two more features that make +1 buttons more useful for users and publishers alike.

Sharing with your circles on Google+
Clicking the +1 button is a great way to highlight content for others when they search on Google. But sometimes you want to start a conversation right away—at least with certain groups of friends. So beginning today, we're making it easy for Google+ users to share webpages with their circles, directly from the +1 button. Just +1 a page as usual and look for the new "Share on Google+" option. From there you can comment, choose a circle and share.

The new +1 button on Rotten Tomatoes

+Snippets
When you share content from the +1 button, you’ll notice that we automatically include a link, an image and a description in the sharebox. We call these "+snippets," and they're a great way to jumpstart conversations with the people you care about.

Of course: publishers can benefit from +snippets as well. With just a few changes to their webpages, publishers can actually customize their +snippets and encourage more sharing of their content on Google+. More details are available on the Google Webmaster blog.


We're rolling out sharing and +snippets globally over the next week, but if you’d like to try the new +1 button now, you can join our Google+ Platform Preview. Once you're part of the Preview, just visit a site with the +1 button (like Rotten Tomatoes) and +1 the page. Thanks for all of your feedback so far, and stay tuned for more features in the weeks and months ahead!


Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering

(Cross-posted from the Google Official Blog)


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The Analytics for Agencies series is coming full circle. Now that we've shown extensive examples of navigating the new Google Analytics interface, and how to use the tool for insightful analysis, we're ready to step back and show you how to access this data using thorough implementation planning.

Webinar: Measuring Customer Engagement: How to set up Google Analytics to measure the things that really matter

On Tuesday, August 23rd, at 2pm ET / 11am PT, we are holding a webinar that will walk through the steps required in mapping a full-featured and effective implementation of Google Analytics. If your analysis has ever fallen short because the right data wasn't there when you needed it, then this webinar is for you. It will include tips on common and advanced uses for all of the tags in GA (especially Events & Custom Variables), and will review an example implementation plan in order to fully visualize how this process works.

If you would like to attend, block off an hour on your calendar and include this webinar link: https://google.webex.com/google/j.php?ED=152890697&UID=0&RT=MiM0. If you would like a reminder before the webinar, please follow the webinar link and click "Add to my calendar."

If you missed any of the previous Analytics for Agencies sessions, you can review them on YouTube:


The Analytics for Agencies series takes place within the new interface of GA, which you can access by logging into your Google Analytics account and clicking the red “New Version” link at the top of the page.

You can sign up to receive reminders before each webinar on the Analytics for Agencies registration form.

Hope to see you there!

What: Webinar: Measuring Customer Engagement: How to set up Google Analytics to measure the things that really matter
When: Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at 2pm ET / 11am PT
How: Follow the webinar link at the webinar start time



Posted by Jesse Nichols, Partner Program Manager, Google Analytics & Website Optimizer
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Evaluating the success of display campaigns can be an exercise in relativity. You gauge current campaigns against past performance or compare across multiple campaigns and advertisers within your roster of brands or clients. 



But in seeking more comprehensive benchmarks that reflect trends going on in the display industry, you might find yourself falling short. Advertisers and agencies alike are looking for more data to answer the basic questions of "How do I know if my display ad campaigns are doing well?" and "Are there credible benchmarks can I use to compare the results on my current campaign?" 



It’s no surprise then that our display benchmarks have met with much enthusiasm since we first started publishing the data in 2009. We’re pleased to introduce a dedicated space for display benchmarks data on the Watch This Space website. The first set of metrics you’ll see available are the latest display benchmarks, which cover a breadth of data: from CTR metrics to engagement metrics for rich media ads such as interaction and expansion rate, video complete rates and average interaction times--all across a broad range of ad sizes, creative types and industry verticals.

Some interesting observations from these latest benchmarks are below:
  • Use of rich media ad formats have doubled. We saw a two-fold increase in the proportion of impressions going to Rich Media ads. In 2010, simple flash ads accounted for 54% of all global formats served via the DoubleClick for Advertisers platform, down from 74% in 2009. Image ads, in comparison, experienced an uptick with 28% of formats served in 2010 up from 17% in 2009. That leaves rich media ad formats growing to 18% of all the impressions served in 2010 up from 9% globally in 2009.
  • Response and engagement rates have been holding steady since 2009. In the past two years, the overall click-through rate has remained steady at around 0.09%.
  • Interaction rates trended slightly lower when comparing Q4 2010 to Q4 2009, but in general this measure of engagement has remained relatively steady over the course of 2010 after coming down from its peak in early 2009. (Note: Due to a change in the DFA methodology for interaction rates back in April 2008, we only reflect benchmarking data for interaction rates from then onward.)
  • Expansion rates have fallen considerably since early 2009 but now we are seeing rates leveling off with a slight uptick towards the end of 2010.
  • Video completion rates on rich media ads have generally remained consistent except for a several month peak towards the later half of 2008.
  • Larger ad sizes tend to generate greater response. Size does matter apparently. As we have seen in years past, bigger ads perform better. We observed this with the latest set of metrics in which the half-page ad unit (300x600) which had the highest CTR, interaction rate (for both in-page and expandable formats) and expansion rates of all the available creative sizes we tracked for the benchmarks.
  • Although the U.S. had one of the lowest expansion rates, this market showed the highest expansion time. So Americans seem to expand ads less but when they do spend more time engaging with the ads themselves.
  • In terms of industry verticals, auto advertisers performed the best in terms of CTR (0.13% for flash ads) but conversely had the lowest interaction (1.9%) and expansion rates (0.2%). For interaction rate, telecom (9.4%) and B2B (9.2%) advertisers were the highest while B2B stood out in terms of expansion rate (7.5%) benchmarks.
A couple of notes about this latest set of online advertising benchmarks. The data for these benchmarks are derived from a robust data set across DoubleClick for Advertisers, based on rigorous methodology with input from the Advertising Research Foundation. The charts cover global benchmark figures for the entirety of 2010 by ad format, ad size and industry vertical. The benchmarks are normalized across hundreds of advertisers, thousands of campaigns, and tens of billions of ad impressions.

For additional insights and access to the full set of available benchmarks, visit the benchmarks section on the Watch This Space website. More in-depth benchmarks by industry are available exclusively to DoubleClick clients so contact your account manager to discuss further.

Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager
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On Thursday, August 4, we held a webinar about how to use today’s powerful targeting technologies to run effective display advertising campaigns for direct response goals. Specifically, we covered:

  • The "targeting toolbox" for direct response campaigns on the Google Display Network
  • Strategies for prioritizing and applying the available targeting options to maximize campaign performance and efficiency
  • Tools, tips and best practices for maximizing ROI

For those of you who missed the webinar, a recording is now available, which you can watch below. You can also download the materials we covered here.


After watching the webinar, share your thoughts and engage with us by following us at @GoogleDisplay. We’d love to hear from you!

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Product Marketing, Google Display
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Advertisers often wonder whether search ads cannibalize their organic traffic. If search ads were paused, would clicks on organic results increase, and make up for the loss in paid traffic? Google statisticians recently ran over 400 studies on paused accounts to answer this question.

In what we call “Search Ads Pause Studies”, our group of researchers observed organic click volume in the absence of search ads. Then they built a statistical model to predict click volume for given levels of ad spend. This model generates estimates for the incremental clicks attributable to search ads (IAC), or in other words, the percentage of paid clicks that are not made up for by organic clicks when search ads are paused.

On average, the incremental ad clicks percentage across verticals is 89%. This means that a full 89% of the traffic generated by search ads is not replaced by organic clicks when ads are paused. This number was consistently high across verticals. You can find a video on the study here. The full study can be found on research.google.com.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Editor's note (Tuesday, August 9, 2011, 11:17 am): The analysis is based on studies conducted on 446 advertiser accounts between October 2010 and March 2011.
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YouTube’s Promoted Videos recently passed the 1 billion mark in the number of video views delivered to advertisers. Promoted Videos allows any advertiser to promote a video against search results on YouTube or against related videos on YouTube or content across the Google Display Network. Search engine marketers already skilled with Google AdWords have used YouTube Promoted Videos to increase brand awareness and drive sales.

We would also like to highlight a few changes to the product.

Placement on Google Video search results. We are expanding Promoted Video ads to show up on the Google.com Video search results page in the US only. This change gives advertisers more opportunity to connect with potential viewers when they are actively seeking out video content. If you have search ads set up in your account, we will serve either your Promoted Video ad or your Google AdWords search ad, not both, based on a range of factors including your bid and quality score. To make sure you can take advantage of this increase in your clients’ potential audience, please opt into “Search partners” in your campaign.


When you enter your search terms (A) on video.google.com (B), you’ll see your Promoted Video ad above or to the right (C) of your organic search result (D).

Introduction on YouTube Mobile. In the next few weeks, we will allow your Promoted Video ads to show up on our mobile destination, m.youtube.com, which can be easily viewed by web browser across any mobile and tablet devices. New Google AdWords campaigns are opted into “All devices” by default, but you can opt your ads out of showing on mobile devices if you wish. For existing campaigns, you may wish to verify your devices settings to include/exclude mobile placements.

The mobile Promoted Video ad on m.youtube.com will include your ad thumbnail, title and channel name, similar to the organic video results.

Inclusion in TrueView video ads. We recently moved Promoted Videos from a cost-per-click ad format to cost-per-view, focusing on the value of video views. In the coming months, Promoted Videos will join our TrueView family of ad formats which provide viewers with choice and advertisers with engaged, opted-in views. Stay tuned for more updates!

We hope these changes give you more and better resources to grow your business with online video ads.

Posted by Jonathan Goldman, YouTube Software Engineer
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