We think that there are few things in life more awesome than being able to turn yourself into a unicorn and catch falling donuts on your horn. That’s one of the reasons we love Donut Horns, a game that B-REEL created using the Google+ Hangouts API.

Through the API, anyone can customize the intimacy and collaborative spontaneity of Hangouts: Custom hats, name tags, or glasses for your brand. Trivia challenges. Sing-alongs. You name it. Users can control aspects of an app with their bodies, sport custom media effects, play group games, and collaborate in real time. And you can make this easy: The Google+ Hangout button is easy to install on your site, and can launch a Hangout with your app pre-loaded.



Over 200 apps have been created so far -- from the useful ones, like Lower Third (which gives Hangout participants newscaster-like nameplates) to the fun ones, like the reality show trivia game that BRAVO made for Watch What Happens Live. (Some G+ fans have created a great directory for them.) Apps make Hangouts even more engaging -- one in three Hangouts now use apps, and the average duration of a Hangout increases 2.5 times when an app is used.

Sound interesting? Here’s a one-sheeter that we’ve made about Hangout Apps so that you have a quick guide for your colleagues and clients. But if you’re even more curious, we regularly host Google Developer Office Hours via Hangout to offer answers to questions and 1:1 advice. Check out our schedule and see what’s coming up.

And if you want to see some Hangout App action, here’s a video from our friends at The Webby Awards from the backstage Hangout at their annual awards show in May. Pirate hats and scuba masks sure make video conversations a little more interesting.



Posted by Caro McCarthy, PMM, Google+ for Business

Google I/O 2012, held last month in San Francisco, was a veritable smorgasbord of innovation – from Chrome’s iOS debut to the unveiling of the Nexus 7, from the launch of Google+ Events to our most ambitious product demo yet, our annual developers’ conference wowed its 5,500 attendees with over 130 technical sessions, 20 code labs, and 155 Sandbox partners. This year, we were also pleased to introduce I/O Live, which brought each day’s events and announcements directly to our agency partners via live streaming, along with exclusive online content such as backstage interviews, product demos, some easter egg surprises, and a live blog on +Creative Sandbox with Christian Haas, Executive Director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

AdWeek’s Tim Peterson recently sat down with Torrence Boone, Managing Director of Agency Business Development – Americas, to understand how a developers’ conference can hold as much significance for agencies as it does for tech enthusiasts. Long a passionate advocate of integrating digital platforms into the agency landscape, Torrence explains:

On agencies, digital, and Google platforms:
We believe that we’re creating this amazing toolkit, or palette, for agencies to do really fantastic things. And we have also seen agencies become a lot more technologically oriented, and they are investing in technology-driven approaches to the way that they’re developing campaigns.

On collaborating with agency partners:
We absolutely spend a lot of time with agencies in soliciting their input and perspective on existing products and on our product road map…They bring fantastic insights at scale because they’re working across various industries and they’re confronting different marketing problems on a day-to-day basis, so we actively solicit their perspective. Their feedback is a powerful source for us in driving the innovation engine that we have going at Google.

On the introduction of I/O Live:
The time felt ripe…to really elevate the new things that we’re introducing because, again, they enable this amazing opportunity to create new experiences and highlight for them that it’s not just about developers; that Google, even though fundamentally we’re a technology company, our desire is to allow agencies in partnership with their clients to create beautiful, seamless, immersive experiences that connect brands to consumers. Particularly given the nature of the announcements this year, it felt particularly important to amp up the visibility of the conference with our agency partners and get them in the mindset of thinking of Google I/O as a way for them to stay on the cutting edge and make sure they’re constantly pushing the envelope with what they’re doing for their clients.

Check out the full interview to learn more about how agencies are leveraging Google platforms, and what we’re doing to help take that innovation to the next level!

Posted by Kelly Duane, Americas Agency Team

Today we're pleased to announce AdWords Editor version 9.8.1, which includes the ability to add and edit dynamic search ads and product listing ads, as well as quickly and easily modify location targets. Here's an overview of key updates:

Manage location targeting more easily 
The new Locations tab (under Targeting) lets you add, update, and copy location targets more efficiently. 

Dynamic search ads and product listing ads now in AdWords Editor
Each of these ad formats has its own tab, where you can view your ads and make changes or additions. You can also manage your dynamic ad targets and product targets on two new targeting tabs. 

We've also updated topic targeting, posting, and CSV import, along with other improvements. We encourage you to read through our version 9.8.1 release notes to become familiar with all of the changes.

The next time you launch AdWords Editor, you'll see a prompt to upgrade to version 9.8.1. To learn more about upgrading, including how to keep unposted changes and comments when you upgrade, please review these instructions. You can also download version 9.8.1 from the AdWords Editor website. 

Note: Support for previous versions of AdWords Editor will continue for four months to allow you time to upgrade. To ensure uninterrupted use of AdWords Editor, you will need to upgrade by October 28, 2012.

Posted by Katie Miller, Google Ads Team

Mobile introduces exciting new opportunities for measuring the success of marketing campaigns, but connecting consumers’ mobile activities with advertisers’ business outcomes can be challenging. Increasingly, advertisers are redefining their direct response marketing strategies for mobile in order to more accurately measure the success of mobile campaigns. We recently sat down with Kerri Smith, Director of Mobility at iProspect, a leading, global digital marketing agency to discuss this topic.


Google: How are you helping your clients to assign dollar values to mobile all along the funnel?

Kerri: This really depends on the client. In most cases, clients are assigning value based on a number of factors used to determine the lifetime value of a customer. For example, one of our brands assigns an average order value (AOV) on app downloads based on the usage they’ve seen through analytics and resulting revenue from their aggregated app users. For another brand, call extensions have proven very effective, though it’s been difficult to track conversions and resulting revenue as the consumer is taken offline. Therefore, we use an equation that allows us to measure the likelihood of an actual conversion. Knowing the average call duration, which indicates level of interest, and the agent conversion rate, the brand helped to formulate the following equation:

6 minute call duration = an interested consumer
Agents convert 30% of interested consumers
Interested Consumers * 30% = # of conversions

This allows us to quantify a return where 1-to-1 measurement is difficult, and to understand the impact the channel is having on the brand’s overall business.

Google: What types of clients have you seen be successful with understanding the value of these micro- conversions?

Kerri: We’ve seen our retail brands be the first to embrace these micro-conversions - especially in the case of location-based responses, due in large part to the known “intent to visit” derived from these and previous testing. We’ve been able to use coupons to measure the revenue opportunity in stores from mobile and to prove the value in attributing dollars to these actions. Retailers have seen enough of these trends and subsequent lifts in revenue to value these actions.

Google: What success stories or best in class examples can you share?

Kerri: One of our clients had a goal of directing mobile users to their app download page to increase conversions, and we worked with Google to help them run a two month test of Mobile App Extensions. During the test, we disabled all sitelinks, location extensions and product extensions in order to focus on the primary goal of driving app downloads. The test showed phenomenal results: 92 downloads, 89:1 ROI and a 334% lift in ROI when they began attributing value to app downloads.

Google: What's iProspect POV on where mobile is going?

Kerri: Where is mobile not going? Mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) have already become so ingrained in our everyday lives that the full impact is literally boundless. Mobile is the channel that connects all others. It doesn’t fit in the traditional conversion funnel -- it runs alongside it, involved at every stage. This presents a challenge to brands who still segment advertising channels with separate budgets and directives instead of focusing on how they impact each other. Mobile will highlight the need to evaluate all channels together to create a truly integrated approach - one that enhances the consumer’s interaction with the brand. Applying a value to the multitude of “responses” available in mobile is just the first step. Advertisers will also need to evaluate the impact of those responses relative to other brand initiatives (both online and offline) in order to determine the role each plays in contributing to their bottom line. The ubiquity of mobile will force advertisers to redefine their approach and how they measure success.


Posted by: Samantha Podos Nowak, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads