SMX East kicks off in early October, and we hope to see you there. Stop by Learn with Google’s in-conference event on Wednesday, October 3; we'll have speakers across Google Search, the Google Display Network, and DoubleClick Search, with question and answer sessions following each presentation. Come hear how Google can help make the web work for you!

Day 2, Wednesday, October 3

• Evolving Paid Search (10:45am - 11:45am): In our opening session, Head of Search Ads Marketing Mark Martel will be sharing Google’s perspective on the direction of paid search, and what search marketers will need to be doing in the coming years to stay on the cutting edge and capture the greatest share of opportunity.
• Richer Tools for Targeting: Search and Display (1:30pm – 2:30pm): Elliot Nix, Head of Media Solutions, Technology, will share how remarketing can help you extend beyond your normal search, and help refine your messaging plus boost relevance for customers and potential customers – wherever they’re browsing – to see even higher returns.
• DoubleClick Search: The power of platform for the next step in search marketing management (3:30pm – 4:30pm): Sr. Product Manager Anthony Chavez will dive deep into how DoubleClick Search helps marketers and agencies running some of the world's largest search campaigns more efficiently and effectively with DoubleClick Search’s campaign management, reporting, and optimization tools. 
• Winning the moments that matter with local, social and mobile strategies (5:00pm – 6:00pm): Close the day with heavy snacks, drinks, and a presentation with Tim Reis, Head of Mobile & Social Solutions, who will cover how you can reach users in the moments that matter with effective social, mobile and local solutions from Google AdWords.

Also, you can hear from other Google speakers throughout the event:

Day 1, Tuesday, October 2

• How To Play In The Exploding Mobile Ads Universe, 3:30pm - 4:45pm
  Google speaker: Tim Reis, Head of mobile and social solutions, Google

Day 2, Wednesday, October 3

• Getting Ahead With Google+, 10:45am - 12pm
  Google speaker: Kari Clark, Product Marketing Manager, Google+, Google
• Pagination & Canonicalization For The Pros, 3:30pm - 4:45pm
  Google speaker: Maile Ohye, Senior Developer Programs Engineer, Google Inc. (@maileohye)

The full SMX East agenda can be found here.

Still haven’t registered? Enter discount code googleEast12 (case sensitive) and save 10%. Expo passes are free and get you into the Learn with Google in-conference event.

See you in New York!

In this world of constant connectivity, consumers expect to find the information that they want, when they want it - especially when they’re on the go. We know that this applies to their web browsing experiences on mobile, so we took a deeper look at users’ expectations and reactions towards their site experiences on mobile. Most interestingly, 61% of people said that they’d quickly move onto another site if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site. The bottom line: Without a mobile-friendly site you’ll be driving users to your competition. In fact, 67% of users are more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly site, so if that site’s not yours, you’ll be missing out in a big way.



Discover these and more findings from, What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today, a study from Google (conducted by Sterling Research and SmithGeiger, independent market research firms). The report surveyed 1,088 US adult smartphone Internet users in July 2012.

The problem (and opportunity) is big...
While nearly 75% of users prefer a mobile-friendly site, 96% of consumers say they’ve encountered sites that were clearly not designed for mobile devices. This is both a big problem and a big opportunity for companies seeking to engage with mobile users.

Mobile-friendly sites turn users into customers
The fastest path to mobile customers is through a mobile-friendly site. If your site offers a great mobile experience, users are more likely to make a purchase.

• When they visited a mobile-friendly site, 74% of people say they’re more likely to return to that site in the future
• 67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they’re more likely to buy a site’s product or service

Not having a mobile-friendly site helps your competitors
A great mobile site experience is becoming increasingly important, and users will keep looking for a mobile-friendly site until they find one that works for them. That means your competitors will benefit if your site falls down on the job (and vice versa).

• 61% of users said that if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site, they’d quickly move on to another site
• 79% of people who don’t like what they find on one site will go back and search for another site
• 50% of people said that even if they like a business, they will use them less often if the website isn't mobile-friendly

Non-mobile friendly sites can hurt a company’s reputation
It turns out that you can lose more than the sale with a bad mobile experience. A site that’s not designed for mobile can leave users feeling downright frustrated, and these negative reactions translate directly to the brands themselves.

• 48% of users say they feel frustrated and annoyed when they get to a site that’s not mobile-friendly
• 36% said they felt like they’ve wasted their time by visiting those sites
• 52% of users said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company
• 48% said that if a site didn’t work well on their smartphones, it made them feel like the company didn’t care about their business

Takeaways
While the research confirms what we already suspected -- that mobile users actively seek out and prefer to engage with mobile-friendly sites -- it’s a sobering reminder of just how quickly and deeply users attitudes about companies can be shaped by mobile site experiences. Having a great mobile site is no longer just about making a few more sales. It’s become a critical component of building strong brands, nurturing lasting customer relationships, and making mobile work for you.

To learn more about our study

• Click here and join our free webinar on September 26 at 1 p.m. EST / 10 a.m. PST
• Get help on building a mobile-friendly site, visit howtogomo.com.

Posted by: Masha Fisch, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

As more people go online to research, compare, and shop, brands have evolved the way they launch new products. While this impacts nearly every field, we took a microscope to the video game industry with a new research paper “Understanding the Modern Gamer.” As new technologies and faster web access proliferate, the video game market is in the midst of a transformation.

Here’s the bottom line: the digital “shelf life” of video games now spans almost a full year.

Users are planning, researching, and considering their video game purchases a lot earlier (6 months before a title’s released), and continuing to engage with the game - by downloading reviews, discussing game strategies and purchasing extra game features online - for about 4 months after their initial purchase. And of course, they’re doing it across multiple devices.

At the same time smart video game companies, like Electronic Arts (EA), are transforming their marketing and product launch strategies, promoting titles earlier - and for longer - to drive sales and engagement.

Here are the key findings from the study:

• Gamers search earlier, longer, and more often. Overall, game-related searches increased by 20% on desktops and laptops, and jumped 168% on tablets and smartphones over the last year. Why? In part, there’s a bigger search window, as gamers sift through an increasingly competitive world of great video game titles.
• Gamers take a sneak-peak at video games before they purchase. We found that 40% of game-related searches occurred during the pre-launch phase, 6 months before a title’s release. Top searches include trailers, game art, and short versions of the game available for play. 
• Gamers score with help from multiple screens. Tips are the most-searched content during launch month, and more than 1 in 4 tips searches take place on a mobile device after launch. While players cast an eye toward the TV screen, the other is looking at tips, cheats, hints, and walkthroughs on their tablets or smartphones.
• Gamers rely on mobile for purchase information. Mobile devices have become an indispensable second screen for gamers as people look to learn more about their new purchase. We found that 1 in 5 purchase-related searches occur on a mobile device. 
• Gamers stay connected with video games after release. Video game information continues to be in high demand up to four months after a title’s release. Undecided buyers seek reviews, while purchasers search for ways to enhance their gaming experience, like downloadable extension content. 
• Digital engagement can predict physical sales. The extended launch cycle provides a longer opportunity to influence purchase decisions. We found that 84% of game sales were predicted by ad clicks in a 10 month period. If a game accrues 250,000 clicks in the 10 months surrounding a launch, it will likely sell between 2 and 4 million units in the four months after the release.

Smart marketers like EA made the most of this by:

• For marketers, this longer, more engaged research phase is a key moment to influence users’ purchase decisions. For titles like Medal of Honor: Warfighter, out in 2013, EA has already kicked off its digital marketing efforts, leveraging media ads on search and YouTube video ads to ensure trailers for the game are in front of people actively seeking content on new titles.
• Connecting with consumers throughout the launch cycle and across all devices is incredibly important, whether it’s helping gamers complete a purchase or providing access to downloadable content. To keep gamers engaged after launch, EA has offered content updates, game enhancements, and other consumer engagement opportunities online for franchises like Madden NFL, FIFA, Battlefield, NCAA Football, and more. 
• Approaching each title release with the extended research phase framework has paid off for EA. Digital marketing and other efforts drove a 347% increase in searches Battlefield 3 compared to Battlefield 2.

Learn more
To learn more about gamer search activity across the lifecycle of a game and how we created our predictive model, download the full whitepaper from Think with Google.

Posted by James Getomer, Senior Analytical Lead

Cirque du Soleil stages impressive live performances that challenge the laws of physics and the limits of the human body. Last Thursday, at Google’s Big Tent event in New York, the wonder of Cirque du Soleil transcended the confines of real world performance and embraced the entire web through Movi.Kanti.Revo, a new sensory Chrome experiment crafted by Cirque du Soleil and developed by Subatomic Systems.

Movi.Kanti.Revo comes from the Esperanto words for moving, singing and dreaming. In the experiment, you can follow a mysterious character through a beautiful and surreal world to encounter enchanting Cirque du Soleil performances and live an emotional journey made of love, doubts, hopes and dreams.


Breaking with the tradition of point and click web browsing, you can navigate through this unique experience simply by gesturing in front of your device’s camera. This was made possible using the getUserMedia feature of WebRTC, a technology supported by modern browsers, that, with your permission, gives web pages access to your computer’s camera and microphone without installing any additional software.

To bring the creativity of Cirque du Soleil to the browser, we mixed traditional HTML and CSS with 3D transitions and HTML5 APIs. If you’re more technology-curious, you can get a backstage tour via our Chromium blog and a brand new technical case study.

Chrome Experiments like Movi.Kanti.Revo demonstrate how the web has evolved into a beautiful creative canvas underpinned by continuously evolving web technologies. For optimal viewing, you’ll need to use a computer that has a camera and a browser that supports WebRTC, like Chrome. You can also access the experiment from a tablet or a mobile phone for a slightly different yet still beautiful experience.

Start your journey at www.movikantirevo.com.

Posted by Christos Apartoglou, Marketing Manager

(Cross-posted from the Google Chrome blog)

As we announced in June, AdWords Editor versions 9.5.1 and 9.7.1 will no longer be supported after October 28, 2012. If you continue using version 9.5.1 or 9.7.1 after this date, you'll encounter errors downloading accounts, posting changes to campaign settings, or checking changes. To avoid these issues, please upgrade to the latest version (9.8.1) at your earliest convenience.

You can upgrade to version 9.8.1 through the auto-update prompt that appears when you run AdWords Editor. To preserve unposted changes and comments, select the "Backup then Upgrade" option in the prompt. You can also download the latest version from the AdWords Editor website.

For a complete list of version-specific changes, please see our release notes. To see which version you're using, go to the Help menu > About AdWords Editor (Windows) or the AdWords Editor menu > About AdWords Editor (Mac).

Posted by Geoff Menegay, Product Manager

Earlier this summer we announced we were bringing together DoubleClick’s advertising technology products into the unified DoubleClick Digital Marketing (DDM) platform for advertisers and agencies.

Over the coming months we’ll be giving you regular updates on this journey as we launch upgrades of the DoubleClick products, implement cross-product integrations, and deliver innovative, new features within the individual products.

We’ve had a busy summer, and are excited to share the following details:

• Platforms upgrades - An important first step to delivering on the vision of DDM is upgrading the individual DoubleClick products to take advantage of Google’s technology. Today we’re highlighting the progress we’ve made upgrading two platforms: DoubleClick Bid Manager and DoubleClick Studio.
  
  
• DoubleClick Bid Manager -- Google acquired the Invite Media demand-side platform in 2010, and since then we have completely rebuilt the platform to take advantage of Google's technology. We announced during the summer that Bid Manager was going into beta and now, with a notable volume of traffic flowing through the system, we’ll be making this new version available to all customers in October. Customers using the new Bid Manager to target, optimize, and buy display media have seen improved performance, including seeing 16% more inventory due to infrastructure improvements that reduce our latency with exchanges.
  
  
• DoubleClick Studio version 2 -- We have also upgraded our rich media production tool, DoubleClick Studio, which facilitates a streamlined workflow between media and creative agencies for the web’s most engaging ad formats. Almost 80% of creative agencies using DoubleClick Studio have already transitioned to the new version, which delivers a faster and more responsive UI and integrated dynamic content capabilities.
  
  Upgrading the individual platforms also gives us the opportunity to make sure that they work better together to unlock even more opportunities for our customers.
  
  
• Streamlining cross-product interactions: When we asked leading agencies and advertisers how much time their staff could save by working in an integrated ad platform, they estimated they could save about a third of hours spent per week -- or about an extra month every year each team member could invest in other activities -- just by reducing manual processes and working in a single system.
  
  With the DoubleClick Bid Manager upgrade and its integration with DDM, buyers can now access cross-channel opportunities that are only available through a unified system. For example, we’re excited to announce the ability for agencies and marketers using DoubleClick Search to show consumers display ads via DoubleClick Bid Manager based on their interactions with paid search ads. Marketers have struggled to coordinate their search and display marketing efforts, and this new integration makes it easier, with no new site tags and no new products to learn.
  
  Another subtle step toward cross-product interaction is the rollout this week of a new universal navigation bar and application switcher for users of DoubleClick Search, DoubleClick Bid Manager and DoubleClick Studio. While a simple change, we believe this new UI will facilitate seamless switching between DoubleClick products, saving time for marketers who are using our platform to manage their campaigns across multiple channels.
  
  Innovation across the platform: In addition to integrating our platforms, we are continuing to invest in our existing products. As an example of this, we’re excited to announce the launch later this month of Attribution Modeling in Multi-Channel Funnels in DoubleClick for Advertisers.
  
  Advertisers use a variety of channels, messages and ads to engage customers. Determining which of these efforts is most effective in converting customers can be difficult (see related post here). Attribution analysis can help identify what is driving customers, but until recently it’s only been practical for the most sophisticated advertisers. By the end of September, we’re making attribution modeling available to anyone using DFA -- for free.
  
  Some benefits of this approach include:
  
  1. Ready to use data -- the attribution modeling data will live within DFA, so there’s no delay between when you want to run an analysis, and when you can actually start.
  2. Flexible, customizable, transparent models -- you can take advantage of five standard attribution models in DFA, or build your own custom model tailored to the needs of your business
  3. It’s free -- no need to build your own system for this kind of analysis. We’re giving it to you as part of DFA, with your data loaded and ready to go.

We're rapidly delivering on our vision for a fully integrated experience and common workflows across DoubleClick solutions -- from ad serving to buying and analytics. We’re excited to be on this journey with our customers and believe that by delivering an integrated experience, we can help the industry truly unlock the full potential of digital marketing. Stay tuned for more updates, there’s a lot more to come!

Posted by Jason Miller

In the past 10 years the number and variety of new technologies in display advertising have more than doubled, effectively creating new - and better - ways to buy display across the web. With this influx of new display targeting technologies available to advertisers (contextual, remarketing, demographics, interest categories to name a few), our clients often wonder which targeting method performs better: audience or contextual advertising? We've said in the past that the combination of audience and contextual buying work better together, and now we have some new insight into how advertisers are thinking about these tools.

We worked with Forrester Consulting and surveyed 150 interactive marketers to evaluate their perceptions on the effectiveness of combining audience & contextual targeting with respect to display buying. The findings from the new whitepaper, Display Media Buyers Value Audience in Context, were presented during a special joint Learn With Google webinar featuring Forrester’s Joanna O’Connell and Google’s Woojin Kim. Register here to view the recording.

Key findings from the research include:

• 50% of respondents use a full range of targeting types including: Remarketing, Demographic, Behavioral and Contextual
• Contextual and behavioral targeting dominate: Used by the vast majority - 82% in the case of contextual, 71% in the case for behavioral
• 94% of marketers combine contextual & audience buying for higher performance and greater accuracy
• Audience targeting has become the norm in display buying: The majority of marketers surveyed are bullish on audience targeting, and few see it as overhyped.
• Most marketers plan on maintaining increasing spend on combined audience & contextual targeting.

Interested in learning more? Download the whitepaper on Think Insights with Google.

Posted by Katie Hamilton, Product Marketing Manager Google Display Network

At Google, we're amazed by how the ad industry is using the digital canvas to bring brands and ideas to life. Whether it’s enticing viewers with video, evoking a smile with a mobile phone, or reconfiguring the typical ‘test drive,’ when digital advertising works, it can not only be informative, but emotional and dazzling. That’s why we've created a space where everyone can see this great work, talk about it, and roll around in it like a big happy dog.


Today, we’re launching the Creative Sandbox gallery. It’s a crowdsourced collection of global campaigns that push the boundaries of creativity and technology from across digital platforms -- a place to flash your brilliance, spark new digital ideas, inspire and be inspired. We're asking the creators to share a little detail on how they made the magic happen and the tools they used to do it, exposing us all to new ideas and new ways to improve our own work.

As with any sandbox, looking and playing are required. Vote to push your favorite projects to the top. Tell other creators what you admire. And if you've done something amazing lately, send it in. We'd all love to see it.

Jump in. Explore. And play.

www.creativesandbox.com

Posted by Justin Joy, Agency Marketing Manager

Creativity is a fundamental part of any business' success, and it's often helpful to go right to the source for tips. Earlier this year, we partnered with The One Club to develop a series that would bring the energy and ideas of creative icons to today's industry. Our goal was to explore the creative consistencies, anomalies, joys, and pains over the past century.

Last week, we hosted icons Mark Tutssel of Leo Burnett and Bob Scarpelli of DDB at Google Chicago. The theme was "Focus," featuring a candid conversation between the two creatives, ranging from influential work, Chicago's mojo, and the future of advertising. Both men discussed the work that makes them proud, creativity's power to solve problems, and the importance of emphasizing the humanity in everything that we do. Creatives from several Chicago agencies, including Leo Burnett, DDB, BBDO Energy, Euro RSCG, and SapientNitro, joined the conversation, and learned about the stories behind campaigns such as Budweiser's Wassup and Troy Library's Book Burning Party.

Our first Lessons from Legends event was held in June, with Lee Clow of TBWA\Chiat\Day kicking off the program. Just as Lee couldn't help but emphasize the importance of Los Angeles in his creative story, Chicago played an active role inspiring both Mark and Bob. We'll soon move the program to another city, and are eager to learn how the next locale inspires another group of creative talent.




Posted by Carley Ribet, Agency Coordinator

With more than one million apps currently in the Google Play and iTunes Stores, we know that those of you advertising apps are looking for ways to drive valuable installs at scale while helping your apps stand out from the crowd. We recently launched several app promotion features designed to help those of you who have created an app promotion campaign in AdWords, or are considering creating an app promotion campaign, maximize your return on investment.

CPA Bidding with Conversion Optimizer
You are constantly looking for ways to easily optimize your campaigns and attract the right customers at the right cost. Google’s Conversion Optimizer helps increase conversions across our search and display networks while decreasing cost per acquisition. Conversion Optimizer analyzes historical conversion data and adjusts bids on an ongoing basis to help you maximize your ROI. We're now extending the power of this automated bidding feature to app advertisers to help you drive efficient app installs at scale.

With Conversion Optimizer, instead of a traditional CPC bid, you can set a target cost per acquisition (CPA), based on your average cost per download. Conversion Optimizer will use historical conversion data and other signals to place CPC bids automatically, in order to hit the target CPA with as much volume as possible. While results vary per campaign, strong early results from our beta campaigns show a 20%+ decrease in cost per install with the addition of Conversion Optimizer. It’s important to note that Target CPA bidding does not guarantee a particular cost per install. The tool is now available to all advertisers that have created app promotion campaigns, and we’re excited to help you move beyond manual bid management to free, automated optimization.

Ad Formats
For advertisers looking to promote your apps to app users, capturing the attention of potential users and driving them to download your app is key. Many advertisers use our text ads to drive people to an Android or iOS app, and we've now optimized text ads for Android or iOS apps to include more information about what users are getting, what they have to pay for it, and how others feel about the app.

The ad rotates to display all the information when a user clicks on the ad. The user has to click on Download to go to the app download page.

With AdWords, app advertisements are automatically updated with the latest information like reviews and ratings. You simply create a text ad that points to your app download page, and AdWords supplies the graphics and formatting. We’ve found that when app advertisers provide users with this kind of important information about their apps, many have seen their cost per conversion decrease by about 25%.

If you’d like to learn more about Google’s app promotion features and see a live demonstration of how to implement and optimize these tools in your AdWords account, tune into our webinar on September 12th at 10am PST. Register today by visiting this link: http://goo.gl/B49ma.

Posted by Chrix Finne, Product Manager, Mobile Ads