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

Starting May 17, advertisers can reach TVs in over 30 million homes (and soon even more), targeting audiences at scale on more than 100 cable networks.

Partnering with DIRECTV, the largest satellite provider and second largest TV distributor in the US, enables Google to offer multi-distributor airings on Bloomberg Television, Cartoon Network (West), Centric, Chiller, Current TV, Discovery Fit and Health, Fox Business, Fuel, Ovation, Sleuth and TV Guide across all dayparts, every day.

Read all about Google's launch with DIRECTV on the Google TV Blog and visit Google's TV Ads site.

Posted by: the Agency Blog Team

For the latest installment in the "Coffee break" series, we sat down with Ryan Pedersen, Associate Search Director at Mindshare, and Patrick Kuypers, Digital Media Services Manager at Radio Shack, who shared with us how some simple changes to an already high-performing contextually targeted Display Network campaign for Radio Shack were able to raise it to another level of success. Here's what Ryan and Patrick had to say:

What was the primary campaign/product you were marketing for the client?
The campaign we focused on was Radio Shack's contextually-targeted campaign with brand keywords on the Google Display Network. Our goal was to improve the client's return on ad spend (ROAS).

When Mindshare began working with Radio Shack in May 2010, we found that this campaign had a number of sites excluded, such as a broader range of sites in the tech and mobile space. We think the client was concerned that these categories of sites would not convert as well, especially during what is historically seen as a slow time in retail. However, we used this as an opportunity to re-visit the campaign together with fresh eyes.

What Google solutions did you use to meet Radio Shack's goals?
First, we used Google Insights for Search to show that from May-August 2009, there was a slight up-tick in interest in Radio Shack searches. Normally Q4 is the strongest quarter, but with this data, we could show the value of investing in branded keyword campaigns in Q3, as well.


Next, Tony Frabotta and Whitney Smith from the account team at Mindshare created a Display Network campaign with automatic placements and keywords. To develop the campaign, we revisited sites that had previously been excluded, and realized that many were tech and Radio Shack relevant sites that had been excluded that had competitive click-through rates and conversion rates. In addition, competitors were on these sites, so felt that Radio Shack should be, as well. We therefore added them back into the campaign.

We also opened up to anything related to electronics to grow reach and client base, as these sites served as push vehicles in search to drive online sales.

From there, we developed an ad group that was tightly organized around variations of the branded keyword Radio Shack to help the Google system target content and map to more relevant sites.

Finally, we also looked at Placement performance reports and excluded any sites that had not been performing.

How did the Google solution perform?
The campaign officially launched in July, and immediately outperformed branded search campaigns. July – September the ROAS was just under $7, compared to just over $5.5 for branded search campaigns, across engines.

Did any results surprise you?
Yes! We traditionally have view contextual targeting as a way to create buzz for search and to leverage content across the Google Display Network. However, by using insights gained from direct response search campaigns, we use successfully use contextually-targeted display campaigns to drive both buzz and sales.

If you did not use this Google solution, how would things have been different?
Our overall blended ROAS would be lower and below our target goal.

For more information on contextually-targeted display campaigns, visit the AdWords Help Center. To find useful data trends to inform clients' campaigns, visit Insights for Search.

Posted by Agency Blog Team

Having a mobile strategy is key when engaging with tech savvy, connected consumers -- especially when you want online and in-store conversions.

To that end, our mobile team posted five tips for driving smartphone users to purchase from your site on their blog. Check out their post here for the full scoop.

Posted by Agency Blog Team

Creative people on YouTube love turning an idea into a brilliant production. They want their work to matter.

With this in mind, we’ve partnered with the 58th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Good Work, a new program that gives creative professionals the opportunity to use their skills to make a difference and gain recognition their work. Learn more in this video:



Through Good Work, nonprofits from all over the world can submit a brief for a video ad promoting their cause. These organizations often lack the resources and time to create a truly great ad for their cause - and this is where you can help. Pick a brief you want to work on from the Good Work briefs gallery and make an ad for that organization. Your ad can be inspirational, thought-provoking, funny, or serious - just make sure it’s innovative and compulsively watchable.

If you succeed, you might be strutting your stuff at this year’s Cannes Festival - five talented people will win a trip to Cannes and have their work showcased there. Could it be you?

The deadline to submit your entry here is May 9, 2011. A jury of top industry experts chaired by Craig Davis, Chief Creative Officer Publicis Mojo and founder of Brandkarma, will announce the winners on May 21, 2011.

Posted by Supriya Sharma, YouTube Product Marketing Managaer

It’s no secret that video consumption is growing. Fast. As more devices find their places in people’s homes and pockets, more video consumption is happening across live and time-shifted TV, computers, tablets, and mobile phones. What is most interesting, is while online video consumption has exploded, time spent watching TV has in fact also continued to grow, with the average US adult clocking in 158 hours of TV time per month.*

People are simply consuming more content than ever before and TV is still the center of that experience, remaining an effective way to broadcast your message to a national audience of engaged viewers. What's more is the link between TV and online behavior continues to emerge and strengthen, especially considering that nearly 60% of people now watch TV and surf the internet simultaneously.* If you're rolling your eyes at the prospect of spending media dollars on a mass medium like TV, hear us out because we believe that television advertising is still relevant and has become better targeted. Whether you’re a seasoned TV buyer or just beginning to think about offline media, a strategic approach to integrating TV into your larger media plan is absolutely critical. When planning, consider the following: marketing objectives, target audience, and seasonality.

Identifying marketing objectives is the first, most crucial step. What are the outcomes you’re anticipating from TV advertising? Is the goal of your campaign general branding or to increase sales of a specific product? As you can tell, different objectives lead to a very different budget allocation, core message (approach to creative), and campaign success metrics. For example, if your TV campaign goal is to sell 1,000,000 units of product X, your creative should contain specific production information, direct calls-to-action and at least one sales outlet (i.e. 1-800 number , a specific website URL, in-store coupon code, or all of the above). Using trackable mechanisms brings a new dimension to ROI measurement in TV, especially with innovations like Google's call reporting feature.

What about targeting? Increased viewership fragmentation within the TV universe (more program/network choices in any given time slot) has actually make it easier to pinpoint your target audience on TV since programming has become so interest specific. For instance, to reach females 25-54 who enjoy cooking and gardening, networks including Food Network and HGTV immediately come to mind. What’s great about Google’s TV Ads platform is that we’ve taken targeting even further by introducing technology and search-based targeting tools to the TV buying process. Google TV Ads allows you to choose specific networks, programs and even defined audiences based on demographics and interests. These features allow you to find and target your audience across 100+ networks reaching nearly 35M homes in the US, or almost 1/3 of the US population through one single platform.*

Lastly, timing and seasonality are of key importance. If your product or service is impacted by seasonality, it’s important to plan well in advance. For example, New Year resolutions bring finances, weight loss and fitness to people’s minds – a perfect opportunity for advertisers in these spaces to increase marketing efforts and reach consumers at this critical time. Planning in advance will allow you to have the required budgets and a sense of which media targets to hit as we ring in the New Year. To learn more about Google TV Ads and how to launch a targeted TV campaign in minutes, please visit www.google.com/tvads.

*Source: The Nielsen Company., Three Screen Report Q1’2010
*Google TV Ads will offer nearly 35M homes in 2011 with the integration of new cable partners DIRECTV and Verizon FiOs.

Posted by Chris Henrotin and Neha Mandel, TV Ads Team

Today we announce a new family of ad formats called TrueView Video Ads. TrueView Video Ads give viewers choice and control over which advertiser’s message they want to see and when. And we charge advertisers only when a viewer has chosen to watch your ad, not when an impression is served.

Why are we offering cost-per-view video ads? We believe this model creates wins for everyone: consumers choose ads that are more relevant to them; advertisers more precisely find the audiences they want; and content creators continue to fund great content with an ad experience that is less intrusive.

In the end, it will also be the creativity of agencies and advertisers who will win. It’s not about being funny or clever – it’s about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. And TrueView Video Ads can help get you and your client there, combining the brand engagement and reach of YouTube with the conversion tracking and optimization of online advertising.

Our first available cost-per-view format is TrueView Video Ads - InStream format. Viewers can choose to skip a video ad after 5 seconds or watch the ad. An advertiser only gets charged when the viewer has watched the full ad or 30 seconds, whichever is shorter.

If you’re interested in trying out TrueView Video Ads, contact your account manager today. This ad format is available for customers in the US and Canada and in limited testing for advertisers in the UK. We are working to add availability in additional countries.

For the complete announcement, please visit the Inside AdWords Blog.

Posted by Phil Farhi, Senior Product Manager, The YouTube Team

Hi Agency Blog readers! I am back for year 2 of my Black Friday tips. Enjoy!
~ Ben

It may be hard to believe (and a little scary), but Thanksgiving is next week and Black Friday is only 8 days away! (Momentary pause while the shock settles in) With this daunting thought in mind, there are two things to consider that should make the holiday shopping weekend go as smoothly (and hopefully as profitably for clients) as possible -- holiday promotion ads and a Black Friday placement pack.

1. When it comes to the holiday season, one of the clearest trends we have picked up on is that ads with promotions perform better than ads that don’t (seems that consumers like deals. Strange, I know). If clients have any upcoming promotions (free shipping, a percent off, sales, etc.), all ads should be promoting these. This is especially true if they have Black Friday specific sales. If this is the case, make a point of saying “Black Friday Sale” or indicate that this is a limited time only (“Fri – Sun”, “This Weekend Only”, etc.).
   
   If you plan on creating and implementing ads specifically for Black Friday and the shopping weekend after Thanksgiving, be sure to implement them in the account by the end of day Tuesday (11/23) to give them enough time to make it through the ad approval process.
   
   
2. Some of your clients may want to do a bit more than just create new ads for next week. If you have a client that would like to target users actively looking for Black Friday deals, then you may want to create a display campaign targeting sites that aggregate such deals. Using the Placement Tool in your AdWords account, search for words such as ‘black friday’ and ‘black friday sales’ to identify sites that would be good to target. With this list, there are two possible ways to use it:

• Create a campaign to target only managed placements and have a single ad group that contains all of these placements.
• Create a campaign with the same settings, but have multiple ad groups with keyword themes and set them to target these placements, creating an Enhanced Online Campaign. For example, if you have a cosmetics client, you might want to have a few ad groups with themes like “makeup”, “hair products”, “ cosmetics”, etc. Then, targeting these Black Friday placements, you will be in a better position to place ads in front of consumers looking for deals around products your client sells.

For either of these, set it to run starting this Friday (11/19) through EOD Sunday (11/28). If clients have deals carrying through cyber Monday, then extend it another day.

As always, with all of your clients, make sure that your budgets and bids are adjusted for this busy weekend. With the increase in traffic, budgets can get depleted more quickly (resulting in campaigns stopping ads from being shown) and competitors bid more aggressively. Make sure that budgets are set to keep campaigns running throughout the day and increase bids to maintain positions.

These can be stressful times in the online advertising world, but if you plan ahead by implementing things early and position your clients in front of customers looking for deals around their products, you can help to make this a great season!

Posted by Ben Sheldon, Agency Team

[This has been cross-posted from the Inside AdWords Blog]

As part of our Google Images redesign this July, we introduced Image Search Ads, which include a thumbnail alongside your ad text. We learned that on Google Images, image-based ads provided great results for our advertisers. They are also a highly useful format for users because they show commercial content directly related to the user's query.

Today we're expanding the image ad formats available on Google Images by testing rich media leaderboard units that appear above Google Images search results and invite you to try new products and services. With the introduction of this display ad format on Google Images, you now have a great opportunity to reach users with engaging ads, whether your goal is to build brand awareness, or to drive clicks and conversions.

Advertising on Google Images allows you to reach hundreds of millions of users around the world who use the site to find relevant photos and images every week. Today display ads on Google Images are available on a small fraction of queries in the US and UK only. Over time, we hope to make display ads on Google Images available on more queries globally.

Display ads on Google Images work the same as they would on other sites in the Google Display Network. They're triggered by the content on the page - in this case, that’s defined by the category of the search term that the user enters. If, for example, you target your ad to appear on Google Images on travel-related content, your ad may appear on Google Images if a user searches for related terms like [travel], [vacation], [beach] or [summer holiday].

It’s easy to start running display ads on Google Images. Just use the AdWords placement targeting tool to target Google Images like any other site on the Google Display Network, and choose the type of content you want to advertise alongside. You can upload your own leaderboard format ad or create one using Display Ad Builder. Pricing can be either CPM or CPC, depending on your goals. If you want more information about the advertising options on Google Images, visit the Help Center.

We’re invested in making display advertising work better for both users and advertisers. We look forward to introducing new, innovative placements and formats on the Google Display Network to help you reach your advertising goals.

Posted by Nathan Beach, Product Manager

YouTube reports that it has served its 500,000,000th Promoted Video view this week. This ad product combines the branding capabilities of video with the direct response action of search advertising, allowing advertisers to promote their videos against search results or related videos on YouTube. Additionally, with the Promoted Videos API, agencies can now more easily manage complex campaigns across multiple clients. For additional information, please see the full story on the YouTube blog.

Posted by Jay Akkad, Product Manager, YouTube

Congratulations, you have made it to the final installment of the Google Media Solutions series! We get frequent questions about Google TV Ads, whether it's the right platform, how much it costs, how it works. Here’s your crash course.

Google TV Ads is an online marketing place that allows anyone to launch national TV campaigns and measure their success with timely reporting. Google TV Ads allows you to buy the programs that you want without bundling, pay only for impressions delivered and access viewership data from a sample of millions.

Ready to jump in? Let’s dispel a few myths that your clients might have heard:

• Does TV advertising fit into my marketing mix?: Television advertising allows you to reach a wider audience than any other advertising medium. Generate brand awareness and demand through sight, sound and motion. It’s also a great supplement to any online strategy - read how ooVoo used TV to drive a 500% increase in site traffic!
• We want to get started, but we don’t have a commercial. Can you help?: Of course! You can use the Google Ad Creation Market Place to connect with professional ad production houses for as little as $200. Creating compelling, effective TV ads at relatively low costs has never been easier.
• But is TV Measurable?: If you have a website, we recommend tracking and comparing website visits with your TV campaign metrics using Google Analytics. Google Analytics can track TV campaign metrics like TV impressions alongside daily web traffic volume.

What does it take to get started? Create a video ad, log into AdWords, choose targets and shows and see your ad on TV within 48 hours! Visit the Getting Started Guide for more tips.

This post concludes our Google Media Solutions series. Over the past four weeks, we have reviewed Google AdWords, the Google Display Network, Remarketing, YouTube and Google TV Ads. Hopefully you have learned some tips and tricks along the way.

Posted by Laura Salzberg, Agency Team

Are you getting ready for the holidays? With the holidays less than 2 months away, we wanted to share some seasonally-focused resources and tips with you from our friends at YouTube. They've prepared some marketing strategies to help you and your clients take advantage of this time of the year on the top online video destination.

Tip #1: Customize a YouTube Brand Channel
Just as a retail store would dress up its window during the holidays, take advantage of enhanced features to customize clients' channels. For example, you can showcase their products with the 300x250 display ad; integrate all of their social media efforts with the channel banner that appears at the top of your channel page; and help them stay connected with customers with a remarketing campain that targets users who have visited their YouTube channel.

Tip #2: Show off products through video this holiday season
YouTube is the second-largest search engine after Google. Your clients probably have a search engine strategy for the top search engines—is YouTube included in that plan? Videos are a compelling way to feature products, services, and brands. When clients' target audiences are searching on YouTube make sure their videos are surfaced with promoted videos.

Tip #3: Place holiday creatives against relative videos
Help clients reach their audience in a ‘lean forward’ media platform where people are seeking video engagement and information. Find videos or video categories that resonate with their brand or target audience and pair holiday display ads against them.

Tip #4: Bring holiday TV ads online
In 2009, people spent more time watching online video than checking their email! Use TV creatives or online videos to run as preroll before videos on YouTube and get in front of this tremendous audience. Engagement rates are also compelling with an average CTR of 1.9%. An ad format that answers your holiday wish.

Tip #5: YouTube Video Gift Guide
Now consumers have a place to watch and shop on YouTube! This holiday shopping video hub is open to all advertising partners with video assets. Our guide provides consumers with the opportunity to watch and shop and provide advertisers with one destination to showcase their holiday video ads. Contact a sales representative to get started.

We’ve made your list, now check it twice and have a great holiday season!

Posted by Jen Wasson, YouTube Team

Welcome to the third installment of the Google Media Solutions series. In this post, we will review the Google Display Network. The Google Display Network is a large group of websites and blogs that display AdWords ads and allows advertisers to scalably reach their customers at moments of relevance. Clients are using it for direct response, web engagement as well as driving offline conversions.

We have rolled out many new features for the Google Display Network. One that we would like to highlight is remarketing. Google remarketing uses custom technology to reach potential customers who have previously visited your clients’ websites. Implementing the remarketing tag is very easy; you simply add a pixel to the clients’ sites. After adding the pixel, you can use remarketing to help capture additional sales or leads by re-targeting users who have already visited the site, and generally convert better and at a lower CPA. To learn more about remarketing and other innovative targeting options on the Google Display Network, you can check out this post from the Google Display Network blog series.

We frequently hear some common misconceptions from advertisers about the GDN that we’d like to clarify:

• I’ve tried the GDN before - what has changed?: The Google Display Network has changed a lot in the past few years. Today, the median advertiser gets approximately 20% of their conversions from the GDN at a CPA that is comparable to search.* To drive results like these, we are investing heavily in many new features that make the GDN an effective platform for advertisers with any marketing objective. Examples of features we've introduced over the years include site exclusions, above the fold targeting, frequency capping, and consolidated view-through conversion reporting.
• The Google Display Network only works for branding: Contextual targeting and remarketing are just a few examples of great tools that direct response marketers can use to reach potential customers in the later stages of the buying cycle, like consideration and decision. The Conversion Optimizer can also help you generate additional conversions at an attractive cost-per-acquisition (CPA). With powerful tools like these, you can make sure you are capturing all your potential customers as they spend time across the web.

Thanks for reading the third part of the Google Media Solutions blog series. Next week, we will discuss how you can use Google TV to drive results for your clients.

Posted by Laura Salzberg, Agency Team

*Internal analysis of North America advertisers advertising on both search and content, with conversion tracking enabled, from Dec. 2007 – Nov. 2008

Thanks for joining us for the second installment of the Google Media Solutions series. We switched things up and will be sharing a YouTube update this week, with the Google Display Network and Remarketing post coming next week.

Online video represents a huge opportunity to reach potential customers with new, compelling formats. YouTube is the perfect platform to reach these customers, drive sales and enhance branding initiatives.

There are many benefits to advertising on YouTube. It is a unique platform which allows your clients to reach potential customers who are engaging online. You can set up YouTube campaigns through the AdWords interface. With our new YouTube Video Targeting Tool, you can target specific audiences based on interest, demographic or specific video content. Your clients can create their message and share it with consumers with their videos or display ads. Additionally, after running a campaign, you can use YouTube Insight to learn how potential customers are interacting with your clients' videos.

There might be some confusion around YouTube ad formats, so here’s some clarification:

• I am not sure if my clients' audiences are on YouTube?: Your clients' audiences are watching YouTube videos. YouTube has users of all ages and 32% of users are between the ages of 35 and 54*. In fact, if the YouTube audience were a country, it would be the 3rd largest country in the world with over 420 million unique visitors every month.
• Our clients don’t have video content. How can we use YouTube?: You don’t need to have video content to advertise on YouTube. You can target your clients' audiences on YouTube with display, text or video ads. Our recommendation, since YouTube is a visual medium, is to test out display ads.
• Is there professional content on YouTube?: YouTube has over 3,500 content partners, including CBS, TV Guide, Fred and JuicyStar07. Our partners are actively uploading content and the video landscape is constantly changing. As this is the case, your clients' target audiences are returning to see new, updated content on YouTube!

Check in next week for the third post, which will be on the Google Display Network, Remarketing and great tips for reaching your customers while they browse the web!

Posted by Laura Salzberg, Agency Team

* comScore MediaMetrix, September 2009

Over the next four weeks, we will be sharing tips and tricks for positioning Google products to your clients in the Google Media Solutions Series. We are excited to share the benefits of our solutions, debunk common myths and pass on easy implementation tips to help your accounts reach their full potential.

So, let's get started with Google’s search marketing product, Google AdWords. Using Google AdWords, you can target Google.com and the Google Search Network. This is a great solution to connect with potential customers who are searching for your clients’ products and services. It is flexible, measurable, and accountable. With AdWords, you can easily manage the spend of the account and control costs by setting a daily budget and maximum cost-per-click (CPC). Another benefit is that it’s easy to make changes to your clients’ ad text, as changes to ads take affect almost instantaneously. Lastly, as an added benefit, you can track the return on investment (ROI) of your account by using Conversion Tracking or Google Analytics.

There are some common myths that your clients may have heard regarding search and we want to make sure that we clarify these misconceptions:

• My website shows organically, so I don’t need to advertise: It is great to have a highly ranked organic listing; however you can’t control the message to your potential customers with organic listings in the same way that you can control it with search marketing campaigns. By advertising on Google.com and the search network, you can control the message that you share with all potential customers and determine the landing page to which you direct your potential customers after they click on the ad. These features can lead to increased sales.
  
  In addition, organic results are likely only capturing a very small portion of the relevant traffic on Google. For example, a consumer electronics advertiser might appear high in the search results for their brand terms, or specific trademarks relevant to their company, but AdWords can expose their message on a wide variety of related terms like 'digital cameras' 'netbooks' and 'HD TVs'.
  

• Competitors can click on my ads maliciously: We take the security of AdWords accounts very seriously and have many resources in place to prevent your account from accruing invalid clicks. While invalid clicks occur less often than commonly perceived, we have three filters in place to protect your account: detection and filtering techniques, advanced monitoring techniques and manual reviews from our team.

Stay tuned for next week’s post on the Google Display Network, remarketing and great tips for reaching your customers while they browse the web!

Posted by Laura Salzberg, Agency Team

In early August, we announced that the updated Keyword Tool was nearing the end of its beta phase. Today, we wanted to let you know that we’ve fully launched the updated Keyword Tool.

What does that mean for you? It means we’ve combined the best features from two previous keyword tools into one. The previous Keyword Tool and Search-based Keyword Tool are no longer available in AdWords. The updated Keyword Tool is now the only Keyword Tool available in AdWords, so you can now simply call it “The Keyword Tool.”

The Keyword Tool’s benefits include:

• Flexible search options: Search by any combination of keyword, website/URL, and category (where available) and receive a single set of results.
• Easy Keyword Refinement: Filter results by word or keyword match type.
• Negative keywords: Easily add keyword ideas as negatives right from your keyword list. Just click on a keyword and use the drop-down menu to select and save your negative keyword.
• Advanced options: View statistics for mobile search and use data filters based on local searches, search and ad share, and more.

In addition to these improvements, we’ve also changed how we calculate Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches. Statistics in these columns are now based on Google.com search traffic only. Previously, they also included traffic from search partners. We've updated these statistics based on advertiser feedback, and hope you find them more helpful for keyword selection.

While we recommend using the Keyword Tool while signed in to AdWords, you can also access the tool without signing in. We hope you like the new streamlined version of the tool and we look forward to bringing you more features soon.

Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager

DoubleClick Ad Planner helps you research and identify the web sites most likely to attract your client's audience. With Ad Planner, you can select sites, add them to a client's media plan and easily export them directly into an AdWords account as a new campaign, or add them to an existing campaign or ad group.

Many of you requested this feature because you wanted an easy way to plan and buy Google Display Network (GDN) campaigns for clients using Ad Planner.

Exporting to AdWords is easy and this online tutorial will show you how to take advantage of it. In this video, you’ll learn more about:

• Creating a media plan and finding GDN placements
• Exporting your plan to AdWords
• Setting up a new campaign or adding to existing campaign in AdWords
  

Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager

In part 4 of our "Coffee break" series, we caught up with Kaylyn Miller, Associate Search Director at MEC, who shared with us how her team incorporated click-to-play video ads into a recipe campaign for Swanson® Chicken, a division of Campbell Soup Company. The video campaign was established to distribute a new cooking video during two key dipping occasions - New Year's and Super Bowl. The campaign ran for six weeks, starting in mid-December and concluding at the end of January. During our interview, Kaylyn shared the following:

What were the goals of using click-to-play video ads?
We were tasked with distributing the Frank's® Red Hot® Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe, made with Swanson® Premium Chunk Chicken. We were already successfully directing users to print the recipe using paid search. However, we knew that keyword targeting could be a powerful tool for video distribution as well. Our goal was to use contextual targeting on the Google Content Network for cost efficient video views. Knowing that this strategy worked well for clients in the entertainment industry, we were striving to keep playback rate and cost per view in line with Google’s entertainment benchmarks.

How did you set up and execute the campaign?
We began by looking at the most relevant ad groups from our paid search campaign, including buffalo chicken dip, appetizer and dip, chicken recipes, New Year's recipes and Super Bowl recipes. The ad groups were then modified to include broader keywords to effectively target the Google Content Network. From there, additional ad groups were created, such as hot wings, cooking videos, easy recipes and general recipe words to obtain greater reach.

Three distinct starter images were created for the video - Everyday, New Year’s and Super Bowl (images below) - based on the events of a given week. We used the best practice of making the starter image a YouTube-like still, instead of a display ad, to increase consumer engagement.

Today, we are introducing several new features that integrate DoubleClick Ad Planner data with other Google advertising solutions. These features help streamline the process of planning and building online ad campaigns while offering advertisers access to better data for more informed media planning decisions.


Ad Planner Top 1,000 Most Visited Sites
The Ad Planner 1,000 list is a list of the top 1,000 global sites on the web by unique users as measured by Ad Planner. Published monthly, this list details the number of unique visitors, page views and reach for each site for the top 1,000 sites globally. It’s a great way to quickly reference the most popular sites on the web.

This latest resource represents yet another step in the evolution of Ad Planner in providing reliable traffic and audience information for websites. In conjunction with our Ad Planner 1,000 list, the Google Content just released an Ad Planner 1,000 targeting feature. These two features combined provide an example of how Google is working to provide more actionable data for online display advertisers.


Exporting Google Content Network Placements to AdWords
Many Ad Planner users are also AdWords users, and one of the top requested features is to provide a simple and easy way to buy Google Content Network placements advertisers find through Ad Planner. The newly launched Export to AdWords feature enables advertisers to simply export Google Content Network placements from Ad Planner into AdWords. These exported placements will be set up as a new campaign or ad group within AdWords.

For advertisers running text ads or display ads on the Google Content Network, this provides an easy way to build media plans of managed placements. Now translating the great audience research data in Ad Planner into your AdWords campaigns is easier than ever.


Creating Lists in Ad Planner
To help you create your own list of favorite sites to save and add your media plans, we also recently launched “Lists” in Ad Planner. With “Lists”, you can store sites and placements in lists for future use in media plans. To get you started, we’ve made the Ad Planner 1,000 list available to all Ad Planner user accounts for use as a handy reference or for download.

Our goal with the Top 1000 Sites and other recent updates is to deliver new tools for greater planning efficiency and data to make more informed advertising decisions.

Visit www.google.com/adplanner to check out our new features.

Posted by Rohit Kundaji, Software Engineer and Wayne Lin, Product Manager