[go: up one dir, main page]
We've moved! Check out the new Google Ads blog.

We've moved!

Check out and subscribe to the new Google Ads blog.

Today, we're making it simpler to bring richer content, interaction and tracking to your online display ads with our new Rich Media and Video templates in the AdWords display ad builder. These templates allow you to add more functionality to your ads, enabling users to interact with your ads before they click through. Here's what you can do with these new templates:
  • Show off multiple products and services: If you're providing many products and services, the new templates allow you to display multiple products within your ad. This feature can also benefit advertisers looking to brand by allowing them to tell a sequential story within the ad, such as "Explore, Buy, Save," where you could have an image representing each concept.
  • Use multiple destination URLs: If you're displaying multiple products within your ad, the new templates allow you to assign a different destination URL to each featured product, rather than directing users who click to a single, generic page that may be less targeted. This can help improve conversion rates, making your marketing more cost-efficient. Note that all the top-level domains of each destination URL within an ad must match.
  • Track interactions: Like with all our display ad templates, you'll automatically see a reporting column,"Mouseover rate," which shows the percentage of impressions where a user moused over your ad for one or more consecutive seconds. In addition, some rich media and video templates will track unique interactions, like the play rate for video ads; these will be displayed in a new "Interaction Rate" column. The actual interaction being tracked will vary based on the template you've chosen.
  • Use video: If you have video ad files, you can upload them to our new Click to Play video template, which allows you to choose starting and ending images, pick a display URL color, and run your ads across the Google Content Network.
  • Get creative: Last week, we announced new coupon templates, which allow you to set discounts and change prices within your ad. You can use these templates in the same way, offering multiple discounted products and allowing users to choose those that most interest them. Along with each image in your ad, you can include an accompanying description line that you can use to provide coupon codes, prices, and product information. This is just one of many ways to think and market "outside the box" with these rich media and video templates.
All this is easy to do in just minutes, and this video can show you how:



If you have trouble watching the video, you can watch it here.

You can access the new templates within your AdWords account by choosing the "Display ad builder" ad format option within any ad group and selecting the "Rich Media and Video" category.

We hope these new templates will give you one more great reason to try out the AdWords display ad builder, and reach additional customers in new ways.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Back in November, we asked a small group of U.S. advertisers to start testing a new web interface for AdWords while it was still early in development. The new interface makes AdWords campaign management faster, clearer, and more intuitive. This means it's easier to find your most important keywords across ad groups, navigate and edit your account quickly, and access and act on your reports.

We've continued to work on the new interface for the last few months, making changes based on feedback from beta testers. Now we're excited to expand the beta to more U.S. advertisers, as well as additional countries (such as the U.K. and Australia), and languages (such as Spanish, Japanese, French, and Brazilian Portuguese).

Here are a few of the exciting features we're testing:
  • Performance graphs: Spot trends over time with custom graphs on every campaign management page.
  • Insight across ad groups: Focus on the high-impact areas of your account with new roll-up tabs on every page. You can see and edit keywords, placements or ads from all ad groups on a single tab.
  • In-line editing: Want to change a keyword or bid? Click on it and make changes in-line instead of loading a separate page.
  • Easier content network management: Improve content network performance through a new Networks tab. Look at statistics for the placements where your ads have appeared, and then take action by setting unique bids or excluding placements directly from the report.
However, keep in mind that the new interface doesn't change how ads run. Bidding, ranking, Quality Score, and the rest of ad serving will remain the same in the new interface.

The new interface is still a work in progress, so not all features available in the previous web interface are currently supported. You can switch between old and new interfaces during the beta, so you'll still have access to the full range of AdWords tools and reports, if needed.

To learn more, see videos of the new interface in action, and sign up for the beta, visit our new AdWords interface website.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

We're excited to announce Make a Payment, a new AdWords feature that offers more control and security over when and for how much postpay advertisers are charged. Make a Payment allows you to initiate a credit card payment for any amount you want, and when it's convenient for you. You can even overpay your balance to cover future advertising costs. You'll still be automatically billed according to your regular billing cycle, so you don't have to worry about missing payments.

When initiating a payment, you can choose to pay off your entire balance or just a portion of it, which is particularly useful if you'd like to divide your balance among several forms of payment. You can also make a payment for an amount larger than your balance if you'd like to prepay for a certain amount of advertising costs. For example, assume your campaign consistently reaches its daily budget of $2,000. Your billing threshold is $500, which means you're charged $500 four times a day. If you initiate a payment of $10,000, then your next five days of advertising costs are covered, and you won't have to incur multiple payments every day.

If you're interested in trying Make a Payment, please complete this form. You'll receive an email confirmation once the feature is available in your account. You'll then be able to initiate a payment by visiting your Billing Summary page and clicking the "Make a payment" link beneath your account balance.

Please note that the feature currently isn't available for advertisers with billing addresses in Ireland. We appreciate your patience as we work to include these advertisers.

For more information about Make a Payment, please visit our Help Center or watch a video overview.

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew
Labels:

Since we launched Google Insights for Search in August of last year, we've received great feedback about the many ways advertisers have been using Insights for Search - from anticipating demand better, to stocking desired brands, to finding new keywords for their AdWords campaigns from the list of top rising search terms. Today, we're launching additional features that will provide more granular data so you can make better informed advertising decisions.
  • New data sources - We've added additional data from Google News, Image and Product Search sites so you can see what the world is searching for beyond Google Web Search. For example, retailers could use the Product Search filter to get a better understanding of what people are more likely to buy, and then stock the appropriate products.
  • Category suggestions - Ever wonder what other categories your search terms might be classified under? Insights for Search now suggests category breakdowns for your terms. For example, if you type in the search term "apple", Insights for Search will show you all the relevant categories searches are classified under such as Computers & Electronics, Entertainment, and Food & Drink.
  • Metros for the U.S. - You can now drill down to specific geographic regions, or metros, to see how search interest levels vary. This can help you with geo-targeting in your AdWords campaigns.
For some quick inspiration on how to get started, check out our latest Google Insights for Search in 60 Seconds videos. You can also follow your favorite search terms from your iGoogle page by adding the Official Google Insights for Search Gadget.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew
Labels: , ,

If you're planning on attending Search Engine Strategies in New York next week, we hope that you'll come see us. Members of the AdWords team and other Googlers will be speaking at a handful of sessions, so please stop by and say hi.

Here are a few sessions that we think you'd enjoy:

Preview the new AdWords interface
Wednesday, March 25th, 10:45am to 12pm
You may have read that we're testing a new AdWords interface. In this session we'll be doing an in-depth preview of the new interface. If you have questions or feedback about the new interface, please send them to us ahead of time.
Speaking: Ariel Bardin and Angela Lai, AdWords product and engineering leads

Pay Per Conversation
Tuesday, March 24th, 1:45pm to 2:45pm
Many marketers agree that the current state of the economy is having an impact on their marketing plans. That's why every dollar and click matters. Every click is a potential customer trying to engage you; will you continue the dialogue or have them bounce off your landing page just moments after they arrive? This session will show you how to identify missed conversations and what you can do to improve them and your PPC ROI.
Speaking: Sandra Cheng, Product Manager for Google Website Optimizer

The State of Search - A Maturing Marketplace or Poised for More Growth?
Wednesday, March 25th, 1pm to 2pm
As ROI and performance become increasingly important, will search gain a larger share of advertising revenues? This panel takes a hard look at the current value proposition of search and what the future holds for the North American search marketplace.
Speaking: Jon Diorio, Group Product Manager, AdWords & Monetization Products

Advanced Keyword Research
Thursday, March 26th, 10:30am to 11:45am
How many keywords do you need in your paid search account? What keywords are your customers searching for? How do customers find products after they reach your site? This advanced session will demonstrate how to target the right terms in your paid and organic search marketing, and you'll learn where these keywords should be used.
Speaking: Frederick Vallaeys, AdWords Evangelist, Google

Ads in a Quality Score World
Thursday, March 26th, 2:15pm to 3:30pm
More and more, ranking well in paid search listings is less and less about how much you pay and more about the "quality" of your ad campaign. But what goes into making up your quality score? In this panel, we'll take a closer look at quality factors and give tips on increasing the perceived relevancy of your campaigns.
Speaking: Frederick Vallaeys, AdWords Evangelist, Google

We're looking forward to spending some time in the Big Apple; hope to see you there.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew
Labels:

We now have two new display ad templates available which allow you to easily create online coupons to run on sites across the Google content network. You can probably guess why coupon-based promotions might be especially effective these days, and display ads allow you to add in eye-catching ad copy, coupon codes, and customized color schemes that wouldn't be possible with simple text ads.

Razorfish, a top digital advertising agency, has begun to use templates for coupon-based promotions for a major national retailer in the U.S. Danny Huynh, Associate Search Director at Razorfish, has this to say about the tool: "We see the display ad builder as a great creative sandbox, allowing us to us to quickly test and iterate with new ad formats and capabilities that simple text ads can't offer. The coupon templates in particular are allowing us to bring the messages from our customers' offline circulars, to the online world, at scale with Google's content network. We're planning to test display ad builder templates on an ongoing basis."

Each of our new templates has a prominent slot for featuring a price or a discount, e.g., "20% off," and has extra room for coupon codes. As with any of our other templates, you can easily edit your ads on an ongoing basis to change the discount level, prices and any other customizable aspect. Just remember that any edits will need to reviewed by an AdWords specialist, and may take 2-4 business days to take effect. Here's an example of the new templates, which come in several sizes:


To access these new templates, log in to your AdWords account and choose the "Display ad builder" ad format option within any ad group. Then, choose the "Retail" category to find the coupon templates. This video can also show you how to access the feature.

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew
Labels: ,

Happy St. Patrick's Day. We recently announced a contest for the AdWords display ad builder. We've received some great entries, and with the deadline of March 24th coming up soon, we wanted to remind you to enter. Just fill out the form with your basic account and contact information, and we'll evaluate entries and choose winners based on creativity and innovative uses of the tool. For example, let us know if you've used the tool to create a great St. Patty's Day ad using our holiday template, or if you've used it to provide coupons to your customers to get them to visit your site. The top five entries win up to $1000 in AdWords credits, so get your entry in soon. This contest is only open to anyone in the U.S. with an AdWords account.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew
Labels:

We've just completed a new analysis on the performance of campaigns which have adopted Conversion Optimizer. We found that on average, these campaigns achieved a 21% increase in conversions while at the same time decreasing their CPA by 14%.

The analysis compares the performance of Conversion Optimizer campaigns with a control set of campaigns and represents the average impact of Conversion Optimizer. The actual impact will vary from campaign to campaign (and a small number of advertisers could conceivably perform better without Conversion Optimizer).

If you would like to learn more about Conversion Optimizer, the results we've seen, and how it can help you get more conversions and lower CPA, join us for one of the three webinars we are hosting March 18-19th. 

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew
Labels: ,

On Saturday, March 14th, 2009, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PST due to system maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

When we go to conferences or read posts in forums, we find that advertisers sometimes know more about advanced features than about the basics of how AdWords works. So, we've decided to take some time to get back to basics and talk about how the AdWords auction actually works. To help you, we've brought along our Chief Economist, Hal Varian, to walk you through the auction and explain how your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid and Quality Score determine how much you actually pay for an ad click on Google's search results pages.

When people think of an auction, they often think of a prize being sold for the highest bid. But the AdWords auction works a little differently, where the winner only pays the minimum amount necessary to maintain their position on the page. That means you'll only pay the minimum necessary to beat the person below you. In fact, our quality-based pricing system ensures that you'll often pay less than your maximum bid.

How exactly does this work? We'll leave that to Hal to explain.

If you have trouble viewing this video, you can watch it here.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Reaching the right audience is the goal of every ad campaign. This week we're announcing new capabilities planned for the Google content network that will help you achieve that goal. In addition to matching ads with the topic of a web page through contextual advertising, you will be able to reach users based on their interests, independent of the content they are currently reading.

Over the next few months we'll start offering interest-based advertising to a limited number of advertisers as part of a beta, and expand the offering later in 2009. If you would like to participate in the beta, please fill out this form.

With interest-based advertising, you will be able to reach users based on your past interactions with them, such as their visits to your website. We'll also provide interest categories, such as "sports enthusiasts," so you can reach the audience of your choice. Whether your goal is to drive brand awareness or increase responses to your ads, these capabilities can help expand the success of your campaigns.

Users browsing the web will benefit from the additional relevancy that interest-based ads can provide. And by visiting the new Ads Preferences Manager, users can see what interest categories we think they fall into, or add and remove categories themselves. The Ads Preferences Manager can be found by clicking on most "Ads by Google" links you see on ads throughout the web.

You can read more about how interest-based advertising benefits the online ecosystem and about the new privacy tools developed for this launch in the Official Google Blog and the Google Public Policy Blog. To learn more about the details of interest-based advertising, please visit this page.

We look forward to providing users with ads more closely tied to their interests and helping you to better reach your campaign goals at scale.

- Aitan Weinberg, Product Manager

Posted by Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew
Labels: ,

Thanks again to everyone who sent us feedback through our most recent survey. We've read through all your comments, and we're going to be making some changes to our posts based on your thoughts. A few things that you suggested that we'll be incorporating in the next few months:
  • How Google tools like Analytics and Insights for Search can be used to improve AdWords results
  • How to track AdWords results to measure profits and return on investment
  • Case studies on how others have used AdWords to improve their business
  • More information on advertising industry trends
  • Specific, real-life implementation tips for new tools and features
Look for posts that will incorporate more of these themes in the months to come.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew
Labels: ,

It's hard to believe that the spring gift-giving season is already upon us. With Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Graduation season quickly approaching, it's time to plan ahead and adapt your business strategy for upcoming opportunities and challenges. Join the Google Retail Marketing team for our webinar:

Spring Into Action: Online Marketing for Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Graduation
Tuesday, March 17th at 1pm EST, 10am PST - Register to attend

In this webinar, we'll discuss strategies retailers can take to get the most out of the spring gift-giving season. Topics include:
  • Key retail trends around the spring gift giving season
  • Marketing tactics and trends to adapt to changing consumer behavior in 2009
  • Building and optimizing effective Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Graduation campaigns
This webinar will run approximately 30 minutes, followed by a 15-minute Q&A session. We hope you can join.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

If you're looking to add a bit of luck to an upcoming campaign, you might want to try out one of our two new St. Patrick's Day display ad templates, which are available in the "Seasonal" category of the display ad builder. We're excited to offer template ads for another holiday, after debuting the feature with Valentine's Day and President's Day in the U.S.

To show you these templates and how you can use them, we have a short tutorial video:





To access the display ad builder, log in to your AdWords account, and choose the "Display ad builder" ad format option within any ad group. This video can also show you how to access the feature.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew
Labels: , ,

We'd like to invite you to a free webinar on how to increase your ROI with Conversion Optimizer. The session will be led by Andrew Silverman, Product Manager for Conversion Optimizer. During the webinar, Andrew will offer more insight into how Conversion Optimizer works, and he'll share some inside tips for success.

What: Conversion Optimizer Webinar: Increasing your profits with AdWords
When: Please register for the most convenient date -- all sessions are the same
Length: Approximately 30 minutes, followed by a 30-minute Q&A session

We hope you can attend -- in addition to the content mentioned above, Andrew will also compare simple and multi-dimensional bid management, and he'll go over some differentiating factors of Conversion Optimizer.

Once you've registered via one of the links above, you'll receive an email with your webinar access information and we'll invite you to submit any specific questions you'd like us to answer during the session. You can sign up any time prior to the event but spots tend to fill up quickly, so reserve yours early. We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew

Today, we're launching a beta test for expandable rich media ad units on the Google content network. This ad format can expand to double the original size of the ad to provide more information to your audience about your product. Expandable ads can also include a streaming video or other content designed to engage users through an interactive experience.

(Click image for a full size version)

Expandable ads on the Google content network are designed to automatically expand in the direction where the most space is available on the screen. They must be clicked by the user to expand and contract. These features help create a positive experience for users and provide you with more accurate ad engagement metrics by avoiding expansions triggered by accidental mouse-overs. Expandable ads can also help AdSense publishers by engaging users on their sites with more ad variety and opportunities to interact with the ad content.

For now, expandable ads will be available as a limited beta test in the U.S. to advertisers and agencies participating in our 3rd Party Ad Serving program. Please stay tuned for future updates as we expand this test. 

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew
Labels: , ,

Starting this morning, we've had to perform some unexpected maintenance in AdWords. Due to this maintenance,  your statistics may be delayed up to 12 hours. This delay is temporary, and only your statistics will be affected. Your ads will continue to show as per your campaign settings.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this. Please check our known issues page for updates.

Update 3-5-2009:
All stats are now up-to-date.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew
Labels:

When you pay for people to click on your ad, you probably want them to spend time on your site and hopefully return to your site. One way to make your advertising dollar go further by keeping visitors on your site is to add social features with Google Friend Connect. Friend Connect is a service that lets you add features such as comments, ratings, and friend invitations from gadgets created by Google and the OpenSocial developer community. Friend Connect also helps you convert visitors into members by letting visitors use their existing Google, Yahoo, AIM or OpenID accounts.

To learn more about how Friend Connect helps you build user communities, watch this video below.





You can implement Friend Connect by simply pasting in a few snippets of code in your site with no programming necessary - a process familiar to those of you acquainted with Google Analytics or AdWords Converison Tracking. We're also constantly making improvements to Friend Connect, such as the social bar feature and the integration with Blogger released last month. You can stay updated on what's going on with Friend Connect and other Google products helping to make the web more social by visiting our Social Web Blog.

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew
Labels: , ,