Making Search Ads work for businesses with mobile apps

Mobile search is a powerful channel for businesses to engage with customers that are searching for them or for their application. Last year, we introduced improvements to click-to-download ads, and for publishers, launched Custom Search Ads for Mobile Apps. Today we�d like to share several new features that will make it even easier for AdWords advertisers to promote, track and monetize their mobile app. For the first time, businesses can use AdWords mobile search ads as a holistic solution to promote, monetize and track their app downloads.

Promote your app using the new Mobile App Extension

All AdWords advertisers will receive the option to use a new Ad Extension - the Mobile App extension; a new way to promote their mobile apps. Not all mobile users searching for a business may know that the business has an app. The Mobile App extension allows advertisers to append a mobile app download link to their search ads. With this extension, advertisers can promote their mobile app to users who may simply be searching for their brand, product or service.

The mobile app extension gives advertisers a new distribution channel for their mobile apps and users a new discovery medium. Beta participants saw a 6% lift in CTR for campaigns using Mobile App extensions, compared to control campaigns.

The new Mobile App Extension found in the �Ad Extensions� tab. Use its new �app picker� function to easily find your company�s app in Google Play Store or iTunes App Store

GrubHub, a web and mobile service that connects diners to restaurants and simplifies online ordering for delivery and pick up, was an early beta tester of the Mobile App extension. In addition to pointing mobile customers searching for food delivery services to their mobile website, they used the mobile app extension to add an additional link to their app download page. Abby Hunt from the GrubHub team explains the importance of reaching customers on mobile: �GrubHub is dedicated to feeding our diners anytime, anywhere - this is why it is important for us to reach our diners on their mobile devices. Hungry people are checking their mobile devices on the way home from work or walking to class, and where they are."

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GrubHub was an early tester of the Mobile App extension, allowing hungry customers searching for their business the option of accessing information on their mobile site or app via an ad.�

Enriching click-to-download ads with more useful app information
Advertisers running campaigns solely focused on promoting and driving downloads of their app will benefit from recent changes that add more useful information to their click-to-download ads. Last year, we added mobile app icons next to the text ad. We�ve now incorporated richer information about your mobile app right in the ad unit itself. When a user searches and your click-to-download ad appears, they�ll be able to see image previews, a description of your app, and when applicable, pricing and rating information.

All this new information in the click-to-download ad is automatically drawn from the Google Play Store and iTunes App Store. We hope that customers will benefit from recent changes that make click-to-download ads more engaging and for users searching on Google.

Quicken Loans Inc., the nation�s largest online home lender and a top five retail lender uses click-to-download ads to promote their Mortgage Calculator App. They�ve seen a rapid increase in the number of customer searching for them on mobile. Greg Broda, Paid Search Partner Manager at Quicken Loans explains:�"When it came time to promote the new Quicken Loans Mortgage Calculator app, the decision to utilize Google�s mobile click-to-download ad platform was a no-brainer. The placement has allowed us to share the app with a very targeted and engaged group of users."

Quicken Loans runs click-to-download ads, now complete with app previews and pricing information, that point users to their app download page.

Track Android app downloads through AdWords
Businesses will now be able to track downloads of their Android app from their AdWords campaigns as an AdWords conversion. This means that when a user downloads a mobile app from the Google Play store via a click-to-download ad or a mobile app extension, we will count their download as a conversion. For more information on how to set this up, visit this page.

Monetizing your mobile app with Custom Search Ads for Mobile Apps

We�ve now brought Custom Search Ads to tablet apps via the recent launch of a new AdMob SDK. Tablet and mobile app users will receive ads relevant to what they're searching for inside an app, and businesses running mobile apps will have a new tool to monetize their content and services.

Mobile apps represent a significant opportunity for businesses to reach their customers, and mobile search is an important channel to reach these customers. We�re looking forward to bringing new products in the coming year that will help businesses grow by promoting,�tracking, and monetizing their mobile apps with Google.

Posted by Anurag Agrawal, Product Manager, Mobile Search Ads

New Changes to Ad Rotation

AdWords currently offers three ad rotation settings: optimize for clicks, optimize for conversions, and rotate evenly. Using the �rotate� setting for ad rotation is helpful for testing new creatives, but when run indefinitely can inhibit advertiser performance and deliver less relevant ads to our users.

Starting next week, the �rotate� setting for ad rotation will change. �Instead of rotating creatives for an indefinite period of time, this setting will only rotate for a period of 30 days. �After that, the setting will then optimize to show the ads expected to generate the most clicks. �Every time a creative is enabled or edited, the ads in that ad group will rotate more evenly for a new period of 30 days.

This change will be rolling out next week. At that time, ad groups with creatives that haven�t been added or modified in the past thirty days will see this new ad rotation behavior. Otherwise, this change will begin 30 days after your last creative was enabled or edited.

This change will enable us to provide users with the most relevant ad experience and should help advertisers improve the performance of their AdWords accounts. For more information on this change, please visit this article in our AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Karen Yao, Senior Product Manager

Webinar: Driving Online Conversions with Remarketing

Join the UK Google Online Media Specialist team for a live "Driving Online Conversions with Remarketing" webinar on Tuesday May 1st at 3:00 PM GMT (10:00 AM EST / 7:00 AM PST).

97% of website visitors do not convert the first time they visit. Remarketing can help you re-engage with your potential customers and bring them back to your website to buy your products. Join our live webinar to see how you can use remarketing to increase your online conversions by helping close the deal with customers who were not ready to make a purchase the first time around.

Key areas that will be covered include:

• What remarketing is and how it works
• Reasons to use remarketing
• A step-by-step set-up guide
• Campaign optimization tips

This webinar will be presented by a Google Online Media Specialist and will include Q&A. The session is suitable for advertisers who are already running campaigns on the GDN, as well as those who have not yet used the GDN.

�Register now!

Post Posted by Allison Sommer, Inside AdWords crew

Making campaign planning and build-out faster and more accurate

We've been listening closely to your suggestions on how to reduce the guesswork involved with building new campaigns. To help improve the campaign building process, we�re rolling out improvements to the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator.

Improvements to the Keyword Tool
To help improve campaign management, we�ve made improvements to the Keyword Tool including:

• See keyword ideas grouped by themes: With the updated Keyword Tool, you can easily view suggestions for new ad group themes and quickly choose to add ad groups directly to your account.�
• Seamless Traffic Estimator integration: Easily view Traffic Estimator data for the keywords you select in the Keyword Tool to make better campaign strategy decisions.

Click to view larger image

Improvements to Traffic Estimator
We�ve updated the Traffic Estimator to help advertisers build a more effective bidding and budgeting strategy. Changes to the Traffic Estimator include:

• Graph your performance estimates:
We�ve introduced a graph to the Traffic Estimator to make it easier to gauge traffic and bid estimates and develop an effective bidding strategy.�
• Structure your keywords into ad groups: You can now create draft ad groups within the Traffic Estimator and easily view traffic and bid estimates for each of your draft ad groups.�
• Add campaigns to your account: When you�re satisfied with your campaign structure, you can add the draft campaign directly to your account.�

Click to view larger image

We�re also improving the quality and accuracy of the traffic estimates by using performance history to better gauge traffic estimates. This means that going forward you�ll have to log in to AdWords to use Traffic Estimator.

You�ll find the updated Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator in the AdWords interface over the next couple of weeks. To learn more about the updates to the Keyword Tool, you can visit this article in our Help Center and this article to learn more about the Traffic Estimator.

Posted by Deepti Bhatnagar, AdWords Product Manager

Increasing transparency in Quality Score

Today, we�re introducing more details about your Quality Score in AdWords.

Using the status hover for a keyword in the Keywords tab, you�ll see the traditional 1-10 numeric score and new ratings for each main factor in Quality Score. The new ratings have a relative scale so you�ll understand whether your performance expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience is average, above average, or below average compared to other advertisers.



We�ve heard from advertisers that having more insight on Quality Score can help you better focus efforts to improve performance. Improving ads quality is great for users, too.

One final note: This launch gives you information you can use to improve your Quality Score, but it doesn�t change how Quality Score or ad rank are calculated.

Posted Jen Huang, AdWords Product Manager

Slice and dice your data using AdWords labels

We are excited to announce the launch of account labels. Starting this week, you can organize your account�s keywords, ads, ad groups and campaigns into custom groupings so you can quickly and easily filter and report on the data that is of most interest to you. To see the opportunities that labels enable, let�s meet Bob.

Bob is an online retailer who sells apparel and accessories for men and women. He has campaigns for shoes, clothes and bags for each of his three major markets (New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania) and within the campaigns has separate ad groups for generic and brand keywords. This structure (ex: New York - Shoes - Generic and Massachusetts - Shoes - Generic) means that he has the same ads and keywords spread across different parts of his account. Before today, Bob could not easily sort his account or run a report to see how well sneakers are selling across geographies.

Enter labels.

Now Bob can create the label �sneakers� and apply it to all sneaker-related keywords across his account. He can then filter by this label on the Keywords tab to only see sneaker keywords, or he can run a keyword labels report to aggregate performance by label. These reports allow him to then compare --for example-- how sneakers perform against all other shoes, or other labeled groups.

Labels can be used to organize your campaign elements in any way you choose. Report on brand keyword performance versus all other non-branded keyword performance. Measure how ads that mention �free trial� perform versus ads that mention �free demo�. Or simply label your favorite keywords so you can quickly review them every morning.

Labels will begin rolling out this week to all AdWords accounts. For more information, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Jon Diorio, Senior Product Manager, AdWords

Helping all businesses play big on YouTube

With a global audience of more than 800 million monthly visitors to YouTube, every day can feel like you�re advertising in the Super Bowl, and one video can launch a business. Many have had success growing their business on YouTube, by creating videos that demonstrate their products, share customers testimonials, or simply showcase how their business works.

Take TRX, for example. When former Navy Seal Randy Hetrick wanted to expand TRX as a business, he knew he needed to use video to show potential customers how the TRX suspension training system worked and demonstrate its effectiveness. After using YouTube Analytics to hone their optimal video length and broadening their reach with TrueView video ads, they saw a 5X increase in traffic, 2X increase in conversions, and most importantly, a 2X increase in revenue.

To help even more businesses play big with video, today we�re introducing a number of new products, resources, and tools:

Google AdWords for video now available to all. Similar to search advertising - where you pay for clicks and set budgets with bids - we created a new model for video advertising. With Google AdWords for video, you only pay when someone chooses to watch your ad and you can create and manage video campaigns from the same platform as your search and display ads. You can create an account and start promoting your first video in less than 5 minutes. With AdWords for video you can:

• Find the right audience: AdWords for video provides a range of options to reach the right audience. For example, you can promote your video by keyword to appear in YouTube search results, or you can choose to show your ad against content your customers are most interested in - such as sports or music. Connect with your audience on YouTube and the Google Display Network, which includes millions of websites. AdWords for video links to your YouTube account so you can easily start a video campaign with your existing videos.
• Measure the effectiveness of your spend: On average, we�ve found that YouTube video ads drive a 20 percent increase in traffic to your website and a 5 percent increase in searches for your business (Google Campaign Insights, 2011). With AdWords for video you can find out how viewers are engaging with your brand during and after they watch your ad. You can see how many viewers watched your entire video, visited your website, stayed on your channel to watch another video, or subscribed to your channel, after viewing your ad.
• Only pay for engaged views: With TrueView video ads you only pay when viewers choose to watch your ad so you aren�t charged when viewers skip your ad if they aren�t interested or have already seen your video. This means your ad budget is focused on viewers interested in your video. By displaying a call-to-action overlay on your video you can talk about a sale or specific offer to your viewers, share more information about your business, or drive traffic to your website.

$50 million in free advertising. We�re giving away $50 million in free Google AdWords advertising to help more than 500,000 businesses get into video. If you are new to AdWords, you can receive a $75 credit when you sign up. To put that into context, with $75 your video campaign can reach more than 1,500 of your most valuable customers on YouTube for one month. Request your free credit here.

Advertiser Playbook and support. To share best practices and tips on how video can be a core part of your business toolkit, we created a YouTube Advertiser Playbook. The Playbook covers everything from creating interesting content to promoting your video with ads. If you need help making a video, our My Business Story is a free tool you can use to create your first video. AdWords advertisers can also call our free phone support line, 866-2-GOOGLE, to get started with AdWords for video.

YouTube Ambassador program. To recognize business owners that are already using YouTube to grow their business, we�re naming 9 businesses from across the country to our first ever YouTube Ambassador program. These businesses have seen outstanding success in reaching new customers, building a brand, and engaging their fans with video. Hear their stories and learn more about the YouTube Ambassador program on the Official Google Blog.

Hear more from TRX fitness, a company that has built its business with YouTube

If you have a video you want to promote, get started with AdWords for video. And, join our YouTube for Marketers page on Google+ to stay up-to-date on our latest video marketing innovations.

Baljeet Singh, Group Product Manager, YouTube

Advanced sign-in security to protect your AdWords account

Has anyone you know lost control of their online accounts? Cases like the "Mugged in London" scam demonstrate why it's important to take steps to help secure your activities online. If you reuse the same password on multiple sites and one of those sites gets hacked, or your password was stolen through a phishing scam, it can be used to access some of your most closely-held information.

We continually strive to develop solutions to prevent security breaches like these. So last year, we developed an advanced opt-in security feature for Google Accounts called 2-step verification. This feature makes your Google Account (and thereby also your AdWords account) significantly more secure by helping to verify that you're the real owner of your account. It does this by requiring two independent factors for authentication, much like you might see on your banking website: your password, plus a code obtained using your phone.

To make your AdWords account more secure, you can apply this 2-step verification to your Google account. While this is an extra step, it's one that significantly improves the security of your AdWords account because it requires the powerful combination of both something you know�your username and password�and something that only you should have�your phone.

Learn more about 2-step verification and get started at our Help Center. And for more about staying safe online, see our ongoing security blog series or visit http://www.staysafeonline.org/. Be safe!

Posted by Andy Lutz, Inside AdWords crew

New matching behavior for phrase and exact match keywords

Consider these three exact and phrase match keywords in AdWords.
�[waterproof sunblock] � � "bollard cover" � � [single serving coffee maker]

�Now have a look at these two rows of search queries.
1. waterproof sunblock � � buy bollard cover � � single serving coffee maker
2. waterpoof sunblock � � �buy bollard covers � �single serve coffee maker

Today, only the search queries in the upper row (1) are considered a match and allowed to trigger an ad that can appear in the results. The close variants in the bottom row (2) are not considered a match by AdWords, despite the similarity in user intent.

This will change soon. Starting in mid-May, phrase and exact match keywords will match close variants, including misspellings, singular/plural forms, stemmings, accents and abbreviations. Based on our research and testing, we believe these changes will be broadly beneficial for users and advertisers.

Focusing on user intent�
People aren�t perfect spellers or typists. At least 7% of search queries contain a misspelling, and the longer the query, the higher the rate.

Even with perfect spelling, two people searching for the same thing often use slightly different variations, such as �kid scooters� and �kid�s scooter� or �bamboo floor� and �bamboo flooring.�

Google�s organic search systems detect and compensate for misspellings and close variants.

We know users are happier when they get search results that reflect their intent and help them achieve their desired action, even if it�s not a precise match for what they�ve typed. So we�re extending this behavior to ads.

Benefits for many advertisers, control for all
Our early experiments looked at the impact on advertisers getting a third or more of their clicks from phrase or exact match. On average, the new matching behavior increased AdWords search clicks by 3%, with comparable CPCs. Keep in mind that results may vary by advertiser.

We�ve been testing this new improvement with advertisers, and participants have seen positive results. �Previously we spent a lot of time making sure to include hundreds of versions of brand misspellings and to include plural forms of all our keywords,� said Dana Freund, Senior SEM Manager at GameDuell. �With the improvements to exact and phrase match we don�t have to worry about these keywords anymore. We get more relevant impressions for a smaller number of keywords, and it�s been a significant time saver for us.�

If you don�t want the potential for more clicks and prefer to maintain the current matching behavior in your campaign, you�ll still have that option. In the coming weeks, we�ll begin rolling out controls which will allow you to adjust your keyword matching options. Once they�re live, log in to AdWords and select the campaign settings tab. Under �Advanced settings� select Keyword matching options:

Again, these controls will begin rolling out in the coming weeks to all AdWords accounts. But, to be clear, the new matching behavior won�t actually start until mid-May.

For more details on keyword matching behavior, reporting changes, and other frequently asked questions, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Jen Huang, AdWords Product Manager

Introducing the AdWords Community Top Contributors Program

You may have noticed that some members of our AdWords Community are true AdWords experts. Not only do they participate actively in discussions, but they're eager to help other members, which provides a huge benefit to the community. That's why we've created the AdWords Top Contributors Program to reward them for their efforts.

Members who qualify for the program receive the title of Top Contributor in the Community, which helps show the world that they�re truly AdWords experts. Other perks include:

• A profile on our AdWords Top Contributors page.
• Access to private forums with Google team members.
• Inclusion in the Trusted Testers program to test out cool new features before anyone else.
• Product updates directly from the AdWords team.
• Hangouts with AdWords Community Leads on Google+.
• Trainings given by the AdWords team.

In addition to these perks, in 2011, we invited our Top Contributors (TCs) to the Googleplex, in Mountain View, California, for the Top Contributor Summit. It was an opportunity for TCs to talk with Google executives and AdWords Product Managers, and offer their valuable feedback to the teams.

Top Contributors are also eligible to get the annual AdWords Top Contributor badge to put on their websites. It's another way for them to show their AdWords expertise, and it's only granted to those TCs that go above and beyond in their contribution to the Community.

This year�s recipients for the annual AdWords Top Contributor badge have just been announced! Congratulations to:

• Theresa Zook
• Pete Bardo
• Jon Gritton
• Lakatos Bela
• Kim Clinkunbroomer
• Richard Ball
• Calin Sandici

And congratulations to all our AdWords Top Contributors globally!

Visit the AdWords Community to learn more about the AdWords Top Contributor program and get to know our Top Contributors.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Get Local with AdWords

Get organized this spring with new location features in AdWords and share your stories

Over the past 30 years, California Closet Company has grown from the brainchild of a college student organizing his dorm room closet to a successful business with more than 77 franchise locations. To reach customers across the U.S. and internationally, the company centered their digital marketing strategy on creating locally relevant campaigns.

It�s no surprise that local campaigns are a focus for many businesses--from finding directions to looking up a phone number, more people are going online to find local information. In fact, more than 20% of searches on Google are related to location, and people often act quickly on local searches. Research shows that using smartphones, 88% of people who search for local information take action within a day.

To help you organize your local ad campaigns this spring, we�re introducing three new features in AdWords to help you create ads that are more relevant to local customers.

Target customers by zip code

If you customize your direct mail, outdoor ads, or newspaper ads at a postal code level, you now can easily do the same in AdWords in the US. We are introducing the ability to target more than 30,000 US ZIP Codes with your AdWords campaigns.

You will be able to add up to 1,000 postal codes at a time to your search ad campaigns with AdWords Location Targeting. Plus, you can get feedback on the performance of your local campaigns by viewing campaign performance statistics at the postal code level.

"Location targeting within AdWords helped us double lead volume and cut the cost to acquire new customers in half,� said Lois Erbay, Director of Marketing, California Closet Company. �We plan on building on that success by using ZIP Code targeting to create even more locally relevant campaigns for our customers.�

More locally relevant ads in less time

To help you easily create a custom ad title, text, display URL, and/or destination URL for all of your locations at scale, we�ve developed location insertion for location extensions. You�ll no longer need to create multiple ads for multiple locations--this new feature automatically inserts the city, phone number, or zip code of your local business into your ad text.

For example, if your ad text says: �Find a {lb.city:Local} Store or Shop Online,� a user viewing your ad in Chicago would see: �Find a Chicago Store or Shop Online.� This new feature cuts out all the work to building out ad text featuring local information for all your locations.

Ad with location insertion in the text and display URL

�We�ve had amazing success manually customizing our creative with local information for our top markets, which shows us that customers want locally-relevant results when it comes to a service like storage,� said Chris Laczi, Advertising Director, Uncle Bob's Self Storage. �That�s why we�re very excited about location insertion. It will simplify the task of creating locally customized ads for our 400+ locations, and we expect it will greatly enhance conversion rate of our ads.�

You must have location extensions set up and running in order to enable location insertion. Location insertion will work even if your location extensions don�t show because of other extensions. We detect location based on where your customer is physically located or by the geographic locations she may have shown interest in.

Find out more about location insertion and location extensions.

Better clarity and control

When we launched advanced location targeting in March 2011, we provided you with more control over how you geographically target your ads. Based on advertiser feedback, we�re implementing four additional enhancements that will make location targeting options clearer and more powerful. Read more about these enhancements in the Help Center and in this blog post.

There is significant opportunity for businesses to reach local customers online and win moments that matter by delivering the right ad in the right context. Stay tuned for more information on how ZIP Code targeting can help you grow your business.

We want to hear from you about your success in getting local with AdWords--share your story here and we might reach out to you to participate in our upcoming blog posts.

Posted by Richard Holden, Product Management Director

More clarity and control with location targeting improvements

When we launched advanced location targeting in March 2011, we provided you with more control over how you geographically target your ads. Based on advertiser feedback, we�re implementing four additional enhancements that will make location targeting options clearer and more powerful. Here�s an overview of what�s changing.

Location targeting is now easier to understand.

First, we�ve reworded the options to help make them clearer. Here is what the options for advanced location targeting used to look like:

Here is what we�re unveiling today:

Show ads to people in a physical location, without exception.

Previously, if you had selected �Target using physical location,� your ad would show to people in your targeted location as long as they were not searching for something related to a different location. Now, when you select �People in my targeted location,� your ad shows to people in your targeted location, without exception.

Let�s say you are an airline using physical location targeting to reach customers in Atlanta, GA looking to fly to Hawaii. You have the keyword �flights to hawaii� in your ad group. Previously, your ad wouldn�t appear for any prospective customers in Atlanta that were searching for �flights to hawaii� because the search term indicated that they were interested in Hawaii. With the new setting �People in my targeted location,� the airline can now reach the customers in Atlanta searching for �flights to hawaii.�

This enhancement has been beneficial in increasing VEGAS.com�s ability to target offers to users based on where they are located at the time of the search. �As a leading destination travel site, our goal is to send the right message to a user as they plan their travel well ahead of time from their home market. Advanced Location Targeting has given us that ability,� said Dan Hippler, Vice-President of Marketing, Vegas.com.

Greater control over location targeting on the Display Network

Previously, the only location targeting signal applicable to ads on the Google Display Network was the likely physical location of the user. Now, both the location extracted from the content of the page and the likely physical location can be used, making advanced location targeting applicable for the Display Network for the first time. The default setting is to show to people �in� or �viewing pages about� your targeted location, but you can edit this option at any time.

Let�s say a customer in Atlanta is planning a trip to Hawaii and she�s looking at websites about fun things to do in Hawaii. A coffee plantation tour service from Hawaii would like to show ads about its offers to such a user. Similarly, an airline would like to advertise flight services to this user. The new targeting enhancements give the tour service and airline such capabilities, as both an ad targeted to Hawaii for a coffee plantation tour and an ad targeted to Atlanta for flights from Atlanta may now both show on the same page.

There are several situations in which we will not use location to target an ad. For example, a user reading about news in Hawaii may not be interested in �Hawaii tours�. For this reason, we currently only consider the location signal on a limited set of pages when we believe it may be useful. You can gain insight into the sites on which your ads are showing on the placement report, and into the locations on the geographic report.

Note that all campaigns targeting the Display Network will automatically be opted into the default option, which is to reach people in, searching for, or viewing pages about your targeted location. If you wish to exclude campaign traffic from people viewing pages about your location, you can choose �People in my targeted location� in advanced location options.

More easily avoid getting impressions for excluded areas

We have also changed the advanced location exclusion methods. Previously, the less restrictive option, �Exclude by physical location only,� was the default. Based on feedback from advertisers, we have re-worded the exclusion options and made the more restrictive option, �People in, searching for, or viewing pages about my excluded location,� the default. This way you avoid getting impressions for excluded areas regardless of whether your customers are located or interested in those areas.

What it looked like before:

What we�re launching today:

For example, now by default excluding Chicago means your ad won�t show for customers in Chicago or those outside Chicago who included �Chicago� in their searches.

This change will only impact newly created campaigns and will not affect existing campaigns.

Remember, advanced location targeting may limit the exposure of your ads, so it isn�t suited for all advertising goals.

To find out more about advanced location targeting or to change your settings, visit our help center. If you use AdWords Editor, details on how these changes will impact you can be found in the AdWords Editor help center.

Posted by Smita Hashim, Group Product Manager Local Ads

Display Campaign Optimizer Available to All

Recently we announced the most significant enhancement to our contextual engine ever: the ability to optimize Google Display Network campaigns down to the keyword level using Next-Gen Keyword Contextual Targeting. These new controls will help advertisers fine-tune their campaign performance on a completely new level - like upgrading from a standard engine to a 6-speed manual gear-shift race car. For advertisers that prefer to put their campaigns on cruise-control and let Google technology do the heavy lifting, our suite of automatic optimization tools maximize the performance of your Google Display Network campaigns while saving you valuable time and resources. From adjusting bids with Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC, to automatically finding optimal placements around the network with Display Campaign Optimizer - these features help advertisers achieve their ROI goals, with a fraction of the effort.

Display's Self-Driving Car - Display Campaign Optimizer

The Display Campaign Optimizer was launched in 2010 as a limited beta, and since has become one of our most popular automation tools for large advertisers managing high volume campaigns. In addition to fully automating your targeting and bidding, it uses a variety of signals like context, demographics and interest categories to find additional conversions across our vast AdSense publisher network - all at your desired CPA.

Watch how it works

As we highlighted last fall, advertisers have had great success using Display Campaign Optimizer. Recently it helped Dale Carnegie Training expand their online reach to more than 85 countries in the world without a lot of hands-on effort. After implementing the Display Campaign Optimizer on two campaigns, they increased conversions by 308% and 101% in only six months while maintaining a steady cost-per-lead.

Dale Carnagie Wins Friends and Influences Buyers with Display Campaign Optimizer

Now Open to All

With greater adoption and a significantly improved engine, we�re excited to announce that Display Campaign Optimizer is exiting �beta� and available to all advertisers through AdWords. Previously only large advertisers with very high conversion volumes (150/month) could take advantage of this powerful tool. The new and improved Display Campaign Optimizer now has the same low conversion requirement (15/month) as Conversion Optimizer. This means you can simply opt-into DCO on any campaign running on Conversion Optimizer and take advantage of the added benefit of more conversions!

Get Started!

Starting today you can easily set-up Display Campaign Optimizer campaigns in AdWords. For more information on how to set up your Display Campaign Optimizer campaigns, review our step-by - step guide on our AdWords Help Center.

Posted by David Mitby, Product Manager Display Campaign Optimizer, and Abhinay Sharma Sr Engineering Manager

Get inspired with Think Quarterly�s creativity issue

What does creativity look like in a digital context? What does it mean for your business, your campaigns, and your customers? This issue of Google�s Think Quarterly explores these fundamental questions and more -- a must read for digital marketers!

(Editor's note, April 4, 2:58pm: the below post is cross-posted from the Google Agency blog.)

As the internet comes of age, technology is catching up with our wildest imaginations. We can realize ideas that simply weren�t possible merely five years ago. And you don�t need to be a technologist or have �Creative� in your title to utilize technology in new ways; millions of people around the world are making, remixing, and sharing every day.

Case in point: There are over 800 exabytes of digital information in the world -- words, videos, photos, music. To put that in context, a volume of the complete works of Shakespeare is about five megabytes. It would take one billion book-filled pickup trucks to make just one exabyte. This is our creative output -- the sheer volume is equally inspiring and overwhelming.

Where to begin? Right here. The Creativity issue of Think Quarterly, launching today, documents this far-reaching transformation, cutting through the noise to focus on what it all means.

In �The Curious Case of Creativity,� Google VP of Global Marketing Lorraine Twohill sees creativity through an engineer�s eyes as a way to solve problems, big and small. Interviews with the founders of two award-winning global agencies, Sir John Hegarty of BBH and Ajaz Ahmed of AKQA, discuss what creativity means in a digital context and how you can encourage it, even at a big company. Creative minds from Mullen, Wieden and Kennedy, Barbarian Group, AKQA, and Anomaly pick their most envy-inducing digital campaigns. And �Lean Communications� looks at how technology is forcing the traditional creative process to get faster, smarter, and more efficient.

We also explore how the web is inspiring entirely new forms of creativity, like YouTube remixes, 3D models, data art and infographics, that are reshaping how we see the world. (And if you want to see how the web shapes your brand in particular, try our new �Brand Impressions� tool on Think Quarterly and Think Insights.)

Take some time to check it out and let us know what you think on +Think With Google.

Posted by Allison Mooney, Think Quarterly Editor

Building Display Creatives for Your Audience

If you�re audience targeting (or considering it), customizing your ads for your audience can yield better performance. Here are the top tips for audience targeted creatives learned through the collective experience of hundreds of Google AdWords account teams.

1. Make your ads a helpful step in the user experience

Make audience specific recommendations, differentiate yourself from the competition, and provide new information. For example remarketing ads could show complementary products that an existing customer may need. If you�re targeting new users, feature positive testimonials and reviews to highlight your good reputation.

Make better use of audience targeting by addressing different stages in the buying cycle within your ad.

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2. Be Transparent

This is particularly important if you�re using remarketing. Your audience may wonder how you knew they were on your site or interested in specific products. Be upfront; link to a description of why they�re seeing your ads and how they work from your landing page. Showing a variety of ads helps minimize overly-specific targeting and repetition.

3. Tailor ads to your user

To drive better performance: personalize ads based on the product or service your audience would be interested in. If you�re remarketing to a user who browsed your site, match your ads to content they viewed. For example, if a user viewed a variety of smart phones, you could show ads promoting individual phones, phone plans, or phone accessories.

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4. Landing Page Relevance

Seamlessly link your audience-relevant creative message to a landing page on your website with content pertinent to the product or service the audience is interested in.

To improve your audience campaign performance, ensure that your landing page is optimized for conversions. Tools like Website Optimizer or Google Analytics can make optimizing your landing pages much easier.

Creative and its relevant landing page

5. Call-to-Action

A compelling call-to-action is crucial for any targeting type or advertising goal. Use your knowledge of your audience to match your call-to-action to the user in both content and style.

Phrases like �See Offers� perform double duty by communicating next steps and highlighting a promotion or benefit in clicking.

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6. Use All Ad Formats & Sizes

Not every site will offer every ad size and format � if you�re missing ad sizes you could be missing out on thousands of impressions. Remember, you want to reach your audience wherever they are online. Maximize your opportunity to reach your audience anywhere on a network and increase volume by utilizing all ad formats, text ads, and display ad sizes available.

We�d love your feedback. Let us know if this was helpful or how it can be improved at better-ads@google.com.

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

Better results, (still) early adoption: Marketing attribution in a complex digital landscape

Originally posted on the Google Analytics blog

Today, we�re sharing some research on marketing attribution that we conducted in partnership with Econsultancy, a leading digital market research firm. The insights -- Marketing Attribution: Valuing the Customer Journey -- provide a snapshot of how marketers and agencies are conducting attribution, the impact it has, and the barriers holding them back.

If you�re not familiar with digital attribution, it�s about distributing credit to all of the elements of your digital marketing program, so you can gauge the impact of customer marketing interactions on your sales results and make more accurate investment decisions. Here are a few snippets from the report that we found interesting:

It�s still a new craft, but early results show positive impact
Although digital attribution is still relatively new -- 83% of practitioners we surveyed have been using it for less than 2 years -- it clearly has a positive impact on businesses that employ it. 72% agree that it leads to better budget allocations, 63% gained a better understanding of how digital channels work together, and 58% had clearer insights into their audience:

Attribution leads to improved ROI, better budgeting

Last click attribution dominates; agencies are leading the way in experimentation
Most digital marketers run multiple campaigns, each with different strategies and objectives. For instance, display campaigns that are designed to generate awareness will have a different impact on sales than paid search campaigns designed to bring in buyers. Yet most marketers today still use attribution models that do not account for these differences in strategy. Although only 14% of respondents consider �last click� attribution to be �very effective,� it remains common; most likely because marketers haven't yet found or mastered the right attribution tools. Digital marketing agencies have done more with sophisticated attribution methods and technologies:


Robust attribution leads to confident digital decisions
For organizations that use attribution, it often leads to greater confidence in marketing choices: if you know the impact of your programs, it�s easier to budget for them. As one online retailer commented, �Attribution was the missing piece to our campaign analysis. Now we don�t run a campaign without learning something about how our marketing affects the buying cycle, and then testing to see whether it applies in the long run.�

Performing marketing attribution with Google
Here at Google we spend our time building intuitive tools to make measurement easier, so that you can really use your data to make smarter decisions. That�s why we provide several important tools for marketing attribution, including Search Funnels in AdWords and Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics. And check out our Attribution Modeling tool in Google Analytics Premium, which includes five standard attribution models plus a custom model builder, so you can create and customize attribution models in minutes, and see data instantly. Learn more in our Attribution Playbook.

Join us for an Attribution Hangout
If you�re available this Friday, April 6, at 9:00am PDT, please join Bill Kee, Product Manager for Attribution, and Justin Cutroni, Analytics Advocate, for a Google+ Hangout. Bill will talk about the research and give a demo of the Attribution tool in Google Analytics Premium, as well as discussing Multi-Channel Funnels and AdWords Search Funnels, two complementary features.

To watch the Hangout on Air, tune into Justin�s Google+ Page on Friday. If you have a question that you would like us to discuss, please enter it in this this form -- and we�ll invite five of you to join the Hangout live to ask your questions.

We look forward to seeing you at the Hangout on Friday!

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Product Marketing Manager, Conversion and Attribution

Google Ads - now on Google+

When we launched Google+ Pages last November, we aimed to provide you with a way to post updates and news about your business, have engaging conversations with customers, and send tailored messages to specific groups of people.

We�re now excited to share that Google Ads will be joining Google+ Pages to provide you, our advertising partners, with the latest Google advertising product news, training, tips and Hangouts that can help make the web work for you. We hope it will become a useful resource for growing your business, reaching customers in the moments that matter, and making smarter decisions.

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Here�s a quick peek at what you can expect from the Google Ads page on Google+:

• Stay ahead of the curve with the latest launches and updates for Google's advertising solutions, including search, display, mobile, social, YouTube and Google Analytics
• Receive how-to information, best practices, and recommendations
• Learn about upcoming trainings and events
• Attend Hangouts with product experts

Add Google Ads to your circles here. We look forward to connecting with you on Google+.

Posted by: Christina Park and Katie Miller, Ads Product Marketing