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

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

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

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.

Click to view page

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

Introducing Click-to-Teleport Ad Extensions

Exactly one year ago we rolled out Teleport Search in select markets, expanding the Google Search results beyond providing links and allowing users to travel through time and space. Today, we�re rolling out this functionality to AdWords and DoubleClick with a new ad extension: Click-To-Teleport (beta)*.

While features like call extensions and location extensions have aimed at solving the "online to store" marketing objective for multichannel advertisers, Click-to-Teleport shortens the offline conversion funnel by allowing a user to teleport directly to your business location by clicking on your search ad.

You�ll additionally be able to tailor Click-to-Teleport extensions to your business goals by choosing to either:

• Optimize for closest location: Least disorienting for visitors, and helps you maintain a local feeling.
• Optimize for conversions: Teleports visitors to locations where your customers are most likely to convert.
• Rotate evenly: Teleports visitor to a random business location and helpful for avoiding overcrowded business locations.

Please be aware that while Click-to-Teleport is in beta, there is no �teleport back home� option for users. You are responsible for providing return transportation or calling a taxi for any teleport customer. At this time, Click-to-Teleport extensions are available in all countries and languages on Earth but are not compatible with our recently launched planetary targeting options.

To learn more, visit the Click-to-Teleport site.

Posted by David Kaufman, Teleportation & Time Travel Marketing Manager

*IMPORTANT: Though we have worked out most of the kinks with Click-to-Teleport, the technology is still in beta. Google will not be held responsible for any teleporting related injuries, unexpected time travel or any other teleporting risks, such as those demonstrated in The Fly.

A fast, accurate, and affordable way to do online market research

From international brands to local food trucks, every business wants to make important decisions with their customers� feedback in mind. Which version of your new logo will people like better? How much interest do dog owners have in organic dog food? Is your brand awareness growing over time?

We now have a new option for companies looking to answer these types of questions and more: Google Consumer Surveys. Whether you�re a Fortune 500 company or a local bike shop, Consumer Surveys makes market research fast, accurate, and affordable.

You can create an online survey in minutes, have responses within hours and fully analyzed results in days. We do all the heavy lifting for you, finding interesting nuggets of information (or �insights�) and providing you with tools for digging deeper.

Here�s how it works: people browsing the web come across your questions when they try to access high quality content like news articles or videos. Answering the question gives them near instant access to the page they want. All responses are anonymous; they aren�t tied to users� identity or later used to target ads. This provides an alternative to the traditional paywall model: site visitors don�t have to pull out a wallet or sign in, publishers get paid as their site visitors respond, and you gain insight into what people think -- for just $0.10 per response for the general US population or $0.50 per response for custom audiences.

We�ve already been working with a number of companies researching everything from online shopping behavior (Lucky Brand Jeans) to gluten-free baking mixes (King Arthur Flour), and using Consumer Surveys to track brand awareness (Timbuk2) and inform product development (479 Popcorn). Check out google.com/insights/consumersurveys to learn more.

Posted by Brett Slatkin, Software Engineer

A better way to buy display

Editor's note (Monday, May 7th, 2012, 11:41 am PST): We have updated the date of the Display webinar mentioned below to June 19th.


Display advertising has undergone a bit of a fairytale-like transformation over the past several years, from the medium of �Click Here!� banner ads, to one that can be smart and sexy and help bring big ideas (even those from advertising�s past) to life. Now that display has had its �Cinderella moment,� we figured the �carriage� could use an upgrade as well. So today, we�re unveiling some changes designed to simplify the way you buy and run display through AdWords.

Display�s New Home in AdWords

For nine years, AdWords customers have been buying display campaigns through an interface designed for search. This is like trying to run in glass slippers -- it might work, but it�d be a lot more effective with the right running shoes. So we�re giving display its own tab within AdWords. Rolling out over the next few weeks, the new Display Network Tab is an interface built from the ground up to run display campaigns, and will enable you to bid, target and optimize display campaigns all from a single place. Click the image below to see the different Display Network Tab targeting options.

Display Network Tab

click to view larger image

A Revved-Up Contextual Engine

The contextual engine, which matches ads to pages based on keywords, is at the heart of display-buying through AdWords. We�ve been hard at work behind-the-scenes to give this engine its biggest enhancement ever, the ability to combine the reach of display with the precision of search, using Next-Gen Keyword Contextual Targeting. This means that you can fine-tune the performance of your contextual campaigns down to individual keyword level, which will help you take the performance of your marketing campaign to a completely new level. It�s now easier for you to extend search campaigns to display and more efficient to run the two types of campaigns together.

For example, let�s say you�re running display campaigns for a Travel Agency who offers a vacation packages in several Caribbean islands. In the past, you would have created themed ad groups targeting vacations to Turks and Caicos and the Caribbean. Now, with this new keyword level transparency you might realize that the keyword �Turks and Caicos vacations� is 4 times more profitable than the keyword �caribbean vacations�. You can optimize your campaigns to aggressively target these high performing keywords, and be more conservative on �caribbean vacations�.

Giving a Visual Edge

And like the writers of the best fairytales know, sometimes pictures communicate better than words (or numbers). Along with the new Display Network Tab and contextual engine, we�re introducing a way to visualize the reach of your campaigns, and see how that reach is impacted by combining multiple targeting types, such as keywords, placements, topics, interests or remarketing.

These changes are some of our biggest steps to date towards bringing together the science of search advertising with the art of display. We hope they give you some powerful new tools to connect with their customers and deliver engaging and relevant display ads.

Learn More

We�re rolling out the new Display Network Tab to all advertisers in the upcoming coming weeks.

For more information on what�s new on the Display Network Tab visit our help center article.

Please join Google in our upcoming webinar on June 19th to learn more about optimizing your targeting strategies for campaigns using the Next-Gen Keyword Contextual Targeting. Check out our new webinar page to register.

Watch Brad Bender, Director of Product Management for Display talk about the new Display Network Tab and the Next-Gen Keyword Contextual Targeting.

Posted by Alok Goel, Product Manager Next Gen-Keyword Contextual Targeting, Rebecca Illowsky, Product Manager Display Network Tab, and Claire Cui, Principal Engineer

Announcing AdWords campaign limits increase

Last year we increased the limits for all advertisers to 500 campaigns and 3 million keywords per AdWords account. Today, in response to feedback from many of our advertisers, we are pleased to announce yet another AdWords campaign limit increase.

It is now possible to have 10,000 campaigns (includes active and paused campaigns) per account. With this change, it is now possible to easily manage and monitor more campaigns in a single place.

AdWords Editor, the AdWords API, and all other AdWords services are compatible with the new limits.

A full list of all account limits, including creative and ad extension limits, is available in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

Presenting the brand new AdWords Community

For the past three years the AdWords Help Forum has been a place where advertisers from all walks of life could come together and exchange ideas, advice and stories with other AdWords advertisers. It's really awe-inspiring to see people helping people and it's all thanks to your support and enthusiasm. Over the years we've been collecting your comments about the Help Forum and decided it was time for a change. We strive to make our users happy with the best possible products we can provide, from our advertising products, to our search products, to our social products. That's why we're excited to announce today that we're upgrading the AdWords Help Forum to a new platform that we're calling the AdWords Community.

Our new AdWords Community website is live now! Check out our new look and functionality.

New improvements with our website include:

1. Easy Navigation: The main AdWords Community page has an easy navigation bar divided into four main sections:

• Discuss: In this section you can engage with other advertisers. Depending on the topic, choose a category board and post your question, or follow up on an existing discussion.
• AdWords Wiki: Here you can find helpful AdWords articles written by other users who share their experience on AdWords account management and optimization, sitelinks, account structure, and many more topics.
• About Community: Want to know more about this community? Here you can meet the Top Contributors and AdWords Community Team, read our posting guidelines, and learn how to advance in levels.
• Resources: Still not sure if you have the right answer? Check out our other Google resources to learn even more about AdWords.

2. Contact Google: The AdWords Community is here for you, as is our Google Support team. Click the Contact Google button in the upper right corner if you want to get in touch with us directly.

3. Online Now: Wondering who else is posting now? On the left hand side you can see all users who are currently online. Check out their profiles, read their posts and give stars to every good answer!

Being part of our community has never been more fun! When visiting the new community for the first time, you need to register with your Google Account and create a username. When creating a username, we advise to use the same one as the one you used in the AdWords Help Forum. There are two restrictions when choosing it. First, the length cannot be longer than 15 characters. Second, the username cannot contain spaces. Once you register as a member, you have the option to create your own profile and start sharing your questions and ideas about AdWords with other users.

The new AdWords Community website will be now available in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian languages.

Posted by AdWords Community Team

Upgrade to AdWords Editor 9.7.1 for more efficient campaign management

AdWords Editor version 9.7.1 is now available for Windows and Mac. This new version includes performance improvements and several new options for editing and targeting your campaigns. A few highlights:

• Faster downloading for large accounts, and faster cut, copy, and paste (including drag-and-drop).
• A new tool for changing the capitalization of selected text in one step.
• More AdWords settings available within AdWords Editor, including advanced location settings, user interest category targeting, and Wifi traffic targeting.

For a complete list of changes and instructions, visit our release notes.

If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically. If you're not already using AdWords Editor, you can visit our website and click "Download AdWords Editor." To learn more about AdWords Editor, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

June 8 is World IPv6 Day

Editor�s Note: We published a version of this post yesterday with a couple inaccuracies. We took down the post temporarily while we made corrections.

On June 8, together with major web companies such as Facebook and Yahoo!, we will enable IPv6 on our main websites for 24 hours. We do not anticipate any significant impact on AdWords, AdSense and DoubleClick users or their campaigns. Google supports IPv6 because it�s critical to the future of the open web. With limited address space, the Internet is bursting at the seams, and IPv6 is the best solution.

The good news is that most users don�t need to do anything special to prepare for World IPv6 Day. Our current measurements suggest that the vast majority (99.95%) will be unaffected. However, in rare cases, people may experience connectivity problems, often due to misconfigured or misbehaving home network devices.

Want to check to see if your connection is IPv6 ready?

Visit our IPv6 test website. It will verify IPv6 compatibility, and provide tips for troubleshooting if needed.

Learn more about IPv6, or read about World IPv6 Day.

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew

Add +1 to help your ads stand out

People make choices about your website many times each day--whenever your pages appear in Google search results. What if the people who love your site could help their friends and other users find your great content right at the moment of decision?

That�s why we introduced the +1 button on Google search in March. +1 annotations show your customers which pages people they trust have found and enjoyed first, making it easier to find content they�re likely to care about.

Since we announced +1, we�ve gotten requests from Google search users and advertisers alike for +1 buttons in more places than just search results. That�s why today we�re making the +1 button available to sites across the web. Sometimes you want to recommend a web page after you�ve visited it. After all, how do you know you want to suggest that great hotel deal in Madrid if you haven�t checked it out yet?

We�ve partnered with a few sites where you'll see +1 buttons over the coming days:

You'll also start to see +1 buttons on other Google properties such as Android Market, Blogger, Product Search and YouTube.

Adding +1 buttons to your pages is a great way to help your ads stand out on Google. By giving your visitors more chances to +1 your pages, your search ads and organic results might appear with +1 annotations more often. This could lead to more--and better qualified--traffic to your site.

click for full size image

To get started, visit the +1 button tool on Google Webmaster Central, where you�ll configure small snippets of JavaScript to add to the pages where you want +1 buttons to appear. You can pick from a few different button sizes and styles, so choose the +1 button that best matches your site�s layout.

When a user clicks +1, that +1 applies to the URL of the page they�re on. There are some easy ways to ensure your +1s apply as often as possible to the pages appearing in Google search results.

To stay current on updates to the +1 button large and small, please subscribe to the Google Publisher Button Announce Group. For advanced tips and tricks, check our Google Code site. For information about how the +1 button affects your search ads, check out the AdWords Help Center.

If your site primarily caters to users outside of the US and Canada, you can install the +1 button code now; the +1 button is already supported in 44 languages. However, keep in mind that +1 annotations currently only appear for English search results on Google.com. We�re working on releasing +1 to other domains in the future.

If you have customers who love your content (and we bet you do), encourage them to spread the word! Add the +1 button to help your ads stand out with a personal recommendation right at the moment of decision, on Google search.


Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Location targeting updates in AdWords

One of the main benefits of online advertising is the ability to target campaigns to specific locations, such as cities, regions, or countries. For example, to reach users looking for rental cars in San Francisco, a car rental company could target a campaign to San Francisco and include only San Francisco-specific discounts in the ads.

In February, we launched city targeting in an additional 17 countries, and our goal is to make location targeting more accurate, easier to use, and more flexible. As part of planning for future improvements, we�re making several changes to our AdWords location targeting capabilities. These changes will start occurring after July 8, 2011, and include:

Changes to existing available locations: Due to changes in real-world geography or the existence of duplicate or overlapping location targets, we�re removing certain location targets in countries such as Japan, Denmark, Spain, and the Netherlands, among others. For example, in 2010, six provinces were abolished in Finland, and while you�ll no longer be able to target these provinces, you can continue targeting cities in Finland. You won�t be able to target these provinces in AdWords, but you�ll be able to continue targeting cities in Finland. After the changes take effect, you won't be able to add the locations that are listed here to new campaigns. If you're currently targeting any of these locations in your existing campaigns, you should migrate them to the recommended targets in the list. Otherwise, we'll migrate them automatically. Please review the list carefully since some of these changes will result in migration to larger locations.

Sunset of custom shapes (multi-point or polygon targets): You�ll no longer be able to add multi-point targets in AdWords. You�ll still be able to view and delete existing shapes in your current campaigns, and we�ll continue to use them until the end of 2011. After that, all polygon targets that are still present in your AdWords campaigns will be migrated to available locations such as a nearby city or a map point with a radius. We encourage you to replace your polygon targets with these alternatives or we�ll migrate them automatically at end of 2011.

Removal of �Show address in the ad� feature: In some countries, you currently have the option to show an address with your ads by checking the �Allow address to show in my ad� option for campaigns that target an area around a map point. This option will no longer be available. If you want to display your business address or phone number, you�ll need to use AdWords location extensions.

If you�re using these features with the AdWords API, check out the AdWords API Blog for more information on the changes being made.

These changes will take place after July 8, 2011. We recommend that you adjust the location targeting settings of your campaigns immediately with the available alternatives.


Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Introducing new ways to reach your customers on tablets

With more than 165 million tablets expected to ship over the next two years, tablets are becoming a popular device with engaged, tech-savvy consumers. So we�re pleased to announce that we�re developing new targeting options to help you better connect with this audience. To give you greater control over your AdWords ads, we�re changing the way you can target tablet devices.

In the next couple of weeks, the �Networks and Devices� section of your Settings tab within your AdWords account will include a new targeting option titled �Tablets with full browsers.� While you�ve been able to specifically target Apple iPad devices in the past, the new capability will enable you to easily target your ads to the entire tablet device category. In addition, you'll be able to select more precisely the types of devices and operating systems on which your AdWords ads will show. For example, to display your ads on the Apple iPad, you�ll be able to choose �Tablets with full browsers� as your device targeting setting and �iOS� as your operating system setting. Tablet targeting will be available initially for Apple devices only, but we'll expand ad serving to other specific devices in the near future.

Once this capability is available in your account, your ads will automatically start running on tablet devices and no further action will be necessary on your part. If your campaigns were specifically targeting Apple iPad devices, you may notice an increase in impressions and costs as we include more tablets in our ad serving options. If you don't want your ads to appear on tablet devices, you�ll be able to specify this preference in your device targeting settings by following these step-by-step instructions.

For now, only standard text and image ads can be shown on tablet devices. So please make sure your landing page renders properly on tablet devices, as our system will automatically limit your ads from running on tablet devices if we detect that users will be led to a landing page containing a significant amount of Flash or other content that will not render properly. To learn more, please visit this Help Center article.

We�re constantly working to provide our advertisers with new targeting capabilities for their AdWords campaigns. We hope that these targeting options will enable you to successfully connect with your customers across a variety of devices and platforms.



Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords Editor Version 9.0 released today

Today we�re releasing AdWords Editor Version 9.0, with a number of new features designed to help you make changes across accounts more efficiently and manage new ad features, such as Ad Sitelinks and high-end mobile targeting, at scale. We�ve highlighted key changes below. More details are available in the AdWords Editor Version 9.0 release notes.

AdWords Editor Version 9.0 highlights:

Scalably manage Ad Sitelinks
Version 9.0 provides full support for Ad Sitelinks, including downloading and uploading to your account, making edits, checking changes, and importing and exporting.

Improved Add/Update Multiple and Import CSV tools
When entering new data using the Add/Update Multiple tool, you can now enter your data with the columns in any order, assign the appropriate headers to each column, select the option to remember the order of your columns for your next import, and approve or cancel the changes in the account in one click. In addition, Import CSV now includes the option to Paste Text as well as to import From File.

Set high-end mobile targeting options
AdWords Editor now supports the ability to set campaigns to target high-end mobile devices (including Android, iPhone, iPad, and Palm) and carriers in Campaign Settings.

Better manage multiple accounts and MCCs
To help you better manage multiple accounts, AdWords Editor now offers sort and search for accounts, select and remove multiple accounts, and a new dropdown menu above the Account tree in AdWords Editor that displays recently accessed accounts, so you can quickly switch to any one of them.

In addition, when adding an MCC account to the Add New AdWords Account dialog, you can search within the list of available child accounts, display extra columns, and move up to a different level in the MCC account hierarchy.

More easily find and make bulk changes to negative keywords, placements, or audiences
To more easily locate and manage negative keywords, placements, or audiences in your account, we�ve changed the way we display Negatives in AdWords Editor. The Negatives tab has been removed, and you can instead toggle between displaying negative or positive keywords, placements, or audiences by clicking the Positives or Negatives switch on each item�s respective tab.

The Select Duplicates button is now available for negative keywords when in the Duplicate keywords view mode.

The next time you log into your AdWords Editor account, you'll be prompted to upgrade. You may also download Version 9.0 from the AdWords Editor website. After you install the new version of AdWords Editor, your accounts will need to be downloaded again. To preserve your comments and unposted changes, select the Backup then Upgrade option in the automatic upgrade prompt and save the backup file to your computer. Then, re-download your account and import the backup file to AdWords Editor.

For more information, check out the release notes and visit the AdWords Editor Help Center.



Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Introducing free phone support for AdWords advertisers

We�ve worked hard to keep in touch with our AdWords customers and we�re always looking for new ways to support you. Currently we offer email and online support, and today we�re launching free phone support for all of our U.S. and Canada-based AdWords customers. When you have a question about your account or advertising campaigns, you can now call an AdWords specialist if you prefer.

We�re adding phone support for a simple reason: you asked for it! You told us that while you appreciate online resources like our AdWords Help Center, you also want the option to get live, expert support when you need it. We heard you, and got to work assembling a team of AdWords experts to answer your calls.

The new phone option is one of many tools that can help you succeed with AdWords�and (most importantly!) find even more customers. You can also email us, or learn from other advertisers in the AdWords Help Forum. Our AdWords Online Classroom offers free online courses on a wide variety of AdWords topics, from the basics to great tips to take your account to the next level.

To speak to one of our specialists, give us a call at 1-866-2-Google between Monday-Friday, 9am-8pm Eastern Time. This number is for current AdWords advertisers only, so please make sure you have your customer ID ready. We look forward to speaking to you and learning more about your business.

We will roll phone support out to international advertisers in the coming months.


Posted by Francoise Brougher, VP, Global Advertising and Product Operations

Take your ads to new heights with Blimp Ads

For more than ten years, AdWords has been at the forefront of the advertising world. From text ads to video ads, we�ve been constantly innovating and redefining the advertising ecosystem. Starting today, you can be one of the first to experience the next generation of advertising: Google Blimp Ads.

Imagine this: a baseball stadium, packed with thousands of fans. A home run flies through the air, and as the crowd looks up, they see your ad, bigger than ever, hand-painted on the side of a majestic blimp. Blimp Ads can make this a reality.

click for full size image

With your text ads on our brand new fleet of gBlimps, you can reach an even wider audience and capitalize on many new targeting options, including blimp height and location. You can even target special events like football games, outdoor concerts, meteor showers, and more. The possibilities are endless!

Over the past few months, we�ve privately tested Blimp Ads and found that they performed even better than expected. Now you have the opportunity to boost your ad performance by participating in our free public beta testing program.

Check out our product site to learn more and sign up now. Join us as we continue to push the boundaries of advertising.


Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew