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

Webinar tomorrow: Advanced audience targeting on the Google Display Network

This live webinar will outline how advertisers can use advanced audience targeting across the Google Display Network. We will discuss how to overlap and maximize AdWords products in order to reach specific target audience segments by using products such as remarketing, interest categories, topic targeting and more. This live webinar will be presented by a UK-based Google Display Specialist and more specialists will be on hand to answer any questions you may have.

When: Tuesday 27th March at 3pm GMT (10am EST / 7amPST)

Register now!

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

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

Google Display Network - Audience Solutions Webinar now available on demand

Our recent webinar on Tuesday, Finding Your Target Audience with Google Display Network, was a huge success. With Audience Solutions on GDN, we are helping to get the right message to the right target customer, at the right time. �Ads can no longer be generic in nature � they have to truly resonate to make any impact. In this webinar, we talked about how you can use Audience Solutions such as remarketing and interest categories today to optimize your campaigns, tailor creative, and improve conversions. We then talked about the revolutionary new targeting strategies launching soon, including Demographics, Similar Users, Share of Users, and Dynamic Remarketing and how they will help you reach and scale your audiences more effectively.

If you missed this webinar, you can watch the recording here!

There was a live Q&A during the broadcast, but you can can continue the conversation on your own time on Twitter; just mention @GoogleDisplay and/or use the hashtag #GDN.

Posted by Desiree Motamedi, Product Marketing Manager, Google Display Network

Find your audience with the Google Display Network

Advertising is about getting your message in front of the right people. Whether you need to increase brand awareness or maximize ROI on direct response campaigns, your challenge continues to be about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time.

How can you do this intelligently, and at scale? Audience Solutions on the Google Display Network (GDN) provides the insight you need, connecting potential customers by with exactly what they are looking for -- when they are ready to buy.

Please join Google in our upcoming webinar to learn more about audience targeting strategies for your campaigns using Audience Solutions on the Google Display Network. We�ll discuss the following topics:

• Enhance search: Making the most of your search investment through Remarketing
• Deeper insights: Gaining insights about your current customers to expand your audience
• Extend reach: Reaching new audiences based on their interests and purchase intent
• ROI Optimization: Taking advantage of transparency and controls to optimize your campaigns

Register here for the webinar to be held on November 1st, 2011 at 10:00am PST / 12:00pm CST / 1:00pm EST. You can also preview a video of this invite here.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

A look at how display builds brands for marketers today

Last week, we shared examples of how direct response marketers are driving strong results with display advertising. But you�ve heard it before -- beyond driving immediate clicks and conversions, display builds brands. And as digital budgets accelerate, for an increasingly growing number of brands, display advertising has become an important part of their strategy. In fact, in the recently conducted Advertiser Intelligence Reports study, by Advertiser Perceptions, advertisers are planning on spending more digital display dollars in the next 12 months for brand goals than direct response.1

So this week, we�re turning our attention to pioneering brands who used display advertising as a critical component in their overall marketing mix to connect with their audience, engage them emotionally, and as a result, drive meaningful results. Let�s take a closer look.

Animal Planet attracted 1.6MM viewers for the season premiere of River Monsters, putting it in the #1 spot among its target audience, by running an integrated video and rich media campaign across YouTube, AdMob, and the Google Display Network. (read case study)

Volvo drove an 88% lift in purchase intent for its new S60 sedan by leveraging the YouTube homepage and masthead unit, interactive video ads on AdMob, and standard IAB ads on the Google Display Network. (read case study)

Sealy reinvented its Posturepedic brand using YouTube promoted video ads and in-stream video ads, which drove 46% of its website traffic during the first week of the campaign. (read case study)

At OMMA Global this week, we shared a simple framework for brand building that we developed after analyzing the campaigns of our most successful brand advertisers. These �better practices� focus on three key areas: connecting with the right consumer at the right moment, delivering an engaging message, and measuring the metrics that matter.

Connecting with the right consumer at the right moment. As consumers continue to access the internet more frequently throughout the day, from a multitude of devices, it�s increasingly important for brand marketers to create device-inclusive, rather than device-specific, campaigns. And by targeting a combination of audience and contextual signals, it�s now easier than ever to reach the right person, at the right time, on the right device through the Google Display Network or DoubleClick AdExchange.

Engaging them emotionally. The best display ads don�t just leverage sight, sound, and motion, but also harness display�s interactive capabilities that drive deep engagement with a brand. Our research shows that rich media ads drive significantly better brand performance than standard Flash ads--1.7X for brand awareness, 2.7X in purchase intent, and 5X increase in brand favorability.2 We also see that newer ad formats, like mobile display and in-stream video, are even more effective at moving consumers down the brand funnel. Lastly, we�ve seen masthead ads on the YouTube homepage garner an 11% interaction rate and drive a 4X lift in engagement compared to standard ads.3

Measuring more robustly. Looking beyond simple clicks and conversions, brand marketers use Campaign Insights to measure increased awareness and interest through the lift in search queries and website visits. Paired with Google Analytics and Multi-Channel Funnels, advertisers can see a complete picture of the chain of online and offline media that drives brand engagement. And to close the loop, many of our brands match geo-targeted display campaigns to offline sales to measure the true impact of a display ad campaign.

More and more studies show that brand marketers who focus on these three levers see the the greatest return on their display ad investment. With display�s ability to connect more precisely with your target consumer, engage more emotionally with interactive messages, and measure robust metrics along all parts of the purchase funnel, it�s no wonder that display builds brands.

Watch this space.
google.com/watchthisspace

(1) Advertiser Intelligence Reports (AIR) study, Advertiser Perceptions, August 2011
(2) The Brand Value of Video and Rich Media Ads, DoubleClick, September 2011
(3) YouTube Homepage Impact Study, Compete, December 2010

Posted by Brian Zeug, National Sales Director, Display and Video

A look at how display drives performance for marketers today

(Cross-posted from the AdWords Agency Blog)

Few would argue that online display advertising is playing an increasingly important role in the marketing mix. While we frequently talk about how the vast majority of our top advertisers have run a Google display campaign in the last year while continuing to increase their investment, today we�re shining a light on some specific examples.

For each brand we�re highlighting today, display was an integral part of their broader marketing strategy. To make it work, they tapped into a robust display advertising toolbox and applied targeting, creative, measurement and optimization solutions that made the most sense for their campaign objective. Let�s take a look at the results.

Airbnb increased the number of nights booked from 800,000 to 2 million with help from remarketing on the Google Display Network and TrueView video ads on YouTube. (Read case study)

Groupon acquired millions of subscribers with the help of contextual targeting and auto-optimization on the Google Display Network. (Read case study)

ShoeDazzle got 45% of their conversions from the Google Display Network by applying a variety of targeting and optimization tools. (Read case study)

At the heart of each success lies a common theme: Great display advertising happens when smart strategies are applied in three key areas: Finding the right customer, showing them the perfect ad, and measuring and optimizing effectively.

Find the right customer. Reaching just the right audience is at the crux of any successful campaign. In fact, marketers are saying the biggest driver of increased display budgets is the availability of better targeting technologies. (1) From remarketing strategies that reach 84% of users on a typical list, to interest categories that show interested users your message while respecting user privacy, we�re constantly innovating to precisely connect your message with your audience. And just last month, we shared strategies for applying the right targeting mix to extract the most out of direct response campaigns on the GDN.

Show them the perfect ad. You can find the right audience, but what do you tell them? With display, marketers have a wide-open canvas to connect with consumers to drive the results they care about. And an effective ad can come in any format. In fact, many of the brands we�re highlighting today used Standard IAB display ad units but with compelling messaging and beautiful creative that really resonated with their audience.

Measure and optimize based on real-time insights. Advertisers have always benefited from transparency into exactly where ads run, their costs, and the right metrics to measure campaign performance, providing actionable insights to optimize their campaigns. Our recent investments in measurement and optimization take this further. Marketers can now see a complete picture of the chain of impressions and clicks that drives campaign performance with Multi-Channel Funnels. And applying Google�s 10 years of experience in developing optimization algorithms, we�ve launched tools like Display Campaign Optimizer, which can be used to do fully automated bidding and targeting to boost conversions and ROI.

So today, while we�re celebrating these successes, more than that, there is a valuable insight here. The display toolbox is a rich one. It�s the agencies and marketers who tap into that toolbox and apply it in ways that make sense for their campaigns, who will greatly benefit from display as a medium. So.. will your campaign be the next one we shine a light on?

Watch this space.

google.com/watchthisspace

(1) Effective Audience Targeting Leads To Bigger Display Budgets, eMarketer, May 2011

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Product Marketing Manager, Google Display, Client Communications

Webinar: Display targeting strategies for direct response

On Thursday, August 4, we held a webinar about how to use today�s powerful targeting technologies to run effective display advertising campaigns for direct response goals. Specifically, we covered:

• The "targeting toolbox" for direct response campaigns on the Google Display Network
• Strategies for prioritizing and applying the available targeting options to maximize campaign performance and efficiency
• Tools, tips and best practices for maximizing ROI

For those of you who missed the webinar, a recording is now available, which you can watch below. You can also download the materials we covered here.

After watching the webinar, share your thoughts and engage with us by following us at @GoogleDisplay. We�d love to hear from you!

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Upcoming Webinar: Display targeting strategies for direct response

Contextual. Audience. Remarketing. Demographic. Marketers have many options when it comes to targeting their display campaigns. The emergence of these technologies has transformed display into a powerful direct response medium, delivering measurable performance at scale for marketers. But with the plethora of options to choose from, where do advertisers and agencies begin?

Please join Google for an upcoming webinar to learn more about how to approach targeting strategies for your campaigns on the Google Display Network. Specifically we�ll cover:

• The "targeting toolbox" for direct response campaigns
• Strategies for prioritizing and applying the available targeting options to maximize campaign performance and efficiency
• Tools, tips and best practices for maximizing ROI for your campaigns

Register here for the webinar to be held on August 4, 2011 at 11:00am PST / 1:00pm CST / 2:00pm EST.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Reach your audience with interest categories

Whether the goal is to generate awareness or drive sales, marketers share a common objective: reach people likely to be interested in their product or service. With contextual targeting on the Google Display Network, you can find people the very moment they express interest by browsing relevant content. But what happens if someone who has been browsing for cameras then goes on to read a separate news site or favorite blog? A marketer for a camera company would like to show that interested user an ad, but they can't use contextual targeting to reach them, since the site is unrelated.

Over a year ago, we announced a beta of interest categories on the Google Display Network. We've been slowly expanding the availability of this feature, and as of today, interest categories are now available to all AdWords advertisers. It works like this: our system looks at the types of pages a user visits, taking into account how recently and frequently those pages have been visited, and then associates their browser with relevant interest categories. Using these categories, you can show ads to the people most likely to purchase your products or services, and you can reach them across all types of sites in the Google Display Network in addition to contextually relevant sites.

With over 1,000 interest categories from ecotourism to mobile phones, we�re confident you'll find a category that fits your business. And with over 500 million users interested in these categories who visit the Display Network every day, you�ll be able to reach a huge number of potential customers. You pay only for clicks or impressions at auction prices, as always. Our beta advertisers have used interest categories to successfully meet all kinds of goals, from an advertiser increasing brand lift by 40% to a shoe retailer driving 400% more conversions at a lower advertising cost per sale.

As we�ve made interest categories available to more advertisers, we�ve remained committed to providing users with the highest level of control and transparency. Users may, at any time, view and edit interest categories or permanently opt out of receiving interest-based ads entirely with the Ads Preferences Manager. Also, we label our ads with the AdChoices logo to give users notice and choice about the ads they see.

We hope you'll use these interest categories to enhance your advertiser campaigns. We think you'll find them an effective way to reach more interested users, increase awareness of your products and services, and ultimately drive more sales. You can visit our Help Center to learn more.

-Jon Krafcik, Product Manager, Google Display Network

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Google Display Network introduces new performance bundle

Today, innovations in targeting, optimization, and measurement can help you achieve greater performance with your Display Network campaigns. We�re investing heavily in these areas, and we�re pleased to announce several tools that give you better measurement, transparency and value for your display advertising campaigns.

Better measurement

1. Relative CTR: User behavior on web pages varies depending on the type of page users are on. For example, users may interact with ads on a product review page differently than with ads on a blog. Clickthrough rate (CTR) tells you how often users click on your ads, but CTR can�t tell you how your ads perform compared to other ads on the same page.

To better gauge the performance of your Display Network campaigns, Relative CTR shows you how your ads perform relative to other ads running in the same places on the GDN, letting you benchmark your performance across the Display Network. For example, if your display ads have a CTR of 0.04%, while other ads in the same places on the GDN have a CTR of 0.02%, your Relative CTR is (0.04)/(0.02) = 2x.

The screenshot below shows how Relative CTR looks in AdWords:

(click for full size image)

Why does Relative CTR matter?

At first glance, a CTR of 0.04% may seem low. But knowing that this is two times the CTR of competing ads tells you that your ads are actually performing, on a CTR basis, better than ads on the same page. This means that your ad creative matches the websites your ads are appearing on and that your audience is responding to your message.

Alternatively, you may see that your Relative CTR is 0.5x, meaning that your ads are only getting half of the average clickthrough rate. This means that your ads may not be resonating with the users you�d like to reach and that you may be able to improve performance by refining your ad creatives.

To view relative CTR within your AdWords account, go to the "Ad groups" tab, select "Customize columns" from the "Columns" drop-down menu, and select "Relative CTR.� Relative CTR will appear at the campaign or ad group level.

2. Impression Share (IS): With the auction model, multiple advertisers compete for the same ad spots on a web page. To help measure your online presence, we�ve created impression share, which represents the percentage of times that your ads were shown out of the total available impressions for which your ads were eligible to appear on the GDN. In other words, impression share provides you with your online share of voice.

Based on IS data, you can increase your share of voice by adjusting your budget or improving your Ad Rank. The Lost IS (budget) metric tells you how many impressions you're losing due to your budget, while Lost IS (rank) tells you how many impressions you�re losing due to Ad Rank.

For example, you may see that you're losing 25% of impression share due to budget restrictions and must increase this campaign�s daily budget to get more impressions. Or you might see that you're losing 35% of impression share due to Ad Rank and may need to raise bids or improve your creatives.

Greater transparency

With your ads running across millions of sites on the GDN, it can be difficult to keep track of where your ads are and aren�t running. The Content Ads Diagnostic Tool (CADT) tells you why your ads aren�t showing on the Display Network. For example, you may see that your placement-targeted ad groups are not running because they lost the auction:

(click for full size image)

You can also see when your ad is running, and on what specific placements:

(click for full size image)

We'll start releasing CADT to a small number of advertisers in mid-June and will launch a full release in early July.

Better value for your online display dollars

Users often need to scroll to see your ads on a webpage. When a user does not scroll far enough to view your ad, these unseen impressions hurt your advertising effectiveness and result in wasted spend. We recently launched a feature called the Unseen Impression Filter that ensures that CPM advertisers are not charged for impressions that users have a low probability of viewing.

For example, say that a user lands on a publisher site where your ad serves below the fold:

(click for full size image)

You'll only be charged when we predict that a user will actually scroll to see your ad:

(click for full size image)

Note that this feature is automatically enabled and does not require any controls or set-up.

Wrapping up

All four of these tools and features -- Relative CTR, Impression Share, Content Ads Diagnostic Tool, and Unseen Impression Filter -- are available in all AdWords languages. For more information, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

There�s a perfect ad for everyone

On Thursday, June 9th, Neal Mohan, Google's VP of Display Advertising, delivered a keynote at the Interactive Advertising Bureau�s Innovation Days @ Internet Week. The talk is entitled �There�s a perfect ad for everyone,� and during it Neal made six predictions about how display advertising will change for the better by 2015.

You can view the recording at google.com/watchthisspace.

The talk was about the new technologies in display advertising that are resulting in better user experiences, better advertiser results and incredible growth for the industry. We�re investing significantly to help improve display advertising for advertisers, publishers and users. But we�re poised to make even greater advances in the years ahead. We�re at the beginning of a user-focused revolution, where people connect and respond to display ads in ways we�ve never seen before.

If you watch the talk, let us know what you think by following us and sending us a note.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Year in review: Remarketing delivers better ads, better performance

Today we have a post from Aitan Weinberg, product manager for AdWords remarketing:

We�ve always believed that display advertising has the potential to be smarter, better performing and more measurable. Today we�d like to shine a light on one of the quiet stars of the display world that is enabling this transformation: remarketing. Remarketing allows you to reach your website visitors with a relevant message as they browse other sites across the web. We rolled it out one year ago across the Google Display Network, and we think we have a hit on our hands. In 2010, the total number of advertisers using remarketing grew an average of 113% every quarter after launch. A few examples of how some of you have used remarketing to great effect:

• Yankee Candle Company used remarketing to re-engage shoppers and increased conversion rates by 600% while cutting cost-per-conversion in half.
• Lenovo PC manufacturers increased sales by 20% and lowered their overall expense-to-revenue ratio by 14% in a campaign that included remarketing and display across multiple networks.
• etrailer.com, an online towing parts retailer, saw twice the click-through-rate at a 75% lower cost-per-click with remarketing compared to their typical display advertising campaigns.

In the year since launch, we�ve boosted performance and scale with three key enhancements to make remarketing even more powerful for the largest to the smallest of advertisers. First, we now enable you to show a relevant ad right after a potential customer leaves your site, when our internal analysis shows they�re most likely to click. Second, we�ve improved the algorithm that helps determine, in real time, how much you should pay for each impression in order to maximize the possibility that a user will click on your ad. Finally, the growing reach of the Google Display Network means you can reach your customers on more and more sites across the web. On average, we reach 84% of the people on a typical remarketing list and we serve hundreds of billions of advertising impressions every month to over 500 million Internet users worldwide.

As we continue to show more relevant ads across more sites, this means more users and publishers benefit as well as advertisers.

• Publishers are seeing significant revenue lift from serving remarketing ads on their sites. Our studies have shown that a remarketing ad brings in nearly 2X the revenue as other display ads.
• Users have told us that they like the more targeted ad experience that remarketing provides. Marie DeOrio, Founder of Vintage Fashion Directory, calls remarketing ads �fascinating and fabulous. It�s that experience where ads don�t feel like ads. If they�re correctly targeted and it�s something you�re interested in, it�s valuable information.� Marie notes that she serves remarketing ads on her own website, vintagefashiondirectory.com as she believes that they "provide a better experience for users."

We�re not finished, either. In the coming months, we have plans to introduce a suite of new features that will make remarketing even smarter, faster, and more dynamic. We anticipate that interest in remarketing will only continue to grow, as advertisers, publishers and users continue to see the benefits, and as we continue to find new technologies that help satisfy the ultimate goal: showing the right ad to the right person at the right time.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

A new way to contextually target your ads on the Google Display Network

Many of you use contextual targeting on the Google Display Network to reach potential customers as they read web content directly related to your products or services. To date, you've been able to do this by specifying keywords that work together to show your ads on relevant webpages. This week, you'll also be able to specify topics to contextually target your ads to pages in the Google Display Network. With this additional contextual targeting option, you'll be able to select from over 1,750 topics and sub-topics to target your ads, helping you quickly reach a broad audience across the web that's actively engaged with content related to your business.

(click for full-size image)

Using topics versus keywords to target your ads

Using topics to contextually target your ads offers broad targeting and reach and is a good way to connect with a large audience quickly and easily to generate awareness or drive sales. When using topic targeting, our system looks at all the terms on a page to determine the topic of the page and is less reliant on particular keywords. On the other hand, using keywords to contextually target allows you to target your ads to a more specific set of pages in the Display Network, since you use individual keywords to develop a theme in your ad groups. However, both targeting options can be used together to effectively reach an audience across the Google Display Network. Let's walk through a use-case.

Let's say you're selling digital cameras. Here's how you might use keyword- and topic-based contextual targeting together to achieve different campaign objectives like raising awareness and driving sales.

1. Create an ad group targeting the sub-topic News & Current Events >> Technology News with a display ad to increase awareness of your cameras among technology enthusiasts.
2. Then target the sub-topic Photo & Video >> Cameras, using a display or rich media ad format like video to educate people interested in cameras on your products' features and benefits.
3. Finally, create a separate ad group using keyword-based contextual targeting with keywords focused on a specific brand or camera model. Then run a text or display ad which includes a special offer or discount on your camera to drive purchases among users reading reviews of that camera brand or model.

This is just one example of how you can use topic- and keyword-based contextual targeting together to build awareness, increase consideration, and drive sales. You can also exclude topics and sub-topics to refine your targeting.

As with other targeting options on our Display Network, contextual targeting by topic supports all ad formats, such as text, display, video, and rich media, as well as all our bidding options, such as cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-thousand-impression (CPM), and cost-per-acquisition (CPA). In addition, you still have access to URL-level reporting and other tools such as the Conversion Optimizer.

To find out if this targeting option is right for you, you can read our best practices. Then learn more by watching this video and reading our Help Center articles.

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew

New In-Ads Notice Label and Icon

You've probably noticed that ads appearing on the Google Display Network have a special "i" icon that expands to an "Ads by Google" label in the bottom corner of the ad. Users who click this label are taken to a page where they learn more about online advertising and the ads they've seen. Giving users clear notice about the ads they see is a high priority for Google and for many in the online advertising industry at large.

We'll soon start to change our in-ads notice icon to a new icon that expands to an "AdChoices" label. These notifications were developed by the online advertising industry�s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising to more proactively give users notice and choice about the ads they see. With the change from our "i" icon and "Ads by Google" label to these new notifications, we hope to show our support for this cross-industry initiative, and to increase our users' understanding about ad choices through adoption of an icon they'll see on ads across the web.

In a few weeks, we'll begin to show the new icon and label on most ad formats across the majority of English-language sites. Over time, we�ll expand the notice to ensure that all English-language publisher sites in the Google Display Network come within the Self-Regulatory Program (until then, these sites will show the existing �i� icon and �Ads by Google� label). This will be the single most widespread rollout of the "AdChoices" label to date, and we're encouraged that others in the industry are also adopting it. Additionally, we�re looking at ways to increase transparency and control in other languages and countries. In the meantime, those languages and countries will continue to see the �i� and �Ads by Google� notice.

(click for full-size image)

(click for full-size image)

Just like before, users who click on the "AdChoices" label will be taken to a page where they can learn more about online advertising and the ads they've just seen. This page will also provide a link to the Ads Preferences Manager, where users can control the types of interest-based ads they see. Our tests of this new icon and label showed that they shouldn't have any effect on ad performance. We think this rollout will help users better understand the ads they're seeing, and we look forward to seeing widespread adoption of this label throughout the industry.

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew

Simplifying bidding on the Google Display Network

If you use managed placements to manage bidding or targeting on the Google Display Network, you might have at one point questioned why you saw three separate default bids in your ad groups: a regular default bid, a managed placements bid, and a Display Network bid.

We�ve heard feedback from advertisers that it�s confusing to work with these three default bids (and most of you don�t even use default bids for your managed placements--preferring to set bids individually). In an effort to simplify things, we�ll be removing the managed placements default bid starting on March 15, 2011.

After this change, you�ll be able to continue managing default values for both managed and automatic placements by using a single Display Network default bid. Individual bids for managed placements will allow you to maintain the flexibility you have today.

Here�s how this change will affect you:

• Starting today, we're no longer allowing managed placement bids to be set for new ad groups containing placements. You won�t be required to enter a new bid when you add managed placements for the first time (we�re launching this change gradually, so it may take about a week to reach your account).
• Starting on March 15, we�ll automatically update existing managed placement bids. There are several changes we�ll make in order to make sure your ads will continue to serve as normal with the bids you intended. Learn more about the changes that apply to your account in our Help Center.
• If you�re eager to say goodbye to the managed placements bid today, you can do that too! You can change your managed placements bid to 0, which will cause it to disappear from your account (this change is also launching over the next week).

One important note: AdWords Editor 7.6 is not compatible with this change. Any changes to managed placements bids in this version of Editor will result in an error. Please make sure to download the latest version of AdWords Editor to manage your bids.

If these changes apply to your account, you�ll be receiving an email from us with additional details and will also see an announcement in your AdWords account. There�s no need to take any action in your account, but you can always feel free to adjust your bids at any time.

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew

Learn about using Remarketing in the AdWords Online Classroom (UK)

This Wednesday, January 19, we'll be hosting a live online course on Remarketing in the AdWords Online Classroom (UK). This free, hour-long, interactive presentation will be delivered by an Online Media Specialist and will take place at 3pm GMT (7am PST). There will also be time for Q&A.

Remarketing is a simple way to connect with your website visitors. After driving traffic to your site with search ads, you can then remarket to those people who reach your site by showing them tailored ads as they browse through sites on the Google Display Network.

During this session we'll take you through the benefits of using remarketing and how to set it up in your account. If you advertise with AdWords and are interested in the Google Display Network then we encourage you to attend.

Be sure to sign up now!

And you can also check out all our on-demand courses on the AdWords Online Classroom site.


Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Contextual targeting just got easier for your display campaigns

This week, we�re launching the Contextual Targeting Tool to help you more easily reach customers as they spend time on millions of sites in the Google Display Network.

As you may already know, contextual targeting helps you reach potential customers as they read webpages related to your products or services. Now, with this tool, you can create contextually-targeted campaigns more easily and quickly, while generating more clicks and conversions for your campaigns.

What does the Contextual Targeting Tool do?
This tool automatically builds keyword lists that can be used to show your ads on relevant webpages in the Google Display Network. Tightly-themed keyword lists are the basis of effective contextual targeting, and with the Contextual Targeting Tool, you no longer have to build them manually. In minutes, you can build dozens, even hundreds, of keyword lists, scaling your campaign performance while ensuring accurate targeting for your ads. This means you can get more clicks and conversions for your campaigns and you can do it more quickly.

How do I use it?
Let�s say you sell soccer equipment and gear. Normally, you'd have to build out separate ad groups for each of your product lines, like soccer gear, soccer balls, soccer cleats, etc. With the Contextual Targeting Tool, simply type each product category into the search box, and the tool will automatically generate tightly-themed keyword lists for you. For example, when you enter soccer gear into the tool, you get more specific ad groups, such as youth soccer gear, discount soccer gear, soccer uniforms, soccer bags, etc.

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These new ad groups can help you get additional traffic and sales, as you may not think of creating them when manually building out your campaigns. Along with the new ad groups, the tool provides suggested bids and predicted placements to give you an idea of the types of sites in the Display Network where your ads can appear.

The Contextual Targeting Tool has been available to advertisers using AdWords Editor. This week, all advertisers will be able to access it from the Opportunities tab in their AdWords account. You'll still need AdWords Editor to implement the ad groups in your account for now (download AdWords Editor). However, this requirement will be lifted and you�ll be able to implement new ad groups directly from your AdWords account in the coming months.

You can learn more about using the Contextual Targeting Tool by watching this video. We hope this tool will help you more easily and efficiently reach your goals with your Display Network campaigns.


Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew