Inside AdWords

Universal App Campaigns: Optimize for the Right In-app Action

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

heard1goalscreative assets Track and send AdWords your in-app eventstrack and pass backthis list of events Let’s go back to our mobile game example: Before you start advertising your new mobile game, you pay a visit to the part of your office where the developer team sits. You kindly ask them to implement all the in-app events that apply to a gaming app — and you take some to discuss whether there are any other in-app events that are specific to your game. Understand how users interact with your app Example: You happen to sit next to your analytics team so you swivel your chair around to see if they have a moment to chat. You’d like to get their thoughts on a user funnel you’ve created for your game: installs, opens, completes tutorial, reaches level 5, joins group, reaches level 10, and then finally — makes a purchase. You and the team agree that this stuff is important to track so you schedule a regular meeting to analyze your game’s user funnel. Constant review of the metrics with your analytics team will help determine if your ads are bringing in the right users.

Example user funnel

Pick the right in-app action for your campaign Example: During a one-on-one with your boss, you learn that driving in-app purchases is a priority for the business right now. You’re worried because you don’t see many in-app purchases happening per day (at least not yet), and you remember that UAC needs to optimize for an in-app action that happens at least 10 times a day. You need to pick another in-app action that’s more common. You remember that your analytics team pointed out that users who join a group are very prone to making an in-app purchase 30 days later. And your data shows that this in-app action happens about 40 times a day so you set “Join a group” as the in-app action to optimize for. Improve the user experience Example: During one of your meetings with the analytics team, you spot a big drop off at the tutorial section of the app. After your meeting, you rush downstairs to where your UX team sits. You work with the team to brainstorm a different way to teach beginners how to play your game. You want to see if this can improve how people get onboarded. If you’re successful, not only will you get better conversion rates for your ads — but you’ll create a better app experience for everyone!these principlesbest practices guidePosted by Sissie Hsiao, Director of Product Management, Mobile Advertising1. Google Internal Data, July 2017

Know Their Intention, Get Their Attention: New Ways to Connect and Measure on YouTube

Monday, September 25, 2017

3x more12ads are more likely to be seen3 1) Helping brands reach the right audiencesJanuary4Custom Affinity Audiences 2) Enabling custom creative at scale 3) Telling a story that breaks free of a single unitlonger trailer 4) Measuring the impact – New ways to measure sales lift5Oracle Datalogix ROIcomprehensive user controlsPosted by Diya Jolly, Director Product Management, YouTube & Video Monetization1. Source: Google/Ipsos, Video Mobile Diary, US, 2017, n of 4,381 (saw ads occasions). Online video includes video platforms such as YouTube & Hulu, social platforms such as Facebook & Snapchat and TV Full Episode Players like NBC.com.
2. Source: Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience, Video Ad Cross-Platform Biometrics Research commissioned by Google. Conducted in the US using 8 advertisements, 4 platforms and 400 participants, 18-35 year olds, Nielsen CNS Lab, Boston, US 2016
3. Source: Google/Ipsos, Video Mobile Diary, US, 2017 (n of 18,219 total video occasions)
4. Source: Google Brand Lift Targeting Analysis October 2016 - March 2017, Global, Smartphone, numbers shown represent relative difference between additive lifts of intent targeted and demo targeted campaigns, i.e. the former had Brand Awareness lift 1.5x the latter.
5. Source: Commissioned Nielsen Matched Panel Analysis – 19 studies on YouTube from 2016-2017 across 6 countries; Lift based on at least one of multiple tested strategies with significance >80%

Supercharge your call-only ads with ad extensions

Thursday, September 21, 2017

call-only adsad extensions

Introducing ad extensions for call-only ads

Location extensions - highlight information about your nearby business locations for customers who want to visit your store in person.

Callout extensions - promote unique offers and benefits, such as 24-hour call center service.

Structured snippets - provide more specific details about your products and services using predefined headers like “Destinations” and “ Types”. For example, a rental car company might list various car classes like sedans, hybrids and SUVs.

“Calls help us effectively engage an increasingly mobile-first audience. They also drive better conversion rates compared to mobile text ads that take customers to our site. With new ad extensions for call-only ads, we hope to improve our CTR and call volume by taking up more real estate in search results, and showing customers additional relevant information like different car classes and ancillary product options.”- Jeremy Venlet, Director- Digital Operations and Performance, Hertz

“Choosing the right partner for commercial door repair is an important decision for any business, which is why we offer extensive service and support over the phone to help guide our customers to book on-site appointments with our expertly trained technicians. Partnering with our digital agency, YPM, Inc. we've made call-only campaigns a big part of our digital strategy since phone calls are so important to our business. Making ad extensions available with call-only ads is huge step forward because they'll allow us to go beyond the standard description text in ad copy to showcase our unique value propositions, such as prompt and efficient service, and a proven track record of delivering results for our customers.”- Stacey Muto, Marketing Director, Vortex Industries, Inc.

“DexYP partners with hundreds of thousands of local businesses to sustain and grow their customer base through online marketing channels. For many of these clients, driving leads and sales from phone calls is their top performance goal. For those that utilize Search Engine Marketing, call-only campaigns have been instrumental to helping these businesses generate more calls from mobile search, where more and more consumers are looking to connect with local businesses each year. We're incredibly excited to further improve our clients’ campaigns by adding new ad extensions. For example, the enhancement with location extensions will help further promote businesses who can assist customers over the phone, or at a nearby store location. Providing more relevant details in call-only ads will help them stand out more in search results and give users more reasons to call.”- Brandon Hulme, Sr. Product Manager, SEM Products and Platforms, DexYPHelp Centerbest practicesPosted by Manas Mittal, Product Manager, Mobile Search Ads

Ring in the holidays with new Merchant Center tools

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Add or override product data with supplemental feedssupplemental feeds

Add holiday custom labels or promotion ids to products in your primary feed through a supplemental feed

Replace attribute values in your primary feed with new values from your supplemental feed

Take your products global with a single multi-country feedavailable in 37 countriessame languageFeed Rules

"The new feed management features in Merchant Center are an amazing solution. With the ability to create multi-country feeds, we easily launched Shopping campaigns in 6 more markets across 2 continents that now represent 29% of our traffic coming from Search in those countries. Our expansion would have been slower and more costly without this feature."- Martin Zirfas, Performance Marketing Executive Modify your product data from the Content API with Feed RulesFeed Rules

Apply custom labels based on other values

Complete shipping values based on product weight values

Append strong brand values to the beginning of product title values

Drive more clicks with OpportunitiesOpportunities

Keep your entire team informed of your Merchant Center account

Ready to get started?new feeds experienceOpportunitieslog inPosted by Raphael Leiteritz, Director of Product Management, Google Shopping

Get a panoramic view of your data with dashboards

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

That's why over the next several weeks, we’re rolling out dashboards: a single place in AdWords^* where you can bring together your most important reports and unearth insights about your business.

Create a customized view of your data Monitor performance in one place Collaborate and share with your team Create your first dashboardReportsDashboards+ Dashboardguided tourAdWords Help CenterPosted by Jon Diorio, Group Product Manager, AdWords
^*Dasbhoards are available in both the previous and new AdWords experience.

Universal App Campaigns: Steer Performance with Creative Assets

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

announced1
steer performance using goals Supply a healthy mix of creative assets Returning to our mobile game example: say you’re launching a new mobile game and trying to find everyone who wants to install your app. You’ve picked the campaign objective “Install volume” and set a target cost-per-install (CPI). You want UAC to be able to create the best ad for any context, so you follow these best practices. For example, you remember that people hold their phones differently at times, so you include images in both landscape and portrait modes. You also upload videos of different duration and varying sizes (landscape, portrait, and square). Get insights from the Creative Asset ReportCampaignsAd Assets

Creative Asset Report for UAC

Example: After running your campaign for a couple of days, you review your campaign’s Creative Asset Report. You notice the video assets in landscape mode that show a cinematic trailer for your game have been labeled as “Best.” You conclude that the trailer is getting people excited to download and try your game. Optimize your asset mix using the Creative Asset Report Continuing with our example: Based on what you've learned from the report, you decide to replace any assets that have been rated as “Low” with even more thrilling cinematic video assets. You also notice that some of your assets still have the label “Learning.” You wait until there’s more data before taking action on those.best practices guidePosted by Sissie Hsiao, Director of Product Management, Mobile Advertising1. Google Internal Data, July 2017

Speed up your search text ads with AMP landing pages

Thursday, September 07, 2017

1AMP Projectintroduced

Create a faster mobile ad experience with AMP landing pages

Get your mobile landing pages readylanding page experienceTo get started, check out the AdWords Developer's Guide for AMP and learn how to create AMP landing pages. Better landing page experiences drive better results

“With AMP, we were able to improve mobile performance, achieve impressive results and double our conversion rates. AMP really moved the needle for Greenweez.” - Simon Le Fur, CEO, Greenweez

“AMP plus AdWords equals better conversion rates. These results also prove that even if your mobile site loads in four seconds, there’s scope for improvement. We’re absolutely confident about the benefits of AMP. We’re now building more and more AMP pages for most of our large and enterprise clients across all markets.”- Leif Grenevall, CEO, Adtraction Visits

“We've seen some good early results with AMP including improvements in engagement metrics, such as bounce rate, pages per session, and conversion rate. It’s clear that AMP’s faster loading times are driving a better user experience.” - Mike Carmody, Director of Paid Search, Saatva Mattress Learn more"Landing Pages” pageensureAdWords Help CenterPosted by Jon Diorio, Group Product Manager, AdWords1. SOASTA, The State of Online Retail Performance, April 2017

Reach more customers with Shopping ads in new countries

Thursday, September 07, 2017

Whether it’s Diwali, Back to School, Christmas or Boxing Day, shoppers go online to purchase gifts globally. Here's how you can capture the attention of global shoppers with Shopping ads.

Here's how you can capture the attention of global shoppers with Shopping ads (based on 2017 dates)

Show Shopping ads everywhere you sell

This year, Shopping ads expanded to Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, New Zealand, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates and is now available in more than 30 countries. Use Shopping ads to reach new global customers, promote the products you sell and find better qualified leads by putting product images, price, and business name in front of people searching globally on Google.

Quickly expand your Shopping Campaigns to multilingual countries

We know one of the hardest challenges to expanding internationally is preparing your Shopping ads for a new language. But, did you know that you can submit your feeds in English in more than 21 countries? You can quickly expand to english speaking countries and to countries that support multiple languages, such as: Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Norway, Sweden and Taiwan.

Let us handle the currency conversion

Additionally, if you sell and ship products to multiple countries, but your website doesn’t have different product pages for each country’s currency, Google will automatically display your product prices in the local currency.

Get Started

Ready to start an export campaign? To start promoting your products internationally, learn more here.

Posted by Aaron Berger, Product Manager Google Shopping

New reporting to show how often your Shopping ad is in the top spot

Thursday, August 31, 2017

The holiday season is right around the corner - are your Shopping campaigns prepared to maximize increased shopping traffic? To help you get a head start identifying product data gaps and measuring your competitiveness in Shopping campaigns, we’re rolling out product status reporting and absolute top impression share.

Recover potentially lost Shopping traffic

If your Shopping campaign includes products not eligible to serve, that means disapprovals could be affecting the number of shopping results you show up on. See how many of your products are ready to serve by adding product status reporting to reporting charts in the ‘product’ and ‘product groups’ page. For example, a dip in ‘products ready to serve’ means your products are no longer eligible to participate in the auction.

Historical performance using Shopping product status

A new diagnostics report in the products page helps identify your aggregate product status, like products ‘ready to serve’ or ‘disapproved.’ Add performance columns like Clicks and Conversions to the report to prioritize where product updates can make the biggest impact to lost traffic. Click on each product status to see more details on how to fix the issues immediately. Alternatively, you can also view a full list of affected products directly in AdWords from the report. Develop a routine cadence to go through your Shopping campaigns and identify the top performing products not eligible for auction as products details frequently change, especially with the peak holiday season coming up.

Use the products tab (1) and diagnostics report(2) to see product status (3)

New metric shows how often your Shopping ad is in the top spot

Now that your products are eligible to serve, it’s time get them in front of shoppers. The left-most ad on mobile Shopping results get up to 3X more engagement from shoppers¹; impressions in this position are called “absolute top” impressions. To see the percentage of time you’re showing in this top position, use absolute top impression share (Search abs. top IS column in AdWords).

Absolute top impression share is the number of “absolute top” impressions you received in Shopping results over the total times you could’ve been in the top impression.

For instance if you showed up as the “absolute top” in 8 search results but were eligible for 20 results, then your absolute top impression share would be 40%. If you have a high absolute top impression share, it means your products often appear at the top position in Google Shopping results. “Absolute top” impressions include ads from the Shopping carousel on Google search results and is available for both Shopping ads and Local Inventory ads.

The “absolute top” impression in mobile Search results

You can use this metric to optimize seasonal campaigns and get in front of more shoppers. Let’s say you sell kitchenware and plan to have a holiday sale on pots and pans. Separate out the sale products into their own product group. Monitor it for two days and adjust bids upwards if you need to make your ads more prominent. Also review absolute top impression share by device at the ad group level. You can optimize an underperforming device audience by increasing the bid modifier. Ad quality is the other factor in growing your absolute top impression share; include high quality images, relevant product titles, and the correct GTINs across your inventory to improve the quality.

To monitor your impact in key categories, you also can combine absolute top impression share with other competitive metrics such as click share. By increasing both metrics, you’re claiming more of shoppers’ attention.

The diagnostics report and absolute top impression share are available starting today in the new Adwords experience².

To learn more about how to use absolute top impression share and other metrics to prepare for the holidays, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Thomas Houit, Product Manager, Google Shopping

1. Source: Google internal data, Q4 2016 on US mobile Shopping carousel
2. The new AdWords experience is rolling out to all advertisers throughout 2017. Once you have access, you can switch back and forth between the new and previous experiences.

Introducing a better, simpler ad rotation

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

we’re simplifying ad rotation to two settings: “optimize” and “rotate indefinitely.”

Optimize for your best adsSmart Bidding Simplifying even rotationAdWords Help Centerbest practices guidePosted by Sylvanus Bent, Product Manager, AdWords

Inside AdWords

Universal App Campaigns: Optimize for the Right In-app Action

Know Their Intention, Get Their Attention: New Ways to Connect and Measure on YouTube

Supercharge your call-only ads with ad extensions

Ring in the holidays with new Merchant Center tools

Get a panoramic view of your data with dashboards

Universal App Campaigns: Steer Performance with Creative Assets

Speed up your search text ads with AMP landing pages

Reach more customers with Shopping ads in new countries

New reporting to show how often your Shopping ad is in the top spot

Introducing a better, simpler ad rotation

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