Inside AdWords: July 2008

(Ad)Word of the Day: Keyword Insertion

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

(Ad)Word of the Daykeyword insertionAdWords Glossary

Keyword insertion is an advanced feature used to dynamically update your ad text with your chosen keywords. You insert a special modification tag into your ad text to enable this feature for your ads.

Keyword insertion is a powerful feature that can save you time and also help make your ad text more relevant. This feature will automatically customize your ad to a user's query, which means your ad is more likely to attract a user's attention. And, since ad text that matches a user's search terms is shown in bold, your ads will stand out even more.
Even with these benefits, keyword insertion shouldn't be used all the time. We recommend reading this article and going through this tutorial before you start using keyword insertion.
Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Common questions: Impressions past page 1

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Help CenterPosted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

(Ad)Word of the Day: Conversion

Thursday, July 24, 2008

We all know the importance of measuring the impact of your ad campaigns. That's why, today, we're discussing the term conversion from the AdWords Glossary, which is defined as follows:

When a user completes an action on your site, such as buying something or requesting more information.

In AdWords, a conversion occurs when a user clicks on your ad, then proceeds to complete an action on your web site that you deem valuable, like a purchase, registration, or sign-up. You can track actions like this on your web site by using one (or both) of the tools we offer:

Conversion tracking: A tool for measuring conversion metrics for your campaigns.
Google Analytics: A more robust tool that tracks not just conversions, but also gives insight into how your web site visitors found your site, how they navigated through it and how you can improve their user experience -- all things that ultimately help you improve the ROI of your web site.

Both conversion tracking and Google Analytics are free tools and are great ways of ensuring advertising accountability and making smarter online advertising decisions.

Learn more about setting up conversion tracking for your AdWords ads, and signing up for Google Analytics.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Summer school's in session with Google AdWords

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

webinar calendarPDTRegisterRegisterPosted by Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords Editor service release for Windows and Mac

Friday, July 18, 2008

AdWords Editorthese instructionsour websiteHelp CenterPosted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

Use keywords and placements together on the content network

Thursday, July 17, 2008

contextually targetGoogle content networkplacement targeting

Set custom bids for specific placements. Let's say you're selling laptops, and you're using the content network to advertise on pages relevant to the keywords 'laptops,' 'laptop computers,' and 'laptop accessories.' After checking your Placement Performance report, you see that you're getting sales at a great ROI from three technology review sites. You also see a few sites where you're getting sales, but your costs are too high to advertise effectively on them.

If you currently have a $1.00 bid for the content network as a whole in this ad group, you can now add the high- and low-performing sites as placements into your ad group with custom bids. For example, you might set a $2.00 Max CPC for the three high-performing sites, and a $0.50 Max CPC for the low-performing ones. Meanwhile, you're still using the keywords in your ad group to target relevant pages across the content network, but now you've adjusting bids for the sites in the network that perform better or worse than average.
Show your ad only when both keywords and placements match. Suppose you check your Placement Performance report again and see that your laptop ads are showing often on sites that discuss how to make laptops more energy efficient. You know that you sell some of the most energy efficient laptops available, and you'd like to write an ad that highlights the power-saving benefits of your products. But you don't want to show this ad on pages whose readers aren't as concerned about energy conservation.

Now you can create an ad group containing the same 'laptop' keywords you've been using and add each of the energy efficiency sites as placements. Next, change your campaign settings so that your ads show only on the sites you've added, and only when their pages are relevant to your keywords. This gives you the freedom to write an ad highlighting the energy-saving benefits of your laptops to this unique audience, since you know that your ad will appear only on relevant pages on the placements you've selected.

This new feature affects your ads on the content network only, and it's entirely optional. You can do nothing and your existing campaigns will continue running just as they have. But by using keywords and placements together, you can get better control over ad placement and pricing on the content network to help you meet your ROI objectives.

To learn the ins and outs of the feature and and get started, please visit our Help Center.
Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Content network video series on the Google Business YouTube channel

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Google Business Channel
And as part of the Advertiser Education Series on the channel, we've just added three videos that cover various aspects of the Google content network. This series is meant to help our advertisers learn about, and succeed with, advertising on this platform:

Part I: Introduction to the content network - Learn about the benefits of advertising on the content network, including an overview of key tools and features to help you succeed.

Part II: Optimizing campaigns for the content network - Learn strategies to optimize your content campaigns for maximum performance.

Part III: Demographic bidding on the content network - Learn how you can reach an audience based on their gender and age on social networking sites in the content network.

We hope you'll find these video lessons to be engaging and helpful with your advertising efforts on the content network. You can learn more about the content network on our microsite.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords System Maintenance on July 19th

Thursday, July 17, 2008

On Saturday, July 19th, 2008 the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. PDT, for maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT, with this week being an exception.

We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but please make note of the July 19th date and our scheduled maintenance further down the road.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords system maintenance on July 12th

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

On Saturday, July 12th, 2008 the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT, for maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month during the above times.

We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but please make note of the July 12th date and our scheduled maintenance further down the road.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Keyword Tool updated with search volume data

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

search volume dataKeyword Toolsearch network
Here's a screenshot of the updated Keyword Tool:

(Click the image for a full-size version)

You can view the new statistics by looking at the Keyword Tool's Approx Search Volume columns. Search volume data can be useful to you in several ways, including:

Account structure: You may want to create a new ad group around high-traffic keywords that you find particularly relevant. Closely target ad text and a specific landing page to the small, narrowly-focused set of similar keywords you've found through the Keyword Tool.
Budget planning: See how much traffic is available to your keywords so you can better plan your budget.
Keyword choice: Search for and select the relevant keywords most likely to return quality leads within your budget.

Remember, the Keyword Tool also provides several other keyword-related metrics that can help you select highly relevant keywords to improve the overall performance of your campaigns. You can easily view data on advertiser competition, search volume trends, estimated average CPCs, and estimated ad positions for keywords.
To learn more about using the Keyword Tool, please see this article from the AdWords Help Center.
Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Upcoming traditional media webinars

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Print AdsAudio AdsTV AdsTraditional Media blogPDTwebinar registration pagePosted by Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew

Announcing Google's official traditional media blog

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

quick overviewTVPrintAudio AdsLet's Take it Offlinestay abreast of our offline advertising products.
Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Inside AdWords

We've moved!

(Ad)Word of the Day: Keyword Insertion

Common questions: Impressions past page 1

(Ad)Word of the Day: Conversion

Summer school's in session with Google AdWords

AdWords Editor service release for Windows and Mac

Use keywords and placements together on the content network

Content network video series on the Google Business YouTube channel

AdWords System Maintenance on July 19th

AdWords system maintenance on July 12th

Keyword Tool updated with search volume data

Upcoming traditional media webinars

Announcing Google's official traditional media blog

Google Best Practices

Best Practices Newsletter

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