Inside AdWords: August 2008

AdWords Report Center: Summer cleaning

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Google SpreadsheetsformatPosted by Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew

Fall is webinar season

Monday, August 25, 2008

SubjectWebsite Optimizer - Test and enhance your siteRegister here
DatePDTInstructorClass DescriptionWebsite OptimizerSubjectHoliday webinarsRegister here
DateInstructorsClass DescriptionUnwrapped: Retail Holiday GuideSubjectHow to effectively reach your audience on social media sites in the content networkRegister here
DateInstructorClass Descriptioncontent networkSubjectOptimizing in AdWords EditorRegister here
DateInstructorClass DescriptionAdWords EditorcalendarPosted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

Quality Score improvements

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Quality Scorelanding page qualitylanding page load time

Quality Score will now be more accurate because it will be calculated at the time of each search query

Keywords will no longer be marked 'inactive for search'

'First page bid' will replace 'minimum bid' in your account

A more accurate Quality Score

Most importantly, we are replacing our static per-keyword Quality Scores with a system that will evaluate an ad's quality each time it matches a search query. This way, AdWords will use the most accurate, specific, and up-to-date performance information when determining whether an ad should be displayed. Your ads will be more likely to show when they're relevant and less likely to show when they're not. This means that Google users are apt to see better ads while you, as an advertiser, should receive leads which are more highly qualified.

Keywords no longer marked 'inactive for search'

The new per-query evaluation of Quality Score affects you in that keywords will no longer appear as 'inactive for search' in your account. Instead, all keywords will have the chance to show ads on Google web search and the search network (unless you've paused or deleted them). Keep in mind, however, that keywords previously marked 'inactive for search' are not likely to accrue a great deal of traffic following this change. This is because their combined per-query Quality Score and bid probably isn't high enough to gain competitive placement.

'First page bid' will replace 'minimum bid'

As a result of migrating to per-query Quality Score, we are no longer showing minimum bids in your account. Instead, we're replacing minimum bids with a new, more meaningful metric: first page bids. First page bids are an estimate of the bid it would take for your ad to reach the first page of search results on Google web search. They're based on the exact match version of the keyword, the ad's Quality Score, and current advertiser competition on that keyword. Based on your feedback, we learned that knowing your minimum bid wasn't always helpful in getting the ad placement you wanted, so we hope that first page bids will give you better guidance on how to achieve your advertising goals.

It's worth mentioning that the impact of these changes will vary from advertiser to advertiser; some might see no changes to their ad serving, while others may see a noticeable difference. As always, we recommend optimizing ads to prevent them from receiving a low Quality Score.

Putting it all together

Here's an example to illustrate how per-query Quality Score works:

Nancy's Dairy advertises on the keyword 'milk.' Nancy's ads perform better on the keyword 'milk' in the U.S. than in Canada. Her ads also perform better on the query 'milk delivery' than on 'milk,' and better on certain search network sites than on others. Instead of one static Quality Score and minimum bid that determines whether the keyword 'milk' is eligible to trigger an ad for all search queries, we will now determine eligibility dynamically, based on factors such as location, the specific query, and other relevance factors. For that reason, Nancy's keyword 'milk' will be able to trigger an ad for search queries where it's likely to perform better, i.e., in the U.S., on 'milk delivery' and on certain search network sites.AdWords APIAdWords EditorAPI BlogAdWords Editor Forumvery frequently asked questionsPosted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords system maintenance on August 23rd

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

On Saturday, August 23rd, 2008, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 4 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 Saturday being an exception.
We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but please make note of the August 23rd date and our scheduled maintenance further down the road.
Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

New features in Website Optimizer

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Today, at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, CA, the Website Optimizer team announced the launch of several highly requested product updates. For those unfamiliar with Website Optimizer, it's Google's free content testing and optimization tool. It allows you to test different variations of your site content to determine what will be most effective at getting you the results you want from your site. Website Optimizer's offering has now expanded to include:

Experiment Pruning: This new feature allows you to disable one or more combinations from taking part in your Website Optimizer experiments. Pruning can help you achieve faster, more meaningful results by allowing you to remove poorly performing or illogical combinations. This is especially helpful in cases where your experiment may have too many combinations relative to the amount of traffic it receives.

A/B Offline Validation: If your test or goal pages aren't accessible to Website Optimizer then no worries. You'll now be able to just upload a copy of your tagged page and Website Optimizer will make sure that everything is tagged properly.

More Intuitive Reporting: We've enhanced our reports to more clearly show how your combinations are performing, and to better indicate when we've found one or more high-confidence winning combinations. This will help prevent you from drawing false conclusions from results or from ending experiments prematurely.

(Click the image for a full-size version)product tourA/B experiment demomultivariate experiment demovideos pageWebsite Optimizer blogPosted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Introducing the AdWords 101, 201, and 301 Seminar series

Monday, August 18, 2008

AdWords SeminarsAdWords 101: Beginner
AdWords 201: Intermediate
AdWords 301: Advanced http://www.google.com/awseminarsformPosted by Vivian Leung, Inside AdWords crew

New features coming to the Google content network

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Many of these features will be launching over the next few months. You can read more about these on the Official Google Blog.
We also have an updated program policy that covers data usage related to the launch of these new features.
We hope these features will help you meet your ROI goals by concentrating your ad impressions on the best inventory at the most relevant time and by helping you more effectively manage your campaigns on the Google content network. We're excited about delivering these enhancements while preserving user privacy, and we'll be sure to provide you more info on all of these features as we begin to roll them out in the next few months.

Update 8/7/2008: Link to program policy updated

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords system maintenance on August 9th

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

PDT
AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT.
We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but please make note of the August 9th date and our scheduled maintenance further down the road.
Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Announcing Google Insights for Search

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

updated Google TrendsToday, we're launching Google Insights for Search, a new product designed with the advertiser in mind. It provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphically display search volume and regional interest.

Like Google Trends, you can just type in a search term to see search volume patterns over time, as well as the top related and rising searches. You’ll also have the ability to compare search volume trends across multiple search terms, categories (commonly referred to as verticals), geographic regions, or specific time ranges.

Let's take the example of entering the term apple. You'll notice that the majority of top related and rising searches are associated with the brand Apple.

(Click the image for a full-size version)

Google Insights for Search allows you to filter this query by the Food & Drink category, resulting in a dramatically different view of search volume trends and related searches of apple, the fruit. You can also use this filter to compare search terms with the category (for example, apple compared to the Food & Drink category).

(Click the image for a full-size version)

This is just an example to get your ideas flowing. If you love Trends, we hope you’ll fall in love all over again with Google Insights for Search.
Google Insights for Search homepageGoogle accountmore examplesyour feedbackPosted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

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We've moved!

AdWords Report Center: Summer cleaning

Fall is webinar season

Quality Score improvements

AdWords system maintenance on August 23rd

New features in Website Optimizer

Introducing the AdWords 101, 201, and 301 Seminar series

New features coming to the Google content network

AdWords system maintenance on August 9th

Announcing Google Insights for Search

Google Best Practices

Best Practices Newsletter

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