Earlier this year, we mentioned our plans to improve the measurement of conversions for display advertising campaigns on the Google Content Network. Today, to help you better measure the value of your display advertising campaigns, we're announcing a new feature called ...Read More

Earlier this year, we mentioned our plans to improve the measurement of conversions for display advertising campaigns on the Google Content Network. Today, to help you better measure the value of your display advertising campaigns, we're announcing a new feature called View-through conversion reporting on the Google Content Network.

Display ads are influential in increasing brand awareness and driving purchase consideration, and with View-through conversion reporting, you can better measure the impact of your display ad campaign for those instances where your ad is seen, but not immediately clicked on. More specifically, View-through conversion reporting measures the number of conversions that occurred within 30 days of your display ad appearing for which there was no ad click generated.

By using View-through conversion reporting, you can more easily compare the performance of your Google Content Network campaign with the performance of your other display advertising campaigns. This feature can also help you determine the best ways and places to advertise, how best to optimize your display ad campaigns, and, ultimately, how to spend your advertising dollars more effectively.

Here is an example of how View-through conversion reporting works: Let's say you're selling pet food online and you're measuring conversions on your site's email newsletter sign-up and your shopping cart "Thank You" pages. If a user sees your display ad, does not click on it but then visits your site within the next 30 days to sign-up to receive your email newsletter and to purchase a couple dozen cans of organic cat food, you'll see two View-through conversions reported on your Campaigns tab in AdWords.

Starting today, you can also visit the Campaigns tab in AdWords and activate the optional View-through conversion reporting column. You'll need to have AdWords Conversion Tracking installed for View-through conversion reporting to work for your campaigns.

To learn more about View-through conversion reporting on the Google Content Network, you can visit the Help Center. We hope this feature will provide you with better information about your campaigns and help you get the most out of your display advertising campaigns.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew Read More

If you're looking for some help with your online advertising for Q4 or 2010, consider attending one of our in-person full-day seminars about AdWords, Analytics or Website Optimizer.

In the coming months we'll be offering Seminars for Success in the following cities:

AdWords 101: Beginner and 201: Intermediate
October 5-6: New York City Area
October 26-27: Chicago, IL
November 2-3: Berkeley, CA
November 16-17: Charlotte, NC
December 7-8: Scottsdale, AZ

Adwords 301:Advanced Account Optimization and AdWords 302: Advanced Conversion Optimization
October 13-14: Dallax, TX
October 20-21: Seattle, WA
November 3-4: Los Angeles, CA

Analytics: Introduction and Analytics: Advanced
October 8-9: New York City, NY
October 22-23: Melbourne, Australia
October 28-29: Chicago, IL
November 4-5: Berkeley, CA
November 18-19: Seattle, WA
December 9-10: Scottsdale, AZ
December 9-10: Charlotte, NC

Website Optimizer
October 30: Chicago, IL
December 11: Scottsdale, AZ

For more information about Seminars for Success, including registration details, course outlines, and past attendees' comments, please visit http://www.google.com/awseminars

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

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In a mere few days, the 4th quarter will be upon us. Seems like just yesterday we were running our Do More with Less series to arm you with tools and tactics to show the 2009 recession who's boss.

As we start wrapping up 2009 and start thinking about what 2010 might hold, we're feeling optimistic. We're hoping we can transition from being your partner through the recession to being your partner through a recovery. That's why we're launching the Think2010: Getting Ahead of the Recovery series. For the next few months, we'll be devoting a weekly post to looking forward. The series will highlight wisdom from Googlers and outsiders alike, and offer opportunities for deeper learning. Over the course of the series you'll see posts on innovation, experimentation, speed, and deeper customer connections -- themes we believe will be critical to 2010 success.

In 2010 you'll likely have products to promote, news to share, and promotions to tout, so you'll need a targeting strategy that is as effective as those messages you have to get out the door. Precision and relevance will be as important as ever as you aim to (re)connect with customers and direct them your way. That's why we're focusing our first webinar of our Think 2010 series precisely on this topic.

Next Tuesday, Oct 6th, we'll be hosting a Think2010 webinar on “Using Data to Better Connect with Your Customers." If you haven't registered, take a look! Our very own Avinash Kaushik will set you out on the right foot for really (truly) making data actionable for decision-making next year -- and right now. He'll discuss core data sources to have in your 2010 targeting toolkit and show you how to capitalize on these tools for refining your targeting approach and honing in on your most relevant and valuable audiences. The webinar will also highlight how free tools like Google Trends for Websites, Insights for Search, and Ad Planner can help you be more efficient and help you confidently make decisions to maximize your return-on-investment.

As you scope your strategy and tailor your tactics for next year, we hope the Think2010: Getting Ahead of the Recovery series will be a good resource to help you charge ahead feeling informed and inspired.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Feeding off the momentum of improvements we've made over the past year in AdWords, we recently released beta versions of the updated Keyword and Placement Tools.Read More

Feeding off the momentum of improvements we've made over the past year in AdWords, we recently released beta versions of the updated Keyword and Placement Tools.

We've maintained the core functionality of these tools, but have added some new features that we hope will make them more useful for you. If you use English as your AdWords interface language you may have noticed that you already have access to these tools, and availability to all English advertisers as well as other languages will be rolling out over the next few weeks.

The updated Keyword Tool (beta)

This new version of the Keyword Tool combines the functionality of the Keyword Tool and the Search-based Keyword Tool. This means you'll get keyword ideas based on keywords you enter, your website content, and user searches - all in one place. Also new is the ability to search by any combination of a keyword, website/URL, or category - instead of having to perform each of these searches separately. Additionally, you'll be able to see all match types for a keyword at the same time to help you compare statistics for each match type. When you've got your final keyword list together, you can download a selected keyword, all keyword results in the table, or all keywords (for certain queries).

(click for full size image)

The updated Placement Tool (beta)

As with the updated Keyword Tool, you can now search for placements by any combination of keyword, website/URL, or category. For example, you can search for placements that are only on youtube.com that are also video placements and that are also in the automotive category. Under Advanced Options, you can also further filter placements by Country or Language, Impressions Per Day, Included Ad Sizes (those sizes offered by the content publisher for their offered placements), and demographic options.

(click for full size image)

The updated Keyword Tool is available via a link in the current Keyword Tool and the updated Placement Tool is available via a link on the Tools page.

If you see these links in your account, we encourage you to test out the new versions of these tools.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew Read More

Did you know that searches for "coupons" are up by as much as 95% year-over-year? Or that Google.com is highlighting TV and movie previews with our Video Plus Box product in the search results? Or even that "things to do" searches hit an all time high this summer?

The Google Auto, Media and Entertainment, Financial Services, Retail, Tech, and Travel teams are excited to announce the launch of our Twitter profiles.

Through the profiles, our teams will share:

• The latest industry trends and information
• Google insights and news
• Relevant product information and updates

To follow us, please click your industry: Auto, Media and Entertainment, Financial Services, Retail, Tech, and Travel

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew Read More

You may have seen our post on the Official Google Blog, announcing the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange. The Ad Exchange is a real-time marketplace to buy and sell display advertising space.

The "buyers" in the Ad Exchange are typically ad networks and agency-run networks with their own ad serving and optimization technologies, while the "sellers" are large publishers.

We're excited about what the launch of the Ad Exchange means for you, our advertisers. Ad Exchange sites will now be available for you to advertise on, as part of the Google Content Network, through your AdWords account. These sites are made available to you when Ad Exchange publishers choose to allow AdWords advertisers to compete for their inventory, and as long as that inventory meets all AdSense policy requirements.

So when you advertise on the Google Content Network, your ads will now be eligible to run across additional high-quality placements on those Ad Exchange sites, in addition to the hundreds and thousands of placements your ads can run on in the Google Content Network.

These placements will appear like any other Content Network placement in your AdWords reports. Like all Content Network placements, you can use the Placement Performance Report to see where your ads ran, which placements performed best, and act on that information by increasing or decreasing bids based on each placement's performance. On occasion, an Ad Exchange site may choose to remain anonymous, in which case, the site will appear in your reports with an anonymized label like "123456.anonymous.google." You can choose to exclude this placement, just like you can exclude any placement in the Content Network, if you see it's not meeting your performance goals.

You can still use all the AdWords targeting, bidding, formats, reporting, and controls for the Content Network that you're already familiar with. This just means that there will be more high-quality sites that you can access. As always, sites must meet the same quality requirements that we apply to all sites in the Google Content Network. Also, this change does not affect your search campaigns.

You can learn more about how the DoubleClick Ad Exchange can benefit you in the AdWords Help Center.

If you're not currently using the Google Content Network, you can learn more about how to get started here. If you're using the Content Network but have never tried running display ad formats, you might check out our Display Ad Builder tool, which can help you create new display ads in minutes.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

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For today's Inside AdWords post we have a note from our Chief Economist at Google, Hal Varian. Hal and his team spend most of their time studying the AdWords auction and finding ways to make it more efficient. Today he'd like to share a new tutorial he and his team have put together on how to bid for maximum profitability on AdWords:

Last month we launched a new feature of AdWords called Bid Simulator. Bid Simulator takes some of the guess work out of cost per click (CPC) bidding by estimating the number of clicks or impressions you could have received if you had used a different maximum CPC bid. Today, I thought I would take the opportunity to help you make the most of this new feature by explaining how to use the data from Bid Simulator to maximize the profit from your marketing investment.

In general, when you increase your maximum CPC bid for keywords on search you are able to generate more clicks to your site. This may be because your new bid qualifies you to appear higher up in the Sponsored Links on the search results page, or because your higher bid qualifies your ad to appear in new, more expensive, auctions. The goal for you as an advertiser is to decide whether or not these additional clicks come at a cost that is still profitable for you.

To make this decision, you need to compare your expected value per click to your incremental cost per click. Your value per click is how much a click for a particular keyword is worth to you, on average. Your incremental cost per click is how much extra you are paying, on average, for the extra clicks you are getting from your higher bid. When your value per click is higher than your incremental cost per click it makes sense to increase your bid. On the other hand, if your value per click is lower than your incremental cost per click, you probably want to decrease your bid.

In the following video, I'll show you how to calculate these values, how to interpret them, and how to use the data to maximize the profit from your marketing investment. My team and I are always looking for ways to help make the AdWords auction easier to understand so if you have other topics that you'd like us to address, please leave a comment on the video and we may be able to make it a topic for a future video.

You can also watch the video or read the transcript in our help center:
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=163828

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

We've posted before about how testing your website landing page can increase your conversions from AdWords. Back in July we held a webinar on the "7 deadly sins of landing page design" ...Read More

We've posted before about how testing your website landing page can increase your conversions from AdWords. Back in July we held a webinar on the "7 deadly sins of landing page design" and next week we'll hold the second webinar in that series: "Planning and running your first experiment in Google Website Optimizer."

The webinar will cover how to plan and set up your first experiment for testing your website landing page, while also providing tips and best practices that will benefit even those of you who are already pros at testing and optimizing your landing pages.

The webinar will be on Thursday, September 24th at 10AM PDT. You must register for the event to attend. We hope to see you there!

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew Read More

On Saturday, September 12th, 2009 the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10AM to 2PM 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 10AM to 2PM.

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

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

In July we announced US beta testing of the Opportunities tab, a new section in your AdWords account designed to help you find additional cost-effective traffic for your search campaigns.Read More

In July we announced US beta testing of the Opportunities tab, a new section in your AdWords account designed to help you find additional cost-effective traffic for your search campaigns.

Today we've begun expanding the beta to additional US advertisers, and we've also started including UK and Australian advertisers in the test. We'll make the Opportunities tab beta fully available to all English-language accounts over the next few business days.

Now that we're expanding the beta, we'd like to answer a few questions we heard during the initial test:

When should I use the Opportunities tab?
You can think of the Opportunities tab as your homepage for account optimization. You can use the tab to get a quick overview of Google's customized keyword and budget ideas for your campaigns and ad groups. You can also compare the impact of different ideas before making changes. So, if you're looking to increase your keyword coverage for a specific product, or have your ads appear more often for your existing keywords, the Opportunities tab is a great place to start.

We regularly update our list of ideas, so even if you've visited the Opportunities tab in the past, you may want to check back every few weeks to see if your keyword or budget ideas have changed.

Where did my AdWords Tools go?
We're not retiring any of the existing AdWords tools with the Opportunities tab beta test, but we've changed where they're found. If you're included in the Opportunities tab beta, you'll no longer see a Tools tab. Instead, you can access AdWords tools by clicking on the Opportunities tab and scrolling down the menu on the side of the page. You can also see lists of ideas by campaign by clicking on any of your campaigns listed in the menu on the left side.

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To see a full list of available tools, simply click the "More tools..." link at the bottom of the list.

What optimization tools will I see in the future?
This beta test of the Opportunities tab is just a starting point for a broader set of optimization tools we hope to provide in the future. Over the coming months you can expect to see additional changes to the tab focused on giving you more insight into the broader search marketing landscape and more data to help you better estimate the effectiveness of new ideas.

Ultimately we want the Opportunities section of your account to evolve into a single destination you can visit whenever you want to get new ideas for increasing your ad coverage on relevant search terms, capturing additional clicks in your most profitable campaigns, or simply improving your overall ROI.

We plan to expand the Opportunities tab beta to all global advertisers over the coming weeks, and we'll continue working on improvements to the tab on an ongoing basis. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for improving account optimization, please let us know by submitting feedback in your account.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

For nearly five months we've been running New Interface Thursdays here on the Inside AdWords blog. As the new AdWords interface moves to simply being AdWords, we're bringing this series to a close.Read More

For nearly five months we've been running New Interface Thursdays here on the Inside AdWords blog. As the new AdWords interface moves to simply being AdWords, we're bringing this series to a close.

You can find all of the posts in the series under the New Interface label, but here are some of our favorites:

• Keep tabs on your account with Custom Alerts
• All about filters
• Introducing spreadsheet editing

We look forward to writing more about AdWords every day of the week. Thanks for a great series.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

As an AdWords advertiser, you're likely focused on making sure your paid advertising campaigns are performing well and delivering positive results - but have you also thought about taking advantage of the free ways you can promote your physical business location on Google and Google Maps as well? In this post, we'll show you how to ensure your business locations can be found on Google, and then we'll show you how to go a step further by promoting your locations with AdWords location extensions.Read More

As an AdWords advertiser, you're likely focused on making sure your paid advertising campaigns are performing well and delivering positive results - but have you also thought about taking advantage of the free ways you can promote your physical business location on Google and Google Maps as well? In this post, we'll show you how to ensure your business locations can be found on Google, and then we'll show you how to go a step further by promoting your locations with AdWords location extensions.

Free promotion

If your business already appears as a search result on Google.com and Google Maps, you can use Local Business Center to claim your listing and add additional information, such as photos, videos, business hours and more. It's completely free. If your business doesn't currently show at all, you can create a new listing, which is also free. Local Business Center recently launched a dashboard that lets you see how many users saw your listing, how many clicked on various links in your listing, and which search queries caused your listing to appear. To get you started with Local Business Center, we've put together some helpful tips on the kind of information you can and should include in your listing.

(Click for larger image)

(Click for larger image)

Drive even more sales with paid promotion

In addition to ensuring your organic listings are up-to-date, you can use AdWords ads for additional promotion. Both location-targeted text ads and location extensions can appear on Google Search and Google Maps result pages. When you create location extensions, you'll be able to show your business addresses within your text ads. If you're a primary business owner, you can link your Local Business Center account with AdWords to ensure the most up-to-date information about your business is appearing within your ad. When you use extensions, you'll also be able to upload a custom icon that will appear when your ads show on Google Maps. This allows you to take a more active role in ensuring your business locations stand out when users look for businesses like yours in your area.

(Click for larger image)

So what are you waiting for? Take the first step and get yourself on the (Google) map by claiming or listing your business in Local Business Center.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

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As an advertiser, you've probably wondered from time to time what people thought about your marketing efforts. How are they responding to your ads? Do they like them? What do they think about your brand? With many advertisers running display campaigns across the Google Content Network, we’re starting to test some interactive ways for brand advertisers to get feedback on their marketing efforts. In the coming months, we’ll be experimenting with some new approaches that help measure the impact of AdWords campaigns beyond traditional click-through and conversion metrics.

The first is a way to gather feedback on display ads. We start by taking a display ad and removing all traces of the advertiser's brand. We then show this de-branded ad on the Content Network, and present a few basic questions: 1) Have you seen this ad?, 2) Did you like it?, and 3) What was the product or brand being advertised? This simple and approachable ad encourages users to provide feedback, and it also gives advertisers more information on whether people liked the ad and whether they remember the ad and were able to link it to the brand.

This is what users see:

(click to view larger image)

We're also testing a second approach to brand monitoring using gadget ads served on the Content Network, where we give users the chance to share their thoughts about a set of brand or product names. Over time, advertisers will be able to understand how their brand perceptions and associations are shifting, and they can tailor their marketing messages accordingly.

Here's an example:

(click to view larger image)

In the coming months, we'll be testing these ideas with a limited set of advertisers in the U.S. and the U.K. with the goal of making it available to more advertisers. With these experiments, we hope to provide you with more actionable insight on how users respond to your ads and brands.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Small businesses often think that television advertising is too costly and cumbersome for them to use. They assume they need a fancy, expensive commercial to use in their TV campaign. But Google TV Ads changes all of that -- we make it easy and affordable for you to make a TV ad, plan a campaign, and reach your customers through the power of television.Read More

Small businesses often think that television advertising is too costly and cumbersome for them to use. They assume they need a fancy, expensive commercial to use in their TV campaign. But Google TV Ads changes all of that -- we make it easy and affordable for you to make a TV ad, plan a campaign, and reach your customers through the power of television.

We're excited to announce the Google TV Ads' TV for All contest www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest, everyone's chance to advertise on television. Enter your small business' commercial in the contest for the opportunity to win $25,000 worth of free national advertising on cable channels such as CNBC, Hallmark, and Bravo using Google TV Ads!

We're launching the contest today in collaboration with our partner SpotMixer, a self-service video creation service which allows consumers to easily produce professional-quality videos. All you need to do is this:

1. Create a thirty or sixty second commercial for your small business -- you can make an ad on your own or use the free Spotmixer tool (it's easy!).
2. Upload your ad to the TV for All YouTube contest brand channel.
3. Vote! Once your submission is up on www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest, our panel of celebrity judges will select the 10 finalists and the YouTube community will choose three winners, each of whom will receive $25,000 in free national TV advertising through Google TV Ads.

The contest submission deadline is October 5, and winners will be announced on October 30.

Full guidelines, contest rules and tips and tricks are available on the TV for All YouTube contest brand channel at www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest. Enter today!

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew