Looking to measure and optimize your GDN campaigns? We'll be hosting a webinar on April 2nd at 3:00pm GMT to discuss how to create successful GDN campaigns. You can use the GDN to target specific sites, categories, topics and audiences, and in this webinar we'll discuss best practices surrounding the creation and optimization of GDN campaigns. This webinar will be presented by a UK-based Google Display Specialist and more specialists will on hand to answer any questions you may have.Read More

Looking to measure and optimize your GDN campaigns? We'll be hosting a webinar on April 2nd at 3:00pm GMT to discuss how to create successful GDN campaigns. You can use the GDN to target specific sites, categories, topics and audiences, and in this webinar we'll discuss best practices surrounding the creation and optimization of GDN campaigns. This webinar will be presented by a UK-based Google Display Specialist and more specialists will on hand to answer any questions you may have.

Register now here! For upcoming live webinars and webinar recording links, please visit google.co.uk/ads/webinars.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

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(Cross-posted from the Google Commerce blog)

Back in January, we announced our new Google Terms of Service to provide a more consistent experience for users across Google's products. Starting today, March 29, Google Merchant Center will be covered by the new Google Terms of Service along with a short set of additional terms and conditions specific to Merchant Center.

While the substance in the additional Merchant Center terms and conditions remains unchanged from the previous version, the new additional terms and conditions are shorter and reworded to be easier to understand. We encourage you to take the time to review the new Google Terms of Service along with the additional Merchant Center terms and conditions.

Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Senior Product Manager, Google Merchant Center team

Posted by Brett Slatkin, Software Engineer Read More

From international brands to local food trucks, every business wants to make important decisions with their customers’ feedback in mind. Which version of your new logo will people like better? How much interest do dog owners have in organic dog food? Is your brand awareness growing over time?

We now have a new option for companies looking to answer these types of questions and more: Google Consumer Surveys. Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a local bike shop, Consumer Surveys makes market research fast, accurate, and affordable.

You can create an online survey in minutes, have responses within hours and fully analyzed results in days. We do all the heavy lifting for you, finding interesting nuggets of information (or “insights”) and providing you with tools for digging deeper.

Here’s how it works: people browsing the web come across your questions when they try to access high quality content like news articles or videos. Answering the question gives them near instant access to the page they want. All responses are anonymous; they aren’t tied to users’ identity or later used to target ads. This provides an alternative to the traditional paywall model: site visitors don’t have to pull out a wallet or sign in, publishers get paid as their site visitors respond, and you gain insight into what people think -- for just $0.10 per response for the general US population or $0.50 per response for custom audiences.

We’ve already been working with a number of companies researching everything from online shopping behavior (Lucky Brand Jeans) to gluten-free baking mixes (King Arthur Flour), and using Consumer Surveys to track brand awareness (Timbuk2) and inform product development (479 Popcorn). Check out google.com/insights/consumersurveys to learn more.

Posted by Brett Slatkin, Software Engineer

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Today, we’re thrilled to share with you the story of musician and Google+ breakout star Daria Musk.

We often get asked for examples of how to use Google+ to engage with users. Lighting up Google+ with live concerts, as Daria’s done, can seem a song apart from selling wares such as designer laptop cases, hotel rooms or even car insurance -- but the principles of building an engaged Google+ community ring true across industries. Daria’s story is a shining example of what working with an active audience can look like.

Be authentic and committed
On March 13, Daria crossed the amazing milestone of having more than one million followers. That means more than one million Google+ users have added Daria to their circles, all in the space of about eight months.

Daria was looking for those listeners when she joined Google+. “I was dreaming maybe there’s this wider world that I can sing for,” she said. “Maybe my people are out there somewhere.”

Through posts and Hangouts, Daria has kept her fans engaged. Keys to success, Daria said, include starting with enthusiasm and authenticity. “Right now if you get on Google+ and you show that you’re doing something remarkable, they’ll notice you,” she said.

Being remarkable, Daria coached, includes being yourself and avoiding canned-message posts. Users can tell if you’re trying to make a real connection. Be genuinely excited to connect with them and they’ll connect back.

When users do notice you, make sure you commit enough time to connect back. Taking just 10 to 15 minutes to respond to comments can keep the conversation going.

Create a Hangout ritual

When it comes to connecting with Google+ users, Daria’s found the perfect vehicle: Hangouts, which allow Google+ users to connect over video chat, in real time, for free. For Daria, that has meant instantaneous global concerts that have included a round-the-world New Year’s Eve Hangout and a Hangout on stage at her TEDxTalk -- allowing her to share key moments with her “G+niuses, ” her followers.

For a successful Hangout ritual, follow Daria’s example and recommendations:

• Announce the Hangout: Be excited! Hang a virtual poster on your stream and tell users what you’ll be doing or discussing.
• Encourage participants: If you’ve noticed great comments, invite those users directly to get a lively discussion going.
• Follow up: After the Hangout, post a summary on your stream. What happened? What was discussed? What will you do with what you learned?

Get inputs -- and inspiration -- from your audience
For Daria, Google+ isn’t just a way to promote her music. It’s also a way to help shape it. The magic of Hangouts -- including watching a sunrise in Norway from her studio in the United States -- has inspired Daria to create additional “products” – her songs and music -- including tunes such as “+1 Me.” She even cut audio from the live Hangouts into her live album, "L+VE." What could you learn from your own customers?

Google+ makes Daria feel like an innovator -- and it’s open to anyone. All you have to do is sign up and start engaging. “We’re … making our own party,” she said, “and everyone’s invited.”

Join the party today. Create a Google+ page for your business at google.com/+/business.

Posted by Becky Bowman, Account Manager

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The Google Research team has a new study out today that examines how organic search results and ranking impact ad impressions and ad clicks. The team analyzed 390 Search Ads Pause studies and found, on average:

• 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks occur in the absence of an associated organic result on the first page of search results. All ad clicks in these situations are incremental.
• On average, for advertisers who appear in the top rank organic slot, 50% of ad clicks are incremental. This means that half of all ad clicks are not replaced by organic clicks when search ads are paused.
• For advertisers whose organic search results are in the 2nd to 4th position, 81% of ad clicks are incremental. For advertisers appearing in organic position of 5 or lower, 96% of ad clicks are incremental.

The numbers reported here are averages. As always, we encourage advertisers to experiment with their own accounts to determine their individual incrementality rate. This rate should be factored into ROI calculations.

You can read more about it and see the infographic on the Google Research blog here.

Posted by Christina Park, Product Marketing Manager

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Join us every Wednesday at 11am PST on the Google+ Your Business page to learn about the tools that Google offers your business. This week, we’re excited to bring current AdWords users a Hangout On Air about using AdWords to introduce your business to new, potential customers. AdWords is an amazing tool to help customers find you, so we want to make sure you make the most of it! We will cover topics around defining advertising goals, effective account structures, important metrics, and useful reports and features to help you get the most out of advertising with us.

Here's how you can participate: Sign into

Google+ and add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. Post questions ahead of time - just look for the post that we put up every Monday morning soliciting your questions. Then, on Wednesday, navigate to your Stream where you’ll be able to view our Hangout live with just one click!

We’re excited to see you, answer your questions, and teach you a little about AdWords!

Posted by Courtney Pannell and Dorian Storbeck, Global Online Advertising Associates

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More users. More screens. More content. Same time. Same customers. Same goals.

As marketers, it’s a challenge to stay up-to-date on the latest digital media innovations while continuing to manage effective, measurable campaigns. We at Google asked ourselves: how can we help you meet these challenges and move your customers from intent to action? How can we make the web work for you?

Next week at ad:tech SF we’ll answer these questions through a 4-part “Think with Google” series.

Tuesday, April 3rd

• Come hear from John Nicoletti, Director of Agency Development, on winning the moments that matter, making better decisions and operating more efficiently as you grow.
• Dive deep with Bill Kee, Analytics Product Manager, on ways to approach marketing attribution and what Google Analytics is doing to make attribution modeling more accessible.
• Learn about free tools available to help you plan for performance with Jordan Rost, Agency Lead.
• Close the day with Rikard Steiber, Global Marketing Director, Mobile & Social Advertising, on how to use Google+ Pages to maximize your business’ effectiveness and presence online.

Wednesday, April 4th

Global Google Analytics Lead Rachel Witalec will join the discussion on search tactics for making sure content gets found where and when you want it. If you’re investing time in digital marketing you won’t want to miss this.

The complete conference agenda is here. The sessions are open to ad:tech attendees.

Still haven’t registered? Sign up here with discount code GOOGLESF12TB and save 30% off a full conference pass.

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

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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

Posted by Alok Goel, Product Manager Next Gen-Keyword Contextual Targeting, Rebecca Illowsky, Product Manager Display Network Tab, and Claire Cui, Principal Engineer Read More

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

This week we're introducing a status insights icon in the Ads tab that provides visibility into the approval status and potential policy limitations for each individual ad creative. The new icon will be particularly valuable if you’re advertising products or services that are restricted by our ...Read More

This week we're introducing a status insights icon in the Ads tab that provides visibility into the approval status and potential policy limitations for each individual ad creative. The new icon will be particularly valuable if you’re advertising products or services that are restricted by our advertising policies to show only in specific countries or with certain keywords.

To use the new status icon, simply hover over the speech bubble in the Status column of the Ads tab next to the ad of interest:


We’ll tell you if the individual ad is showing for the default keyword and location displayed in the hover. If you would like to re-diagnose the ad with with a different targeted location or keyword, you can edit the parameters from right within the hover:


This new icon complements the existing ad diagnosis tools, which include the status hover on the Keywords tab, a batch option to diagnose many keywords at once, and the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool.

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

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If you’re at SES New York this week for three action-filled days of education, new ideas, and networking, be sure to include Google in your plans. Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist, will be on hand to kick off the event with a Tuesday morning keynote on “Business Optimization in the Digital Age.” Later that morning, hear how to tie the influence of the social web to the metrics you care about using in Google Analytics, or listen in to the discussion on making the leap from search to display marketing. Here’s a summary of the sessions:

Business Optimization in a Digital Age

Tuesday, March 20 from 9:00-10:00am

We were promised that Marketing one day would become rocket science. Well, we are almost there! Search continues to become more complicated, and more exciting. Then there's Social and Email and Display and Video and... so many more things. It is hard to understand how to do one thing right, much less try to do all of them right. In his exciting keynote Avinash will share his unique perspective on balancing multiple media channels, leveraging super awesome metrics, grounding your digital existence in driving economic value, and leveraging the Clear Line of Sight model to ensure you are optimizing across all four of the most important business drivers (come to the keynote to learn which four!).

Keynote Speaker:

Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google

Social Media as a Performance Channel with Google Analytics

Tuesday, March 20 from 11:00am-12:00pm

Social media has changed the way we shop and interact with brands, but marketers still lack a clear way to measure how their social investments lead to more sales. According to MarketingSherpa, only 20% of CMOs think social media marketing produces measurable ROI, while 62% consider it to be a promising tactic that will eventually yield ROI.

The good news is that better measurement can help marketers make smarter decisions about their investments in social. Vanity counters, such as friend counts and reshares, can be augmented with bottom line metrics like conversions and purchases, allowing marketers to measure true social ROI of each campaign and compare the effectiveness with other channels.

Join Phil Mui, Group Product Manager and Ilya Grigorik, Lead Engineer to learn how to tie the influence of the social web to the metrics you care about using in Google Analytics.

Speakers:

Phil Mui, Group Product Manager, Google Analytics

Ilya Grigorik, Lead Engineer, Google Analytics

Crossing the Digital Divide: The Leap from Search to Display

Tuesday, March 20 from 11:00am-12:00pm

Many advertisers who embrace the highly measurable, highly efficient world of search engine marketing remain on the sidelines in display. Historically, display advertising has lacked the precision in pricing, placement, and ROI of search. The advent of new display optimization technologies and next-generation ad exchanges, however, is offering a radically fresh take on an evolving media model. In this session you will hear:

• An Introduction to DSPs and ad exchanges
• An overview of the new display optimization technologies
• Sage advice for experienced search advertisers who want to take a first foray into exchange-traded display

Google speaker:

Julie MaGill, Head of Agency Business Development, Google

We hope to see you at the event.

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

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Last year we increased the limits for all advertisers to 500 campaigns and 3 million keywords per AdWords account. Today, in response to feedback from many of our advertisers, we are pleased to announce yet another AdWords campaign limit increase.

It is now possible to have 10,000 campaigns (includes active and paused campaigns) per account. With this change, it is now possible to easily manage and monitor more campaigns in a single place.

AdWords Editor, the AdWords API, and all other AdWords services are compatible with the new limits.

A full list of all account limits, including creative and ad extension limits, is available in the AdWords Help Center.*

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

*Help center link updated 4/25/16

Mobile searches have grown 400% in the last two years, but many businesses today still don't have mobile optimized sites. A mobile optimized site will allow users to have a great experience on your site while browsing on their mobile devices. Whether your customers are contacting you or making a purchase, this session will walk you through the ten best practices for building a better mobile site so you can get more customers while they are using mobile devices. This webinar will be hosted by one of our in-house Mobile Websites specialists who will also be on hand to answer questions after the webinar. Read More

Mobile searches have grown 400% in the last two years, but many businesses today still don't have mobile optimized sites. A mobile optimized site will allow users to have a great experience on your site while browsing on their mobile devices. Whether your customers are contacting you or making a purchase, this session will walk you through the ten best practices for building a better mobile site so you can get more customers while they are using mobile devices. This webinar will be hosted by one of our in-house Mobile Websites specialists who will also be on hand to answer questions after the webinar.

The session will take place on Tuesday, March 13, at 3pm GMT. Register Now!

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

A fast, simple way to increase your AdWords performance is adding sitelinks to your campaigns. If your campaign is eligible to show sitelinks but it doesn’t have them them up yet, it’s probably missing a good opportunity. To help out, we're adding sitelinks to the AdWords ...Read More

A fast, simple way to increase your AdWords performance is adding sitelinks to your campaigns. If your campaign is eligible to show sitelinks but it doesn’t have them them up yet, it’s probably missing a good opportunity. To help out, we're adding sitelinks to the AdWords Opportunities tab

Now, when we detect that your campaign is performing well enough to show ad sitelinks, but does not yet have them set up, we’ll show you that idea in the Opportunities tab. You'll also get a personalized estimate of the impact on clicks and cost if sitelinks were implemented, based on your last week’s campaign stats.

click to view larger image

Here are two tips to keep in mind when you're setting up ad sitelinks:

1. Our systems automatically determine which sitelinks perform best and show them more frequently. So adding more than the minimum number of suggested sitelinks can boost your performance.
2. Sitelinks can appear with any of the ads in your campaign. So choose website destinations and sitelink text that make sense across all of your ads.

To learn more about the Opportunities tab, visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Mark Martel, AdWords Product Marketing

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As some of you may have noticed, since approximately 2pm PST this Monday, March 5th, there's been a delay for statistics reported in AdWords and AdSense. While the reports are delayed, whether you are an AdWords advertiser or an AdSense publisher, your ads are serving as usual, with no disruptions.

This is a result of a temporary technical issue with our "statistics pipeline" (this is the system that translates the raw data into meaningful and actionable metrics for you). Our engineers are working hard to resolve the issue, and should have all your stats updated, current and complete by early Tuesday morning (PST).

We appreciate your patience. We'll update this post with any additional information and status reports.

Update, March 6, 2012: As of approximately 2 am PST this morning, most AdWords and AdSense stats are back to normal in your accounts. A few daily reports, including the search query report, geo reports, and domain and url reports will not be fully restored until approximately midnight PST today. Thank you for your continuing patience!

Update, March 7, 2012: We’re happy to report all stats and reports in your AdWords and AdSense accounts are completely restored, and back to normal. Thanks!

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew

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At Google, one of our goals is to help make the web work for your business. Today we’re introducing the Learn with Google webinar program that does just that, by sharing best practices and tips across a variety of products, including search ads, mobile ads, display ads, YouTube and Google Analytics.

We’re kicking off the program with eight live webinars in March:

• March 13 at 10am PDT: 5 Tips to Start Marketing your Business with Video
• March 14 at 10am PDT: Introduction to the Google Display Network
• March 15 at 10am PDT: GoMo: Mobilize your Site and Maximize your Advertising
• March 20 at 10am PDT: Understanding Mobile Ads Across Marketing Objectives
• March 21 at 10am PDT: Reaching Your Goals with Google Analytics
• March 22 at 10am PDT: GoMo for Publishers
• March 27 at 10am PDT: Manage Large AdWords Campaigns with Less Effort
• March 28 at 10am PDT: 3 Tips to Get More out of your Video Advertising Campaigns

Check out our new webinar page to register for any of the sessions or to access on-demand webinars. We’ll be adding new webinars as they’re scheduled, so check back regularly for updates. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by downloading our Learn with Google Webinar calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars in your Google Calendar.

Whether your goal is to engage the right customers at the right time, make better decisions faster, or get the most from your marketing dollars, we hope that you’ll use these tips and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to having you join us!

Posted by Erica Tsai, Product Marketing Manager