AdWords Top Contributor Summit

Global Top Contributor Summit: real people behind user names and friendly smiles instead of emoticons. Meeting offline for the first time!

As you may have read in the official Google blog, the Global Top Contributor Summit recently took place in sunny California. This two-day event brought together for the first time over 250 Top Contributors from Google forums. Top Contributors are longtime members of the Google Help Forums who, over time, have distinguished themselves as true experts by providing helpful tips, advice, and support to other forum visitors.

In this blog post we wanted to tell you more about the AdWords Top Contributors (TCs) and the AdWords portion of the summit. Thirty-five AdWords Top Contributors from AdWords forums in 17 languages took part in the Summit. Coming from around the world, they had a unique chance to meet the AdWords Community Leads, along with Google management and engineering teams.

Alan Eustace talks about Google's focus on users and the importance of their feedback.

The first day of the summit was a gathering of all product Top Contributors. It offered presentations from Google's SVP of Knowledge Alan Eustace, product team managers and the Google Help Forum team. Googlers and TCs also had the opportunity to discuss the future of Google's online communities. The day ended with a ceremony to recognize outstanding Top Contributors.

Google and Top Contributors: collaboration in action

The second day was fully dedicated to AdWords. TCs met with the marketing and product teams to discuss product updates and future collaboration plans. During the Q&A session with the product team, TCs once again showed their outstanding product knowledge and interest in AdWords. We heard passionate discussion between the TCs and Product Managers on to how the next version of AdWords Editor should look. Once the general sessions were over, the participants split into groups with Googlers to brainstorm future initiatives and plans. Lastly, the management team of AdWords recognized the TCs for being the most active, creative and professional members of AdWords communities. In short, the day was filled with tough questions, constructive feedback, a sneak peek of upcoming product features, and well-deserved recognition.

The Summit went by fast, but left behind many joyful memories, new friends, and great feedback. We were touched to hear how much Top Contributors appreciated the opportunity to come to summit. "I've no words to describe how proud I am, to be part of this group of so extraordinary people. From outside… someone could think AdWords TCs are people who think only on how to earn money… no heart… no altruism…. What I've seen is really the opposite. I see collaboration, friendship, respect. Really, really, thank you very much to everybody," -- Andrea, Italy

Join the ongoing summit discussion with other AdWords enthusiasts.

Thank you all for coming!
AdWords Community Team

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords crew

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A look at how display builds brands for marketers today

Last week, we shared examples of how direct response marketers are driving strong results with display advertising. But you’ve heard it before -- beyond driving immediate clicks and conversions, display builds brands. And as digital budgets accelerate, for an increasingly growing number of brands, display advertising has become an important part of their strategy. In fact, in the recently conducted Advertiser Intelligence Reports study, by Advertiser Perceptions, advertisers are planning on spending more digital display dollars in the next 12 months for brand goals than direct response.1

So this week, we’re turning our attention to pioneering brands who used display advertising as a critical component in their overall marketing mix to connect with their audience, engage them emotionally, and as a result, drive meaningful results. Let’s take a closer look.

Animal Planet attracted 1.6MM viewers for the season premiere of River Monsters, putting it in the #1 spot among its target audience, by running an integrated video and rich media campaign across YouTube, AdMob, and the Google Display Network. (read case study)

Volvo drove an 88% lift in purchase intent for its new S60 sedan by leveraging the YouTube homepage and masthead unit, interactive video ads on AdMob, and standard IAB ads on the Google Display Network. (read case study)

Sealy reinvented its Posturepedic brand using YouTube promoted video ads and in-stream video ads, which drove 46% of its website traffic during the first week of the campaign. (read case study)

At OMMA Global this week, we shared a simple framework for brand building that we developed after analyzing the campaigns of our most successful brand advertisers. These “better practices” focus on three key areas: connecting with the right consumer at the right moment, delivering an engaging message, and measuring the metrics that matter.

Connecting with the right consumer at the right moment. As consumers continue to access the internet more frequently throughout the day, from a multitude of devices, it’s increasingly important for brand marketers to create device-inclusive, rather than device-specific, campaigns. And by targeting a combination of audience and contextual signals, it’s now easier than ever to reach the right person, at the right time, on the right device through the Google Display Network or DoubleClick AdExchange.

Engaging them emotionally. The best display ads don’t just leverage sight, sound, and motion, but also harness display’s interactive capabilities that drive deep engagement with a brand. Our research shows that rich media ads drive significantly better brand performance than standard Flash ads--1.7X for brand awareness, 2.7X in purchase intent, and 5X increase in brand favorability.2 We also see that newer ad formats, like mobile display and in-stream video, are even more effective at moving consumers down the brand funnel. Lastly, we’ve seen masthead ads on the YouTube homepage garner an 11% interaction rate and drive a 4X lift in engagement compared to standard ads.3

Measuring more robustly. Looking beyond simple clicks and conversions, brand marketers use Campaign Insights to measure increased awareness and interest through the lift in search queries and website visits. Paired with Google Analytics and Multi-Channel Funnels, advertisers can see a complete picture of the chain of online and offline media that drives brand engagement. And to close the loop, many of our brands match geo-targeted display campaigns to offline sales to measure the true impact of a display ad campaign.

More and more studies show that brand marketers who focus on these three levers see the the greatest return on their display ad investment. With display’s ability to connect more precisely with your target consumer, engage more emotionally with interactive messages, and measure robust metrics along all parts of the purchase funnel, it’s no wonder that display builds brands.

Watch this space.
google.com/watchthisspace

(1) Advertiser Intelligence Reports (AIR) study, Advertiser Perceptions, August 2011
(2) The Brand Value of Video and Rich Media Ads, DoubleClick, September 2011
(3) YouTube Homepage Impact Study, Compete, December 2010

Posted by Brian Zeug, National Sales Director, Display and Video

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Learn to predict the present with Think Quarterly

In July, we launched our first issue of Think Quarterly, a publication that packages up the insights and ideas that we learn from both inside and outside of Google. Today we’re launching our second edition, the “People” issue. It explores the latest technologies connecting us and the big ideas driving society forward.

One way we can gain insight into people’s actions, intentions, and future actions is through their search behavior. When looked at in aggregate, queries can speak volumes. In “Predicting the Present”, our chief economist Hal Varian talks about how you can use publicly available tools like Insights for Search and Google Correlate to this end. In his words:

“If you type ‘weight loss’ into Google Correlate you find ‘healthy smoothie’ and ‘meal replacement.’ Not too surprising. But you also see terms like ‘vacation destination,’ ‘cruises to,’ and ‘wedding checklist.’ And if you look at the searches that occur three weeks after the ‘weight loss’ query, you see ‘weight loss plateau’ and ‘not losing weight’ at the top of the list.”

Hal’s team has uncovered a number of interesting relationships by analyzing query data. For example, here’s an infographic that shows the online and offline spending behavior of people throughout a typical week.

(click for full-size image)

For more, read the full article here. We hope you enjoy (and +1) it!

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords crew

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A look at how display drives performance for marketers today

(Cross-posted from the AdWords Agency Blog)

Few would argue that online display advertising is playing an increasingly important role in the marketing mix. While we frequently talk about how the vast majority of our top advertisers have run a Google display campaign in the last year while continuing to increase their investment, today we’re shining a light on some specific examples.

For each brand we’re highlighting today, display was an integral part of their broader marketing strategy. To make it work, they tapped into a robust display advertising toolbox and applied targeting, creative, measurement and optimization solutions that made the most sense for their campaign objective. Let’s take a look at the results.

Airbnb increased the number of nights booked from 800,000 to 2 million with help from remarketing on the Google Display Network and TrueView video ads on YouTube. (Read case study)

Groupon acquired millions of subscribers with the help of contextual targeting and auto-optimization on the Google Display Network. (Read case study)

ShoeDazzle got 45% of their conversions from the Google Display Network by applying a variety of targeting and optimization tools. (Read case study)

At the heart of each success lies a common theme: Great display advertising happens when smart strategies are applied in three key areas: Finding the right customer, showing them the perfect ad, and measuring and optimizing effectively.

Find the right customer. Reaching just the right audience is at the crux of any successful campaign. In fact, marketers are saying the biggest driver of increased display budgets is the availability of better targeting technologies. (1) From remarketing strategies that reach 84% of users on a typical list, to interest categories that show interested users your message while respecting user privacy, we’re constantly innovating to precisely connect your message with your audience. And just last month, we shared strategies for applying the right targeting mix to extract the most out of direct response campaigns on the GDN.

Show them the perfect ad. You can find the right audience, but what do you tell them? With display, marketers have a wide-open canvas to connect with consumers to drive the results they care about. And an effective ad can come in any format. In fact, many of the brands we’re highlighting today used Standard IAB display ad units but with compelling messaging and beautiful creative that really resonated with their audience.

Measure and optimize based on real-time insights. Advertisers have always benefited from transparency into exactly where ads run, their costs, and the right metrics to measure campaign performance, providing actionable insights to optimize their campaigns. Our recent investments in measurement and optimization take this further. Marketers can now see a complete picture of the chain of impressions and clicks that drives campaign performance with Multi-Channel Funnels. And applying Google’s 10 years of experience in developing optimization algorithms, we’ve launched tools like Display Campaign Optimizer, which can be used to do fully automated bidding and targeting to boost conversions and ROI.

So today, while we’re celebrating these successes, more than that, there is a valuable insight here. The display toolbox is a rich one. It’s the agencies and marketers who tap into that toolbox and apply it in ways that make sense for their campaigns, who will greatly benefit from display as a medium. So.. will your campaign be the next one we shine a light on?

Watch this space.

google.com/watchthisspace

(1) Effective Audience Targeting Leads To Bigger Display Budgets, eMarketer, May 2011

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Product Marketing Manager, Google Display, Client Communications

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Google+: 108, the +1 button is coming to display ads

Earlier today we announced several exciting new additions to Google+, including many on mobile. We’d like to announce one more addition for our AdWords advertisers, +1 on the Google Display Network.

Since its introduction on search results and search ads, the +1 button has been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily. Starting early October we’re expanding that to include display ads across the web on both desktop and mobile. For the first time, you’ll be able to run social-enabled ad campaigns that work across millions of sites in over 40 countries around the world.

If you’re running display ads through the Google Display Network you may begin seeing the +1 button and personal annotations with your ads. With a single click, people can recommend the ad’s landing page to their friends and contacts.

Incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it.

For example, take Elaine, who sees an ad for discount flights. She +1’s the ad, thinking her friends might value similar deals. Now when Elaine’s friends and contacts are logged into Google and see the discount flight ad on any of the millions of GDN partner websites, they’ll see Elaine’s picture across the bottom of the ad with a note saying she +1’d it.

On desktop, the +1 button and recommendations will appear at the bottom of display ads, then fade out until the viewer hovers over the ad. The viewer can also close the overlays by clicking the ‘x’.

On mobile, the +1 button will replace the existing ‘g’ logo and recommendations will appear for several seconds, then fade out.

Elaine’s friends and contacts will also be more likely to see the ad. Because a recommendation from a friend is such a strong signal of relevance, the Google Display Network gives ads that have been recommended an extra boost by including them in the auction for any page a friend visits. Of course, if you’re targeting specific placements or audience segments (including interest categories and remarketing lists), your ads will only show on pages that match those restrictions. Additionally, your ads will never show on any placement or category on an exclusions list.

What’s even better is that the +1 button on display ads will work together with +1 buttons on search results, search ads, and websites. A single +1 applies to the same content across the web, no matter where it appears.

On the Google Display Network (GDN), the +1 button will be added to image, animated GIF, Flash, Display Ad Builder ads and select mobile inventory. You can also choose to include the +1 button on your DoubleClick Rich Media ads, which can run on or off the GDN.

We’re confident from our initial experience with the +1 button on search that this’ll be a great addition to your GDN campaigns. However, if you’re not sure that you want the +1 button and recommendations associated with your ads, starting today you can opt-out at the campaign level in AdWords under campaign settings.

To learn more about the +1 button and how it affects your ads and search results, visit our +1 button site.

Published by Eider Oliveira, Senior Software Engineer

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Display creative checklist: building direct response ads

If you’re designing display ads and have direct response goals, your ads need to catch the user’s eye, convey key information, and encourage them to click and explore your website. To get you started, we’ve put together the top ten tips learned through the collective experience of hundreds of Google AdWords account teams. These ten tips will help drive effective direct response marketing campaigns.

1. Call-to-Action
A call-to-action phrase or button encourages users to click on your ad and clearly lets them know what is coming next. While direct call-to-actions such as “Buy Now!“ may be common, they can also be too insistent. Using indirect call-to-actions like “Explore Now“ or short phrases such as “Travel Your Dream“ help encourage action without demanding a strong commitment.

2. Call-to-Action in Every Frame

Include a call-to-action & key message in every frame of your ad – especially the final frame. This ensures that you get across these two very important points no matter when the user's attention is drawn to your ad. When your animation stops, your ad will continue to compel action from users.

3. Company or Brand logo
Keep your brand or product logo in front of users in all frames. This will highlight your brand and can heighten credibility and increase your click-through rate. If this isn’t possible, include your logo in the final frame of animated ads to ensure your brand shows after animation has ended.

4. Pricing and Promotion
The more information on pricing that a user can gain from your display ad, the better. Consider providing promotional pricing to the audiences your ad is reaching. Discount offers supported by discount codes can help attract attention. If users don’t like the price or terms of your offer, they won’t click on your ad. Pre-qualifying users can save you the cost of that click.

5. Clear Value Proposition
Include a clear, compelling message highlighting the benefit of your product or service. If your ad is animated,

consider presenting a value proposition in each frame. Users should feel as though they are missing out on something by not clicking.

6. Sense of Urgency
Create a sense of urgency in your ad. Referring to deadlines or limits in quantity and availability can persuade users to give your message consideration right away.

7. Coordinate Colors & Images
Customize the color scheme of your ad to match your image or logo, and use easy-to-view colors for backgrounds and fonts. Extremely bright colors can be unpleasant and difficult to read. Using transparent PNG-format images can greatly improve aesthetics within your ad.

8. Balance Text & Images
Take advantage of both text and images to convey your message. Text and images are processed by different parts of the brain. Integrating both into your ad – harmoniously – can help you influence viewers cognitively and emotionally. Complementary text and images may help viewers remember your ad long after they have seen it.

9. Relevant Landing Page
Direct users to the most relevant landing page where the product or service is described in detail. The message on the page should match the message or promotion in your ad. This can have a positive impact on your users, conversion rate, and quality score. Remember to match the look & feel of your ad to the landing page.

Display Ad

Landing Page

10. Cast a Wide Net

Create your ad in every standard size or format to ensure that it reaches all of the highest performing corners of the Google Display Network. Some sites only accommodate specific formats and ad sizes. A full suite of ad sizes will improve your ad’s chances of appearing on those sites.

You can find these ten tips on the Display Creative Checklist website here.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

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Now reviewing paused ads

To improve our user experience with Google AdWords, today we’ll begin reviewing paused ads in the same way we review active ads. We’re proactively reviewing paused ads to eliminate unnecessary delays in getting your ads approved and ultimately enhance your ability to plan and manage campaigns.

New and existing unreviewed paused ads will be sent through the standard ad approval process. This means that paused ads will be subject to our AdWords advertising policies, and ads that violate one or more of our policies will be disapproved. If your paused ads were originally disapproved, it's easy to resubmit them to be reviewed again. Learn how by referring to the instructions in the AdWords Help Center.

For more details and answers to frequently asked questions, please refer to the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

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Top of page bid estimates

We’re excited to announce a new metric in AdWords, top of page bid estimates, to provide additional assistance in optimizing your ads to show above the search results. Analogous to first page bid estimates, this metric approximates the cost-per-click (CPC) bid needed for your ad to appear regularly in the top positions above the search results.

This feature complements the new “Top vs. side” report segment, which allows you to see how your ads perform above and to the side of Google search results. This information helps you better optimize your search campaigns by more deeply examining the relationship between your ads’ locations and their clicks and conversions. On average, ads that appear above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads that appear on the side. Using this information in conjunction with the new top of page bid estimates can give you greater insight with which to plan your bidding strategy.

Note: While the top of page bid estimates can help guide your bid planning, bidding higher than the top of page bid estimate will not guarantee a top ad position. Ad position will still depend on Quality Score, your CPC bid, your budget and account settings, and user and competing advertiser behavior.

Here’s how you can view your top of page bid estimates:

• Go to the Keywords tab.
• Click the Columns button.
• Select Customize columns from the drop-down menu.
• Check the Est. top of page bid box and click Save.

(click for full-size image)

Visit the AdWords Help Center to learn more about top of page bid estimates.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords crew

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