[Inside AdWords] Introducing a new ad format for mobile devices: location ext...

Earlier this year we launched click-to-call location extensions for search ads appearing on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. Today we're excited to announce more ways location extensions can be used to connect with local users on the go, whether they're using their phones to browse the mobile web or engage with their favorite mobile apps.

Many mobile consumers use maps to locate a business and get directions on their phones. With AdWords location extensions, you can now feature your business location and phone number on an expandable map ad that can appear on mobile websites and apps across the Google Display Network. The ad appears as a banner text ad with a business icon that expands to show your business location on a Google map along with your ad creative, click-to-call phone number and option to get directions. Since ads can be served based on the user's location, a potential customer will see the phone number and map of the store location that's nearest to them. By providing mobile consumers more options to connect with your business, you can drive more traffic to your store, visits to your website and calls to your business.

(click to view full size image)

This new ad format is available on mobile devices with full Internet browsers and allows you to expand your advertising campaigns to reach highly engaged mobile users with relevant local information as they use their favorite apps or websites. Advertising with location extensions on mobile devices is also a great value because you're only charged when a user clicks to call your business or clicks to visit your website. You're not charged when users click to expand the map or get directions. The cost of a click to call your business is the same as the cost of a click to visit your website.

To get started using location extensions with the expandable map feature for mobile apps and websites, follow these three easy steps within your AdWords account:

1. Ensure your campaigns are opted into the Google Display Network.

(click to view full size image)

2. Set up location extensions and add your business phone number and address. Be sure to also upload your business logo or icon, or choose from the set of icons available. Your ad will display a default icon if none is chosen.

(click to view full size image)

3. Check that you've chosen to show your ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

(click to view full size image)

That's it! You don't need any special programming skills to create the map, we'll automatically generate it for you based on your business location.

We hope that you'll take advantage of this new ad format and the power of location extensions to create mobile-specific, locally relevant ads to reach mobile users on the go!

Posted by Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

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Posted By Inside AdWords crew to Inside AdWords at 7/29/2010 04:15:00 PM

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[Inside AdWords] Google Display Network series: Your toolbox for creative dis...

In last week's installment of our Google Display Network series, we showed how DoubleClick Ad Planner can help you effectively plan your display ad campaigns and reach the right audience. Today we'll talk about creating compelling display ads and the options available on the Google Display Network (GDN). Let's look at each category of options you have today:

Great impact through Rich Media and Video. Rich media and video formats engage users at a whole new level, drawing them in and encouraging interactivity in a way not possible with other ad formats.

Example of a great rich media ad run by Volvo and the agencies Euro RSCG New York and Media Contacts:

(Click here to view ad)

If you use rich media and video formats to engage your customers, here's what we offer through our DoubleClick Rich Media and Video solutions:

• Choice of a variety of rich Media formats, based on your campaign objective.
• Access to DoubleClick Studio, a free rich media production and workflow tool.
• Analyze data on more than 100 unique interactions in every creative unit with Audience Interaction Metrics.
• Integration with DoubleClick for Advertisers, a robust ad management, serving, and reporting solution that simplifies trafficking, reporting and billing of your Rich Media campaigns.
• If you're already working with another rich media vendor, we have many approved vendors we work with.

Build display ads in minutes. Creating display ads can be resource-intensive, and for many marketers, it may not be in the budget. So we introduced Display Ad Builder in 2008, a free tool for creating professional-looking display ads in minutes. Here's what you can do with Display Ad Builder:

• Create image, video (InVideo, Click-To-Play), Flash and rich media (including expandable) ads using hundreds of fully customizable templates or templates tailored for specific industries.
• Stay true to your brand with your own images, text, videos and logos.
• Automatically convert the ads you design into most standard IAB ad sizes.

(click for full size image)

Display Ad Builder is also great for testing different messages and creative elements, or to get insights for more complex display campaigns managed by your in-house team or agency.

Stand out by blending in. Text ads are a versatile ad format that are easy to create and edit. They're especially effective as an extension of your existing search campaigns. Simply opt your search campaign into the GDN and your ads will show to users as they surf relevant web pages via our contextual targeting technology. Text ads also complement display campaigns by engaging users who ignore display ads (i.e. banner blindness). Further, they give your campaign wider reach since not every publisher may accept display ads, or may only accept a limited number of display ad formats and sizes on their site.

(click for full size image)

Whether your goal is to drive awareness or generate immediate sales, the robust creative toolbox available on the Google Display Network can help. We'll see you next week when we talk about how you can reach your audience with the targeting technologies available on the GDN.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Marketing Manager, Google Display Network


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Posted By Inside AdWords crew to Inside AdWords at 7/29/2010 04:16:00 PM

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[Inside AdWords] AdWords Policy Change Log to Announce Policy Changes

In order to help you stay up to date with changes to our AdWords policies, we've launched the AdWords Policy Change Log. This new site makes it easier to stay informed about upcoming AdWords policy changes by posting a short summary, including the affected region, for each policy change going into effect.

While the AdWords Policy Change log will have the most comprehensive listing of changes to AdWords policies, if we anticipate that your account will be directly affected by an upcoming policy change, we'll still email you a service announcement, as necessary, to make sure you're aware of the change.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

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Posted By Inside AdWords crew to Inside AdWords at 7/28/2010 03:50:00 PM

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[Inside AdSense] Switch to the new version of AdSense for search

Over the last two years, the AdSense team has offered the powerful Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) product as an improvement over the original AdSense for search. After some recent improvements, we're now ready to retire the older version of AdSense for search. If the Google logo on your search results page reads "Powered by Google" instead of the newer "Google Custom Search" then you haven't yet upgraded to the newer version. The new AdSense for search with CSE is available in your account, and we encourage you to make the switch by updating your code as soon as possible.

AdSense for search with CSE gives you more control over your search results without changing how you earn money showing AdSense for search ads. For example, with the new version, you'll have access to advanced features like refinements and promotions. Our team has developed a number of updates and improvements during the past few months, and you can access more advanced features at www.google.com/cse.

Your existing AdSense for search box will continue to work normally for a few more months, and we'll be sure to update you when we retire this version. To take advantage of the benefits offered by the new version of AdSense for search and ensure you don't miss any revenue during the transition, we encourage you to update your code now. You'll just need to regenerate your AdSense for search code by signing in to your account and following these instructions:

1. Visit your "AdSense Setup" tab and select "AdSense for Search."
2. Select the sites you'd like your users to be able to search across (Learn More).
3. Customize the look and feel of your search engine results.
4. Update the code on your website.

For more information about AdSense for search with CSE, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 7/28/2010 11:50:00 AM

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[Inside AdWords] Introducing the Google Mobile Ads Blog

As many of you know, we started the Go Mobile! series of posts on the Inside AdWords blog to give you an easy way to keep up with the world of mobile advertising.

The mobile industry has really evolved since the start of the series: mobile is becoming a core part of many marketing campaigns and publishers are developing mobile-specific content across the web and in applications across mobile operating systems. We're even more excited about the prospects for driving further innovation in mobile now that AdMob has joined the Google Mobile Ads team.

With this in mind, we created a dedicated blog for those of you specifically interested in mobile advertising and mobile monetization. The Google Mobile Ads Blog is a place where advertisers and publishers can find the latest news, product updates, tips, and account management resources from the Google Mobile Ads team.

Of course we'll continue to post major Google Mobile Ads announcements on the Inside AdWords blog, but be sure to visit the official Google Mobile Ads Blog for all of your mobile-specific updates.

Mobile has come a long way in a short period of time and we can't wait to see what's next.

Posted by Anna Khesed, Product Marketing Manager, AdMob

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Posted By Inside AdWords Crew to Inside AdWords at 7/28/2010 10:04:00 AM

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[Inside AdSense] AdSense: Behind the Scenes - Meet Evanne

In the last video of this series, Evanne, a member of the Partner Development team, talks about her favorite Google perk, her obsession with music, and an important tip she'd like to share with all of you.

We hope you've enjoyed learning more about what goes on behind the scenes in AdSense. If you have feedback on this series, or ideas for future series, we'd love to hear them so please leave us a comment!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAtFW6grBYQ

Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 7/26/2010 09:20:00 AM

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[Inside AdWords] Tracking clicks from mobile devices

The ValueTrack parameter has long allowed you to track the clicks that you get via search and the Google Display Network separately. We know that many of you would like to be able to see the clicks you get from mobile ads separately as well. That's why we're pleased to introduce Mobile ValueTrack, a new way for you to do just that.

Mobile ValueTrack works the same way it does for search and content: by automatically adding a tag to your website URL. To use this feature, you just need to add the Mobile ValueTrack parameter: {ifmobile:NewTagName} to the "Destination URL" field when you create a text ad.

There are two ways to take advantage of this feature:

Automatic re-directs to mobile optimized sites
By adding the MobileTrack parameter to your landing page URL, you can automatically redirect people using mobile devices to a mobile-optimized version of your site. In the example below, you can create a mobile site at www.travelingdog.net/mobile and ensure that mobile clicks get re-directed to this site by adding the Mobile ValueTrack parameter, {ifmobile:mobile}. Note that non-Google-ads traffic to your site won't have the ValueTrack parameter, so it's still a good idea to send all users to your mobile-optimized site.

click to view full size

Third party tracking tags
Additionally, If you use third party tracking to identify how many of your visitors clicked through to your site from your AdWords ads, you can use Mobile ValueTrack to track clicks coming from mobile devices. Just insert a tag into your destination URL. Let's say that you're Travel Dog Company and want to distinguish clicks coming from mobile devices. By adding the Mobile ValueTrack parameter to your landing page URL, www.travelingdog.net?type={ifmobile:hello}, the tag "hello" will be inserted into the destination URL allowing you to see which clicks are coming from mobile devices.

Mobile ValueTrack works for both WAP mobile ads and regular text and image ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers. Keep in mind that any change that you make to your URLs will need to be reviewed and approved before they go live.  You can also get more stats for mobile devices with full browsers by selecting "Segment By: Device" within Campaign Management.

We hope that this feature will allow you to better track your mobile performance and ensure that users get the best experience on mobile.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

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Posted By Inside AdWords Crew to Inside AdWords at 7/23/2010 04:34:00 PM

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[Inside AdWords] Google Display Network series: Effectively planning your onl...

Cross posted from the Google Agency Ad Solutions Blog

We recently introduced a new umbrella name for our online display media offerings, the Google Display Network (GDN), to make our advertising solutions clear. You also heard from us about the investments we're making in display advertising and the promise it holds to drive great marketing results. In this series of posts, we'll cover what you can do today on the GDN.

We've been busy working to improve every step of your display campaigns: from media planning and developing creative to choosing targeting, measuring results and improving your campaign. Each week over the next month, we'll talk about the solutions available to you in each area, starting with campaign planning.

With millions of sites on the web, how do you find the exact people who'll respond to your message? We introduced DoubleClick Ad Planner to help. It's a free research and media planning tool to help identify web sites most likely to attract your audience. The insights provided by Ad Planner continue to get deeper and more robust. Let's take a look:

Research sites by those you know your audience visits, or by defining your audience based on what you know about them. This can include geography, demographics, interests, sites they visit or keywords they search. Recently, we released more features to help you research more effectively:

• Pre-defined audiences: select from commonly used audiences like Baby Boomers to save time or if you don't know how to define your audience.
• Ad Planner 1000: quickly reference and target the web's largest sites.
• Subdomain and ad placementdata: do more granular media planning.
• Lists: create lists of your favorite sites and placements for future use.

Manage your site results by applying a variety of site ranking methods:

• See sites that are most likely to attract your target audience, as well as larger, mass-media sites to ensure campaign scale. Or, see a balance between the two.
• Filter to see just sites in the Google Display Network, or all sites that accept advertising.
• Apply other filters to see sites accepting certain ad formats, sites in specific categories like Video Games or sites with a particular domain suffix like .edu.

View robust site details. For each site, you can see detailed information and audience visitation patterns. The Site Overview shows general site information like a site thumbnail, description and site categories. Traffic Statistics and Demographics show unique visitor metrics and demographic information. Online Activity shows what other sites your audience visits or keywords they search. Finally, Ad Specifications show placement type, impressions/day and accepted ad formats and sizes. Most recently, we introduced audience interest information, showing the aggregate interests of a site's visitors. It complements the demographic data available in Ad Planner, providing a deeper view into a site's audience.

Build, analyze and export your media plan. After researching, you can select sites and add them to your media plan. As you do, you'll see unique users, reach, and page view statistics. You can then analyze your media plan by reviewing its aggregate demographic statistics. When you're ready, you can export sites directly into your AdWords account or into CSV format to import into MediaVisor.

Beyond robust features like these, Ad Planner provides true scale for your campaigns. With it, you can go beyond the most common sites, tapping into millions of others in over 40 countries and 20 languages. Web site owners can also claim, manage and share their data on Ad Planner, providing another level of up-to-date and accurate information for your media planning.

You can stay on top of new enhancements in our Ad Planner release notes. Stay tuned for our next post about developing effective ads and the solutions available on the Google Display Network.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Marketing Manager, Google Display Network

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Posted By Inside AdWords Crew to Inside AdWords at 7/23/2010 12:32:00 PM

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[Inside AdSense] Watch our latest webinar recordings!

Over the last few months, we held a number of webinars to help you further optimize your site:

• Optimization Best Practices
• AdSense for Search
• AdSense Top Tech Tips

If you haven't seen one yet, you can view the recordings of these events whenever it's convenient for you!

Posted by Caroline Halpin - AdSense Optimization Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 7/20/2010 12:10:00 PM

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[Inside AdSense] AdSense: Behind the scenes - Meet Alton

In the next part of our video series, Alton, our Optimization
specialist, shares with us his experience working with publishers, his
favorite meal at Google, and some recommendations on summer reading.

For more videos, please visit our YouTube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/InsideAdSense#p/u/2/cP-jJ-VF9sA

Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team

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[Inside AdSense] Announcing the AdSense in Your City program

This summer and fall, the AdSense team is coming to visit you! In an effort to work more closely with our publishers, we've launched the AdSense in Your City program. As part of the program, members of the AdSense team will be traveling to five cities this summer to hear directly from you, as well as to share best practices, top optimization tips, and new products.

Last month, we kicked off our first AdSense in Your City event in Mountain View, California. Sixty publishers came to Google to learn how to make more money with AdSense, to meet members of the AdSense team, and to get to know each other.

Today we're heading to Santa Monica, and later this summer we'll be visiting Chicago, New York, and Boston. While attendance is very limited due to space constraints, we have a few more spots in some cities. If you'd like to request an invitation to an event, please sign up here. Though invitations will be sent on a first-come, first-served basis, we'll do our best to include as many of you as possible. We'll also be sure to make sessions available online early this fall.

Throughout the summer, look for updates on the blog from the AdSense team who will be traveling to these cities. We'll also be tweeting live from the events (follow us at http://twitter.com/AdSense) and posting videos and publisher interviews.

And this is just the beginning. We'd like to expand this program to be able to travel to more cities around the United States and to meet with more of you face to face. Are you a publisher in Austin? Seattle? Orlando? Leave us a comment and let us know if we should bring AdSense in Your City to your city next!

Posted by Talia Brodecki - Product Marketing Manager

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 7/14/2010 09:50:00 AM

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[Inside AdSense] We’d love to hear your feedback

Your opinion matters to us! So we've put together a short survey so you can tell us how we're doing, and what you'd like to see more of on the Inside Adsense blog. We hope you'll take the time to let us know what's on your mind -- click to give us your feedback.

If you're keen on letting us know how you feel about our product and support, remember that you can opt-in to receive invitations to test new features, surveys about Google AdSense, and heads up about opportunities to provide feedback about your experiences by email. To do so, log-in to Google AdSense and visit the settings page under the 'My Account' tab, edit your 'Email Preference' by checking the box next to 'Google market research', and click 'Save Changes.'

We look forward hearing from you!

Posted by Natalia Niznik - Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 7/10/2010 01:14:00 AM

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[Inside AdSense] AdSense: Behind the scenes - Meet Alejo

Continuing our Behind the Scenes video series is Alejo, our AdSense for video and AdSense for games specialist. Alejo tells us about his first job, which city he'd love to live in, and what he'd like every AdSense publisher to know.

For more videos, please visit our YouTube channel.



Posted by Dia Muthana - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 7/08/2010 11:00:00 AM

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[Inside AdSense] AdSense Facts & Fiction Part IV: Program policies

Fiction: AdSense disables accounts and issues warnings at random.

Fact: We rely upon a detailed set of guidelines when looking at policy violations, and these policies are published in our Help Center. Our intent is to keep Google's content and search networks safe and clean for our advertisers, users and publishers. We seek to be as transparent and consistent with our decision making.

Part of our job of monitoring the AdSense network involves working with publishers to identify and address potential issues. We understand that there are a lot of policies to take into account, and so for minor policy violations our first step will be to issue a warning. The reasons a publisher might receive a warning will vary, but in general they tend to be for violations that can be fixed fairly easily. Examples of these violations range from deceptively labeling ads "Today's hot deals" to having a minimal amount of adult-content comment spam in a forum. Publishers, after receiving a warning, are given three days to fix their violations. If changes are not made in that time, ad serving will be disabled to the violating site.

There are some situations when we would need to disable ad serving to a site without first sending a warning. We usually reserve this action for egregious violations like adult content, copyright infringement, as well as cases of extreme violence and gore. We may also disable ads to a site when we find a violation that we've already contacted a publisher about in the past.

The final and most severe action that our teams can take is to close down an account completely. This normally only happens when we find that a publisher's entire network consists of violating sites or for repeat policy offenders. If you have received a policy notification from the AdSense team, please visit this help center entry for additional information.

We want to point out that notifications that result from the previously mentioned policy violations are different from notifications sent because of issues with invalid click activity, which are monitored by Google's Ad Traffic Quality Team. Invalid click activity consists of any clicks or impressions that may artificially inflate an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings, and for which we decide not to charge the advertiser. For more information about invalid clicks and impressions, please refer to this page, which includes a link to our FAQ page for accounts disabled due to invalid activity.

Lastly, we highly recommend reviewing these guidelines to help avoid policy violations, and to help keep your AdSense account in good standing.

Posted by Andres Schabelman - AdSense Policy team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 7/06/2010 12:10:00 PM

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[Inside AdSense] AdSense: Behind the scenes - Meet Debby

Do you ever wonder who's helping you optimize your webpages? Who works hard to ensure your payments get to you on time? Who works with our product and engineering teams to deliver the products and features that you want?

Over the next few weeks you'll find out just that! We're kicking off a video series where you'll meet some of our AdSense team members. You can hear their stories, learn more about their role in AdSense, and listen to the tips they have to offer.

In the first video, Debby, a member of the AdSense Optimization team talks about her favorite websites, what she likes about working for Google, and the Google products that she recommends every publisher try.



Posted by Dia Muthana - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 6/30/2010 11:55:00 AM

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