Author Archives: Kelly Cox

Putting ads in the right context: Announcing Programmatic Guaranteed and Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager

Last week at the DoubleClick Leadership Summit we announced several innovations designed to help advertisers and publishers thrive in a moments-driven world. In order to capture these moments, marketers are increasingly turning to programmatic buying to deliver the right experience to the right consumer, in real-time. We are pleased to share more details on two of the programmatic buying innovations we announced last week: Programmatic Guaranteed and Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager.

New Frontiers for Media Buying
Programmatic buying might be better known for helping marketers streamline the ad buying process with auction based buying but it certainly has evolved beyond these confines. As marketers continue to strive to get the content and the context right, programmatic direct has emerged as a way for brands to combine the efficiency of programmatic with traditional direct-to-publisher buys. The popularity of programmatic direct deals will continue to increase with eMarketer estimating that programmatic direct will account for 42% of digital display ads by 2016. In fact, over the last year across Google systems we’ve seen 2X YOY programmatic direct growth across desktop display and 3X YOY growth across mobile.

But to date programmatic direct deals haven’t included the reservation buys that make up a majority of marketers’ spend. Reservations are largely made in time-consuming, offline negotiations that can take up to 40 steps to complete. Advertisers not only find it difficult to optimize across different media buys but reservation buys also don’t allow marketers to set frequency caps to control for the saturation of ads to a viewer across programmatic and reservation media - resulting in a bad user experience and wasteful spending.

Introducing: Programmatic Guaranteed
Programmatic Guaranteed is a new deal type that allows advertisers to access guaranteed inventory on higher impact formats such as video and mobile rich media with programmatic targeting and frequency capping across all digital media. Marketers will be able to save media dollars by minimizing wasted impressions on users already reached, instead optimizing that budget to reach new users across all their buys. It is also possible to apply remarketing lists to reservation deals using first and third party data and to truly serve the right creative at the right time by reaching users based on where they are in the marketing funnel and not based on media type. We are currently piloting Programmatic Guaranteed, globally, and several clients are seeing great results.

"Programmatic Guaranteed is proving to be a powerful tool to drive full efficiency in the media buying process. In particular, it offers the opportunity to control each component of the media plan, at the same time, in a synergistic and systematic way. Programmatic Guaranteed represents a key application in relieving digital media planning from the time-consuming management process. Partnering with Google has allowed Amnet to test this cutting-edge solution and serve as an innovator and trend-setter in this space." -Massimo Fontana, Head of Amnet IT
"We see Programmatic Guaranteed as another important step to connect advertisers with premium publishers’ inventory. Google’s technology helps automate the buying and selling of premium inventory, which is important to ensure that we can deliver the best experience for our advertising and publisher partners”. -Darby Sieben, President of Mediative, a Yellow Pages Digital & Media Solutions Limited Division
Introducing: Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager
Even with all of this functionality, discovering the right kind of publishers and inventory can be cumbersome and difficult to scale. Marketers should be able manage all of these deal types simply and easily. That is why last week we were excited to announce the global alpha launch of Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager -- a shoppable storefront that will empower marketers to discover, negotiate and manage all their inventory from a single place. Advertisers will have greater visibility into publisher offerings, giving them a richer, more detailed discovery experience for all deal types, including Programmatic Guaranteed. Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager is currently in Alpha and will be more generally available by end of year.

Innovating for the future
If digital is the future of media then programmatic is the future of digital. Brands no longer have to decide ahead of time where their message will get the best response. With these new innovations in programmatic, ads can fluidly reach each person in their audience at the best time, place and channel for that person - regardless of how the deal was signed.

We’re excited about the future of programmatic buying and selling and the possibilities it will bring for all of our partners. If you’re interested in learning more about Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager or Programmatic Guaranteed reach out to your account manager today, and stay tuned as we look to expand our pilots to more buyers.

This is the first announcement in our post-DLS series. Join us over the next week as we release more details of all our recent product announcements. Next up, Native Ads in DoubleClick.

Posted by:
  • Roshan Khan, Product Manager, DoubleClick 
  • Steve Suppe, Product Manager, DoubleClick 
  • Kelly Cox, Product Marketing, DoubleClick

Reaching consumers through the music they love: introducing ads on Google Play Music

Cross posted on Inside AdWords Blog

With over 30 million songs, Google Play Music provides access to the music people want. And today, we’re launching a free, ad-supported version so even more people can enjoy music that makes whatever they’re doing better.

At any moment in the day, Google Play Music has music for what people are doing – whether they’re working, working out, or working it on the dance floor – offering curated radio stations that deliver the right song at the right time. Our team of music experts, including the folks who created Songza, crafts each station song by song so listeners can just enjoy the music, effortlessly.

This new ad-supported version is great for advertisers interested in connecting with consumers through premium content and delightful mobile experiences. This Google Play Ads inventory is available through DoubleClick Bid Manager and the Google Display Network (GDN), which gives advertisers access to engaging and beautiful ad units such as TrueView video ads and Lightbox ads – all mobile-optimized, seamless across screens, and simple to set up. Plus, advertisers can take advantage of all GDN’s targeting options to promote their product or service to the right people – including keywords, affinity audiences, remarketing and demo targeting.

Many advertisers are already investing in this new music inventory, including the media agency Omnicom. Steve Katelman, EVP of Global Strategic Partnerships at Omnicom shared that: “We want to reach customers where they're spending the most time, so music is a critical part of our media mix. As a launch partner for Google Play Music, Omnicom Media Group can offer our clients an invaluable head start in delivering engaging, high-impact brand messages on mobile and the web to music-loving consumers.”

To get started with ads on Google Play Music, set up your campaign in AdWords or Doubleclick Bid Manager today.

Posted by Elias Roman, Product Manager, Google Play Music

BT increases sales volume and efficiency using DoubleClick Bid Manager with Google Analytics Premium

Cross-posted on the Google Analytics blog

Modern marketers live in a world that’s dominated by data. Advancements in programmatic buying enable marketers to leverage data and analytics to connect precisely, in real time. Advertisers who are smart about organizing, segmenting, and acting on this data are realizing the benefits of more personalized marketing. BT, a leading telecommunications firm in the UK, did just that and saw fantastic results.

BT wanted to increase the relevance of their remarketing campaigns by creating more precise audience lists. With the help of their media agency Maxus, BT found that using Google Analytics Premium with DoubleClick Bid Manager offered the ideal solution.

Google Analytics Premium gave BT the ability to create granular audience segments based on site behavior metrics such as recency, frequency, referral source, and stage of cart abandonment. Once these audience lists were created, the native integration between Google Analytics Premium and DoubleClick Bid Manager meant they could be shared with the platform to make more precise media buys in just a few clicks.

Using Google Analytics Premium with DoubleClick Bid Manager put Maxus and BT in the driver’s seat of their media campaigns. They not only gleaned full transparency with a single customer view and de-duplicated metrics across all channels, but also saw better measurement through unified reporting, and the ability to optimize based on the results.
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"Our goals were to build up ‘best practices’ of programmatic display remarketing techniques with a focus on driving post-click sales,” says Alison Thorburn, Head of Digital DR Media at BT. “The DoubleClick suite of products enabled us to do this quickly and efficiently as audience data can be easily organized and utilized.”

The new analytics-driven approach produced a 69% increase in post-click sales and an 87% reduction in post-click cost per acquisition compared to the previous year’s remarketing activity. It also compared favorably to the remarketing activity that ran simultaneously outside of DoubleClick Bid Manager; post-click sales were 30% higher and post-click cost per acquisition was 42% lower. BT has now consolidated its display remarketing through DoubleClick BidManager.

Read the full case study here.


Posted by-
Kelley Sternhagen, Product Marketing, Google Analytics
Kelly Cox, Product Marketing, DoubleClick

Moving to the forefront of programmatic buying

The abundance of choices consumers have today means people are consuming content in more places and actively tuning out what’s not relevant in the moment. In this environment, programmatic buying is redefining how marketers can connect with consumers in all the moments that matter. And to take advantage of its benefits, advertisers are adopting programmatic at dramatic rates. In fact, eMarketer predicts that 83% of all display buys will be bought programmatically by 2017.

However, achieving the promise of programmatic is not a guarantee. It takes partnering with the right platform to effectively craft, execute, and manage a programmatic strategy. But with so many options, how should advertisers choose the right platform to reach their unique goals today, and in the future with programmatic buying?

To help marketers better understand what to look for when Choosing a Programmatic Buying Partner, we uncover the five areas of expertise to look for in a potential platform.
This buyer’s guide will help marketers define and prioritize selection criteria for a programmatic buying platform that’s the right fit for your short- and long-term goals. Download the whitepaper here.


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Posted by -
Kelly Cox, Product Marketing, DoubleClick

Programmatic in 2015: 3 Resolutions for Brands

We all do it - set lofty resolutions that never make it past January. That’s because meaningful resolutions can take time to embrace and implement. Many marketers have told us that in 2015, programmatic buying will be at the heart of their strategy. In fact, the majority of marketers are managing at least 20% of their ad spend programmatically, and almost two-thirds plan to spend twice that amount over the next 12 months. (Source)
To help make the transition easier and more actionable, we connected with Bob Arnold, a digital marketer who has worked at Procter and Gamble, Kellogg, and is now Google’s North American Digital Media and Strategy lead. Bob shared with us three resolutions for marketers as they implement programmatic in 2015.

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Posted by Kelly Cox, Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

Targeting views with DoubleClick

With over half of ads measured not viewed, it’s more important than ever for advertisers to be able to act on viewability measurement. That’s why we’re happy to roll out new product updates we announced at CES, that make viewability more actionable for advertisers using the DoubleClick platform.

As we heard from Neal Mohan earlier this month, “when it comes to impact, having your ad seen is not just important, it’s fundamental.” It’s why we’re investing heavily to help make viewability a common currency across the industry. Over the last year, we’ve enabled advertisers to buy only viewable impressions across the Google Display Network, built Active View viewability reporting into our DoubleClick platforms for display and video, and today we’re building on this even further with two launches that will help advertisers act on these viewability metrics. 

  • Viewability targeting in Doubleclick Bid Manager. Clients of DoubleClick Bid Manager can now measure and target impressions globally based on the historical viewability of an impression. By programmatically targeting viewable impressions, marketers are able to improve the performance of their campaigns, in real-time, eliminating the need to manually reallocate spend to find viewable impressions. 
  • Viewability data in DoubleClick Ad Exchange bid requests. Ad Exchange clients can now see the historical viewability percentage for every impression when available. With this signal, programmatic buyers can make smarter decisions about the value of impressions before they place their bids on Ad Exchange.

Viewability reporting has given marketers the data to understand how many of their ads were seen. Now they can use that same data to programmatically increase the viewability of their campaigns. For brands like TalkTalk Telecom Group, using viewability targeting on DoubleClick Bid Manager has driven strong results.

TalkTalk generates 94% more viewable impressions
TalkTalk Telecom Group, a leading TV, broadband, mobile, and phone provider in the U.K., was eager to boost the viewability of its ads while maintaining costs. Having already implemented programmatic buying to reach potential customers at the exact moment they're ready to commit, TalkTalk wanted to then ensure its ads were actually being seen by targeting viewable impressions. To do so, the company deployed DoubleClick Bid Manager with Active View. TalkTalk generated 94% more viewable impressions, increased CTR 133%, and lowered CPC by 40%.


"Being able to target by viewability with Active View is groundbreaking. Active View enables us to measure the viewability of our ads, and Bid Manager's viewability targeting feature provides us with a solution to increase the number of viewable impressions we buy." - Rich Bailey, online marketing manager, TalkTalk Telecom Group.

To learn more about the team’s approach and results, check out the full case study here.

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Posted by the DoubleClick Product Marketing team

For Brand Marketers: 5-Step Guide to Programmatic Buying

A lot has changed for marketers over the years. But one thing remains constant: the need to connect with and move an audience in the moments that matter. Brand marketers are beginning to truly embrace programmatic buying to do just that. The challenge is, many marketers don’t know where to start in order to successfully embrace programmatic for their brand campaigns.

To help address this challenge, we’re pleased to share our five-step guide: "Programmatic: A Brand Marketer’s Guide," to provide context and ideas for how marketers and their agencies can successfully embrace programmatic buying. It covers the essentials that brand marketers need to know in order to:

  1. Organize audience insights
  2. Design compelling creative
  3. Execute with integrated technology
  4. Reach audiences across screens
  5. Measure the impact

Our guide includes seven case studies with brands including Nike, KLM, Talk Talk, Kia, GOL, Burberry, and Kellogg so that brand marketers new to programmatic can learn from their peers.

We hope this guide can help you realize the ultimate promise of advertising in the digital age: to effectively run highly relevant, creative, and measurable campaigns, at scale. To make the most of programmatic buying, we invite you to explore the five steps to programmatic success.

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Posted by Kelly Cox, Product Marketing Manager

Infographic: 4 Ways Brands Win with Programmatic

It is an exciting time to be a brand marketer. In today’s world of constant connectivity, there has never been a greater opportunity for brands to reach their target audience in meaningful ways. But brand building in a multi-screen age has its challenges, causing brands to search for new solutions to meet their marketing objectives. Leading brands are turning to programmatic to cut through the clutter and make one-to-one connections with consumers, at scale.

In this infographic, “Programmatic: The Brand Era,” we explore 4 ways that programmatic makes it possible for brands to run more effective digital marketing campaigns - connecting them 1:1 with their audiences, helping them embrace cross-screen, engage with rich formats like video, and measuring exactly what matters.

All of these factors are helping brands embrace programmatic buying as the technology evolves from a “nicety” to a “must-have”.

Programmatic helps brands win in the moments that matter.

See the full infographic here.

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