Author Archives: Becky C.

Navigating the “wild west” of HTML5 with Google’s Tech Lab and Google Web Designer


Marius Veltman’s thought experiment yesterday utilized the Tech Lab’s Full Page Flex and Motion Sensor components to enable viewers to navigate the scenery of the ad in full screen, by tilting their mobile device. 

This component is just one example of many that are being developed by Google’s new Tech Lab, a project created by Google’s Creative Technical Consultants to produce new innovations, push the boundaries of rich media and partner with creative agencies to help take these solutions to the next level. Even the best designers and developers need inspiration, and the Tech Lab has been established to help our DoubleClick Studio Certified Partners experiment with the latest, most innovative ad formats and features for their campaigns. 

HTML5 is still a bit of a “wild west,” both risky and alluring in that it is unchartered territory. There is space for creative designers and developers to experiment with new executions. As Marius pointed out in his article, “the experimentation process … is crucial to developing new ideas and pushing the creative envelope.” 

The Tech Lab helps designers and developers build never-before-seen formats and features into their rich media campaigns. These fresh ideas haven’t been used in many (if any) campaigns before, meaning they are exciting but also untested; but these are the realities of living on the edge of technology. 

To date, the Tech Lab has created 15 innovative formats and features, and today the group is launching three new ones for HTML5:
  • HTML5 Autoplay Video: Start any video within an HTML5 creative automatically, without requiring a user interaction.
  • HTML5 Shake and Shout: Boost your HTML5 creatives by adding cool interactions: Let people blow or shout onto their device and the mic will pick up the cue; or let them shake the phone and the accelerometer will pick up the cue. 
  • HTML5 Twitter Widget: Boost your HTML5 creative’s social IQ by adding the twitter widget and letting viewers view, tweet, retweet, and follow your twitter account directly from your mobile ads. 
If you’re a DoubleClick Studio Certified partner, reach out to your DoubleClick rep to begin working with the Tech Lab. To become a Studio Certified partner, visit our exam page. 

Posted by Becky Chappell, Product Marketing Manager, Google Web Designer

A Google Web Designer Thought Experiment


Yesterday, we announced a revamped Google Web Designer, brimming with new features that make it even easier for creative designers and developers to build robust HTML5 creative. 

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Marius Veltman, a rich media expert from Holland and a life-long creative technologist. We first met Marius last year when he tested out the alpha version of Google Web Designer and gave us a list of improvements for the product.

For this launch, Marius gave us a peek into his world as an artist and designer and helped us push the limits of HTML5 with a “Google Web Designer Thought Experiment.” We asked him to create an awesome HTML5 ad unit, using only Google Web Designer, that takes advantage of different device form factors and successfully conveys a brand’s message. 

We selected the Google Cultural Institute as the brand and used the Street View imagery from their Great Barrier Reef World Wonders Collection as the assets. We then set out on an adventure through Holland to document Marius’s creative process as he worked to develop the ad.

Watch as Marius’s sketches come to life through the medium of HTML5 and the help of Google Web Designer. Marius's ideas develop in parallel to his own story as a designer. Then, check out the actual ad unit and learn more about his process.




Posted by Becky Chappell, Product Marketing, Google Web Designer

One Year In: An Update On Google Web Designer


Almost one year ago, we launched Google Web Designer, a free, easy-to-use, professional-grade HTML5 authoring tool. Over that year, we’ve seen increased adoption of HTML5 and Google Web Designer across the industry.

Fast facts, one year in: 
  • In the first half of 2014, DoubleClick Rich Media ad impressions from HTML5 grew 140% compared to the second half of 2013.
  • Ads built with Google Web Designer have garnered 2.5B impressions since the launch of the product.
  • Over 20% of Google Web Designer’s user base are returning users and 72% are located outside the United States. 
  • We partnered with the IAB to launch the “Make Mobile Work” Initiative, which has reached thousands of people through press outreach, an industry open letter, and quarterly webinar series.
  • Advertisers are seeing performance improvements as a result of adopting HTML5. For example, TalkTalk decreased their eCPA by 12% and reduced their backup image rate by 13% by adding HTML5 to their campaign. 
So what’s launching in Google Web Designer? 
Today’s launch provides more granular control and creative flexibility to creative developers and designers, and allows them to easily build more interactive and animated HTML5 content and get it published quickly.
  • Revamped Events and Components allow designers to make any element interactive, and customize the types of interactivity within their creative. 
  • The updated timeline provides more granular control for designers to easily build animated content. 
  • Tighter integrations with Google Drive, DoubleClick Studio, DoubleClick Campaign Manager and AdWords let users collaborate on their works-in-progress and publish finished units more quickly. This integration marks the first time that AdWords will support HTML5 ads.


Simplifying cross-screen advertising
In addition to Google Web Designer, we are continuing to develop tools to make it easier for advertisers and agencies to build successful cross-screen advertising campaigns. 

We recently launched several features in DoubleClick to help you execute and measure your campaigns across screens, including in-app remarketing and conversion tracking in DoubleClick Campaign Manager. We also launched MRAID 2.0 support in DoubleClick Studio and we have certified 69 large publishers and networks for in-app formats, meaning developers can build mobile in-app ads with the confidence that they’ll be accepted across more publishers and networks. 

Through its integration with Google Web Designer, AdWords now supports HTML5 ad creatives. In addition, Flash ads that are uploaded to Adwords will automatically be converted into HTML5 ads and can be uploaded via AdWords Editor and other 3rd party tools coming soon. Over the next few months, we’ll also be releasing tools and services that will resize ads to some of the most popular mobile sizes, without requiring any additional work on the part of the agencies.

Want to learn more?
  • Creative Agencies:
    • Visit our revamped website and download the product for free. 
    • Register for our Google Web Designer overview webinar on Wednesday Aug. 13th. Our lead Product Manager and Creative Technical Consultant will walk through the new Google Web Designer features and demo some cool creative executions. 
  • Media Agencies:
    • Register for our third webinar in the Make Mobile Work Series, focused on best practices for mobile targeting, on Tuesday, Aug. 12th. Google will be presenting alongside speakers from Millennial and Facebook.

Posted by Sean Kranzberg and Tony Mowatt, Engineering Manager and Lead Product Manager for Google Web Designer

New tools to help advertisers embrace cross-screen campaigns


Today, we're excited to shine a light on several new features of the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform that help advertisers more seamlessly embrace cross-screen advertising.

Mobile advertising is, without question, top of mind for marketers; but according to the latest "Internet Trends 2014" report from Mary Meeker, it's also the biggest opportunity gap of all forms of media spend. Although 20% of time spent on media is within a mobile environment, only 4% of US advertising spend is on mobile. (1) Marketers still struggle to get up to speed on the new technologies and strategies that cross-screen campaigns require.

That's why we're excited to bring new tools that make it easier to build, buy, target, execute and measure your campaigns across screens:

Google Web Designer integration:
  • Build HTML5 ads easily in Google Web Designer and publish them into DoubleClick Campaign Manager. This allows you to quickly get your HTML5 ads live and serving to any device.
Mobile inventory growth:
  • Buy more mobile inventory -- Programmatic mobile inventory on DoubleClick Bid Manager has grown 130% since Q4 2013 across 12 exchanges and includes both display and video formats. Adding mobile inventory on DoubleClick Bid Manager allows you to incorporate mobile into the rest of your media strategy and optimize across all of your media buys.
In-app remarketing:
  • (Re)target your customers using audience lists within mobile app environments, so that you can drive and measure re-engagement with your existing mobile app users. 
Publisher Certification program for in-app creative formats:
  • Execute your mobile campaigns with the confidence. While mobile rich media standards are widely accepted across the industry, publishers still vary in their implementation, resulting in discrepancies and inconsistent behavior of in-app creative. We are certifying publishers and networks to ensure their mobile apps can accept and run standard mobile in-app ad units (59 certifications completed to date.) 
In-app conversion tracking:
  • Measure in-app view-through and click-through conversions with Floodlight to report on mobile app downloads or any other in-app activities. Whether you are running an app install campaign or driving in-app purchases, you can now attribute these activities to your in-app media and better measure app campaign effectiveness.
TalkTalk drives 12% decrease in eCPA with HTML5 creative and mobile programmatic.
TalkTalk, a Telecom company based in the UK, has embraced cross-screen strategies for their campaigns and drove a 12% decrease in their eCPA using DoubleClick and Google Web Designer. Their creative agency, 22Design, used Google Web Designer to quickly learn and build HTML5 into TalkTalk’s campaign, getting the campaign live in a third of the expected time. 

Not only was the learning process much easier than anticipated, the HTML5 ads actually performed better than the Flash ads, indicating that TalkTalk’s audience was more receptive to the brand message on mobile devices than on desktops. Equipped with their new HTML5 creative and audience insights, TalkTalk was able to add mobile inventory to their programmatic media buy for the first time. 

Rather than waiting on the sidelines, TalkTalk has taken a proactive approach to trying new mobile strategies and techniques with DoubleClick. They started slow, tested what worked, and iterated on their findings, to get their campaigns running successfully across screens. 


We are excited about these new tools and will continue to improve our technology to help marketers and agencies more seamlessly build, execute and measure cross-screen campaigns.

Posted by the DoubleClick Marketing Team

(1) Mary Meeker’s “Internet Trends 2014” - http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends 

Design with device in mind: Five strategies for successful cross-screen ad creative


Last week, the IAB hosted the second webinar in the "Make Mobile Work" Initiative, a program aimed at helping advertisers unlock the full value of mobile advertising. The webinar, entitled "Design with device in mind," focused on strategies for designing ad creative to work properly across screens. 

For those of you who weren't able to watch the webinar, you can view the recording here, but we also thought we'd share the strategies more broadly. 

Five strategies for developing successful cross-screen creative:

Note: "Step Zero" is to build your ads in HTML5, so that they can even show up across screens. We talked more about that in our first webinar. 

1) Design ads differently for mobile phones vs. tablets. 
Too often, advertisers lump mobile phones and tablets together as one and the same. But consumer behavior is very different on these two devices. On a smartphone, consumers are typically on the move and their information gathering is action-oriented -- they are searching for a specific answer or piece of information and want to find it quickly. On these smaller screens, you want to keep things short and provide information easily and quickly to users.

With tablets, on the other hand, consumers tend to be stationary and their information gathering is more entertainment-oriented -- they are browsing for interesting things and are more inclined to spend time flipping through content. On these larger screens, you can provide longer, more engaging experiences that use interactive elements, games, photos or videos. 

2) Make ads feel more like content. 
Consumers now expect engaging and interactive ad units, and they won't tolerate ads that are intrusive or unhelpful. Think of your ad as another opportunity, just like your website, to provide useful information for people to engage with your brand and learn more about your products. This is true for all of your digital creative -- desktop, tablet and smartphone -- but it's especially important for the tablet environment, where consumers are often in the “browsing” mentality. Here, they may be more likely to engage with an ad unit, so it's critical to ensure that your ad grabs their attention.

Cadillac used interactive video and multiple content areas in this ad to provide multiple ways for people to engage with the brand and check out the product, directly within the ad unit.

3) Take advantage of the device form-factor.
Build your ads to mimic the way people already interact with the device. Use the touch screen and the accelerometer within mobile phones and tablets to build in interaction modes like swipe, touch, tilt, and shake, giving people new ways to interact with your content.

The Alka-Seltzer ad unit from Project Re:Brief illustrates how you can build these interaction modes into your ad creative in a way that works seamlessly (and even augments) the creative narrative.

You should also take advantage of the call functionality and geo-targeting capabilities inherent in mobile phones. According to the “Mobile path to purchase” research, 69% of consumers searching on mobile phones expect businesses to be within 5 miles or less of their location. And 55% of users who search for a product on their mobile phone want to purchase within an hour of searching. (83% want to purchase within the day.) Use click-to-call, location extensions, and the maps API to help consumers learn more about your company and reach a purchase faster.

4) Alter your assets to work for mobile.
Your standard 30-second TV commercial may not be the best video format for your digital placements, so you should get creative about the length, frequency and sequencing of your video content. You can try shorter 5-15 second video ads on mobile phones, and longer video units on tablets. (Many of the best YouTube videos from brands today are two- five minutes long!) You should also consider sequencing your video ads to create a linear story for a viewer through subsequent ad units.

Another thing to consider is the speed and cost of people's internet connections on smartphones and tablets. People streaming or downloading video content when they are not on wifi have to pay for those data charges, so you should be smart about the file size of the ads that you show people. Identify whether the person is on a mobile network vs. wifi, and then serve smaller file sizes to the person on the mobile network, and larger file sizes (higher res assets, more interactive elements) to the person on the wifi network. This helps reduce viewers' frustration when they can't download and ensures that your mobile video message gets through with the quality you intended.

5) Create both in-app ad units in addition to mobile web ad units. 
Smartphone users spend up to 5 times more minutes per month on apps than they do using the mobile web. (Nielsen Smartphone Analytics, March 2013) So it’s important to build in-app ad units, in addition to mobile web ad units, that can get in front of that audience. Mobile applications also offer different contexts for you to place your ads, so it provides more variety when considering your creative and targeting strategies. 

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These 5 strategies are just a taste of the content available through the "Make Mobile Work" Webinars. Our next webinar will be in mid-August and will focus on how to target your campaigns and reach the right people across devices. (RSVP here.) We hope you'll join us!

Posted by Becky Chappell, Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick



The Layouts Series 2.0 – Elevate your digital campaign: Millmaine trades up from static banner ads to rich media




This week, we’ve covered how to use Studio Layouts to give yourself more space for brainstorming while still being able to build HTML5 and engaging Lightbox and YouTube Mastheads with ease. Today we’ll focus on how you can elevate even your static image ads to rich media with Layouts.

Building rich media ads in Flash is complex, translating from Flash to HTML5 is even more complex, and the whole process can leave agencies throwing their hands in the air and reverting back to static image ads. DoubleClick Studio Layouts provide an opportunity to elevate your standard banner ads and trade up from static images to rich media, without the added cost and production time. 

Millmaine jumps from static image to HTML5 rich media in one hour.
Millmaine Entertainment Marketing typically created digital campaigns for their client, the National Gallery of Australia, that primarily involved standard ad units. According to Gerard Rowan, Creative Director at Millmaine, “normally, we would just run some static images, but I had been researching the possibilities of DoubleClick Studio and when I came across Layouts, it seemed like an easy way to implement a rich media campaign.”

Millmaine used the HTML5 Featured Video Layout to create a unit that reused the National Gallery’s existing TV commercial in a display ad, giving them more reach across the web. To promote the "Gold and the Incas" exhibit specifically, they built an ad that evoked scenes from the ancient Incan civilization intercut with shots of the actual exhibit.

Rowan says the process of creating the campaign with Layouts was “nice and quick”. In fact, he had the ads up and running within one hour. “With DoubleClick Studio Layouts, it was a matter of swapping out some of the elements, such as the background image and the call-to-action button, and then supplying a link to the YouTube video for our television commercial.”

The choice paid off. More than 84,000 people viewed it in one day, and 3,230 clicked through to learn more. In the end, more than a quarter million people saw the ad, which was used for a home page takeover of the main newspaper in Australia’s capital city, The Canberra Times. 

Rowan concluded, “We don’t usually have days and weeks to turn jobs around. More often we have a few hours. So we are looking for quick and effective solutions like DoubleClick Studio Layouts, which give us the potential to build more rich media content so we can do more exciting web ads for our clients.”

Learn more about Studio Layouts here, and get started today by visiting the Layouts tab in your DoubleClick Studio Account.

Posted by Becky Chappell, DoubleClick Product Marketing

The Layouts Series 2.0 – "Long-tail" doesn’t have to mean boring: LG livestreams smartphone launch across the web


Yesterday’s blog post focused on how to easily build HTML5 ads using Studio Layouts. Today, we’ll discuss the various types of engaging ad units you can build with Studio Layouts.

While we recommend that you use Studio Layouts to build out your long-tail of ad units for your display campaign, that doesn’t mean that all of those units have to be bland banners. Studio Layouts offers a rich selection of IAB rising star and Engagement ad formats, and while they may not be the highly customized units that you use to sell ideas into your clients, these formats still let you make your creative ideas shine through interactive units that engage viewers.

LG livestreams using a Layout.
Take LG as an example -- in late 2013, LG faced the impending product launch of their new G2 smartphone, and they needed to convince a huge, global audience of the benefits of the device. Their launch centered around the unveiling of their phone at a big event in New York City, but they wanted to reach even more viewers who couldn’t attend in person. 

According to Danny Kim, Digital Marketing Manager with LG Mobile Communications in Seoul, Korea, “The launch campaign was focused on product awareness and branding. So the most important metrics were impressions, reach, and engagement.”

To achieve these goals, LG’s creative team used Studio Layouts to build a Lightbox Engagement ad unit that could livestream the video from their event across the web. By syndicating their video content through the live-stream, LG received “almost 10 million playbacks during the live-streamed show, which is a huge number for a product launch...the results were a pleasant surprise,” says Kim.

Additionally, by using Studio Layouts to build this ad, LG was able to complete the development process in record time. The QA process was accomplished in six hours and the tags trafficked in less than one day. Without Layouts, this process could take multiple days to complete, so using the Layouts template cut the turnaround time by more than 80%. 

What cool formats are available?
Studio Layouts currently offers six different formats of Lightbox Engagement ads, including Featured video and video gallery, as well as a masthead version of the image gallery, carousel and background masthead. (Engagement ads are Google Display Network’s proprietary ad format that measures user engagement via a required 2-second hover before the ad expands.) 

You can also build full YouTube Mastheads with Studio Layouts; we’ve turned our most common YouTube Masthead formats - Background, Carousel, Featured Video, and Image Gallery -- into Layouts so that you can easily create these units without the long review timelines that often accompany hand-coded YouTube Mastheads. 

To get started with Layouts, simply click on the Layouts tab in the top-level navigation bar in your DoubleClick Studio account. Learn more>>

Posted by Becky Chappell, DoubleClick Product Marketing

The Layouts Series 2.0 – Mobile, made accessible: Bask Digital creates HTML5 ads in minutes instead of hours



Yesterday we explained how you can use Studio Layouts to open up more time in your project schedule for the brainstorming and creative ideation for your campaigns. Today, we’ll specifically take a look at a customer who used Studio Layouts to gain access to HTML5 creative. 

Bask Digital discovers HTML5 Layouts
HTML5 ads can be tricky to build, but HTML5 Studio Layouts let you take the same assets from your flash ads, plug them into the HTML5 Layout, and create HTML5 ads in minutes. For Bask Digital, a California-based web and social media shop for political campaigns, this ease-of-use enabled them to incorporate HTML5 ads into their campaigns for the first time at a large scale.

Previously, managing partner Jonas Kleiner used to spend hours creating HTML5 ads from scratch, compressing videos and tinkering with the code. The whole process was very complex and the steep learning curve meant that training his design team to code HTML5 ads was not a realistic option.

Once Kleiner learned about Studio Layouts, he found that he and his team were able to build HTML5 ads in 15-30 minutes, compared to the hours it used to take them to hand code everything. 

“We just have to create a background image, embed a YouTube video, and it’s done. And then we have all the tracking and tabbing available, just like with other Doubleclick Rich Media ads,” says Kleiner. “HTML5 Layouts brings the campaign down to the core of design. Rather than using effects, you need to create a really good image, and then use the power of good graphic design to drive eyeballs.” 

Using Studio Layouts, Kleiner and his team at BASK have been able to incorporate HTML5 into their campaigns, where it otherwise would not have been feasible. 

What HTML5 Studio Layouts are available?
There are currently nine different HTML5 formats available in Studio Layouts, including 3D image gallery, scroll box, slideshow, swipe gallery, video and image gallery, GDN Lightbox Featured Video, YouTube video wall and a featured video format. You can view demos of all of these formats here. 

In the near future, we’ll be launching our first in-app Layouts (HTML5 ad units that can work within mobile and tablet applications) as well as additional HTML5 formats for mobile web. 

To get started with Layouts, simply click on the Layouts tab in the top-level navigation bar in your DoubleClick Studio account. Learn more>>

Posted by Becky Chappell, DoubleClick Product Marketing

The Layouts Series 2.0 – Making time for innovation: How to spend more time brainstorming your creative idea


We began “The Layout Series” in Aug. 2013 with the initial launch of DoubleClick Studio Layouts. This week, we’ll continue the theme with “The Layouts Series 2.0,” providing updates about the product and why it matters to you.

We have never talked to a creative who doesn’t want more time to brainstorm and innovate. The quick turnarounds for digital campaigns mean that you already have limited time to get your big ideas on paper. But your brainstorming time is also eaten up by the time it takes to build all the supplemental ad units needed to flesh out a campaign.

Today, your project timeline might look something like this:










When half of the project timeline has to be devoted to building out all the ads to match the media buy, your brainstorming and design time gets cornered into shorter periods at the beginning of the project.

We built DoubleClick Studio Layouts with this reality in mind. Studio Layouts help creative agencies and production shops condense the time it takes to build out that long-tail of standard units for a campaign, so that you have more time to come up with a great idea at the outset of the project. 

With Studio Layouts, your project timelines can now look more like this:











If you can build the long-tail of your ad units in half the time, you can make space at the beginning of the project for more brainstorming and design time, giving you the chance to come up with really innovative ideas. 

Once you’ve built your “big, bad” creative units and sold your idea into your client, take the creative assets from those primary units, upload them to the Studio Layouts filler tool, preview and publish. Instead of spending an hour or two hand-coding each additional ad unit, select from one of 21 different formats (26 different sizes) and build each ad in 5-10 minutes. 

Example media spec sheet:
















Studio Layouts can save you 75% of your production time, because it’s easy to build out all the additional units you need to complete your campaign. Plus, because all the trafficking and reporting tags are baked in to each Layout, there are fewer areas where things can break, so your ads should go through QA much faster.

Use Studio Layouts to give yourself the space to innovate for your digital campaigns, by becoming more efficient with your ad production on the backend of your project. 

You can get started using Studio Layouts today - check out the Layouts tab in the top navigation bar of your DoubleClick Studio account. Learn more >> 

Posted by Becky Chappell, DoubleClick Product Marketing

DoubleClick Studio Certification Program Updates


At the beginning of March, we announced a month-long campaign to revamp our DoubleClick Studio Certification program. Over the course of the month, we have released new resources to better communicate the benefits of being a Studio Certified user, and new badges to help you develop a diverse set of skills.

Our new certification resources - by the numbers:
  • 1 new landing page on the Rich Media Gallery 
  • 2 new one-sheeters for creative and media agencies*
  • 5 new case studies featuring studio certified creative agencies*
  • 12 tips and tricks, available via our Certification Poster 
    • EX: Did you know certified users now have access to Live DoubleClick Chat Support?

The new certification badges include:
  • Engagement Ads badge: This badge lets you prove your expertise building Google Display Network Engagement Ad formats.
  • Updated QA badge: The updated badge includes comprehensive testing for Flash, HTML5, and dynamic creatives. 
    • Note: If you took the QA Certification exam before March 13th, 2014, you'll need to get re-certified with the new QA badge by July 1st, 2014.
Media agencies -- if you're looking for a creative agency that knows the in's and out's of the DoubleClick product, you can find them on our Certified Partner list. 

Creative Agencies -- even if you're already certified in our core badges, you can continue to develop your skills in more complex areas, such as dynamic creative, the YouTube Masthead and VPAID. So keep building your expertise and get certified today.

Posted by Becky Chappell, DoubleClick Product Marketing 

*available in the resources section of the new Certification landing page