Author Archives: Kim

Holiday results: VivaKi Search Hub increases conversions by 360 percent and decreases costs by 27 percent with real-time bid optimization


During the 2013 holidays, we shared some tips and tricks on how to adjust your bid strategies to take advantage of seasonal opportunities. Today, we wanted to take a look back and highlight one of our holiday success stories with the DoubleClick Search Performance Bidding Suite for real-time bid optimization. The following story comes from the VivaKi Search Hub -- VivaKi’s marketing support service that uses a deep knowledge of DoubleClick Search to drive results for their advertisers’ search programs.  

One of the VivaKi Search Hub’s advertisers, a large retail brand, looked to the team to overhaul their current strategies for maximizing results over the 2013 Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days. To prepare for this peak time, the team turned to the DoubleClick Search Performance Bidding Suite to automate bids based on real-time conversion data, and respond immediately to market changes. 

Timothy Lackhouse, Team Lead for Bid Strategy at the VivaKi Search Hub, was in charge of managing the advertiser’s bid strategies. “The bid strategies in DoubleClick Search are incredibly clear to set up and modify,” said Lackhouse. “With near real-time and granular reporting, we don’t need to spend countless hours or days waiting for the data. We’re able to get a deep level of insight into our performance right away -- assessing what’s working, what’s not, and making tweaks as necessary.” 

Within days of launching the new bid strategies, the positive results were irrefutable. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the VivaKi Search Hub was able to increase its advertiser’s conversions by 360 percent while lowering CPO by 27 percent -- all while saving 90 minutes a day. 

To get the full scoop on the VivaKi Search Hub’s success with the Performance Bidding Suite, read the full customer story here. Stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog and Google+ page for even more customer success stories.

Holiday results: VivaKi Search Hub increases conversions by 360 percent and decreases costs by 27 percent with real-time bid optimization

During the 2013 holidays, we shared some tips and tricks on how to adjust your bid strategies to take advantage of seasonal opportunities. Today, we wanted to take a look back and highlight one of our holiday success stories with the DoubleClick Search Performance Bidding Suite for real-time bid optimization. The following story comes from the VivaKi Search Hub -- VivaKi’s marketing support service that uses a deep knowledge of DoubleClick Search to drive results for their advertisers’ search programs.  

One of the VivaKi Search Hub’s advertisers, a large retail brand, looked to the team to overhaul their current strategies for maximizing results over the 2013 Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days. To prepare for this peak time, the team turned to the DoubleClick Search Performance Bidding Suite to automate bids based on real-time conversion data, and respond immediately to market changes. 

Timothy Lackhouse, Team Lead for Bid Strategy at the VivaKi Search Hub, was in charge of managing the advertiser’s bid strategies. “The bid strategies in DoubleClick Search are incredibly clear to set up and modify,” said Lackhouse. “With near real-time and granular reporting, we don’t need to spend countless hours or days waiting for the data. We’re able to get a deep level of insight into our performance right away -- assessing what’s working, what’s not, and making tweaks as necessary.” 

Within days of launching the new bid strategies, the positive results were irrefutable. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the VivaKi Search Hub was able to increase its advertiser’s conversions by 360 percent while lowering CPO by 27 percent -- all while saving 90 minutes a day. 

To get the full scoop on the VivaKi Search Hub’s success with the Performance Bidding Suite, read the full customer story here. Stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog and Google+ page for even more customer success stories.

DoubleClick Search teams with Boost Media for ad optimization

Search marketers understand that the right optimization tools can make or break campaign performance. But for many, optimizing ad creative can be a challenge: beyond just relying on algorithms, marketers can spend hours repeatedly writing, testing, and refining ad copy across large-scale campaigns. To address this, today we’re excited to extend the suite of DoubleClick optimization solutions by partnering with Boost Media (formerly BoostCTR) -- bringing the company’s ad creative optimization solution to the DoubleClick Search platform.


With DoubleClick Search, customers are already taking advantage of performance-driving features to save time and improve results -- including inventory-aware campaigns for dynamic ad creation, A/B landing page testing to drive traffic to the highest ROI landing pages, and the Performance Bidding Suite for real time bid optimization. By coupling Boost Media’s ad optimization platform with core workflow and optimization tools from DoubleClick Search, advertisers can benefit in the following ways:


  • Increase ROI with proven optimization algorithms. On top of intra-day keyword bidding from DoubleClick Search, Boost Media tests ads side-by-side, and chooses ads based on Boost Media’s proprietary algorithms. According to Boost Media, their clients experience an average of 30 percent increase in sales volume.
  • Scale campaigns, save time with custom-tailored ad creation. Boost Media offers a network of professional copywriters to develop engaging and high-performing ads at scale. Advertisers can expect unique and creatively written ad text, distinguished from the standard Dynamic Keyword Insertion templates that are often used today. According to Boost Media, advertisers save an average of 60 hours per month on writing, testing, and reporting on creative.
  • Cut costs by focusing on the right ads. Boost Media decreases cost by identifying and eliminating underperforming ads, allowing clients to capture additional, unseen revenue from their ad groups. According to Boost Media, users see an average 5% decrease in CPAs.


DoubleClick Search customers interested in using Boost Media can contact their DoubleClick Search Sales representatives.
We’ll continue to develop more optimization features to drive ROI for our customers. Stay tuned to learn about our plans in to deliver deep performance-driving capabilities across audience, attribution, and more.

DoubleClick Search teams with Boost Media for ad optimization

Search marketers understand that the right optimization tools can make or break campaign performance. But for many, optimizing ad creative can be a challenge: beyond just relying on algorithms, marketers can spend hours repeatedly writing, testing, and refining ad copy across large-scale campaigns. To address this, today we’re excited to extend the suite of DoubleClick optimization solutions by partnering with Boost Media (formerly BoostCTR) -- bringing the company’s ad creative optimization solution to the DoubleClick Search platform.

With DoubleClick Search, customers are already taking advantage of performance-driving features to save time and improve results -- including inventory-aware campaigns for dynamic ad creation, A/B landing page testing to drive traffic to the highest ROI landing pages, and the Performance Bidding Suite for real time bid optimization. By coupling Boost Media’s ad optimization platform with core workflow and optimization tools from DoubleClick Search, advertisers can benefit in the following ways:

  • Increase ROI with proven optimization algorithms. On top of intra-day keyword bidding from DoubleClick Search, Boost Media tests ads side-by-side, and chooses ads based on Boost Media’s proprietary algorithms. According to Boost Media, their clients experience an average of 30 percent increase in sales volume.
  • Scale campaigns, save time with custom-tailored ad creation. Boost Media offers a network of professional copywriters to develop engaging and high-performing ads at scale. Advertisers can expect unique and creatively written ad text, distinguished from the standard Dynamic Keyword Insertion templates that are often used today. According to Boost Media, advertisers save an average of 60 hours per month on writing, testing, and reporting on creative.
  • Cut costs by focusing on the right ads. Boost Media decreases cost by identifying and eliminating underperforming ads, allowing clients to capture additional, unseen revenue from their ad groups. According to Boost Media, users see an average 5% decrease in CPAs.

DoubleClick Search customers interested in using Boost Media can contact their DoubleClick Search Sales representatives.
We’ll continue to develop more optimization features to drive ROI for our customers. Stay tuned to learn about our plans in to deliver deep performance-driving capabilities across audience, attribution, and more.

ymarketing boosts performance for Clark Pest Control, while saving 20-30 hours per week with the DoubleClick Search Conversions API




Earlier last year, we announced improvements to our Conversions API -- a flexible offline conversion platform that lets you automatically upload, report, and optimize on offline data (like calls) in near real-time. Today, we wanted to highlight one of our success stories around this feature. The following story comes from ymarketing, a full-service digital agency who adopted the Conversions API to fuel their search campaigns with offline call data -- giving them access to more powerful insights than ever before.

Tired of importing and reconciling call data into their standard online reporting manually, ymarketing moved one of their clients, Clark Pest Control, to DoubleClick Search to take advantage of call tracking integrations from the Conversions API. Because Clark Pest Control’s prospective customers would often schedule their first appointments by phone, having the ability to optimize from offline call data was key. Today, DoubleClick Search integrates with ymarketing’s call tracking partner, Mongoose -- one of many call-tracking service providers working with DoubleClick -- ensuring that their client’s reporting reflects the most up-to-date call information for more insightful analysis and optimization. 

Steven Hellbusch, Performance Media Supervisor at ymarketing, says, “With the Conversions API, we have the ability to attribute calls to the specific keyword by search engine in almost real time. The ability to then optimize from both online and offline conversions has allowed us to better meet our clients’ goals. With all of our data in one place, we have a more accurate picture of what’s happening from a user experience, and more importantly, we have ability to unearth new opportunities for our client.” 

A month after implementing this solution for Clark Pest Control, ymarketing was impressed by the results: the team increased conversions by 173%, while cost per action decreased by 20%, and conversion rate doubled from 16% to 32%. On top of these significant performance gains, the team was able to save an estimated 20-30 hours of work a week.

To get the full scoop on ymarketing’s success with the DoubleClick Search Conversions API, read the full customer story here. Stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog and Google+ page for even more customer success stories.

A better e-commerce experience: Channel Intelligence and DoubleClick Search team up for enhanced feed management, optimization

In an earlier blog post, we highlighted how shoppers exposed to a brand’s Product Listing Ads (PLA) and text ads are more likely to engage with that brand. To take full advantage of this opportunity across ad formats, it’s important that retailers have both a complete, accurate product feed and the tools to manage their campaigns at scale.

Today we’re excited to announce that DoubleClick Search will integrate feed management and optimization capabilities from Channel Intelligence. As an add-on solution to the DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite, the first step in this integration combines the data feed expertise from Channel Intelligence with the core workflow and optimization features from DoubleClick Search. Especially with the announcement of Shopping campaigns, having a detailed product feed is crucial for retailers to run high-impact search campaigns. This integration benefits retailers in the following ways:

  • Build optimized product feeds. Channel Intelligence works with retailers to refine product feeds -- ensuring that the feed is comprehensive, the data is organized, and product attributes are accurate.
  • Use improved feeds to dynamically create and update PLAs and text ads. Channel Intelligence feeds can power DoubleClick Search inventory-aware campaigns for automated campaign management. Using these optimized product feeds, DoubleClick Search can generate customized PLAs and text ads at scale, and keep them up-to-date based on changes to a retailer’s physical inventory.
  • Optimize in real time to maximize ROI. To further boost performance across these ads, DoubleClick Search bid strategies update bids up to 4 times a day, based on up-to-the-minute conversion information. This scale and speed allows retailers to respond to product inventory changes and market trends at the drop of a hat -- even during the busiest holiday shopping days.

Performics pilots solution for major retail client
Global leader Performics is one of the first agencies to take advantage of the integrated offering for one of their clients, a large department store retailer.

"We're really excited to team with Channel Intelligence and DoubleClick Search to optimize and fully integrate the search experience for our retail brands,” says Eric Papczun, President US of Performics. “The integration is greater than the sum of its parts, and we feel that these combined technologies will give our clients a clear competitive edge in the marketplace."

Even more to come
To learn more, join us for a webinar on March 10th where we’ll cover the integration, as well as discuss the power of moving toward real-time for retail campaigns. Sign up for the webinar here http://goo.gl/cBlAcx

Our teams will also be attending eTail West coming up March 3 - 6. Come meet us during the pre-day panels and roundtables, hear us present a keynote on Day 3, or find us on the conference floor.

A better e-commerce experience: Channel Intelligence and DoubleClick Search team up for enhanced feed management, optimization


In an earlier blog post, we highlighted how shoppers exposed to a brand’s Product Listing Ads (PLA) and text ads are more likely to engage with that brand. To take full advantage of this opportunity across ad formats, it’s important that retailers have both a complete, accurate product feed and the tools to manage their campaigns at scale.

Today we’re excited to announce that DoubleClick Search will integrate feed management and optimization capabilities from Channel Intelligence. As an add-on solution to the DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite, the first step in this integration combines the data feed expertise from Channel Intelligence with the core workflow and optimization features from DoubleClick Search. Especially with the announcement of Shopping campaigns, having a detailed product feed is crucial for retailers to run high-impact search campaigns. This integration benefits retailers in the following ways:

  • Build optimized product feeds. Channel Intelligence works with retailers to refine product feeds -- ensuring that the feed is comprehensive, the data is organized, and product attributes are accurate.
  • Use improved feeds to dynamically create and update PLAs and text ads. Channel Intelligence feeds can power DoubleClick Search inventory-aware campaigns for automated campaign management. Using these optimized product feeds, DoubleClick Search can generate customized PLAs and text ads at scale, and keep them up-to-date based on changes to a retailer’s physical inventory.
  • Optimize in real time to maximize ROI. To further boost performance across these ads, DoubleClick Search bid strategies update bids up to 4 times a day, based on up-to-the-minute conversion information. This scale and speed allows retailers to respond to product inventory changes and market trends at the drop of a hat -- even during the busiest holiday shopping days.

Performics pilots solution for major retail client
Global leader Performics is one of the first agencies to take advantage of the integrated offering for one of their clients, a large department store retailer.

"We're really excited to team with Channel Intelligence and DoubleClick Search to optimize and fully integrate the search experience for our retail brands,” says Eric Papczun, President US of Performics. “The integration is greater than the sum of its parts, and we feel that these combined technologies will give our clients a clear competitive edge in the marketplace."

Even more to come
To learn more, join us for a webinar on March 10th where we’ll cover the integration, as well as discuss the power of moving toward real-time for retail campaigns. Sign up for the webinar here http://goo.gl/cBlAcx

Our teams will also be attending eTail West coming up March 3 - 6. Come meet us during the pre-day panels and roundtables, hear us present a keynote on Day 3, or find us on the conference floor.

ymarketing boosts performance for Clark Pest Control, while saving 20-30 hours per week with the DoubleClick Search Conversions API




Earlier last year, we announced improvements to our Conversions API -- a flexible offline conversion platform that lets you automatically upload, report, and optimize on offline data (like calls) in near real-time. Today, we wanted to highlight one of our success stories around this feature. The following story comes from ymarketing, a full-service digital agency who adopted the Conversions API to fuel their search campaigns with offline call data -- giving them access to more powerful insights than ever before.

Tired of importing and reconciling call data into their standard online reporting manually, ymarketing moved one of their clients, Clark Pest Control, to DoubleClick Search to take advantage of call tracking integrations from the Conversions API. Because Clark Pest Control’s prospective customers would often schedule their first appointments by phone, having the ability to optimize from offline call data was key. Today, DoubleClick Search integrates with ymarketing’s call tracking partner, Mongoose -- one of many call-tracking service providers working with DoubleClick -- ensuring that their client’s reporting reflects the most up-to-date call information for more insightful analysis and optimization. 

Steven Hellbusch, Performance Media Supervisor at ymarketing, says, “With the Conversions API, we have the ability to attribute calls to the specific keyword by search engine in almost real time. The ability to then optimize from both online and offline conversions has allowed us to better meet our clients’ goals. With all of our data in one place, we have a more accurate picture of what’s happening from a user experience, and more importantly, we have ability to unearth new opportunities for our client.” 

A month after implementing this solution for Clark Pest Control, ymarketing was impressed by the results: the team increased conversions by 173%, while cost per action decreased by 20%, and conversion rate doubled from 16% to 32%. On top of these significant performance gains, the team was able to save an estimated 20-30 hours of work a week.

To get the full scoop on ymarketing’s success with the DoubleClick Search Conversions API, read the full customer story here. Stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog and Google+ page for even more customer success stories.

Shopping campaigns support coming to the DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite

Yesterday, the AdWords team announced the full launch of Shopping campaigns -- a streamlined way to organize, bid and report on your Product Listing Ads. The team also announced that they will be working closely with search management platforms to support these features.

We’re excited to fully support Shopping campaigns in DoubleClick Search in the coming weeks. Delivering smarter, faster tools for retailers is at the heart of our DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite investments, and with Shopping campaigns, we look forward to further helping marketers run effective search campaigns for their entire product catalogue.

For updates on our support of Shopping campaigns, stay tuned on the DoubleClick search blog, or follow us on Google+.


Making eyes at ROI: Love notes from DoubleClick customers




Each year, people are falling deeper in love with Valentine’s Day; in fact, this year’s numbers show consumers will spend $1.6 billion on candy to celebrate the day of love. And while Cupid’s been busy pairing up sweethearts, here at DoubleClick, we’ve been focused on connecting digital marketers with the right audiences to boost performance for their online marketing campaigns. To share that warm and fuzzy feeling, today we’re highlighting love notes from our top clients who are making eyes at ROI -- showcasing just a few ways they’re winning the hearts of consumers with faster, smarter tools from DoubleClick. 

Make sure your valentine knows you exist, with a creative message they can’t resist.
Every Romeo knows that snagging the prettiest Juliet starts with the perfect words and a timely delivery. That’s why Unfold Agency’s Brick Rucker and Daniel Weisinger have been using DoubleClick Rich Media for years to build beautiful creative messages that they can get in front of their target audience at the right time. Because they can review, approve and publish all their creatives themselves, they’re able to quickly turn their campaigns around and get them live on a deadline. 

“We believe in turning around creative quickly,” Weisinger says. “And most of the ad units we build are really complex.” By using DoubleClick, Unfold is able to push every banner as far as it can go, building innovative and engaging experiences within their rich media ad units. One recent creative even coordinated the ad unit with the surrounding skin of the website to provide a holistic brand experience for the user. “We’ve been using DoubleClick Studio for years...We’re as good as we are because DoubleClick created the platform for us.” 

Make it love at first ‘site’ with a sleek, new interface
Now that you have just the right message for your Valentine, you’ll also need to look sleek to really impress them. That’s why with DoubleClick Campaign Manager - the new version of DFA - we focused on building a beautiful, intuitive interface to help you work more efficiency and maximize your results across screens. 

For all those who have already upgraded to DoubleClick Campaign Manager, it’s been love at first ‘site’. Power users from Situation Interactive - Mara Winkler, Senior Media Planner, and Joyce Tse, Media Coordinator - told us about the benefits they’re seeing from using the new trafficking interface: “With the upgrade to DoubleClick Campaign Manager, we’ve been able to streamline the trafficking process. The new trafficking workflow makes it easy to edit everything without switching pages, and allows us to use our time more efficiently. For example, when we swap creative it’s an extremely easy and intuitive process, and changes are reflected almost immediately. This helps us to ensure that the correct creative is running at all times.”

Go ga-ga over programmatic buying
As Cupid would have it, no meaningful connections with your sweetheart should be overlooked, and neither should an opportunity to connect or reconnect with your customers. 

The agency Deutsch LA turned to programmatic to help a major real estate company reach customers at scale, at the lowest possible cost. To drive success, Deutsch brought the best of targeting, formats and inventory together on the DoubleClick Bid Manager platform.

To maximize share-of-voice, the team paired contextual and audience targeting using both display and video formats. Best-in-class semantic contextual targeting ensured they could engage users in the moment they read content related to their client’s products. While contextual comprised of 20% of campaign spend, it drove the highest clickthrough rate, at a CPA 50% lower than the rest of their buy. Stephanie Waddle, VP and Digital Associate Media Director at Deutsch LA tells us why she’s a fan: “Targeting endemic content is important for our client. It qualifies our audience and drives lower CPAs. In addition, it keeps them top of mind in a very competitive category.” 

The team also coupled their cross-exchange buy with a programmatic direct buy, to augment reach with increased focus on private marketplaces. Integrating their reserved and programmatic display buy within the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform gave the team added efficiencies and fresh, holistic reporting across their buy.

Get your heart racing with real-time insights
And when it comes to seeing the results of your efforts, any Valentine’s Day planner knows it’s never good to wait until the last minute -- not with dinner reservations, and certainly not with your digital campaigns. 

With instant conversions in DoubleClick Search, DigitasLBi was able to analyze their performance in a heartbeat, and use that up-to-the-minute information to influence bid decisions. “It’s been a great tool for DigitasLBi,” says Ashley Tsoumas, Search Marketing Analyst at DigitasLBi. “DoubleClick Search makes bid and budget adjustments automatically based on your goals, and then within the same day, you have an understanding of how those adjustments have impacted the overall business.” For one particular account across all Google and Bing keywords, these optimizations from instant conversion feedback contributed to 30% more orders at 68% lower CPO, month-over-month.

Customers are feeling the real-time romance across the DoubleClick platform, too. Megan Moldovan, Director of Platform Logistics at Annalect, tells us how unified reporting lets her team take advantage of every opportunity across their digital marketing with fresh, accurate data:  "Integration of search, display, RTB -- the ability to track all of that within one system, see how thats impacting media and actually start to act on that in real-time across all channels is an amazing new feature."

For more customer love stories, be sure to check out our list of case studies here. 

Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at DoubleClick!