Author Archives: Sharon Carroll

DoubleClick Search features in June

In June, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):
  • Estimated cross-device Floodlight conversions: Cross-device conversions occur when customers see or click a search ad on one device but convert on a different device. Floodlight activities can estimate the total number of cross-device conversions that occur, giving you a better picture of how your search ads are contributing to your overall total conversions.

  • Create and report on AdWords callout extensions in DoubleClick Search: Callout extensions allow you to add additional descriptive text in your AdWords ads and then report on performance in DoubleClick Search. They give you the opportunity to promote popular or unique aspects of your business.

    For example, you can use a callout extension to add Free shipping, 24-7 customer service, and Price matching to your ads:
  • Set AdWords proximity targets in DoubleClick Search: You can create proximity targets (also known as radius targets) in your AdWords campaigns to show your ads to customers who are within a certain distance from a location.

    Proximity targets also enable you to set bid adjustments to better reach likely customers. For example, you could target the city where your business is located and bid more for those searches because people who are in the area are more likely to visit.


We also updated the following features:
  • Copy AdWords campaigns to Baidu engine accounts: If you need to manage the same campaigns on multiple engine accounts, instead of manually creating the campaigns one by one on each account, you can create them once in AdWords, and then copy the campaign and applicable settings to Baidu accounts (as well as Bing Ads, Yahoo! JAPAN, and other AdWords accounts).

    If later you make changes to one of the campaigns, you can also copy the changes into the other accounts.

  • Specify device type in uploaded conversions: If you upload conversions from DoubleClick Search bulksheets or the DoubleClick Search API, you can now specify the type of device on which the conversion occurred.

See these updates in action in the new features training video for June.
The full list of new feature training videos is available in DoubleClick Search Help.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

DS features in April

In April, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):

We also updated the following features:
  • Device preference for ads in a Bing Ads account: You can now use DS to specify a preference for individual ads to display on mobile phones. This preference is available when you create or edit ads from the DS UI or from bulksheets.
    Because the change is coming from Bing Ads, you'll need to sync your engine account with DS before you can set a device preference for individual ads.
  • Executive reports: New Device and Sitelink filters: Filter charts and tables in your executive reports by device or sitelink.
  • New function for inventory templates: ANY(ATTRIBUTE): Depending on how you organize ad groups in an inventory keyword campaign, some ad groups might contain items with different values for the same attribute. For example, one ad group might contain items with different MPNs. If you created a template that used the MPN attribute, DS wouldn't know which MPN value to use and would report an inconsistency error. You can use the ANY(ATTRIBUTE) function to instruct DS to choose a value from one item in the ad group. Like this:  Buy [ANY(MPN)]  Learn more.

See these updates in action in the new features training video for April.


Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

DS features in February

In February, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):
  • Manage Baidu accounts in DS: You can now manage your campaigns for Baidu accounts directly in DoubleClick Search (DS). This integration enables you to create and manage keywords and ads, compare and assess campaign performance, view conversions, target ads in specific geographic areas, and adjust bids for ads, right in the DoubleClick Search user interface. DoubleClick Search also lets you apply bid strategies to achieve your goals.

  • Manage and report on AdWords remarketing lists: To target customers who have previously visited your site, you can apply your AdWords-created remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) to ad groups in DoubleClick Search and then see how they perform.

  • Set up radius targets for your location extensions: Let nearby customers know that you’re ready for business by setting up radius targets for your location extensions in DoubleClick Search. After you’ve linked your AdWords account with a Google My Business account, you can set up a radius around your business locations in your Google My Business account and adjust bids for paid clicks that occur within the radius.

  • Understand how users interact with your ads: While you’ve always been able to use DoubleClick Search to see the number of clicks on your ads, you can now use DoubleClick Search to see whether customers are clicking on headlines, sitelinks, directions, or other clickable parts of your AdWords ads.

We also updated the following features:
  • Executive Reports: Share reports from the report manager and filter zero-data automatically:
    • Share reports your reports with anyone: You can use the gray and green  Get shareable link buttons in the report manager to share or stop sharing your executive reports.

    • Remove segments that report zeros from your executive reports: To unclutter your tables and charts, those segments that report all zeros are automatically removed from your executive reports.
      For example, in the following table which is segmented by engine, the Google segment is included because metrics for March and April aren’t zero. An "Other engines" segment is not included because every metric for the selected time period is zero.

  • More information about inventory in Shopping campaigns: Shopping campaigns now provide you with more at-a-glance information about the products that are included in a product group:

    • Add the new Available Products Count and Disapproved Products Count columns to the reporting table to quickly see how many products you are or could be bidding on.

    • For product groups that use a “Product ID” breakout, you can see the product titles next to the product group’s name.

  • Faster performance when uploading conversions: If you use the DS API or bulksheets to upload or modify conversions, DoubleClick Search takes significantly less time to process and respond to your upload request. None of the APIs have been changed, so you don't need to update any of your code. But now, the same requests you've been sending will get a much faster response.

See these updates in action in the February new features training video.



Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

DS features in November

In November, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):
  • Report purchase details in DS: Learn which products in your inventory make up your sales with purchase detail reports. Enable this feature by configuring your Floodlight transaction tags to report on revenue, cost, and profit for individual products sold in each conversion. DS reports can also show which campaigns (including keyword and Shopping campaigns), ad groups, and keywords contributed to the sales of those products. Finally, you can segment your reports using any attributes from your inventory feed.

We also updated the following features:
  • Executive Reports:
    • Share reports: Share a link to your executive reports with clients, executives, non-DS users, or anyone that you want to see how you’re performing toward your advertising goals.
    • Resize charts: DS has added chart resizing to the list of formatting options available in executive reports. With a single click, you can expand or contract a chart horizontally or vertically.
  • Bid strategies: Set a minimum ROAS constraint: In addition to bid limit and position constraints, you can now set a minimum ROAS constraint. For bid strategies that are focused on maximizing revenue, set the minimum ROAS constraint to optimize bids and keep the marginal ROAS above a target threshold.
  • Apply, remove, or change sitelinks for AdWords campaigns in the DS UI: If you need to apply sitelinks to several campaigns in your AdWords account, you can now use the DS UI in addition to bulksheets.
  • Use the DS API to report on AdWords location extensions: If you've set up upgraded location extensions in DS, you can use the DoubleClick Search API’s Reporting Service to download adGroup, campaign, or feeditem performance metrics for location extensions.

    Note that reports downloaded from the DS API include only location extensions that have recorded at least one impression during the report's time range.


See these updates in action in the November New Features training video:


Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

DS Features in September


In September, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):

  • Adaptive Shopping campaigns: DS can monitor the performance of products in your Shopping campaigns and automatically subdivide existing product groups to give individual bids to the SKUs that drive most of your traffic. Product groups give a single bid to ads for all the products covered by the group, even if those products have varying performance. This feature helps you achieve better performance by automatically refining your product groups to focus on products with similar performance. You can then set manual bids or use a bid strategy to provide a bid on these groups.  Learn more.


  • Create and apply URL templates: If you use a common set of query strings or a common redirection URL for the keyword landing pages in an engine account, you can now create a URL template and apply it to your keywords. In addition to saving time and ensuring accuracy, using a URL template simplifies landing page URLs so you can quickly scan your keywords and see where they’re supposed to land. Learn more.


  • Upload availability timestamps using bulksheets: To optimize bid strategies that target offline conversions, you can indicate which Floodlight activities track offline conversions. If no conversions have occurred for a period of time, you can use bulksheets to indicate whether the lack of data means that no conversions have occurred or that you haven’t uploaded the data yet. Learn more.


We also updated the following feature:


  • Executive Reports now include a Total row in tables that display segmented data: DS will add a Total row to the bottom of the table when you create or edit a table in an executive report. The Total row is displayed if the table includes at least one segment.





Watch the recorded webinar for September features to see these updates in action.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

DS features in July


In July, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):

  • Attribution models: You can now choose from one of several multi-channel, pre-defined attribution models or models authored in DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM).  An attribution model determines the method of distributing credit for a conversion among all of the activity in a conversion funnel. The information is reported in DoubleClick Search Floodlight columns. Learn more about selecting an attribution model.
  • Executive Reports: Combined mixed bar and line charts: You can now compare metrics and trends in a single chart in Executive Reports. One metric will display as bars and another metric as a line. Learn more.
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  • Optimize Shopping campaigns using bid strategies: You can now apply ROI bid strategies to Shopping campaigns as well as individual product groups. You can even use the same bid strategy to manage bidding for both keywords and product groups and let DS determine the best bid for reaching your ROI goals. Learn more.
  • Sign in to multiple Google accounts: If you use different Google accounts to access different agencies or advertisers within DoubleClick Search (DS), you can sign in to multiple accounts in the same browser window. This allows you to quickly switch between accounts or use different accounts at the same time. Learn more.


    We also updated the following features:
    • Enhanced Bing Ads support
      • Exclude locations:  To give you more control over where your Bing Ads display, you can now exclude locations from a Bing Ads campaign or ad group in the DoubleClick Search user interface or by bulksheet. 
      • Radius targets: You can use DoubleClick Search to remove radius targets that were added in Bing Ads. DS will remove the radius targets when it traffics the change to Bing Ads. Learn more.
    • Richer data analysis using the DoubleClick Search API
      • Report on product groups: You can view performance metrics and settings for your Shopping campaign product groups by using the DS Reporting API.
      • Attribute offline conversions to Shopping campaigns: You can use the DS API to attribute offline conversions to the right Shopping campaign ad and corresponding keyword, product target, or product group. Learn more about uploading offline conversions.
    • Yahoo! Japan device targeting removed:  DoubleClick Search has removed device-targeting settings from Yahoo! JAPAN campaigns, both in the user interface and in bulksheets, because Yahoo! Japan no longer supports the ability to specifically target tablets and other mobile devices. You can still use mobile bid adjustments to adjust bids for ads on mobile devices such as laptop computers, tablets, and smartphones.

    Watch the recorded webinar for July features to see these updates in action.

    Posted by the DoubleClick Search team