Category Archives: AdWords Agency Blog

Tips and tools for agencies

New tools to help advertisers embrace cross-screen campaigns

Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Advertiser blog

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 cross­screen 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.
In­app remarketing:
  • (Re)target your customers using audience lists within mobile app environments, so that you can drive and measure re­engagement with your existing mobile app users. 
Publisher Certification program for in­app 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 in­app creative. We are certifying publishers and networks to ensure their mobile apps can accept and run standard mobile in­app ad units (59 certifications completed to date.) 
In­app conversion tracking:
  • Measure in­app view­through and click­through conversions with Floodlight to report on mobile app downloads or any other in­app activities. Whether you are running an app install campaign or driving in­app purchases, you can now attribute these activities to your in­app 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 cross­screen 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 cross­screen campaigns.

Posted by the DoubleClick Marketing Team

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

Introducing personalized certificates and public profiles on Google Partners

Google Partners is a program that offers agencies the resources, training and support they need to help their clients succeed on the web. One core benefit of the Partners program is the ability to take product certification exams for free. Many of our users have requested certificates to show potentials clients that they’re AdWords certified. Today, we’re pleased to announce that there are two new ways to share your certification status on Google Partners.

First, anyone who’s AdWords certified can get a personalized HTML certificate on Partners. Second, you now have a publicly sharable profile page, which includes your certifications and information like your name, Google+ profile photo and company affiliation.

Here’s how it works:

To view the HTML version of your certificate:
  1. Sign in to your Google Partners account at www.google.com/partners
  2. Click the ‘My profile’ link in the ‘Overview’ section. 
  3. If you’re AdWords certified, click the ‘AdWords Certified’ link to open a printable, HTML version of your certificate.
  4. You can print the certificate or save it to your desktop to share with potential clients.
To share your Google Partners public profile:
  1. Select the ‘My Profile’ page link from the menu.
  2. Visit the ‘Public Profile’ section of this page. By default, your public profile page is visible only to you. 
  3. To make your profile visible to others, click the ‘Share with’ drop-down menu and select ‘Public.’ 
  4. You can now click the ‘View Profile’ link and begin sharing your page with anyone. 
  5. If you’re signed in to your Partners account, your profile's visibility status will appear at the top of the page. You may always change it from public back to private. 
To learn more information about Google Partners certifications, visit the Help Center.

See you online,
The Google Partners Team 


Q&A with Neal Mohan: A Sneak Peek at the DoubleClick Live Stream

DoubleClick’s annual digital advertising summit is just around the corner, streaming live on YouTube on Wednesday, June 4th. (Sign up here to watch.) We caught up with Neal Mohan, Google’s Vice President of Display and Video Advertising Products, to hear what’s on his mind as we get ready for the event.

Q: What topics should we expect to hear about this year? 
A: I don’t think it will come as a surprise that our team has been very focused on how to make digital work for brands and premium publishers. You can expect to hear a lot more about that. Also, since this event marks Google’s annual conversation on the future of digital advertising, we’ll discuss how digital is redefining consumer behavior, content development, and the ways that advertisers and publishers reach their customers.

Q: Will the live stream include any special guests? 
A: I’ll be joined by Nikesh Arora, our Chief Business Officer at Google, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO and Co-Founder of DreamWorks Animation. I’m looking forward to hearing Jeffrey talk about how technology has changed content creation.

Q: What consumer trends are impacting the way brands and publishers think about digital? 
A: When we started this DoubleClick event 14 years ago, going online was a deliberate act that required going to a computer and “logging-in”. The days of going online are coming to an end. Today’s digital experience is one that is always-on and always with us. As a result, digital has become far more personal, and one of the most personal forms of communication - video - is playing a more central role in our online lives. All these factors have major implications for brands and publishers, which we’ll discuss at the event.

Q: So...any scoops you can give us?
A: As I mentioned, video has been very much on my mind lately. Getting video right is something that is essential to our brand, agency, and publisher partners...expect to hear more about what we have planned to help make that happen.

We hope you can join us on Wednesday, June 4th at 9:30 am PDT / 12:30 pm EDT. Register to watch the live stream or to receive the recording.

-The DoubleClick Team

The 2014 World Cup: What a Difference 4 Years Makes

With the World Cup kicking off soon, Think with Google looked at some related search data and trends around this global event. We found that this year, there are more searches for the tournament than the Super Bowl, Olympics and Tour de France combined.

Armed with more and smarter devices, fans interact with the sport differently than they did four years ago—and brands have a chance to reach them in new ways. Read about the insights every marketer should know for the game on Think with Google.

Breaking Down the #1 Barrier to Brand Building Online

As I’ve shared in the past, brands are starting to embrace digital in a big way, but there still remains one big hurdle to digital becoming the medium of choice for brands: measurement. This unsexy topic doesn’t win any awards at Cannes, but it is top of mind for marketers and we hear about it from our partners all the time. In fact, according a survey we conducted last year, only about half of marketers consider their current brand measurement metrics effective.

Our ultimate goal continues to be offering measurement for brands that is as meaningful as the click has become for performance-driven marketers. I’m incredibly excited to see this start to come to fruition across the industry. Today at the Digital Media Summit, I focused on one of our efforts I’m particularly excited about, Brand Lift.

Brand Lift
We started testing Brand Lift earlier this year as a way for marketers to measure their video and display campaigns against objectives like brand awareness and ad recall - in near-real time at significant scale. We’re gradually rolling out this service across both YouTube and the Google Display Network. We’ve also improved Brand Lift: advertisers can now measure whether their ads drive greater interest in their brands, as indicated by increases in organic, brand-related searches on Google. Here are two examples of how brands have deployed Brand Lift in their campaigns:

eHealth
eHealth, the country’s largest health insurance marketplace, has traditionally been a direct response oriented advertiser, but wanted to try a brand-building display campaign. Through Brand Lift, they uncovered a 45% increase in branded searches and a 33% lift in all health insurance-related search terms for consumers who saw the eHealth display campaign. Rather than having to wait until the campaign had completed to find out what drove results, eHealth was able to find out mid-flight, and as a result, expanded their display campaign.

Oscar Mayer
Oscar Mayer recently pushed the envelope from traditional CPG creative and debuted this funny, sophisticated ad to promote their bacon. Brand Lift showed that this ad generated a 19% lift in brand awareness (notable because this brand is already well known) and 112% lift in ad recall among those who saw the ad. Perhaps most amazing, searches for their brand increased more than 1000% and searches for their product went up 2000%. Not only did the data validate their bold and risky creative direction, but it also provided some invaluable insights. For instance, lift in ad recall for women was twice as high as for men. And, lift in brand awareness was more than ten times higher for 45-54 year olds than it was for 55-64 year olds. Oscar Mayer was able to adjust their audience targeting and media strategy based on these insights in real time, while the campaign was still running.

The Road Ahead
Having spent my career in digital, working with brands, I’ve seen the barriers to digital branding fall down, one by one. From audience scale and targeting, to creative freedom and flexibility, and now, the ability to measure and act on audience behaviors and campaign performance in near real-time - the needs of brands can finally be fully realized online.

-- posted by Neal Mohan, VP, Display Advertising

Infographic: 4 Ways Brands Win with Programmatic

Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Advertisers blog

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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Diapers to Diplomas: What’s on the Minds of New Parents, on Think with Google

Having a baby is a big event, and many new and soon-to-be parents turn to the web to find out what they should expect when they’re expecting. According to a recent survey, they do twice as many searches as non-parents. With Mother’s Day just behind us and Father’s Day fast approaching, Think with Google looked into the data to see what we can learn from the search habits of new parents.

Read the full story on Think with Google.

Join us for a conversation on the future of digital advertising

Cross- posted from the DoubleClick for Advertisers Blog

Digital is no longer just another marketing channel. It’s a medium that’s changing the art of storytelling and reinventing the way companies connect with consumers.

How will digital advertising evolve next? You’re invited to tune in live as industry leaders tackle the question at DoubleClick’s annual event on digital trends.

Speakers include:
  • Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation
  • Nikesh Arora, Chief Business Officer at Google
  • Neal Mohan, VP of Display Advertising at Google

Wednesday, June 4
9:30 am PDT - 10:45 am PDT / 12:30 pm EDT - 1:45 pm EDT

Time not convenient? When you register you’ll receive a link to watch the recording on demand.

We hope you can join!

Here’s footage from last year’s event to give you a taste of the 2014 live stream:


Insights at your fingertips, for more effective campaigns

Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Advertisers blog

Today we are excited to announce Insights, a brand new, beautiful reporting tool that provides marketers and agencies with auto-generated insights about campaign performance across channels to help optimize future campaigns.

To ensure their messages are seen by the right users, today, advertisers spend hours analyzing data, or digging through spreadsheets to find meaningful campaign insights. It shouldn’t be this way. In today’s constantly connected world, where we reach consumers across many screens and channels, real-time, actionable insights are more critical than ever. However, fragmented tools and reporting are major pain points that prevent this, according to a study conducted with the Boston Consulting Group.

Actionable insights at a glance

The Insights tool allows advertisers to view campaign performance at a glance, without having to dig through data or build complex reports manually. You can learn about campaign factors that you undervalued, or ones you may have overlooked. This new tool helps you answer questions like:

  • Which publisher had the lowest cost-per-action (CPA) in previous campaigns for the same advertiser?
  • What time of day generates the highest cost-per-click (CPC)?
  • How does campaign performance vary by mobile platform?
  • Do certain creatives perform better on certain browsers?
  • Am I maximizing exposure on high-performing placements?
Interactive design for faster and more efficient media planning

Real-time visualizations and graphs replace manual spreadsheets, showing you detailed information faster. The new Insights tool in reporting is highly interactive, with the ability to drill down based on the following:
  • Dimensions
    • Publisher; Placement; Creative; Geo; Platform type; Browser
  • Goals
    • Click-through rate; Cost per click; Conversions per impression; Conversions per click; Cost per activity; Rich media interaction rate; Rich media click rate; Video completion rate
Over the coming weeks and months, you will see more and more dimensions added into the tool that will help you surface key insights for smarter campaign management.

Insights across channels

This new tool includes data across both reservations and programmatic buys. Today, the data is presented together across channels, and in the coming months, we will provide data that is broken out between your reservations and programmatic buys.


Matthew McIntyre, Senior Media Manager at Unique Digital, told us about the benefits they are seeing with the new tool:
“The new Insights tool is really exciting for us as an agency because it lets us see where and how we can make improvements in our campaigns almost immediately. The customizable goals and visualizations allow us to tailor the dashboard for every campaign and instantly make decisions which will drive better results for our clients. The insight provided on performance gives our planners more time and clearer data to make future media plans faster and with more clarity on how to drive the best performance.”
Our goal with DoubleClick Digital Marketing is to integrate your digital marketing efforts seamlessly, so your teams can effectively manage your cross-channel campaigns. With data that is fresh, de-duplicated, and auto-generated, the Insights tool takes us a step closer to this goal.
Insights is available to all DoubleClick Campaign Manager customers, globally, so if you’re still using DoubleClick for Advertisers, ask your account manager about upgrading to DoubleClick Campaign Manager.

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