Tag Archives: Ads

Bing Shopping Campaigns are now part of the DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite

The holidays are a critical time of year for search marketers, as consumers increasingly research and complete their holiday shopping online. To help you win the moments that matter this holiday season, we recently announced several new features and the DoubleClick Search Guide to the Holidays.

Today, we’ve got another special gift to continue the holiday spirit: Bing Shopping Campaigns are now part of the DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite.

Bing Shopping Campaigns for Bing Ads make it easier and faster to advertise your products from your Bing Merchant Center store online. This streamlined way of getting Product Ads up and running on Bing is also driving meaningful impact for advertisers.

“According to a recent report, Merkle/RKG clients saw Bing Product Ads’ click volume increase by 332% year-on-year.”1
Brian Utter, General Manager of Network and Demand Management, Microsoft

With the addition of Bing Shopping Campaigns to the DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite, you can easily extend the reach of your product-focused advertising. You’ll be able to manage, automate, and measure Bing Shopping Campaigns using the full range of DoubleClick Search tools, the Performance Bidding Suite, Adaptive Shopping campaigns, and Purchase Detail reports.

Learn how to get started with Bing Shopping Campaigns in DoubleClick Search today.

Posted by Henry Tappen
Product Manager, DoubleClick Search

1 Merkle/RKG Digital Marketing Report for Q3 2015

Proguard and AdMob mediation

If you’re an Android developer who uses ProGuard to post-process builds, you already know the improvements it can make to APK size and speed. Just as handy, though, is its ability to obfuscate your compiled code by stripping out debug information and renaming classes, methods, and fields to generic identifiers. It’s a great way to discourage reverse-engineering of your application. If you’re an AdMob publisher who uses mediation, however, you need to take special care when configuring ProGuard in order to avoid obfuscating some of the code used in the mediation process.

AdMob mediation needs two classes to maintain their original names in your final APK: AdUrlAdapter and AdMobAdapter. If either of those has been renamed by ProGuard, it can cause the SDK to incorrectly return “no fill” responses for the AdMob demand in your mediated ad units.

The good news is that it’s easy to avoid this problem. Just add the following two keep options to your ProGuard configuration file:


-keep class com.google.ads.mediation.admob.AdMobAdapter {
    *;
}

-keep class com.google.ads.mediation.AdUrlAdapter {
    *;
}

These options instruct ProGuard to avoid renaming the two classes, and to leave the names of their fields and methods unobfuscated as well. With the original names intact, the mediation system will be able to instantiate them dynamically whenever they’re needed, and your otherwise obfuscated application won’t miss out on any AdMob impressions.

The third-party networks your app mediates may also need certain classes exempted from obfuscation. Be sure to check with those networks to find out if they have recommendations for ProGuard configuration.

If you have technical questions about this (or anything else relating to the Google Mobile Ads SDK) stop by our forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations tags: android, admob_mediation, mobile_ads_sdk

Native Ads on DoubleClick boost Trovit’s mobile CPMs by 120%

As consumers spend more and more time on their mobile phones, providing ad experiences that respect their context is more important than ever before. Accordingly, publishers are increasingly embracing native ads -- highly customized advertising units that seamlessly integrate in a user’s content experience without being disruptive. However, creating and delivering these ads can be a challenge. That is why earlier this year we launched Native Ads on DoubleClick, and publishers like Trovit are beginning to see the results.

European publisher Trovit, a classified search engine for property, jobs, cars, products and holiday rentals, had over 50% of its total traffic in some countries coming from mobile devices. To grow mobile revenue while delivering better ad experiences to users, Trovit tested native ads on their apps, powered by DoubleClick, in two of their markets. Based on the promising tests, they expanded their native ads strategy to six more markets. The results: net revenue grew significantly with CPM growth up to 120% in certain markets.

Learn more about Trovit’s strategy and how DoubleClick helped here.

Posted by Nataliya Kozak
Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

DoubleClick Search Guide to the Holidays Series: Plan to get ready for next year

This is the fifth and final post of the DoubleClick Search Holiday Series. Today, we cover planning ahead, the last of five steps outlined in our new DoubleClick Search Guide to the Holidays. Your performance in 2015 should propel your performance next year. Here’s how to get ready for 2016.

  • Use executive reports: A DoubleClick Search executive report displays your metrics for revenue, costs, trends, and other high-level concepts, all presented in understandable charts and tables. Create your report once, or schedule a daily update throughout the holiday season.
  • Review your purchase details. For holiday planning, you want to be strategic about which items you highlight from your sales. So, look at your purchase detail reports to see which similar items were top sellers this year, and use that as a guide for where to put your effort in 2016.
  • Leave bid strategies running, but adjust for any changes to your goals: If your return on ad spend or cost-per-action requirements change, adjust your bid strategy goals and DoubleClick Search will bring your bids back into line.
  • Save your budget pacing reports: You can go back and see how you paced to get ready for 2016.

That’s it, the last of the five steps to holiday campaign success. We hope these posts will help you during the busy 2015 holiday period. To recap, here are all the steps again:

  1. Prepare: Unify your data for insights and action, add more data to maximize conversions, use labels to track your promotions, and integrate offline data.
  2. Automate: Use bulksheets, automated rules, and inventory-aware campaigns to make your life easier.
  3. Measure: Gain valuable insights by setting up scheduled reports, budget pacing reports, formula columns, and Floodlight activity columns, then analyze and monitor your performance.
  4. Optimize: Use real-time data to make adjustments with the DoubleClick Search Performance Bidding Suite, Adaptive Shopping campaigns, and remarketing.
  5. Plan ahead: Create executive reports, review purchase details to see how well you did this year, and save your budget pacing reports.

Be sure to read the entire DoubleClick Search Guide to the Holidays.

Don’t forget to register now for tomorrow’s webinar on October 29th at 12pm PDT / 3pm EDT to learn tips and tools to maximize performance and profits during the holiday period from Henry Tappen, Product Manager at DoubleClick Search.

Happy Holidays!

Nick Macrae
Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick Search

Reporting changes in AdWords API v201509

AdWords API v201509 introduces some changes to reporting columns, particularly Clicks. Recently, AdWords introduced new columns called Engagements and Interactions. It also added reporting columns related to video campaigns such as VideoViews, which have previously been unavailable via API reporting. AdWords API version v201509 has updated its reporting to match these changes.

The new Interactions field, available in API performance reports, can be thought of as the main action a user takes with the ad format: clicks for text ads, engagements for Lightbox ads, and views for video ads. Previously, views for video ads were not returned in API reporting, so having access to this data is new.

Prior to v201509, the Clicks field always included both clicks and engagements. Starting in v201509, the Clicks field includes only click actions, like clickthroughs to a landing page or clicks to call. This means that clicks on video ads, which are unpaid, will be included in this field. However, engagements for Lightbox ads will not be counted.

If measuring performance across multiple ad formats, you might consider using Interactions to view the total number of primary user actions on ads, all in the same column. Clicks, Engagements, and VideoViews are available as well for more fine-grained reporting by ad format.

The table below summarizes the changes in each field for various ad formats.

Field
v201506
v201509
Clicks
Text ads: clickthrough to a landing page

Lightbox ads: hover to expanded ad format
Text ads: clickthrough to a landing page or clicks to call

Lightbox ads: clickthrough to a landing page

Video ads: clickthrough to a landing page
Engagements
N/A
Lightbox ads: hover to expanded ad format
VideoViews
N/A
Video ads: view
Interactions
N/A
Text ads: clickthrough to a landing page or clicks to call

Lightbox ads: hover to expanded ad format

Video ads: views

Please note that reporting in v201506 and previous versions is unaffected; they return the same data that they always have, represented the same way. This means that when comparing the data you receive from older versions of the API to user interface reports, or to v201509 reports, the numbers will not directly match up. Video-related stats will still be excluded from v201506. The Clicks column in v201506 will match the Interactions column from v201509 if you subtract out video interactions.

For ease of reporting, it’s recommended to migrate to v201509 as soon as possible.

Keep in mind these aren’t the only reporting changes in v201509 — for more details on conversion-related reporting changes, please see the release notes.

If you have any questions about this or other aspects of the AdWords API, please contact us via the forum or the Ads Developers Plus Page.

- Michael Cloonan, AdWords API Team

Important changes for gaming publishers using the IMA HTML5 SDK

In the coming weeks, we’ll be making changes to the way the IMA HTML5 SDK handles AdSense and Ad Exchange non-linear and full slot ads. To facilitate these changes, we’re adding a new API: AdsRequest.forceNonLinearFullSlot. Gaming publishers are required to set this parameter to true to ensure that all ads returned to your player are correctly rendered as full slot ads. This change is planned to go live the week of November 30th. Keep an eye on our release notes for the exact date as the change is released.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

IMA HTML5 – changes to non-linear and full slot ads for AdSense and Ad Exchange

In the coming weeks, we’ll be making changes to the way the IMA HTML5 SDK handles AdSense and Ad Exchange non-linear and full slot ads. You should be aware of these changes to ensure that your video player behaves as expected once the changes have taken effect.

Definitions

A non-linear ad is a static or animated ad that displays over the video content during content playback. These are also sometimes referred to as “bottom-third” ads, because they typically take up the bottom third of the video player.

A non-linear ad.

A full slot ad is a static or animated ad that usually appears before or after the content, occupying the entire view area. It renders a close button that when clicked closes the ad and, if rendered before the content, triggers the content to start.

A full slot ad.

Current behavior

Currently, non-linear ads are rendered as expected, but full slot ads are also rendered as non-linear ads. So instead of pausing, the video continues to play underneath them while they take up a large portion of the video display.

New behavior

With the new behavior, any non-linear AdSense or Ad Exchange ad greater than 90 pixels in height will be rendered as a full slot ad. This means it will take up the entire video display. When the user clicks the close button, the content will start.

We will also be adding a new UI to these full slot ads which includes a countdown timer and a skip button. You should remove any custom UI elements you’ve added for full slot ads to ensure there are no conflicts with this new UI.

Lastly, to ensure that your ads are rendered properly, make sure your AdDisplayContainer is rendered on top of everything else and takes up the full size of your video player.

Full slot ad with the updated UI.

Testing the changes

If you’d like to test these changes, you can load the test version of our SDK by replacing your load of ima3.js with ima3_test.js. This is a watermarked test binary that changes frequently and without notice; it is not intended for use in production.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

Cross-device conversion estimates in DoubleClick Search bid strategies

In today's multi-device world, consumers increasingly move across screens when researching and shopping for goods and services. In a recent study conducted by Google and Ipsos Media CT, it was found that nearly 40% of online shoppers start their research on a smartphone and make their final purchase on a computer or tablet1.

Earlier this year, we introduced cross-device measurement across DoubleClick Digital Marketing, including DoubleClick Search, to help you see the total number of conversions influenced by a specific keyword, regardless of the device where the conversion occurred. For example, if a user who clicks on a search ad on one device goes on to complete a purchase on another device, we can measure that, enabling you to more accurately report on the full value of your search ads.

Now, bid strategies in the DoubleClick Search Performance Bidding Suite can use cross-device conversion estimates to automatically calculate the mobile bid adjustment that will help you achieve your campaign goals and maximize the impact of your mobile ads.

Using cross-device conversion estimates in the Performance Bidding Suite

If you enable a bid strategy in the Performance Bidding Suite to use cross-device conversion estimates, it can consider these cross-device conversions to determine how much to bid for your mobile ads. The bid strategy can then recommend or automatically apply the optimal mobile bid adjustment based on your conversion or revenue goals.

You can use this feature with a one-step opt in: when configuring the target of a bid strategy, check the box to use cross-device conversion estimates when setting the mobile bid adjustment.

Note: Currently, bid strategies use cross-device estimates only for mobile bid adjustments. Other enhancements, such as adjusting bids based on membership in an AdWords remarketing target, will follow in future updates.

Learn how to use cross-device estimates in bid strategies today.

Tris Southey
Product Manager, DoubleClick Search
1 The Role of Mobile Search on Store Purchases, Google/Ipsos Media CT, August 2015. Purchases were made within the past 3 months.

New ad UI and click behavior for IMA HTML5 SDK

Starting this week, we’re going to incrementally roll out a change in the way the IMA HTML5 SDK handles an ad’s UI.

We will be adding a Learn More button to Ad Exchange and AdSense ads on both desktop and mobile. Clicking on the button will take the user to the advertiser’s site, while clicking elsewhere on the ad will pause or resume it. This is a change from the existing behavior, where clicking anywhere on the ad opens the advertiser’s site.

The new ad UI.

This change will also be rolling out to all mobile web ads that do not use custom click tracking. Note that ads that have no UI before the change will gain a UI with this change. This will allow our mobile web behavior to be consistent with native mobile behavior.

If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

DoubleClick Search Guide to the Holidays Series: Optimize to get the most from the holidays

Today, we cover optimization in post four of the DoubleClick Search Holiday Series. It’s one of the five steps outlined in our DoubleClick Search Guide to the Holidays.

DoubleClick Search Performance Bidding Suite

The DoubleClick Search Performance Bidding Suite can automatically optimize bids to help you reach your goals.

During the busy shopping season, DoubleClick Search’s real-time conversion data and intra-day bidding factor current trends into your bids—things like special holiday promotions, sudden spikes in demand due to winter weather, and more. Our machine-learning-powered bid strategies will respond quickly to adjust bids that deliver results. Plus, cross-device conversion tracking helps the bid optimization system make the most of your mobile traffic.

Adaptive Shopping campaigns

Adaptive Shopping campaigns optimize the structure of your shopping campaigns in order to improve their performance. Outlier products are automatically separated into their own product group, giving them a bid tuned specially to that product ad's performance.

We've also improved the algorithm just in time for holidays. Adaptive Shopping campaigns can now take into account your performance goals and your customers' unique behavior. Adaptive Shopping campaigns will also automatically cleanup product groups that stop receiving clicks. All in all, these features help you improve returns by bidding higher on high-performing products, and save money by bidding lower on poor performers.

Remarketing

If you aren't already doing so, use remarketing to turn your site visitors into buyers. Engage those people who’ve left your site or clicked your ads without buying anything by showing them relevant ads on search or display. Here are two ways to remarket:

  • Reach high-value customers with remarketing lists for search ads (RLSAs) — Modify your keyword bids, target search ads, or prevent ads from displaying based on inclusion in your AdWords remarketing list. You can track the performance of each remarketing list in any associated campaign.
  • Re-engage shoppers with display remarketing from search ads — remarket to users instantly with display ads on the Google Display Network or across exchanges via DoubleClick Bid Manager.

We want you to achieve the best possible results from your marketing efforts during this busy season. In our next post, we’ll talk about how to take your efforts this time round to plan ahead for your next peak period. Learn more about all five steps to success in the DoubleClick Search Guide to the Holidays.

Remember to register now for this weeks webinar on October 29th at 12pm PDT / 3pm EDT to learn tips and tools to maximize performance and profits during the holiday period from Henry Tappen, Product Manager at DoubleClick Search.

Nick Macrae
Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick Search