Tag Archives: Ads

The measurement revolution: An update

Over the past few years we’ve been committed to investing in a suite of new metrics that would be as actionable for brand marketers as the click has become for performance advertising. In that spirit, today we are announcing a new GRP solution, comScore vCE in DoubleClick, and updates to our Active View viewability solution.

Our goal is to enable brand marketers to answer some essential questions about the success of their campaigns:

Announcing an update to Active View - Ensuring your ads are seen

If a human being never has a chance to see your ad, then nothing else matters - the campaign will not succeed. That’s why we’ve been steadily introducing Active View technology across our product suite: the ability to buy based on viewability in AdWords, and reporting on viewability in our DoubleClick advertiser and publisher platforms. In a recent study that we published we found that 46% of all video ads on the web did not even have a chance to be seen. This contextualized the importance of video viewability and the launch of Active View for Video a few months ago.

We are firm believers in the IAB / MRC standard as the minimum viable definition for a viewable impression. We also recognize that there is a need for secondary metrics that complement the single standard and support individual advertisers’ objectives. In light of this, we are announcing that starting today, Active View users will be able to measure average viewable time - the average time, in seconds, a given ad appeared on screen - in DoubleClick Bid Manager.

Since introducing Active View, we’ve seen tremendous momentum with over 80% of clients having adopted our viewability technology. These advertiser and publisher clients have told us time and again that they would like to use Active View to measure viewability across all their media buys. So we are working with these clients to expand Active View beyond Google’s media and platforms.

Announcing comScore vCE in DoubleClick: Ensuring you reach the right audience faster

Last year we announced our partnership with comScore to bring to market a completely tagless and digitally actionable metric that would make real-time GRP measurement a reality for advertisers and publishers. Today we are announcing the culmination of that partnership: comScore vCE in DoubleClick.

comScore vCE in DoubleClick is the first independent, completely tagless, audience delivery measurement service to be directly integrated into an ad server and will give advertisers and publishers a trusted comScore audience measurement solution for both video and display that is effortless to set up and actionable.
This new GRP measurement solution is now widely available for all of our DoubleClick customers across DoubleClick Digital Marketing and DoubleClick for Publishers. This means advertisers can now see if they’re reaching their target audience as it happens. And publishers will be able to make adjustments during the course of a campaign to meet their advertisers’ needs -- no more after the fact reporting and make-goods.

With this tagless and single-click workflow, advertiser and publisher clients will have 100% coverage. Publishers will have the ability to forecast their audience availability to ensure they meet advertiser commitments. For advertisers, in addition to scheduled reports we are introducing new audience cards that surface reports with simple and easy to read visuals.



Measurement Matters

We will continue to look for opportunities to raise the bar on measurement through a combination of product innovation and partnership with industry leaders.

We’re excited about the progress we’ve made in enabling advertisers to ensure that their ads reached the right audience and were actually seen. But our biggest investments in measurement still lie ahead as we work to help advertisers understand what their audiences thought and ultimately did as a result of seeing their ads.

Posted by Sanaz Ahari, Group Product Manager, Brand Measurement

Help me help you (improve the DFP API)

Believe it or not, the DFP API Team eat, breathe, and live the DFP API. We wake up in the morning thinking, "How can I make the DFP API even better?" Seriously, I have had dreams about the API. It’s weird, but I’m not embarrassed to admit that.

In an effort to delight our developers even more, we’re turning the proverbial mic over to you - our customers - to help us help you. Here’s your chance to let us know how we could be better – better support, better features in the client libraries, better content in workshops, better examples, better haircuts... really, anything. Simply fill out our survey with your thoughts here.

 - , DFP API Team

New Op-ed: Digital publishers need an ad strategy reset

As more brand dollars move to digital, and the technology supporting digital advertising evolves, publishers have a tremendous opportunity to boost their revenues and profits. However, capitalizing on this opportunity requires publishers to evolve their sales strategies, fast.

As programmatic buying continues to grow, one of the first steps publishers must take is to adopt a holistic cross-channel ad sales strategy.

A new op-ed by Paul Zwillenberg, Global Leader of The Boston Consulting Group’s Media Sector, explores this idea and shares the strategies and tactics employed by today’s most successful digital publishers.

Head on over to DoubleClick.com to read the full article.

Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing team

What’s new with IMA iOS SDK Beta 15?

Last week, we released beta version 15 of the IMA SDK for iOS. This release includes two new features:

  • Ad buffer events via IMAAdsManager delegates
  • Debugging mode

Ad buffer events

We’re providing more information on ad buffering by introducing new buffering events via the following optional IMAAdsManagerDelegate methods:

  • adsManagerAdPlaybackReady:
  • adsManagerAdDidStartBuffering:
  • adsManager:adDidBufferToMediaTime:

Collectively, these delegate methods provide more transparency into buffer events, giving you more control over the user’s ad experience. For more detailed information on these new methods, take a look at the reference documentation.

Debugging mode

We’ve introduced a new debugging mode setting to allow for more verbose logging to the console. You can now set IMASettings.enableDebugMode to YES to enable debug mode. This should not be used in production, as it will show a watermark on the ad player.

A note about CocoaPods

If you’re using CocoaPods with the IMA SDK, please make sure to use at least version 0.38.

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

 - , IMA SDK Team

Relaxing constraints on ad group name uniqueness

Have you ever found it frustrating that you can never reuse an AdGroup name after removing the AdGroup, since a removed AdGroup cannot be modified? We have awesome news for you!

Now, AdGroupService doesn’t consider REMOVED AdGroup names when verifying that an AdGroup name is unique within a Campaign. If an AdGroup is in a REMOVED state, then the name of that AdGroup can be reused. This is already the case for Campaigns, and we’ve extended this relaxation of constraints to AdGroups.

If you have questions or need clarification, visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

L’Oréal Canada finds beauty in programmatic buying


While global sales of L'Oréal Luxe makeup brand Shu Uemura were booming, reaching its target audience across North America proved challenging. By collaborating with Karl Lagerfeld (and his cat, Choupette) and using DoubleClick Bid Manager and Google Analytics Premium, the campaign delivered nearly double the anticipated revenue.

Goals


  • Re-introduce and raise awareness of the Shu Uemura cosmetics brand in North America
  • Drive North American sales of Karl Lagerfeld’s Shupette collection for Shu Uemura
  • Grow the Shu Uemura email subscriber list
    		•
    Approach


  • Organized website audiences with Google Analytics Premium
  • Used programmatic buying to lead prospects down the path to purchase
  • Leveraged a range of audience data in DoubleClick Bid Manager to buy paid media in display and social channels
    		•
    Results


  • Drove almost 2X the anticipated revenue
  • Exceeded CPA targets and achieved a 2,200% return on ad spend (ROAS)
  • Increased web traffic and email subscriber
    		•
    To learn more about Shu Uemura’s approach, check out the full case study.

    Posted by Kelly Cox, Product Marketing, DoubleClick

    Make Mobile Work 2.0: Continuing the Mobile Conversation With Brand Marketers

    Last year we started the Make Mobile Work initiative in partnership with the IAB to foster adoption of HTML5 and cross-screen creative, and it quickly became the IAB Mobile Center’s lynchpin for marketer outreach as interest in the program accelerated.

    For 2015, we’re excited to bring back Make Mobile Work for another round of educational and practical conversations for brand marketers, to help them succeed in our increasingly mobile-first world.The importance of HTML5 for digital marketing continues to be at the center of the Make Mobile Work message, building on the success of the HTML5 Week we hosted last week.

    Make Mobile Work webinars will address three important topics over the remainder of 2015. These webinars are curated with marketer business decision-makers in mind—they will keep the jargon to a minimum and focus on sharing practical examples and learning.

    The IAB’s Tech Lab is also working to update their standard ad units to reflect the file size needs of HTML5-based ads. This is a timely effort as connectivity technologies have changed along with the rise of HTML5 and it’s vital to realign buyer and seller expectations around ad file weights that will enable engaging ads, while not harming webpage or ad-load performance. Make Mobile Work will help to spread the word about this process and its outcomes and implications.

    Along with the other members of the Mobile Center, we’re looking forward to continuing to help brands large and small, novice and experienced, get the know-how they need to make mobile work for them.

    Posted by Becky Chappell, DoubleClick Product Marketing

    Learn how to design and build HTML5 with Google Web Designer

    We dubbed last week #HTML5Week and launched multiple HTML5 resources, hangouts and product updates to help make it easier to build all your ads in HTML5. Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of our Google Web Designer Certification exam and training resources. 

    Google Web Designer helps you create engaging HTML5 content. Use animations and interactive elements to bring your creative vision to life and enjoy integrations with other Google products, including a shared asset library and one-click-to-publish integration with DoubleClick Studio, compatibility with AdWords, and the ability to collaborate on works-in-progress in Google Drive. 

    The new Google Web Designer Fundamentals Certification allows new users to demonstrate proficiency and understanding of the Google Web Designer interface and features. The exam will help you learn:
    • How to use the Google Web Designer interface
    • How to create templates and animations
    • How to build interstitial ads
    • How to build advanced expandable ads
    The program consists of a step-by-step eLearning that takes you through the basics of Google Web Designer and helps you get trained quickly in building HTML5 ads using the tool. Once you finish the eLearning and build a few test ads, you can take a certification exam to test your knowledge and demonstrate your proficiency. If you pass the certification, you can get your name listed on the Certified User list in the Rich Media Gallery. 

    We hope this new certification exam helps you learn the ins and outs of the Google Web Designer tool, so that you can more easily create your HTML5 ads.

    Posted by Becky Chappell, Google Web Designer Product Marketing Manager 

    Making it easier to run mobile-friendly HTML5 ads with DoubleClick

    For the past week, we’ve shared best practices and new resources to help you learn how to build HTML5 ads. To cap off #HTML5Week, we're making it even easier for our DoubleClick Campaign Manager clients to run mobile-friendly HTML5 ads by offering unlimited file sizes...for free. 

    HTML5 ad files are much larger than Flash ads, meaning they need a larger file size (k size) allowance and should utilize a polite load function to be publisher friendly. 

    We launched Enhanced Formats in DoubleClick Campaign Manager early last year, as an option for media agencies to upload larger creative files to DoubleClick Campaign Manager directly. Now that all ads need to be built in HTML5 to show up properly across screens and browsers, we’ve decided to offer the unlimited file sizes free of charge. Starting August 3rd, we will be automatically upgrading all DoubleClick Campaign Manager accounts to support Enhanced Formats. [No action necessary by clients.]

    In addition to unlimited file size, Enhanced Formats offers automatic polite load functionality (which allows main web page content to load before the ad unit finishes loading,) a way to easily add basic engagement metrics to standard banner ads, and the ability to track metrics such as multiple exits, interactions, backup image views, HTML5 views, and display time. You can learn more about Enhanced Formats in the help center.

    During the month of August, we’ll also be making some other changes to the way we handle campaigns that contain Flash ads:
    • In DoubleClick Campaign Manager, our systems will automatically show the HTML5 version of an ad, where available. (Before, the HTML5 version would only show in environments where Flash wasn't supported). 
    • DoubleClick Bid Manager will stop supporting bids for Flash ads in Chrome (which pauses Flash ads automatically). This means advertisers won't end up paying for ads that will be paused by default.

    While making the switch to HTML5 may seem daunting, we hope that these product updates, combined with the resources and training provided this week, will help you tackle the challenge. Here is a recap of the resources that are now available:
    • HTML5 Overview Hangout and step-by-step tutorial
    • Google Web Designer Landing Page with components and templates 
    • HTML5 Toolkit -- everything you need in one place 
    • Upcoming HTML5 Immersion Days: (All Immersion Days are hosted at Google’s offices. Please contact your DoubleClick Rep if you’d like to join.) 
      • In NYC: Monday, Jul. 27 (10am-1pm) and Thursday, Jul. 30 (10am-1pm) 
      • In LA: Monday, Jul. 27 (1:30-3:30pm) and Monday, Aug. 10 (2-4pm) 
      • In SF: Tuesday, Jul. 28 (1-3:30pm) 
      • In Chicago: Wednesday, Aug. 12 (1-3pm) 

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

    New guide for setting up AdWords API authorization using the OAuth 2.0 Playground

    For those of you who’d prefer to generate an OAuth refresh token using only a browser, there's a new guide on how to use the OAuth 2.0 Playground:

    https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/guides/oauth_playground

    The guide walks you through the authorization setup required by the AdWords API for a Web application--via a browser session--without the need to execute any command-line scripts.

    More OAuth resources
    Still have questions? Feel free to visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

    - Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team