Tag Archives: Google Display Network

Academy for Ads: On-The-Go Training for Google’s Ad Products

Becoming a digital advertising expert takes time, and it’s important to get off to a good start. Only 50 percent of marketers say they’re confident in their knowledge of digital advertising,1 despite the wide range of educational materials available – sometimes “more” isn’t the same as “better.” You’ve told us that you want quick, bite-sized training in more interactive formats. And we heard you.

We’re pleased to announce Academy for Ads, a new digital training platform designed to help you learn how to use Google’s ad products in a mobile-first world. We built Academy for Ads to promote learning on-the-go, whether you’re on a laptop, a desktop, or a mobile device.

Grow your Google product know-how
Guided by input from our team of product experts, Academy for Ads courses cover the topics that matter most to Google advertisers – from AdWords basics and the essentials of campaign management to bid strategies, reporting, optimization, and more ways to successfully advertise with Google.



Learning paths, Assessments, and Achievements
We’ve organized the courses into “Learning paths” that you can walk through at your own pace. At the end of each path, take an Assessment and earn an Achievement to show that you know your stuff. Earning an Achievement for AdWords helps prepare you to take the AdWords Certification exam in Google Partners, or try deeper education offerings such as AdWords Academy.


A few example Learning paths:
  • Digital concepts: Learn the essentials of online ads, including third-party ad-serving, programmatic buying, remarketing, and more.
  • Get started with AdWords: Learn the basics of AdWords and prepare for the AdWords Certification exam offered by Google Partners.
  • Get started with AdWords Display: Learn how you can show ads to your online audience via the Google Display Network.
  • Get started with DoubleClick Bid Manager*: Learn your way around Bid Manager, what it offers and how you can use it to manage your online marketing campaigns.
*Only accessible to DoubleClick Bid Manager clients

Academy for Ads also offers training for DoubleClick clients, with Learning paths covering Bid Manager and Ad Exchange – and more to come.

Get started
If you already use Google Partners, you can sign in through the Partners portal at g.co/learnwithpartners — or, you can go directly to g.co/AcademyforAds to sign up and start sampling courses and Learning paths. We’re constantly adding more content, so if you like what you learn, keep coming back for more.

Posted by Tracy Bizelli, Head of Academy for Ads

1. 6 Fundamentals to Managing Digital Marketing in 2015, TFM Insights (January 2015)

Academy for Ads: On-The-Go Training for Google’s Ad Products

Becoming a digital advertising expert takes time, and it’s important to get off to a good start. Only 50 percent of marketers say they’re confident in their knowledge of digital advertising,1 despite the wide range of educational materials available – sometimes “more” isn’t the same as “better.” You’ve told us that you want quick, bite-sized training in more interactive formats. And we heard you.

We’re pleased to announce Academy for Ads, a new digital training platform designed to help you learn how to use Google’s ad products in a mobile-first world. We built Academy for Ads to promote learning on-the-go, whether you’re on a laptop, a desktop, or a mobile device.

Grow your Google product know-how
Guided by input from our team of product experts, Academy for Ads courses cover the topics that matter most to Google advertisers – from AdWords basics and the essentials of campaign management to bid strategies, reporting, optimization, and more ways to successfully advertise with Google.



Learning paths, Assessments, and Achievements
We’ve organized the courses into “Learning paths” that you can walk through at your own pace. At the end of each path, take an Assessment and earn an Achievement to show that you know your stuff. Earning an Achievement for AdWords helps prepare you to take the AdWords Certification exam in Google Partners, or try deeper education offerings such as AdWords Academy.


A few example Learning paths:
  • Digital concepts: Learn the essentials of online ads, including third-party ad-serving, programmatic buying, remarketing, and more.
  • Get started with AdWords: Learn the basics of AdWords and prepare for the AdWords Certification exam offered by Google Partners.
  • Get started with AdWords Display: Learn how you can show ads to your online audience via the Google Display Network.
Academy for Ads also offers training for DoubleClick clients, with Learning paths covering Bid Manager and Ad Exchange – and more to come.

Get started
If you already use Google Partners, you can sign in through the Partners portal at g.co/learnwithpartners — or, you can go directly to g.co/AcademyforAds to sign up and start sampling courses and Learning paths. We’re constantly adding more content, so if you like what you learn, keep coming back for more.

Posted by Tracy Bizelli, Head of Academy for Ads

1. 6 Fundamentals to Managing Digital Marketing in 2015, TFM Insights (January 2015)

Making the Most of Display Advertising – Google Best Practices

Guide to Programmatic Advertising on the Google Display Network

Today, people have higher expectations of ads than ever. It’s never been more important to tailor messages to the right people at the right moment as they engage in blogs, news sites and more across the web.

We’ve put together a new guide, Making the Most of Display Advertising, to help you deliver relevant ads and efficient results on the Google Display Network. The guide touches on topics such as:
  • Reaching the right audience at the right moment 
  • Matching the message to the moment 
  • Optimizing for performance 
Check out these display advertising best practices to deliver on consumers’ expectations and drive more sales for your business.

Want to stay on top of even more Best Practices? Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter. 

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

Source: Inside AdWords


Finding your audience with Google display and video ads

People constantly move between devices throughout the day — reading breaking news on their smartphone, watching a viral video on their tablet, or researching a beach vacation on their laptop. This creates a challenge for marketers: how do you find the right person at the right moment? Google’s audience solutions help marketers reach people based on the things that matter to them using insights from millions of websites and apps on the Google Display Network and billions of daily video views on YouTube. Whether you’re a business looking to build your brand or drive sales, we can help you deliver relevant messages to people at each stage of the path to purchase. Here’s how businesses can find the right audience with Google display and video ads:

  • Demographics - Reach customers within demographic groups you choose — including age, gender, and parental status. For example, a brand running a promotion for back-to-school backpacks can reach moms 25-34 years old.
  • Affinity audiences - Drive brand awareness and engagement by reaching people who have interests relevant to your brand. For example, a sportswear brand can reach outdoor enthusiasts to announce its new line of hiking apparel. 
  • Custom affinity audiences - Drive consideration with an audience tailored precisely for your business. For example, a company that produces a soccer video game can reach fans of specific soccer clubs.
  • In-market audiences - Drive qualified traffic by reaching customers actively researching and intending to make a purchase. For example, a consumer electronics manufacturer can reach customers actively shopping for cameras.

Each month, AdWords advertisers worldwide run hundreds of thousands of campaigns using these audience solutions. Ford New Zealand, one of these advertisers, used Google’s audiences to drive more car shoppers to its website. Ford wanted to reach auto enthusiasts and raise brand awareness for its vehicles, so it used affinity audiences. The automaker also wanted to reach individuals actively researching and considering the purchase of a new vehicle, so it used in-market audiences. By using these solutions as well as dynamic remarketing, Ford drove a 60% increase in site visitors and tripled the amount of time spent on its site.
"Google’s audiences let us reach customers at each stage of the path to purchase, which helped us drive more qualified customers to our website and increase leads,” said Ford New Zealand's general manager of marketing, Cameron Thomas. Read more here.

Marketers can achieve results like these because of three things unique to Google:

1.  Deep consumer insights based on many touchpoints
Google’s audiences are built using data from millions of websites and apps — including properties like YouTube that reach over a billion users. This gives us a wide range of contexts — reading hotel reviews, browsing homes on a real estate app, watching car videos, and more — to understand what people care about. Users can control their experience so they’re more likely to see useful, relevant ads.

2. Ability to distinguish between people’s passions and purchase intent
We classify the millions of websites and apps on the GDN using machine learning, separating those that indicate “passion” from those that indicate “intent.” This enables you to connect with customers at the right stage of the path to purchase based on the types of websites and apps people visit. For example, if you’re an electronics brand looking to drive awareness, you may want to reach people who browse electronics blogs and videos to satisfy their passion for gadgets. But if your goal is to drive sales, you may want to reach people who are researching high-definition televisions on price comparison websites.

3. Real-time data that’s always fresh
AdWords updates audiences in real-time, adding new information each time an ad is shown and removing information that no longer reflects people’s current interests. This is important for your ads’ performance, since a person who shops for a plane ticket today may no longer need one tomorrow. Or a person who is an aspiring chef this winter may find a new all-consuming passion for the outdoors in the spring.

To help even more marketers reach their audiences, we’ve also made these solutions available globally on YouTube and DoubleClick. Whether your goal is building your brand or driving sales, Google’s audiences help you reach the right people at the right moment across millions of websites and apps.

Posted by Jon Krafcik and Max Maxwell, Product Managers, AdWords

Source: Inside AdWords


The Google Display Network ups its commitment to viewability

For years, brand advertisers have been looking for ways to ensure their online ads are seen. This can be difficult — 56% of all display ads and 46% of all video ads aren’t viewable because they’re below the fold, scrolled out of view, or in a background tab. For several years, we’ve been working to help advertisers address this challenge and today we are introducing 3 key improvements: the upgrade of all CPM campaigns to viewable CPM campaigns; new viewable frequency capping; and supplementary reporting metrics built on the viewability standard.

All CPM campaigns are now viewable CPM campaigns 
As we announced in September, we’re furthering our commitment to make viewability the currency of digital advertising by upgrading all CPM campaigns on the GDN to viewable CPM (vCPM) campaigns. We’ve now completed this upgrade, making the Google Display Network (GDN) one of the only media platforms where advertisers don’t pay for an impression unless it’s actually viewable by a user.

Viewable CPM (vCPM) buying was launched in AdWords in 2013 so advertisers could choose to only pay for display and video impressions that meet the MRC defined industry standard for viewability. Fifty percent or more of the ad must appear on screen — for at least 1 second for display ads and 2 seconds for video ads, as measured by Google’s Active View technology. This year, tens of billions of impressions were filtered out before ever being charged to AdWords advertisers because they didn’t meet this standard.

Viewable CPM helps brand advertisers buy efficiently and reach their campaign goals:

Devialet, an audio equipment company based in Paris, wanted to make more consumers aware of its speakers and amplifiers. To broaden its reach, Devialet shifted its campaigns from CPC to vCPM. As a result, Devialet increased its viewable impressions per dollar by 49% and increased its average time spent on site by 50%.

New viewable frequency capping will give advertisers better control
Frequency capping helps you control how many times your ads appear to the same person. When unviewable impressions are counted toward a frequency cap, a user may not see your ad as many times as you intended.

Starting in the next few weeks, frequency capping will only count viewable impressions for display and video campaigns in AdWords. This will help advertisers maintain better control over how often their ads are actually viewable to users. To learn more about setting a frequency cap, visit the Help Center.

New reporting metrics give a better picture of campaign performance
To give advertisers a better picture of how their display and video campaigns are performing, we’ve added supplementary metrics built on the viewability standard, such as:
  • Total impressions that were viewable
  • Percentage of impressions that were viewable
  • Percentage of viewable ads that were clicked
These metrics give advertisers more clarity on which placements and creatives are driving campaign performance when they are viewable to users.

We’ve long advocated for the adoption of viewability as a common currency to help marketers and publishers work together transparently, efficiently, and with accountability. This is another important step along that journey.

Posted by Glenn Wilson, Product Manager, AdWords

Source: Inside AdWords


Enhancing the Google Display Network with new innovations

Consumers have higher expectations than ever because of mobile — they want everything right, and they want everything right away. To connect with consumers in the intent-rich moments when they want to buy, find or do something, marketers are increasingly turning to programmatic advertising — which uses data and technology to reach the right person at the right time. The Google Display Network (GDN) brings this sophisticated technology to all advertisers so you can be there in the moments that matter the most for your brand.

Today we’re introducing several tools that further enhance what the GDN offers for display advertisers.

More transparency: take action with AdWords audience insights
When you understand your customers well — like their age, location, and interests — you can make more informed decisions about your marketing programs. AdWords audience insights give advertisers aggregate information about people on your remarketing lists, including demographics, interests, locations, and device usage.1 Since these reports are available right in AdWords, you can quickly and easily take action on the insights. For example, if most people who converted on your site are jazz enthusiasts, you may wish to add this affinity audience to your campaign. Or, if many of your customers are females between the ages of 25 and 34, you might want to customize your ad creative to appeal to this demographic. Learn more.
Example: AdWords audience insights shows 30% of customers on this remarketing list are 25-34 years old
compared to an average of 19.9% in the US.
BASE, a Belgian telecommunications company, used AdWords audience insights and discovered cycling enthusiasts were twice as likely as the average customer to buy a mobile phone subscription. Based on this insight, BASE engaged with cycling enthusiasts on the GDN and doubled its conversions. BASE now uses AdWords audience insights to inform its campaigns, online and offline.

Sony PlayStation discovered classical music enthusiasts were likely to engage with its brand using AdWords audience insights. Sony then connected with this audience on the GDN and drove a 31% higher view-through rate than with its average affinity audience. This allowed Sony to capture more views for its budget. Now, Sony uses AdWords audience insights to uncover the best audiences for its new campaigns.

More accountability: the GDN is going 100% viewable
Most display ads — 56% in fact — never had a chance to be viewed because they were below the fold, scrolled out of view, or in a background tab. Soon, we’ll make the GDN one of the only media platforms where advertisers don’t pay for an ad impression unless it was viewable. This means your media dollars will only be spent where they can have impact. In the next few months, all campaigns that buy on a CPM basis will be upgraded to be viewable CPM (vCPM).

More impact: a fresh approach to dynamic remarketing ads
People use devices of varying shapes and sizes, engaging with content that can be horizontal, vertical, tapped, swiped or pinched. This means ads must be flexible so they can show across varying placements. Today, we introduced enhancements to dynamic remarketing so ads can be automatically re-shaped and re-sized to fit all device types. Ads are also touched up to look great on any mobile or desktop site, or app. For example, if your logo is predominantly blue and yellow, AdWords may use these colors to shade the border and background of your ad. We’ll even try out varying color combinations and use the ones that drive the best performance. As always, you have control to make changes to these selections based on your personal style and preferences.

Meeting consumer expectations requires technology to answer their needs the moment they have them, wherever they are, whatever kind of device or screen they are using. Programmatic advertising ensures that brands are there in those important moments when decisions are made and preferences are shaped. Our hope is that the GDN brings this enterprise-level technology to all advertisers so you can be there at the moments when it matters most for your brand.

Posted by Brad Bender, VP of Product Management, Google Display Network
1 All insights are based on anonymized, aggregated data.

Source: Inside AdWords