The west coast will soon be visited by ad:tech, when the conference comes to San Francisco from April 21st - 23rd. If you're planning on attending, visit the registration page and use the code GGLESPON for a 20% discount on the conference price. Enjoy spring in San Francisco, and we hope to see you there!

Update: Please use the code SFCONF4 for a 40% discount.

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

The 2008 election ushered in a new era of political campaigns, with digital media playing an unprecedented role in helping elect President Barack Obama. Campaign New Media Director Joe Rospars called Google the "backbone of the campaign's online advertising outreach".¹ Using a combination of search and contextual advertising, a YouTube Brand Channel, Google Analytics, Google Checkout, and Google Docs, President Obama's new media team was able to effectively fundraise, communicate, mobilize, and measure². The results? Email team head Stephen Geer says search advertising led to a "ridiculously" high return on investment of fifteen to one.³

As agencies on the forefront of digital marketing, what of our president’s online strategies can you replicate to help your clients meet their ROI goals? Here are some vital questions to ask and best practices:

1. Is your client's primary goal a purchase or donation? Make it easy for supporters to donate by featuring shopping cart buttons front and center on the landing page. Take it one step further and promote integration with Google Checkout, as the Obama campaign did on its YouTube channel.

2. Has your client received publicity (either good or bad)? Use search ads to maximize the impact of positive publicity and to help with issue management when negative news emerges. The Obama team did this throughout the campaign, effectively updating search ad text to capitalize on the stories that were leading the news.

3. Is your client looking for new ways to reach potential customers? Expand the user base and support consumer engagement through social media and YouTube. The Obama campaign leveraged YouTube by regularly posting fresh video content and allowing viewers to comment on and share results. See for yourself, here:

4. Does your client need to drive local offline action? The Obama campaign effectively pushed supporters to attend rallies and get out the vote, with geo-targeted search and display ads that provided localized information.⁴ If your client has localized or offline objectives, you can support them by promoting business locations through search ads, Local Business Ads, and listing in the Local Business Center.

5. Are your client's campaigns running successfully? Always be sure to measure success with tools such as Google Analytics, and use the data to make improvements.

Sources:

[1] and [3] “The 2008 Google Docs Campaign,” Eric Kuhn, The Huffington Post, February 1, 2009 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kuhn/the-2008-google-docs-camp_b_162958.html

[2] "Obama Saw Ridiculously High ROI from Google Ads", Colin Delaney, TechPresident, February 2, 2009 http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/33718/obama_campaign_saw_ridiculously_high_roi_from_google_ads

[4] The New York Times, A1, Sunday, March 2, 2008; "Spending Heavily, Obama Attempts Knockout Blow"

Posted by Peter Greenberger, Elections & Issue Advocacy Team

Sure, search drives web traffic and online conversions. But can it lead to offline actions like TV tune-in? Can we expect a brand lift from paid search impressions even if consumers don't click on ads? In a recent study, Google partnered with research firm Ipsos to explore how paid search can impact TV tune-in by lifting brand metrics and likelihood to tune in. These results may transform the way you think about search in your media mix.

The webinar will cover these key findings, highlighting how search can increase likelihood to tune in for advertised TV shows, improve competitive positioning of advertised TV shows, increase traffic to branded TV websites, and lift brand awareness of TV shows and networks.

Register Here

Event: Search as a Branding Vehicle for Driving TV Tune In
Date: Thursday, March 26, 2009
Time: 12:00 PM ET/ 9:00 AM PT (1 hour webinar)

Registration Password: google
Event number: 572 645 381
Dial-in: (domestic) 866-457-4646 International Dial-in: 617-224-4646 Passcode: 231-923-60#

Posted by Dan Barasch, Media and Entertainment Marketing

With the changing economy, its important for brands in the healthcare industry to more effectively measure returns and manage marketing resources. On April 2nd, Google Analytics expert and evangelist, Avinash Kaushik will lead a healthcare-focused webinar to reveal strategic and creative insights that campaign data can offer when properly measured. Learn how to improve metrics through website experimentation and testing, track user activity on and off your site, and use health-related conversions to understand user behavior.

What: Accountable Health Advertising with Effective Analytics: Webinar hosted by Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist

Date: Thursday, April 2, 2009

Time: 10am - 11:30am PST / 1pm - 2:30pm EST
Register here

Posted by Jaime Mayer, Healthcare Marketing

Everyone knows a bargain shopper, and it seems that they're ever more common these days. Discounts and promotions are especially relevant as consumers become more price-conscious. To help capture the attention of these consumers, we now have two new display ad builder templates available to help you easily create ads featuring coupons to run on sites across the Google Content Network .

Agencies can use the display ad builder to quickly create ads that correspond to client promotions and sales. Razorfish, a top digital advertising agency, has begun to use templates for coupon-based promotions for a major U.S. retailer. According to Danny Huynh, Associate Search Director at Razorfish, "We see the display ad builder as a great creative sandbox, allowing us to us to quickly test and iterate with new ad formats and capabilities that simple text ads can't offer. The coupon templates in particular are allowing us to bring the messages from our customers' offline circulars, to the online world, at scale with Google's Content Network. We're planning to test display ad builder templates on an ongoing basis."

As with any of our other display ad templates, you can easily edit your ads on an ongoing basis, to change, for example, the discount level, prices, and any other customizable aspect of the ad. Here's a preview of the new templates, which can be created in several sizes:

To access these new templates, choose the "Display ad builder" ad format option within any ad group and choose the "Retail" category to find the coupon templates. You'll also be able to view our new seasonal templates for spring and Mother's Day within the display ad builder section of your account. And if you're having trouble finding the display ad builder, this video will show you how to access it in your account.

Posted by Ryan Hayward, Product Marketing Manager

We're celebrating the one year birthday of the AdWords Agency Blog, and with this milestone come some changes. You may have noticed the new name for the blog, now called the Agency Ad Solutions Blog, to more fully represent the scope of topics that we cover. We've also updated the look and added new labels to help our agency readers identify the posts that are most relevant to them. 

We'll continue to post updates and tips about Google products, industry resources, and of course, AdWords information to help your knowledge stay sharp and help your campaigns continue to be effective. As always, we're eager to hear from you, so send us your thoughts at agencyblog-feedback@google.com.

Posted by The Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Not sure how to get started with developing and implementing a social media campaign? We can help quell your "social anxiety" in our upcoming webinar, Ready to Launch.

We'll cover how to start running an AdWords campaign focused on social media sites on Google's content network. We'll walk through campaign set up, site and audience targeting, demographic bidding, measurement, and optimization. Join us to explore these topics and learn how to get your next social media campaign ready for the world.

Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Time: 11am PDT/2pm EDT

Register here

Posted by Vivek Tata, Business Marketing Manager

Reaching the right audience is the goal of every ad campaign. This week we're announcing new capabilities planned for the Google content network that will help you achieve that goal. In addition to matching ads with the topic of a web page through contextual advertising, you will be able to reach users based on their interests, independent of the content they are currently reading.

Over the next few months we'll start offering interest-based advertising to a limited number of advertisers as part of a beta, and expand the offering later in 2009. If you would like to participate in the beta, please fill out this form.

With interest-based advertising, you will be able to reach users based on your past interactions with them, such as their visits to your website. We'll also provide interest categories, such as "sports enthusiasts," so you can reach the audience of your choice. Whether your goal is to drive brand awareness or increase responses to your ads, these capabilities can help expand the success of your campaigns.

Users browsing the web will benefit from the additional relevancy that interest-based ads can provide. And by visiting the new Ads Preferences Manager, users can see what interest categories we think they fall into, or add and remove categories themselves. The Ads Preferences Manager can be found by clicking on most "Ads by Google" links you see on ads throughout the web.

You can read more about how interest-based advertising benefits the online ecosystem and about the new privacy tools developed for this launch in the Official Google Blog and the Google Public Policy Blog. To learn more about the details of interest-based advertising, please visit this AdWords FAQ.

We look forward to providing users with ads more closely tied to their interests and helping you to better reach your campaign goals at scale.

- Aitan Weinberg, Product Manager

[Note: this post has been reprinted from the Inside AdWords Blog]

Looking for ways to liven up your clients' accounts this spring? Check out the new Agency Toolkit: a one-stop shop for Google tools to help you plan, create, and measure your clients’ advertising campaigns. From Ad Planner and Hot Trends to the Search-based Keyword Tool and YouTube Insights, this site is packed with free tools that will make your job a little easier.

Posted by Chris Vennard, Katie Wasilenko, and Sara Bell, Agency Team

It's hard to believe that the spring gift-giving season is already upon us. With Mother's Day, Father's Day, and graduation season quickly approaching, it's time to plan ahead and adapt client strategy for upcoming opportunities and challenges. Join the Google Retail Marketing team for our webinar:

Spring Into Action: Online Marketing for Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Graduation

Tuesday, March 17th at 1pm EDT, 10am PDT - Register to attend

In this webinar, we'll discuss strategies retailers can take to get the most out of the spring gift-giving season, covering the following topics:

• Key retail category and search term trends around the spring gift-giving season
  
• Expected consumer behavior for Mother's Day, Father's Day, and graduation 2009
  
• Marketing best practices and trends to adapt to the changes of 2009
  
• Building and optimizing effective Mother's Day, Father's Day, and graduation campaigns

This webinar will run approximately 30 minutes, followed by a 15-minute Q&A session. We hope you can join us.

Posted by Eric Lopez, Retail Team

If you offer your clients website optimization or analytics services using Google Analytics, ensuring that your professional knowledge is up to date and easily recognizable is key to your success. With the launch of the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) program, you'll be able to improve and certify your fluency with Analytics. 

The Google Analytics IQ program consists of two parts: a free online course covering Google Analytics implementation and management, and a certification test that can be taken for $50. Once you pass the test, you'll be registered as Google Analytics qualified. Agencies can have their staff take the course to further their professional development and individuals may want to become certified to enhance their career credentials.  

You don't need to be associated with an agency or organization to take the course or test. For more information about the program or to get started, get your pencils ready and visit www.ConversionUniversity.com.

Posted by Jesse Nichols, Agency Team