With 2010 just around the corner, we've been thinking about what the new year might hold, and are feeling optimistic. We're hoping we can transition from working with you through the recession to working with you through a recovery. That's why we're launching the Think2010: Getting Ahead of the Recovery series. For the next few months, the Inside AdWords Blog will be devoting a weekly post to looking forward (with links on the Agency Ad Solutions Blog to let you know when a new post is live).
The series will highlight wisdom from Googlers and outsiders alike, and offer opportunities for deeper learning. Over the course of the series you'll see posts on innovation, experimentation, speed, and deeper customer connections -- themes we believe will be critical to 2010 success.
To kick off the series, on October 6th we'll be hosting the webinar “Using Data to Better Connect with Your Customers." Avinash Kaushik will discuss core data sources to have in your 2010 targeting toolkit, and highlight how free tools like Google Trends for Websites, Insights for Search, and Ad Planner can help you be more efficient and confidently make decisions to maximize your return-on-investment.
When: Tuesday, October 6th, 10amPST / 12pmCST / 1pmEST
You may have heard that we've updated the Keyword and Placement Tools to include more features that will hopefully help make managing your clients' campaigns easier. These updates are still in beta so we're rolling them out to all AdWords accounts in English and other languages over the coming weeks. Keep an eye on your clients' accounts, and if you see these tools available, give them a try. If you have feedback, we're all ears, so let us know what you think using the Send Feedback link in your client's account.
The updated Keyword Tool now allows you to get keyword suggestions based on the keywords you enter as well as website content and user searches. You can also see various keyword match types at once to compare their predicted metrics in one place.
The updated Placement Tool makes it easier to search for placements that match specific criteria, such as image placements on youtube.com that are in the Entertainment category. The Advanced Options section allows you to further filter by country, language, impressions per day, included ad sizes, and demographic options.
Both tools will be available via the Tools tab in your client's account. If you don't see them yet, check out the screenshots on the Inside AdWords blog.
On day 1 of Advertising Week, we put Andy Berndt, Managing Director of Google Creative Lab, and Tom Uglow, King of Crayon (ok, he's a Creative Lead in the Lab) on stage to present 87 cool things. There were a lot of slides, as well as some serious fast talking. Here's a taste of what we heard.
Andy reminded the audience to think about Google when you are creating experiences, when you want people to experience those experiences, and when you are thinking of both simultaneously. Most importantly, he reminded everyone to experiment often, be creative, try new things, and don't be afraid to fail. From Google Maps and YouTube Annotations, to Insights for Search and a wide array of APIs, it's easier than ever to play with inventive marketing ideas - think of these tools and platforms as your blank canvas, and have fun.
Many of the experiments in 87 cool things highlighted mashups, interactivity, unique data usage, and the fusion of virtual worlds and reality. These innovative campaigns, projects, and even accidents can encourage us to expand our imaginations, think beyond our expectations and consider the impossible. Did you ever think Ohio could be a piano? Or that you would analyze your daily food consumption, and catalog it by cuisine? Or that an engaging and informative website could live entirely on YouTube? We sure didn't.
For the complete presentation, check out the deck or the podcast.
As Andy and Tom said, "the future is a glorious mess." And boy, are we excited to see what you'll come up with next.
To help our advertisers and agency partners stay current on the digital landscape, we partnered with The Wharton School to launch Fast.Forward., a YouTube channel full of content from leading industry experts such as Martin Nisenholtz, the Senior Vice President of Digital Operations at the New York Times, and Nancy Hill (CEO) and Mike Donohue (SVP) from the American Association of Advertising Agencies.
Today, September 22nd, marks the start of fall, which means we're only 3 months away from the start of winter...and the winter holidays.
The Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team has another quick post to help you prepare your clients' accounts for the winter shopping season. This week we're featuring an oldie but goodie on driving in-store business with online marketing.
Earlier this year the Agency and Retail blog teams wrote about the success Pier 1 had using online marketing campaigns to increase in-store sales for select furniture lines. The client effectively used geographic targeting and the Google Content Network to improve sales and ROI for strategic DMAs, despite launching the campaign at the peak of the economic crisis.
How did the client achieve this success? The client recognized that the decision process is rarely made exclusively online or offline - users go back and forth between the Internet and stores to research, select, quality and purchase goods. Marketing efforts therefore needed to also be "non-line."[1] In addition, the client had a sound test design, including specific geographic targets and ROI goals, making it easy to measure impact and assess success.
Did you know that searches for "coupons" are up by as much as 95% year-over-year? Or that Google.com is highlighting TV and movie previews with our Video Plus Box product in the search results? Or even that "things to do" searches hit an all time high this summer?
We've just announced the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange. With this launch, your clients can now advertise on inventory in the Ad Exchange through the Google Content Network, offering them additional high-quality options for displaying their ads.
Read the full details on the Official Google Blog, and for more information on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, visit our Help Center.
If your clients use Local Business Listings on Google Maps to drive traffic to their brick and mortar locations, they're probably familiar with the verification process to ensure the accuracy of their listing. Clients with 10 or more business locations can upload their listings via bulk uploads, but in the past couldn't verify bulk uploaded listings. Until now.
Business owners can now verify bulk uploaded listings as well, provided that their bulk uploads satisfy the following requirements:
Accurate and up-to-date data
Minimum of 10 bulk uploaded listings already in business owners' Local Business Center account
All businesses have only been submitted by a single user
If your client's bulk uploads check out according to the above list, he or she can fill out this form to verify the listings. Remind your clients to update their bulk uploads whenever anything changes, as listings are periodically reviewed and will become unverified if we find they don't meet the requirements. For more information on the Local Business Center, check out our User Guide.
This month our Industry Marketing team will be hosting webinars targeting the Financial Services and Healthcare verticals.
Marketing to the U.S. Hispanic Market Online for Financial Services Advertisers
Recent studies show that the number of Hispanics in the United States will more than double by 2050 and represent nearly 25% of the population if present trends continue.1 Other studies have also indicated that US Hispanics are going online twice as fast as the general market2 and are more likely to purchase financial products online than offline.3
Join our presenters Gabriela Valdes and Amber Shapiro from Latin America Sales who will discuss:
Why US Hispanics represent a strong consumer segment during economic recovery
Best Practices for Financial Services Marketers targeting US Hispanics Online
How Google's US Hispanic team can help you create new revenue streams from this growing market segment
Date: Wednesday, September 23rd 11amPST / 1pmCST / 2pmEST Register here
Google's Treatment Centers Research Webinar
Now more than ever, consumers are coming online for health information. Not only are they using the internet to research, but they are also taking actions based on what information they find online. Do you have an online presence? Are you adapting your online strategies to meet your consumers needs?
In a recent study, Google explored how consumers use the internet to select treatment centers. This webinar will cover these findings and walk through best practices for digital marketing for a treatment center. The insights should help you best utilize the Internet and search in your marketing programs.
Date: Tuesday, September 29th 11amPST / 1pmCST / 2pmEST Event password: Google Register here
[1] US Census Bureau [2] comScore Press Release, April 16, 2009 [3] DoubleClick Performics, "Hispanics/Latinos and Search--Ten Product Categories," conducted with ROI Research, provided to eMarketer, August 19, 2008
Note from the Agency Ad Solutions blog team: We wanted to make sure you had a chance to view this video from the Inside AdWords blog on bidding strategies. While you likely have your own strategies well-practiced, this video provides a general overview to cover the basics. We hope you find it useful.
For today's Inside AdWords post we have a note from our Chief Economist at Google, Hal Varian. Hal and his team spend most of their time studying the AdWords auction and finding ways to make it more efficient. Today he'd like to share a new tutorial he and his team have put together on how to bid for maximum profitability on AdWords:
Last month we launched a new feature of AdWords called Bid Simulator. Bid Simulator takes some of the guess work out of cost per click (CPC) bidding by estimating the number of clicks or impressions you could have received if you had used a different maximum CPC bid. Today, I thought I would take the opportunity to help you make the most of this new feature by explaining how to use the data from Bid Simulator to maximize the profit from your marketing investment.
In general, when you increase your maximum CPC bid for keywords on search you are able to generate more clicks to your site. This may be because your new bid qualifies you to appear higher up in the Sponsored Links on the search results page, or because your higher bid qualifies your ad to appear in new, more expensive, auctions. The goal for you as an advertiser is to decide whether or not these additional clicks come at a cost that is still profitable for you.
To make this decision, you need to compare your expected value per click to your incremental cost per click. Your value per click is how much a click for a particular keyword is worth to you, on average. Your incremental cost per click is how much extra you are paying, on average, for the extra clicks you are getting from your higher bid. When your value per click is higher than your incremental cost per click it makes sense to increase your bid. On the other hand, if your value per click is lower than your incremental cost per click, you probably want to decrease your bid.
In the following video, I'll show you how to calculate these values, how to interpret them, and how to use the data to maximize the profit from your marketing investment. My team and I are always looking for ways to help make the AdWords auction easier to understand so if you have other topics that you'd like us to address, please leave a comment on the video and we may be able to make it a topic for a future video.
We've been co-hosting a webinar series with Effie Worldwide that explores award-winning campaigns (like Rolling Rock's and Stride's) that used video and social media to generate strong marketplace results. Today we invite you to register for the third installment in this four-part series, which will take place on September 30, 2009 at 11 am PT.
During the webinar, you'll hear from the agencies and marketers who executed three Effie Award-winning campaigns: Frito-Lay's VP of Marketing and the President of Juniper Park will discuss insights from their SunChips "Solar Launch" campaign; The Marketing Arm and AT&T will take us through the "World's Loudest Pep Rally"; and DDB Los Angeles's Director of Online and Digital will share lessons from Activision's "Call of Duty 4 World Leaders" campaign. The presenters for each of the three case studies will share how they came up with their ideas, brought them to life, and achieved results. As always, they'll be happy to take questions from the audience.
The entire series is free and open to the public. (You can register here.) We hope you will find it both educational and useful in thinking about your own clients and brands. You can also check out the Effie World Channel on YouTube, where an on-demand version will be posted. Last month's live broadcast is already available for replay.
Posted by Kristin Kovner, Industry Marketing Manager
From one side of the globe to the other, we've got Seminars for Success to help you sharpen your AdWords, Analytics, and Website Optimizer skills this autumn.
For those of you down under (or who've been bitten by the travel bug), we're offering Analytics Seminars in Canberra, Sydney, and Melbourne, Australia in September and October. If you're more of a local learner in the U.S., we'll have Analytics Seminars in New York in October. You also have options to join us for Seminars on all three topics in Columbus, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; and Berkeley, California this fall.
That's just a taste of the Seminars scheduled across the country, so be sure to check out the full schedule and registration details on our Seminars for Success page. We hope you can join us!
Haute couture and the glitterati are descending on NYC for fall fashion week, hoping to inspire consumers to "spend, spend, spend"1 on the debuting 2010 clothing lines.
You're probably thinking to yourselves, "Hey, that's what I want to do, as well. Inspire consumers to 'spend, spend, spend' on my clients' products." To help spur your imagination, our Agency Learning & Development Team will be putting on a series of webinars from September 14-18 to inspire your clients' display campaigns.
We'll be hosting new webinars on the Google Content Network, and YouTube, among other topics. Don't miss the kick off with 10 Tips for Display in 2010 on Monday, September 14th at 1pm CST. Other featured webinars include:
What's that? Is it the jingle of holiday bells and the smell of mincemeat pies? Probably not (more likely the ice cream truck and the next door neighbor's barbeque). However, before you know it, the holidays will be here and it is never too early to dig out the festive decorations and start planning seasonal campaigns with your clients.
To help you along, we will be regularly posting seasonally-focused resources and strategies through the next few months, starting with key dates:
1. Mark Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday on your calendars
Source: comScore Press Release, December 3, 2008
Instead of relaxing on the couch watching football games, customers are working off the Tryptophan by searching for early holiday deals. Their enthusiasm continues through the weekend to Cyber Monday, where they start the work week off with a round of e-retail therapy.
2. Don't Forget Green Monday
Source: comScore Press Release, December 21, 2008. Includes top 10 online spending days of 2008 holiday season through December 20th.
Also be sure to mark Green Monday on your calendar - typically seen as the last day for customers to order gifts online without having to pay for expedited shipping.
