We are introducing several new features that integrate DoubleClick Ad Planner data with other Google advertising products such as AdWords. These features help advertisers streamline the process of planning online campaigns and make better informed media planning decisions based on the latest Ad Planner data.

Exporting Google Display Network Placements to AdWords
Many Ad Planner users are also AdWords users, and one of their most frequently requested features is a simple and easy way to buy Google Display Network placements through Ad Planner. The newly launched Export to AdWords feature helps advertisers do just that. Advertisers can now export Google Display Network placements from Ad Planner into AdWords. These exported placements will show up as a new campaign or ad group within AdWords.

For advertisers running text ads or display ads on the Google Display Network, this new feature provides an easy way to build media plans and translate the audience research data in Ad Planner into effective AdWords placements.

Creating Lists in Ad Planner
To help you create your own list of favorite sites to save and add to your media plans, we also recently launched “Lists” in Ad Planner. With “Lists”, you can store sites and placements in lists to use in future media plans.

Our goal with these recent updates is to deliver advertisers tools to make smarter planning and more informed advertising decisions. Please visit www.google.com/adplanner to check out our new features!

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a partial cross post from the Agency Ad Solutions Blog

Advertisers can now build media plans to reach audiences with interests relevant to their campaigns using DoubleClick Ad Planner. Audience interests represent the aggregate interests of visitors to any given website. Previously, to plan an ad campaign for a pet product, advertisers would look for sites with content about pets for their media plan. While this may be an appropriate proxy, it also may overlook some great sites, since when people are interested in a topic, they don’t only visit sites about that topic. Audience interests in Ad Planner helps advertisers find a wider range of sites for their media plan without compromising their ability to reach the right audience. With this release, the top ten audience interests for each site are now listed on the profile page for each of the millions of sites profiled in Ad Planner.

With the “Search by audience” tab in Ad Planner, selecting the “Pets” interest will reveal a list of sites that have a high affinity with audiences interested in pets. While some of the sites will be about pets, many additional sites will be about other topics. Take the screenshot below, which is from the Ad Planner profile for a site about politics. Although the site is not about pets, it scores a high (36.9x) affinity with audiences who are interested in pets, which means visitors to this site are 36.9 times more likely to be interested in pets than the average Internet population. A category filter on pets would never locate this site, but an interests search on pets would.



Audience interests gives advertisers a new tool for selecting the best sites for their media plans. To learn more about how we generate the data for audience interests, please refer to our methodology document. To try out the new audience interests features, visit www.google.com/adplanner.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a partial cross post from the Agency Ad Solutions Blog

The mission of DoubleClick Ad Planner, Google's free research and media planning tool formerly named Google Ad Planner, is to provide the deepest, most accurate insight into online audiences possible. This insight helps advertisers and agencies select the best sites for their media plans and drive results for their campaigns. In recent months, we've been investing significantly in better site data and new features for DoubleClick Ad Planner.

To further our commitment to provide reliable data in DoubleClick Ad Planner, we have submitted it for accreditation by the Media Rating Council (MRC), an advertising industry group that works to accredit audience measurement services that are valid, reliable, and effective. As part of the MRC audit, we're sharing more details about our data sources and methodology. Once complete, the MRC accreditation will provide independent confirmation that Ad Planner's methodologies, and the processes supporting this technology, adhere to industry standards.

As part of the MRC audit, we're sharing more details about our data sources and methodology. For our traffic measurement, Ad Planner uses a hybrid measurement methodology that combines direct-measured site traffic, through Google Analytics data that publishers have chosen to opt in to provide us, and sample aggregated data from Google products and services. We currently have over 10,000 sites that are contributing direct measured opt-in data to Ad Planner. Our sample data comes from a variety of sources including anonymized, aggregated Google Toolbar data from users who have opted in to enhanced features, opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in external consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. All of this data is aggregated over millions of users and is powered by computer algorithms. The breadth and reliability of this aggregated data means that our traffic measurements are among the most accurate in the industry.

To learn more about Ad Planner's data, we invite you to read our recently updated methodology document. To start using Ad Planner, visit us at www.google.com/adplanner

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a partial cross post from the Doubleclick Advertisers Blog