Advertising with Google used to be all about four lines of text, on Google.com and on our partner sites. No longer. Did you know that, outside of ads alongside search results, more than 40 percent of the ads that we show are now non-text ads? And that doesn’t include the 45 billion ads that our DoubleClick advertising products serve every day across the web.
We get excited by display advertising for a number of reasons. First, we now know that we can use all the technology and expertise that we’ve developed in search and search advertising to improve display advertising for users, advertisers and publishers, right across the web. Second, helping advertisers and publishers to easily deliver the most engaging, relevant, creative and valuable ad contains the sort of huge technical challenge that we love. And third, great display advertising helps to fund great content on the web.
Display advertising has come a long way from the ugly banner ads and pop-ups of the mid 1990s, but there’s still huge improvements to come. Google's efforts are focused on three core areas: simplifying display advertising, delivering better performance and opening the display ecosystem.
Our single message about display advertising can be summed up in three words: “WATCH THIS SPACE.”
Check out our new website and take a look at this video to learn more about what's happening in display advertising at Google and what's to come.
Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management This is a partial cross post from the Official Google Blog
We recently launched the Google Certification Program and we’re glad that thousands of you all over the world have taken the new exams and joined the program. This certification program replaces the Google Advertising Professionals program. To provide you with time to make the transition, we’ve run both programs side by side during a six month grace period which ends in October. To retain certified status and continue using the badge within your marketing collateral, you’ll need to meet the requirements of the new program.
What’s the difference between the two programs? With the Google Certification Program, we’re offering updated learning materials written by Google experts. We’ve developed four in-depth exams on AdWords management called Fundamentals, Advanced Search, Advanced Display and Advanced Reporting & Analysis. The exams are designed to prove proficiency in these areas and are being widely adopted by employees of search marketing agencies. In addition to this, we launched Google Partner Search, a directory to help advertisers find agencies to manage their campaigns. Currently, all Google Advertising Professionals who have opted in are part of Google Partner Search, but this will not be the case by the end of October.
We’re informing all of you who have qualified under the old Google Advertising Professionals program to update to the Google Certification Program. In order to do so, a company must meet a minimum AdWords spend level, and have at least one employee become individually qualified under the Google Certification Program.
If you have an employee that already qualified under the old program, this is a great time for them to update their skills through the Google Certification Program. Upon completion, just update your company profile so that advertisers can find you using Google Partner Search.
To learn more about the Google Certification Program visit our Help Center.
Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team This is a cross post from the Agency Ad Solutions Blog
Over the past year, we’ve been focused on investing in display advertising, and we’ve seen great momentum from the increasing number of you running display campaigns with Google. We’ve rolled out new features and targeting options and more precise measurement tools. To provide more places for you to run display ads, we’ve added more publisher sites (through Google AdSense and DoubleClick Ad Exchange) to our ad network of over one million sites. Meanwhile, many of you have continued to run ads on YouTube and our own properties. In an effort to make our display media offerings clearer to advertisers like you and agencies, we’re creating a new umbrella name for all these properties, the Google Display Network.
The Google Display Network will comprise all of the sites (apart from search sites), where you can buy ads through Google, including YouTube, Google properties such as Google Finance, Gmail, Google Maps, Blogger as well as over one million Web, video, gaming, and mobile display partners (our display partners include all of our AdSense and DoubleClick Ad Exchange partner sites that allow text and/or display ads). The Google Display Network offers all ad formats - text, image, rich media, and video ads - enabling you to unleash your creativity and engage potential customers across the Web.
You can run ads on the Google Display Network the same way you always have. Either place bids through AdWords or make reservations on YouTube with the help of a Google account team.
In the upcoming weeks, you’ll see a change in the AdWords interface reflecting this new term, and you’ll see Google Display Network where you might have seen Google Content Network mentioned. We’ve also launched a new website showcasing the sites and benefits available to you on the Google Display Network.
We’re working hard to offer the best display advertising solutions and we look forward to introducing new features on the Google Display Network that help you reach your advertising goals.
Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management This is a cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog
We are often asked about how to maximise the ROI from Google Display Network campaigns. What type of targeting should you use? How many keywords and ad groups should you have? How can you develop effective creatives?
We have developed a set of best practices to answer some of these questions for you. Recently introduced as part of a new initiative called Optimisation University in the US, these are now available to everyone through a series of 6 videos and the Getting Started guide. The guide and videos provide a conceptual walk-through and product demos of major steps in executing a Display Network campaign.
Along with simple tips and tricks to improve ROI, we also go over several tools, such as Wonder Wheel, Keyword Tool and Conversion Tracking, that help you be more efficient in creating and optimising Display Network campaigns. The recommendations are based on our analysis of thousands of campaigns to better understand what works and what doesn't. They are easy enough for you to start applying them to your campaigns today.
If you're starting a new Display Network campaign, watch the first video below.
Google Display Network campaigns differ from Search campaigns in how they're set up, optimised, and tracked. If you've been interested in advertising on the Display Network but aren't sure how to get started, we now have a step-by-step Getting Started Guide to help you hit the ground running. You can think of it as a do-it-yourself instruction manual for how to best structure, optimise, and track your Google Display Network campaigns.
Not sure how to create an effective content campaign? You can refer to the campaign, ad group, and ad sections to find tips for optimal account structure.
Not sure what's working well? You can use the optimisation section to determine which of your ads are performing well and which you should edit or delete. You can also take further control of your campaigns by learning how to select where your ads are shown and how to exclude certain sites and keywords.
Not sure how much to bid? Use the guide to learn more about how bidding works on the Google Display Network. You can also get tips to refine your bids and improve your performance.
Don't forget to check out our Display Network microsite for even more information on Display campaigns, including details on available ad formats and a list of some of the websites we partner with to show your ads.
Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team This is a partial cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog
Earlier this year we released a great tool called the Display Ad Builder, which allows AdWords users to create free display ads for their businesses. You can browse through over 40 professionally-designed templates and choose the ones most suited to you and your clients. Then it's a matter of simply changing the text, adding a logo or graphic, and you're ready to run your ads on the Google Display Network, which includes over 1 million sites reaching over 75% of unique internet users (comScore MediaMetrix, March 2009) in more than 20 languages and over 100 countries.
We're pleased to announce a timely addition to the Display Ad Builder template library - seasonal templates, which you can see below. You can check out these four new holiday templates in your AdWords account today - in the "Ad Variations" tab.
Check out this video tutorial on Display Ad Builder, and start making ads! You can find the new templates in the "Seasonal" category of the Display Ad Builder gallery.
Posted by Christine Knight, AdWords Optimisation Team
To help you better measure the value of your display advertising campaigns, we're announcing a new feature called View-through conversion reporting on the Google Display Network.
Display ads are influential in increasing brand awareness and driving purchase consideration, and with View-through conversion reporting, you can better measure the impact of your display ad campaign for those instances where your ad is seen, but not immediately clicked on. More specifically, View-through conversion reporting measures the number of conversions that occurred within 30 days of your display ad appearing for which there was no ad click generated.
By using View-through conversion reporting, you can more easily compare the performance of your Google Display Network campaign with the performance of your other display advertising campaigns. This feature can also help you determine the best ways and places to advertise, how best to optimise your display ad campaigns, and, ultimately, how to spend your advertising dollars more effectively.
Here is an example of how View-through conversion reporting works: Let's say you're selling pet food online and you're measuring conversions on your site's email newsletter sign-up and your shopping cart "Thank You" pages. If a user sees your display ad, does not click on it but then visits your site within the next 30 days to sign-up to receive your email newsletter and to purchase a couple dozen cans of organic cat food, you'll see two View-through conversions reported on your Campaigns tab in AdWords.
Starting today, you can also visit the Campaigns tab in AdWords and activate the optional View-through conversion reporting column. You'll need to have AdWords Conversion Tracking installed for View-through conversion reporting to work for your campaigns.
To learn more about View-through conversion reporting on the Google Content Network, you can visit the Help Center. We hope this feature will provide you with better information about your campaigns and help you get the most out of your display advertising campaigns.
Posted by Jeremy Wood, Product Specialist Team This is a partial cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog
Have you ever tried to optimise your campaigns for various Google properties in the Display Network? In the past, you weren't able to see data for sites such as Google Finance or Gmail. Rather, it was bundled together as "google.com" in your Placement Performance Report (PPR).
We are excited to announce that you will now be able to view subdomains for Google properties at domain level PPRs or in the "automatic placements" on the Networks tab of your AdWords account. To give you a sense of what this will look like, clicks from Gmail will appear as mail.google.com and clicks from Google Finance will appear as finance.google.com. This will give you more transparency as to where your ads are appearing, making it easier to manage your site bids and providing greater ability to optimise your campaigns across the Google Display Network. Take a look at this video on how to use the Performance Placement report to improve the performance of your Content campaigns. Happy Optimising!
