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New features in Website Optimizer

Published on 08/19/2008 at 03:34 PM

Today, at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, CA, the Website Optimizer team announced the launch of several highly requested product updates. For those unfamiliar with Website Optimizer, it's Google's free content testing and optimization tool. It allows you to test different variations of your site content to determine what will be most effective at getting you the results you want from your site. Website Optimizer's offering has now expanded to include:

Experiment Pruning: This new feature allows you to disable one or more combinations from taking part in your Website Optimizer experiments. Pruning can help you achieve faster, more meaningful results by allowing you to remove poorly performing or illogical combinations. This is especially helpful in cases where your experiment may have too many combinations relative to the amount of traffic it receives.
A/B Offline Validation: If your test or goal pages aren't accessible to Website Optimizer then no worries. You'll now be able to just upload a copy of your tagged page and Website Optimizer will make sure that everything is tagged properly.
More Intuitive Reporting: We've enhanced our reports to more clearly show how your combinations are performing, and to better indicate when we've found one or more high-confidence winning combinations. This will help prevent you from drawing false conclusions from results or from ending experiments prematurely.

(Click the image for a full-size version)

If you're unfamiliar with Website Optimizer, we've developed some great new videos for you. These include a new product tour, A/B experiment demo, and multivariate experiment demo. You'll see how quick and easy it is to create Website Optimizer tests in just minutes. You can always find these and all of our other tutorials on the videos page of the Website Optimizer microsite.

We hope you'll enjoy these updates. Remember, you can always find out the latest product news and industry insights straight from the Website Optimizer team by visiting the Website Optimizer blog.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

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Introducing the AdWords 101, 201, and 301 Seminar series

Published on 08/18/2008 at 04:04 PM

Due to the success of the AdWords Seminars program, we’ve recently added a third level which builds upon the two existing AdWords Seminar levels. To help our attendees find the right session(s) that will best meet their need, we’ve renamed the sessions as AdWords 101, 201, and 301. These new sessions will be held in various cities over the rest of 2008, including Houston, New York City area, Atlanta and Charlotte, NC in the upcoming months.

Currently there are three different levels of AdWords Seminars:

AdWords 101: Beginner - This introductory session is designed for those new to managing an AdWords account. Topics covered include navigating your account, creating a campaign, measuring results, and an introduction to optimization.

AdWords 201: Intermediate - AdWords 201 builds upon the material learned in 101, and dives deeper into tools such as the AdWords Editor, My Client Center, and Website Optimizer. Additionally, bidding options, ad copy best practices, and Google Analytics are discussed in greater detail.

AdWords 301: Advanced - The 301 session is recommended for advertisers who already understand the basic fundamentals of advertising on AdWords. Topics include campaign best practices, advanced optimization techniques, and split testing. There is also a deep dive into the Content Network and advanced bidding strategies.

You'll find more information about these seminars, including dates, course outlines, and registration instructions at http://www.google.com/awseminars. And of course, if you'd like to be informed when AdWords Seminars become available in your area, simply fill out this form.

Posted by Vivian Leung, Inside AdWords crew

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New features coming to the Google content network

Published on 08/07/2008 at 12:18 PM

We’re happy to announce that we'll soon be enabling a number of new features made possible by a new DoubleClick ad serving cookie on our content network. All advertisers will soon be able to take advantage of features like frequency capping, better reach and frequency reporting, and view-through conversions.

Many of these features will be launching over the next few months. You can read more about these on the Official Google Blog.

We also have an updated program policy that covers data usage related to the launch of these new features.

We hope these features will help you meet your ROI goals by concentrating your ad impressions on the best inventory at the most relevant time and by helping you more effectively manage your campaigns on the Google content network. We're excited about delivering these enhancements while preserving user privacy, and we'll be sure to provide you more info on all of these features as we begin to roll them out in the next few months.

Update 8/7/2008: Link to program policy updated

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

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AdWords system maintenance on August 9th

Published on 08/06/2008 at 02:48 PM

On Saturday, August 9th, 2008 the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT, for maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT.

We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but please make note of the August 9th date and our scheduled maintenance further down the road.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

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Announcing Google Insights for Search

Published on 08/05/2008 at 09:02 PM

In June, we updated Google Trends with numbers and the ability to download results to a spreadsheet. We received a lot of great feedback from agencies and advertisers on how they're using the new version; from identifying new growth markets to optimizing their Google AdWords campaigns.

We have Elan Dekel and Niv Efron to tell us about a new tool for fans of Google Trends:

Today, we're launching Google Insights for Search, a new product designed with the advertiser in mind. It provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphically display search volume and regional interest.

Like Google Trends, you can just type in a search term to see search volume patterns over time, as well as the top related and rising searches. You’ll also have the ability to compare search volume trends across multiple search terms, categories (commonly referred to as verticals), geographic regions, or specific time ranges.

Let's take the example of entering the term apple. You'll notice that the majority of top related and rising searches are associated with the brand Apple.

(Click the image for a full-size version)

Google Insights for Search allows you to filter this query by the Food & Drink category, resulting in a dramatically different view of search volume trends and related searches of apple, the fruit. You can also use this filter to compare search terms with the category (for example, apple compared to the Food & Drink category).

(Click the image for a full-size version)

This is just an example to get your ideas flowing. If you love Trends, we hope you’ll fall in love all over again with Google Insights for Search.

You can get started at the Google Insights for Search homepage, and, just a note, you'll need to sign into your Google account to see numbers or download results to a spreadsheet. You can also take a look at more examples of how you can use Google Insights for Search. As always, we love to hear your feedback about the tool and the insights you discover.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

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(Ad)Word of the Day: Keyword Insertion

Published on 07/30/2008 at 05:24 PM

For today's installment of (Ad)Word of the Day, we're looking at keyword insertion from the AdWords Glossary:

Keyword insertion is an advanced feature used to dynamically update your ad text with your chosen keywords. You insert a special modification tag into your ad text to enable this feature for your ads.

Keyword insertion is a powerful feature that can save you time and also help make your ad text more relevant. This feature will automatically customize your ad to a user's query, which means your ad is more likely to attract a user's attention. And, since ad text that matches a user's search terms is shown in bold, your ads will stand out even more.

Even with these benefits, keyword insertion shouldn't be used all the time. We recommend reading this article and going through this tutorial before you start using keyword insertion.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

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Common questions: Impressions past page 1

Published on 07/29/2008 at 05:26 PM

From time to time we like to address common questions that many of our advertisers have. Here's a frequent one about how ad impressions are calculated:

Q: If my ad appears on the third page of a search result, does it count as an impression if a user does not go to the third page of search results?

A: No; impressions are only counted when a user visits a page that the ad appears on.

For more information about impressions and other important terms, check out our Help Center.

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

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(Ad)Word of the Day: Conversion

Published on 07/24/2008 at 01:17 PM

We all know the importance of measuring the impact of your ad campaigns. That's why, today, we're discussing the term conversion from the AdWords Glossary, which is defined as follows:

When a user completes an action on your site, such as buying something or requesting more information.

In AdWords, a conversion occurs when a user clicks on your ad, then proceeds to complete an action on your web site that you deem valuable, like a purchase, registration, or sign-up. You can track actions like this on your web site by using one (or both) of the tools we offer:

Conversion tracking: A tool for measuring conversion metrics for your campaigns.
Google Analytics: A more robust tool that tracks not just conversions, but also gives insight into how your web site visitors found your site, how they navigated through it and how you can improve their user experience -- all things that ultimately help you improve the ROI of your web site.

Both conversion tracking and Google Analytics are free tools and are great ways of ensuring advertising accountability and making smarter online advertising decisions.

Learn more about setting up conversion tracking for your AdWords ads, and signing up for Google Analytics.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

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Summer school's in session with Google AdWords

Published on 07/23/2008 at 05:04 PM

This summer, we're offering a number of webinars covering a broad range of topics -- if you're interested in learning inside tips about Google AdWords, check out our webinar calendar. Topics range from getting started with AdWords and improving ROI, to learning how to track the effectiveness of your campaigns, so there's truly something for everyone. You can register using the links provided on the AdWords Events Calendar page.

We're also offering a special webinar on July 30 and July 31, 2008 to help retailers prepare for this fall's back-to-school rush. This special session will highlight industry trends, profile key demographics of your target audience, and provide tips to reach top influencers so you can make the most of this busy shopping season. Our back-to-school webinar will begin at 10AM PDT on both days, and will last an hour. The same material is covered both days, so pick the time that's most convenient for you.

July 30, 10:00AM PDT: Register
July 31, 10:00AM PDT: Register

Space in all our webinars is limited, so register today! We look forward to seeing you in class.

Posted by Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew

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AdWords Editor service release for Windows and Mac

Published on 07/18/2008 at 11:01 AM

Today we released version 6.0.1 of AdWords Editor. In response to user feedback, it's now possible to download performance statistics for selected campaigns and ad groups, instead of always downloading statistics for the whole account. Once you've installed version 6.0.1, you'll be able to download selected statistics by following these instructions.

Unlike our last release, this update won't affect your comments or unposted changes. As a result:

- You don't need to export an archive of your account. In the auto-update prompt, choose the 'Update without Backup' option.
- After you upgrade, your account will already be in the new version. You won't need to download your account again.

If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically. You can also visit our website and click 'Download AdWords Editor.'

For more information about AdWords Editor, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

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Use keywords and placements together on the content network

Published on 07/21/2008 at 12:26 PM

When you use keywords in your ad groups to contextually target your ads, we match them to relevant pages across the hundreds of thousands of sites on the Google content network. But have you ever wanted to bid more (or less) for a specific content network site you're contextually targeting? Or write customized ad text for a precise group of pages, such as news articles or relevant discussions on social networks? Now you can.

We've combined keyword-targeted and placement-targeted campaigns into a single online campaign type. Starting today, you can target keywords and placements together in the same ad group. By doing so, you combine the benefits of contextual targeting with placement targeting: use keywords to show your ads only on contextually relevant pages, then use placements to set specific bids for, or restrict your targeting to, sites you value differently from the rest of the content network.

Here are two ways you might use these new content network controls:

Set custom bids for specific placements. Let's say you're selling laptops, and you're using the content network to advertise on pages relevant to the keywords 'laptops,' 'laptop computers,' and 'laptop accessories.' After checking your Placement Performance report, you see that you're getting sales at a great ROI from three technology review sites. You also see a few sites where you're getting sales, but your costs are too high to advertise effectively on them.

If you currently have a $1.00 bid for the content network as a whole in this ad group, you can now add the high- and low-performing sites as placements into your ad group with custom bids. For example, you might set a $2.00 Max CPC for the three high-performing sites, and a $0.50 Max CPC for the low-performing ones. Meanwhile, you're still using the keywords in your ad group to target relevant pages across the content network, but now you've adjusting bids for the sites in the network that perform better or worse than average.
Show your ad only when both keywords and placements match. Suppose you check your Placement Performance report again and see that your laptop ads are showing often on sites that discuss how to make laptops more energy efficient. You know that you sell some of the most energy efficient laptops available, and you'd like to write an ad that highlights the power-saving benefits of your products. But you don't want to show this ad on pages whose readers aren't as concerned about energy conservation.

Now you can create an ad group containing the same 'laptop' keywords you've been using and add each of the energy efficiency sites as placements. Next, change your campaign settings so that your ads show only on the sites you've added, and only when their pages are relevant to your keywords. This gives you the freedom to write an ad highlighting the energy-saving benefits of your laptops to this unique audience, since you know that your ad will appear only on relevant pages on the placements you've selected.

This new feature affects your ads on the content network only, and it's entirely optional. You can do nothing and your existing campaigns will continue running just as they have. But by using keywords and placements together, you can get better control over ad placement and pricing on the content network to help you meet your ROI objectives.

To learn the ins and outs of the feature and and get started, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

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Content network video series on the Google Business YouTube channel

Published on 08/07/2008 at 04:29 PM

Earlier this year, we launched the Google Business Channel, a YouTube channel that brings you the latest on AdWords and Google's other business solutions, in video format.

And as part of the Advertiser Education Series on the channel, we've just added three videos that cover various aspects of the Google content network. This series is meant to help our advertisers learn about, and succeed with, advertising on this platform:

Part I: Introduction to the content network - Learn about the benefits of advertising on the content network, including an overview of key tools and features to help you succeed.

Part II: Optimizing campaigns for the content network - Learn strategies to optimize your content campaigns for maximum performance.

Part III: Demographic bidding on the content network - Learn how you can reach an audience based on their gender and age on social networking sites in the content network.

We hope you'll find these video lessons to be engaging and helpful with your advertising efforts on the content network. You can learn more about the content network on our microsite.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

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AdWords System Maintenance on July 19th

Published on 07/16/2008 at 10:13 PM

On Saturday, July 19th, 2008 the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. PDT, for maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT, with this week being an exception.

We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but please make note of the July 19th date and our scheduled maintenance further down the road.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

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AdWords system maintenance on July 12th

Published on 07/09/2008 at 05:55 PM

On Saturday, July 12th, 2008 the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT, for maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month during the above times.

We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but please make note of the July 12th date and our scheduled maintenance further down the road.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

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Keyword Tool updated with search volume data

Published on 07/08/2008 at 10:55 PM

Based on advertiser feedback, and our commitment to provide useful tools and information for our advertisers, we've now added search volume data to the Keyword Tool. Now, when you use the Keyword Tool to search for relevant keywords to include in your keyword list, you'll be able to see the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network. These approximate numbers are intended to provide better insight into keywords' monthly and average search volumes than previously provided by the tool.

Here's a screenshot of the updated Keyword Tool:

(Click the image for a full-size version)

You can view the new statistics by looking at the Keyword Tool's Approx Search Volume columns. Search volume data can be useful to you in several ways, including:

Account structure: You may want to create a new ad group around high-traffic keywords that you find particularly relevant. Closely target ad text and a specific landing page to the small, narrowly-focused set of similar keywords you've found through the Keyword Tool.
Budget planning: See how much traffic is available to your keywords so you can better plan your budget.
Keyword choice: Search for and select the relevant keywords most likely to return quality leads within your budget.

Remember, the Keyword Tool also provides several other keyword-related metrics that can help you select highly relevant keywords to improve the overall performance of your campaigns. You can easily view data on advertiser competition, search volume trends, estimated average CPCs, and estimated ad positions for keywords.

To learn more about using the Keyword Tool, please see this article from the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

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