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The AdWords Help community has really grown since we last posted about them -- with more than 7790 members as of a few minutes ago.

AdWords Help members are a straightforward bunch, and have been known to ask some rather blunt questions. Today, we'd like to briefly answer one such question, quoted verbatim below, though excerpted from a longer message:

So, here's my question...Has anybody heard of Google artificially inflating hits by having someone in their office click on their AdWords client links to improve the click through (and make themselves money)?

The AdWords team does in fact click on AdWords ads, for a variety of reasons, but primarily during the ad review process in which we check that the Destination URL is functional, that the back button works, etc. However, Google does not charge advertisers for these clicks.

To go into a little more detail: any and all clicks and/or impressions that originate from the Google team are automatically filtered out of advertiser accounts, and do not become a part of an account's statistics (or reports of those statistics). This means that neither impressions nor clicks made by Google folks will impact an advertiser's clickthrough rate (CTR) and, as mentioned, advertisers will never be charged for any clicks made by our team.

We hope this information will set a few minds at ease and, perhaps, inspire you to visit AdWords Help (on Google Groups) every so often. You're likely to find it both interesting and informative.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Alas, our video ads series comes to a close today. In this final installment, Bismarck provides some quick tips to help you set up your video ad campaign.

Running a successful video ad campaign isn’t just about creating engaging ads; your campaign settings are also crucial. Below are four tips to keep in mind when designing your campaign:

• Geo-Targeting: When you set your language and location settings, focus your advertising to regions or areas where you conduct business.

• Selecting Sites: If you’re using site targeting, use the site tool to select sites that are of interest to your audience. If there is a specific demographic that you’re trying to reach, use demographic site selection to find the right sites.

• Selecting Keywords: If you’re running a keyword-targeted campaign, it is important that you have tightly formed AdGroups; make sure that all of the keywords in an AdGroup revolve around a specific theme or topic.

• Bidding: Bid appropriately. Manage to cost-per-play goals: set the maximum you would like to pay per impression, but optimize to achieve target cost-per-play and audience reach goals.

Thanks for joining us for this three part series - we hope you've found it helpful. You can find additional information on video ads and the content network online, or send us an email and we may just answer your question on the blog.

Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew

The Report Center team is happy to announce the arrival of a frequently requested feature – weekly reports. The new weekly report view aggregates your report data on a weekly basis, making it easy for you to see how your account, campaigns, Ad Groups, ads, keywords, or URLs performed each week. Since the "start day" of a week can vary depending on individual needs, you can define your week (e.g. Mon. to Sun. or Wed. to Tue.) when creating a weekly report.

When daily data is too specific and monthly data too broad, weekly may be just right – check it out in the Report Center today.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

Now that summer has drawn to a close, it's time to get back into the classroom and learn more about the basics of AdWords. In our last AdWords 101 post before the summer, we discussed how to set up a keyword-targeted campaign. Today, we'll finish up this two-part post by discussing how to set up a site-targeted campaign. To begin let's first explore how keyword-targeted campaigns are different from site-targeted ones; the most important differences include how the ads are targeted, where your ads appear, how you are charged for the ads, and which ad types can be used.

With site-targeted campaigns, you choose specific sites, not keywords, where you would like your ads to appear. Ads will only appear on sites within the Google content network, and not on Google.com or Google's search network. In addition, site-targeted campaigns are priced by CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) -- that is, you set the price you'd like to pay for each 1,000 impressions the ad receives. Clicks do not factor into the price you pay; you will be charged whenever the ad is shown to a user.

How do you know if a site-targeted campaign is right for you? Site-targeted campaigns can be a good option for businesses that want to promote an existing brand or a new product to a large audience. But they also work for small advertisers who want to reach a very precise audience; for example, if you sell fishing gear, you may want to target your ads specifically to sites that fishing enthusiasts visit frequently. The best way to gauge if site targeting is right for you is to set up a campaign and experiment to see what works best.



To get started with a site-targeted campaign, click the "site-targeted" link next to "Create a new campaign" on your Campaign Summary page. The setup wizard will then run you through each step to creating your site-targeted campaign; here are a few tips:

1) You'll find that the first few steps in the setup wizard are almost identical to those of the keyword-targeted campaign setup process. As with keyword-targeted campaigns, you'll want to choose a descriptive title so that you can locate it easily in your list of campaigns.

2) When asked about your language and location targeting preferences, be sure to consider where your potential customers are located, and what language(s) they may speak. If your product or service is only available to customers in a specific geographical location, you may want to target your ads to users in that location only. (Even though you're targeting a specific site, we'll only show your ad on this site to users in your specified location).

3) With site-targeted campaigns, you also have the option of creating an image ad. Image ads can be created in a variety of standard sizes, and you can read more on the specifics of image ad guidelines and requirements. (Note: Video ads have a separate setup process, which is outlined here.)

4) The next screen takes you to the Site Tool. You have a variety of options when it comes to choosing the actual sites for your campaigns:

• Browse categories - you can browse categories such as "Beauty and Personal Care" or "Health" to select specific sites from a list generated by Google


• Describe topics - you can enter specific terms such as "organic hair care products" or "diabetes" to see a list of sites that are related to those topics


• List URLs - if you have specific websites in mind, you can enter them here to find out if they are available on the Google Network to display your ads


• Select demographics - you can choose to target a specific demographic audience, or you can choose options such as gender, age, household income and ethnicity. This option is only available for campaigns targeting the US.
  

When the list of suggested sites is displayed, you can click to add individual sites or all of the suggested sites to your list of selected sites shown on the right hand side.

5) The "Set Pricing" step will review the list of sites you've selected, and indicate which sites will accept text ads, image ads, or both. This is also where you'll be able to select your daily budget for this campaign, and specify your max CPM. Recall that site-targeted campaigns are priced per-thousand impressions, and not per click.

6) After choosing your budget and max CPM, you'll be taken to a review page so that you can confirm all of your campaign setup selections. Hit "Save Campaign" at the bottom.

7) Please be aware that your site-targeted campaigns, which show only on the content network, must be reviewed and approved before they will begin running.

Here are some additional topics in the AdWords Help Center that you may find useful:

• What is Site Targeting?
• Site Targeting Overview
• About the Content Network
• Image Ads Overview
• Video Ads Overview

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

This just in, straight from our tech team:

On Saturday, September 23rd, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT due to system maintenance. While you won't be able to log into your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew

Last week, we covered what it takes to develop a rich and engaging video ad. Now, in the second of three posts, Bismarck returns to talk about the types of metrics that can be tracked and optimized in order to maximize success.

Since Google AdWords allows for real-time ad reporting and optimization, we want to make sure that you take advantage of the flexibility to improve your ads and media mix -- and get more out of your advertising campaigns.

Here are several things that you may want to consider while managing your account:

• Watch that play rate: If you find that your play rates start falling off, it probably means that the same users are seeing your opening image and don’t want to rewatch your video. If this is the case, try adding new video ads to your campaigns. If producing new video ads is not possible, then at least consider alternating between new opening images. You can also extend the reach of your campaign by either adding more sites with site targeting or new keywords that we can use to target your ads contextually.

• Bid for Impressions: When you bid on a CPC (cost-per-click) basis, our technology tries to maximize the number of clickthroughs you’ll receive. If your ad fully conveys your message without requiring the user to click through to your site, this could lower your overall quality score and in turn signal our system to not serve your ad. With CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) bidding, you assign a value to a user seeing your ad – our system then optimizes delivery in order to show the ad to more people. CPM bidding helps you maximize your exposure across sites in the Google content network.

• Exclude irrelevant placements: By using negative keywords and the site exclusion tool you can block your ads from showing up alongside content that may not fit with your specific marketing objectives.

• Focus on playback metrics: You probably want to increase the total amount of time that your audience spends engaging with your brand. By maximizing the duration and number of plays your video ads receive, you can achieve this goal. CTR (clickthrough rates) are important, but you shouldn’t weed out placements or sites based solely on an ad’s clickthrough rate.

Be sure to tune in next week for our final post in this series which will cover some of the campaign settings you should look at when creating a campaign.

Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew

Have you ever wondered why AdWords offers you so many options? Or why, just when you think you know the program inside and out, something changes?

Listening to our advertisers, we understand that while some love AdWords just the way it is, others feel it is rather complex, that perhaps it changes too often for your comfort, and that not everything running under the hood is fully explained...

We've just quoted the first three sentences of The Google AdWords Philosophy, which you'll find linked-to from the AdWords Resources section of the AdWords Help Center. The "Philosophy Doc" (as the folks who wrote it have come to call it) is meant to give advertisers an overview of why AdWords is the way it is; why it might sometimes seem complex; why it is constantly evolving; and why we're not always able to share every nuanced detail of why it works the way it does.

If those first three sentences caught your attention at all and have in some way described your experience with AdWords, we hope that you'll give the AdWords Philosophy a read.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

In July, Bismarck from the video ads team shared a few video ads best practices. Now he's back with a 3 part series full of new tips and tricks to help you make the most out of your video ad campaigns.

An image is worth a thousand words. Now, how much is an image and a video worth? It’s been three months since we released video ads on the Google content network and we've seen a variety of interesting ads during that time – some that performed well and others that weren't quite ready for prime time. Over the next three weeks, we'll be sharing some of the key attributes of the ads that performed well. We'll start by sharing the tips below on creating rich and engaging video ads.

First, make sure that the opening image is engaging. Here are a few tips for the image:

• Memorable Image: Your opening image must capture the user's attention, and keep it.
  
• Vibrant Colors: The opening image has to entice users to hit play, so catch their eye with rich, sharp colors.
• Text: Although a stand-alone image can work as an opening image, we suggest that you include a few words to describe the product, service and/or company you are promoting.
• Call-to-Action: An opening image with a call-to-action is highly recommended. Informing the user that they can learn more by clicking play usually increases play rates.
• Multiple Sizes: In order to increase the number of placements where your ads can show, include an opening image in all of the following sizes 300x250, 250x250, 200x200 and 336x280. Please note that your image may be resized if it doesn't fit one of these sizes.
  

Second, you'll want to review these tips to ensure that the content of your video ad itself is as compelling as possible:

• Key Messages: Because users may not watch your entire video, make sure you deliver your key messages early in the video.
• Keep it Engaging: Video should be entertaining, informational, and relevant. Unlike TV advertising, you only have a captive audience if they choose to continue watching your ad. Whenever it appears on a site, your video ad will be your only communication with that site’s users, so it’s important to be clear about what your business offers. And remember, your audience won’t just respond to what you say, but how you say it.
• Short and Sweet: Although videos can be up to 2 minutes in length, we’ve found that users start dropping off significantly if ads are longer than 45 seconds.
• Make it Audible: Video ads allow you to use both sight and sound to communicate with your consumers – so make sure that the voices and/or soundtracks you use complement your overall message. If you are using a soundtrack, the music should not drown out any voices.
• Call-to-Action: Make sure you communicate to your users what you’d like for them to do – visit your store or site, call a phone number, complete a purchase – so they’ll have clear next-steps once the video’s completed.

Now, to check out these tips in action, take a minute to watch this ad for Zero-G. (Note: The advertiser whose ad is featured will not accrue clicks or impressions, so feel free to enjoy the ad.)

We hope you've found these tips helpful and please join us next week when we’ll cover monitoring performance and optimization.

Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew

Have you ever taken a break from managing your AdWords account and then forgotten exactly what changes you had previously made? Or, have you been scratching your head trying to figure out if a change you made to your CPCs correlates with an increase in sales?

Here's a quick reminder that the My Change History Tool can help you out in both situations. This tool allows you to review changes that you've made to your account (for up to the past three months), from pausing a campaign to adding a new keyword to one of your Ad Groups. So, if you've noticed that your sales have recently increased and you think changing the maximum CPC of an Ad Group may be the reason, you can check the My Change History Tool to see if the dates overlap.

Also, if your account is managed by multiple people who use different logins, this tool will show you who made each change.

We hope you'll use this handy tool to refresh your memory and learn more about how the changes you make impact your account.

Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew

Like many businesses leveraging search advertising, you may be trying to reach customers beyond your physical location. Perhaps this means reaching a neighboring city, or maybe there's another state or even country to which you can ship your products. As you probably know, location targeting options give you the power to reach customers in just those places where you want to promote your business.

However, since you're not in the next city over, or that other state or country, you've been unable to see your locally targeted ads--until now. We've heard your feedback and now have a tool for you to use to preview your ads no matter where they're targeted. Here's how it works:

1. Visit www.google.com/adpreview
2. Enter your keyword(s) in the search box and click on the "Search" button
3. Preview your ads on the search results page that loads or the subsequent pages (click the next link to see more ads on the right-hand side)

The search results and ads are not active, so you can preview at will without accruing impressions or accidental clicks. Best of all, you can refine the results page by adding location attributes and values manually to the URL of the ad preview page. Optional attributes include a target country, longitude/latitude coordinates, regions, and cities. In the U.S., you can also set a target ZIP code or designated market area (DMA).

For example, if you are trying to preview ads for "camping tents" in Chicago, IL, the URL you would use would look like:

http://www.google.com/search?adtest=on&hl=en&q=camping+tents&gr=US-IL&gcs=Chicago

Learn more about how you can preview ads and see what your customers in different geographies are seeing.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew