Car insurance Channel

Those of us in the US and Canada are looking forward to a long Labor Day weekend. Whether Labor Day means intense retail therapy in the form of back-to-school sales or simply the end of wearing summer whites, we here at Inside AdWords will be taking a day off to rest in the true spirit of the holiday. We hope you'll find some time to do the same as well.



We'll be back next week!

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

You may notice some changes to the AdWords Report Center -- this week, we simplified the main Reports page, and also introduced a new format for report graphs. If you've ever used Google Analytics, you'll probably recognize the new graphical layout. The improved Report Center should make your data much easier to process, so we hope you'll enjoy these changes! See the image below for an example report:


If you'd like to learn more about the Report Center, you can do so here.

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

A few weeks ago, we asked you which optimization topics you wanted to learn more about. Many of the questions we received were on creating effective ad text, which is the subject of today's post.

If you aren't familiar with our six-part series on optimization tips, you may want to check out our previous post on ad text tips. You can read up on the importance of describing your offering clearly, using proper grammar and punctuation, having clear call-to-actions, and other basic tips when writing ad text. Today, our optimization team is back to cover more tips like including prices and discounts in your ad text, ideas for testing different messages in your ad text, and tracking overall performance of ad text.

Should I mention prices or discounts in ad text?
It depends. While the most important component of ad text is a good description of your offering, you may also want to mention a price. If you consider your prices to very competitive, it may be to your advantage to advertise them. Conversely, if you sell a high quality product and charge a premium price, you may also mention price to set the right expectations and discourage bargain hunters. And if you are only promoting a discount on one of your products, do not give the impression that there is a general discount. In summary, your best strategy is to be straightforward with your potential customers, so the right ones are clicking through to an offer they were expecting to find.

What should I be testing in my ad text?
You can test different descriptions, call to action phrases, promotions, and special offers. Here are a few different points you may want to test:

• Different emphasis: product description, call-to-action, or promotional offer
• Including the brand name versus simply describing the offering
• Including the price in ad text versus including a discount or other special offer to differentiate your business
• Including an audience-specific message such as 'Perfect for Couples'
• Placement of certain messages in your ad text: headline, line 2, or line 3
  

You can also find good ideas for messages to include in your ad text by taking a look at what visitors are searching for on your site. If your site has a search bar, try looking at the search queries to see what they are interested in. Similarly, if you have web analytics tracking on your site, you can also look through the search queries that are bringing people to your site to see which features of your business resonate most with your potential customers. For example, if you offer vacation rentals, you may find that visitors are interested in certain amenities -- you can then include descriptions like 'pet friendly', 'hot tub', or 'concierge service' in your ad text.

When testing different ad texts, be sure to control for some portions of the ad text, while experimenting with the other portions so you'll be able to assess how effective the message you are testing really is. For example, if you are trying to figure out whether the call-to-action 'Buy today' or 'Learn more' is more effective, be sure to keep the description of your offering the same. You can also learn more tips on effective ad text by reading our Editorial Guidelines.

How can I better track the overall performance of my different ad texts?
One easy way to look at the overall performance of your ad texts is to run an Ad Performance report. You can run an Ad Performance report from the Report Center and then use the results from this report to identify low- and high-performing ad texts. For high performing ads, you can try testing a small variation of that ad with a different messaging or a different landing page.

Depending on your goals for your account, you may use different metrics to measure your success. (If you have conversion tracking, don't forget to use the 'Add/Remove Columns' feature in order to include conversion data.) Remember that your ad text with the highest CTR may not have the highest ROI. And don't just pay attention to the conversion rate, but the cost per conversion as well.

For even more sophisticated tracking capabilities, you may want to try A/B testing on text ads with Google Analytics. To read on this topic, check out this article from the Google Analytics Conversion University.

We hope you've found these tips on ad text to be helpful. We'll be back soon with other topics that you emailed us. And in the meantime, please continue to send us your questions on optimization.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

In the spirit of back to school, we’ve launched the Auto Industry Knowledge Center to provide automotive advertisers with the most up-do-date information and learning tools. The Auto Industry Knowledge Center has industry-specific resources to help you get the most out of AdWords. Whether you sell parts online, own a dealership, or host an auto website, you'll find customized tips for success, case studies featuring other auto advertisers, and Google product solutions to help your business.

Another great resource is our new quarterly AdWords Auto Industry Newsletter, which features industry trends and best practices for promoting summer sales. We want to hear and learn from you as well, so please send us feedback by dropping us a line at auto-knowledge@google.com.

Posted by Christina, Inside AdWords crew

Last night, our engineers were able to implement the upgrades that were originally scheduled for this Saturday's maintenance period. Therefore, we've cancelled this weekend's system maintenance and your accounts will be accessible without interruption.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

Two weeks ago, we posted about an upcoming improvement to the formula used to determine which ads are placed in the top spots above Google search results. The change offers advertisers more control over when their ads achieve top placement, while also increasing the quality of our ad results for users. Today, we wanted to let you know that the improved formula is now in effect.

To recap, the key change to the formula is how we consider price. Like the formula used for ranking ads alongside Google search results, the top ad placement formula now considers an ad's maximum CPC. Previously, the formula for top placement considered an ad's actual CPC. Since actual CPC is determined, in part, by the bidding behavior of the advertisers below you, your ad’s chance of being promoted to a top spot could have been constrained by a factor you couldn't influence.

As always, the top ad placement formula will weight Quality Score much more heavily in comparison to maximum CPC, which means that the quality of an ad remains the greatest factor in determining an ad's eligibility for top placement. In other words, an ad with a low quality score but high maximum CPC still cannot achieve top placement.

Beginning today, the actual CPC you pay for an ad in a top spot will continue to be determined by the auction, but subject to a minimum price. The minimum price is based on the quality of your ad and is the minimum amount required for your ad to achieve top placement above Google search results. As always, your actual CPC will be discounted and the higher your ad’s quality, the less you will pay.

Since announcing this improvement to the top ad placement formula, we've received lots of questions from advertisers who are curious about how their accounts may be affected. Advertisers with ads in or near a top spot may begin to see a change in the average number of clicks these ads receive, and also in their CPCs. The degree to which your clicks and CPCs may be impacted will depend on a number of factors, so it's difficult to say today how much of a difference you can expect to see. Therefore, rather than making adjustments now based on assumptions, you may want to monitor your account as-is for the next few days or weeks to see how much of a true impact the improved formula will have.

If, on the other hand, you are thinking about making adjustments now, keep the following in mind:

• Review your account for maximum CPCs that are higher than the maximum amount you're willing to pay.
  
• Optimize your accounts to keep your costs down and your performance high. You can request a free campaign optimization from our support team here.
  

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

On Saturday, August 25th, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT due to maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

We've recently introduced the ability to export your AdWords reports to Google Docs & Spreadsheets. If you aren't familiar with it, Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a free web-based word processing and spreadsheet program that allows you to upload and access your documents online, just by signing in to your Google Account. If you want to share your reports with others in your organization, you can easily invite them to view or contribute. With Google Docs & Spreadsheets, you and your collaborators can edit your documents and spreadsheets from anywhere, and share changes in real-time.

To export your AdWords reports as Google spreadsheets, open the report you'd like to view, and click Open as a Google spreadsheet. See the image below for a closer look:


You can always learn more about Google Docs & Spreadsheets by visiting the Help Center.

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

We'd like to let you know that the Modify Your Campaigns tools will no longer be available in AdWords accounts beginning next week. Specifically, these tools are the Copy or Move Keywords and Ad Text tool and the Advanced Search and Editing tool.

If these tools are important to the management of your campaigns, we encourage you to try AdWords Editor, our free, downloadable campaign management application. AdWords Editor includes many useful campaign management tools that enable you to manage your keywords and ads much as you did with the Modify Your Campaigns tools.

If you have further questions about the Modify Your Campaigns tools please contact the AdWords support team, who will be happy to assist you.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Over the past couple of years, the Click Quality team has launched many new initiatives and shared a great deal of information about how they combat click fraud. To help keep track of their various presentations, blog posts, articles, and more, they've created a new website to serve as the single source for all click fraud and ad traffic quality related information. The new site is called the Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center and can be found at http://www.google.com/adtrafficquality.

If you're just starting to learn about click fraud -- what it is and what we're doing about it -- start with the Overview section. If you'd like more information, visit the Resource Center's Help Center for detailed FAQs and multimedia presentations. If, on the other hand, you follow the industry closely, you may want to check out Technical Talk which features in-depth articles and blog posts written by our engineering team and other experts in the field.

Click fraud remains an important issue to online advertisers (you may have noticed that Yahoo! has also launched a similar effort for their advertisers), so we hope you find the new website useful. Much of the information was created based on the questions and concerns heard from our advertisers, so let the team know what you think. The Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center is a work in progress and the team will continue to add information, including videos of events, presentations, and articles, as the content becomes available.

Finally, if you're interested in hearing more about click fraud directly from the experts and are attending the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, CA, be sure to check out the Search Engines on Click Fraud panel taking place Tuesday, August 21st -- Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager for Google Trust & Safety, will be speaking.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

Advertisers often aim for top placement because they find that their ads perform the best when they appear above Google search results. Since these ads must meet or exceed a top placement quality threshold, our users receive high quality ad results while advertisers get the traffic they desire – a win-win situation.

Quality Score is the greatest determining factor in top ad placement, which means no one will ever be able to pay their way to the top. We have, however, been working on an improvement to the top ad placement formula that will soon offer advertisers more control over achieving top placement while increasing the quality of our ad results for users.

The key change to the formula will be how we consider price. Today’s formula considers an ad’s Quality Score and actual cost-per-click (CPC). The improved formula will still heavily weight Quality Score, but instead of actual CPC, it will consider an ad’s maximum CPC. Here’s why:

Actual CPC is determined, in part, by the bidding behavior of the advertisers below you. This means that your ad’s chance of being promoted to a top spot could be constrained by a factor you cannot influence. By considering your ad’s maximum CPC, a value you set, you will have more control over achieving top ad placement.

In addition to increasing control for advertisers, the improved formula increases the quality of our top ads for users. This is due to more high quality ads becoming eligible for top placement, thereby allowing our system to choose from a larger pool of high quality ads to show our users.

The improved formula will go into effect within the next few weeks. For a full explanation of how the top ad placement formula will be changing, please see this AdWords Help Center FAQ. We encourage you to read the FAQ in its entirety since this change may affect the performance of your ads – e.g. in some cases, some ads previously showing alongside search results may begin to show in top spots, and vice versa.

Once the improved formula goes live, we'll update you here on the Inside AdWords blog so stay tuned.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

On Saturday, August 11th, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT due to our regularly scheduled maintenance. While you won't be able to log into 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 here as we always have, but you may want to take note of our intended dates and times to help you plan for any scheduled downtimes further down the road.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

Finished with our back to school tips from last week, and still want to learn more?

Additional Intermediate & Advanced sessions of AdWords Seminars have been added in Philadelphia and Vancouver, Canada in the month of August. If you sign up for seminars at least 7 days in advance, we’ll even throw in a $50 AdWords credit. You'll find more information about these seminars, including dates, course outlines, seminar leader bios, and registration instructions at http://www.google.com/awseminars.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

Today we released version 4.0 of AdWords Editor, our free, downloadable campaign management application. Version 4.0 includes support for mobile ads, the ability to post changes to selected campaigns, custom date ranges for performance statistics, and the ability to update negative keywords along with your regular keywords. You can read the release notes for a list of all the changes in version 4.0.

With the release of version 4.0, AdWords Editor is now available in 23 languages. The six new languages for version 4.0 are: Czech, Hebrew, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), English (Australia), and Turkish.

If you haven't yet downloaded AdWords Editor, visit the AdWords Editor website to get the latest version. If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically. To avoid losing unposted changes or comments, we suggest exporting an archive of your account before upgrading. After you've completed the upgrade, you just need to download your account and import the archive file to get your account up and running.

We encourage you to upgrade to version 4.0 within the next two weeks to avoid potential technical problems that might prevent older versions from being fully functional. While this release is for Windows only, version 4.0 will be available for Macs in the near future.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

If you're interested in learning more about how all types of advertisers use AdWords and other Google products to reach new customers and grow their businesses, we've got a new resource for you.

The recently launched AdWords Success Stories website features advertisers and their stories -- you'll find all kinds of businesses ranging from doggie daycare to real estate. Each featured advertiser will share their experiences on the path to AdWords success, provide you with some tips, and maybe even give a little inspiration.

If you have your own AdWords success story that you'd like to share, we encourage you to send it to us through the Submit a Story page. The next business we profile might be yours! Be sure to check back often as new stories will be added regularly.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew