Car insurance Channel

Just because the December holidays are over doesn't mean we're taking a break from our industry trends and seasonal highlights. Get a head start on preparing for winter sales opportunities (including Valentine's Day) with our latest Retail and Tech B2C newsletters.

Retailers can find tips for driving more conversions in the AdWords Retail Industry Newsletter. Advertisers selling consumer electronics, and telecommunications and technology products or services can check out the AdWords Tech B2C Industry Newsletter for advice on reaching more customers.

You can sign up to receive AdWords newsletters via email through your AdWords account.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Recently, we wrote a three part series on the Google content network. Many of you were interested in more optimization advice for the content network, and we're sharing more of those tips today:

On the search network, ads are shown to users who are specifically searching for results using one of your keywords. On the content network, ads are shown to users as they research interests and browse sites that are related to your keywords and ad text. Users on the content network are in a different mindset than users on search, so changes to your keywords, ad text and account structure may be necessary to make the most out of your content network advertising.

• Create separate search and content campaigns.
  This will allow you to:
  
• Optimize your ad groups and ad text specifically for content pages.
• Target different audiences. If you sell flowers, you may want to create a content ad group to show your ads to couples by targeting pages relevant to them.
  
• Use general keywords to strengthen the theme of your ad group, without affecting your search performance.
  

• Think about the type of user browsing a web page and write ads to catch that user's attention.
• It's important for your ad text to relate to the webpage on which it appears. If your target user is going to be on pages related to flowers, mention flowers or closely related products in the ad text.
• Test multiple creatives and ad formats (text, image, video) in all available sizes to gain better insight into what sort of ads will perform the best for you.
  

• Include call-to-action phrases.
• Phrases like 'Register now," "Get a free quote," and "Call now" can can help set expectations for the person who is about to visit your site.
  
• Your call-to-action should be what you consider to be a conversion.
  

• Highlight special offers or features available on your site.
• We've found that advertisers often get higher ROI on the content network when they include product prices in their ads. Prices and special offers can help you stand out from competitors and showcase your best deals.
  

• Link your ad to customized landing pages that match the information in your ad text.
  
• If your ad highlights a special deal on cell phones, make sure that the ad directs users to the specific cell phone page of your site. And ensure that your landing pages are clear and easy to navigate.
  

As you implement these tips and those from the previous optimization post, we recommend that you track the performance of your campaigns and iterate to figure out what works well for you.

• Track the performance of your contextually targeted ads using Placement Performance reports.
  
• The Placement Performance report (PPR) provides information on where your contextually targeted ads are showing up and how they are performing. You can use placement targeting (CPC or CPM) to further target the placements where your ads are performing particularly well and use site exclusion to exclude them from sites where they are not performing well. You can find more tips on how to use PPR effectively to boost campaign performance here.
  

• Let Google track and manage your campaign's performance for you.
• Using the Conversion Optimizer, you can specify a cost-per-acquisition (CPA), and Google will automatically adjust your CPC bids to meet your CPA goal. Learn how Bingo Card Creator used Conversion Optimizer on his content network campaigns to save time and increase his profits.
  

We hope you found these tips useful. Please continue to send us feedback on the content network and what additional content network topics you would like to read about in this blog.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Last week, we hosted an online seminar for the Conversion Optimizer, a free AdWords feature that saves advertisers time and money by managing CPC bids based on their cost-per-acquisition goals.

Since last week's seminar was so well attended, we've decided to offer three more seminars -- on January 31, February 7, and February 13. For each seminar, we'll give a product overview and explain how Conversion Optimizer can help you get a higher ROI and more conversions from Google search and content campaigns. We'll also have time to answer your questions. Keep in mind that the presentation and format for all three seminars will be the same, so please choose the date that works best for you. If you would like to attend, please register here.

If you'd like to learn more about using the Conversion Optimizer, you can also visit the Conversion Optimizer website.

Update: Corrected second webinar date to February 7.

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

Ever wish you could show your ads more often to a specific group like women aged 25-34? Want to see how your ads perform with certain demographic groups and then adjust your bids accordingly?

We're excited to introduce the new demographic bidding feature from AdWords. Demographic bidding helps you display your ads to specific gender and age group audiences on some sites in the Google content network, giving you more control over who your audience is and greater insight into how your ads perform with certain demographic groups.

We'll start testing this feature over the next few weeks with a selected group of advertisers in the U.S. and U.K. If you'd like to be part of this group, read on.

Demographic bidding and reports are available to advertisers who run contextually targeted or placement-targeted campaigns (with CPC or CPM bidding) on certain sites in the Google content network. Here's how it works: Some publishers in our network, such as social networking sites, know the gender and age of their users because their users sign in with that information when they create a profile or fill out registration or subscription forms. Participating publishers anonymize this user reported demographic data and then send it to Google in aggregate form, allowing us to adjust which ads are shown to members of specific demographic groups. (To protect user privacy, AdWords receives this data only from publishers that have permission from users to share their data according to the site's terms and conditions. Users are never identified personally, but only as anonymous aggregated data in the demographic reports. And to protect the privacy of minors, users under 18 can't be targeted demographically.)

There are two ways you can use demographic bidding. First, you can modify your bids for a particular audience segment, such as increasing your bid for 25-34 year-old males by 230%. Second, you can ask that your ads not be shown to certain demographic groups if they aren't meeting your ROI goals.

If you're not sure which demographic converts best for you, you can run Demographic Reports (found in the Report Center) to guide your bids for certain groups. These reports can show you campaign performance metrics (including impressions, clicks, CTR, and conversion data) by the gender and age range of users who saw your ad. If there are demographic groups that convert well, you can increase your bids for those groups, increasing the frequency your ad will be shown to this audience. You can also choose to have your ad hidden from groups that don't respond well to your campaign.

If you're an AdWords advertiser located in the U.S. or the U.K., we'd like to invite you to try out demographic bidding. You can see which partner sites offer this feature and learn how to get started by visiting this site. We plan to add advertisers on a rolling basis. We'll let you know as soon as you've been added to the test.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Are you ready to kick-start your AdWords account in 2008? If you'd like to learn more about how to get the most out of your account, we encourage you to check out an AdWords Seminar. These seminars are offered by search marketing professionals who are also Qualified Invididuals in the Google Advertising Professionals program. Sessions have just been added in St. Louis, Miami, Las Vegas, Denver, and San Francisco. Sign up 7 days before the seminar date and we'll even throw in a $50 AdWords advertising credit. (View the terms and conditions of advertising credits.)

You'll find more information about these seminars, including dates, course outlines, and registration instructions at http://www.google.com/awseminars. On the site, you can browse through the schedule of upcoming seminars in the new handy calendar. 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, Inside AdWords crew

In the past, we've often mentioned Google Analytics as a great tool that helps you learn more about how visitors reach your website and what they do once they get there. But now's a good time to take a step back and talk about how to get started with Google Analytics from the very first step. This will be the first post in a series of "Analytics 101" articles that will walk you through sign up, installation, and using reports.

The WAY Beginning: What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free, hosted web analytics service that provides useful data for website and marketing optimization. Site owners and marketers can make better informed decisions about their sites and campaigns by using metrics from Google Analytics reports. Google Analytics works by collecting information about your site traffic and advertising campaigns, combining this with e-commerce and conversion information to provide insight into the performance of your marketing efforts and site content.

Anyone can sign up using a Google account by visiting http://www.google.com/analytics/. You don't even need to have an AdWords account beforehand.

How do I sign up and install Google Analytics?

After signing up for a Google Analytics account comes the most important part of installation -- the tracking code snippet. Every Analytics user is given a unique piece of JavaScript code to insert in all site pages immediately before the </body> tag. The code snippet may look like something like this example below:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js ' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-#####-#");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

(For illustrative purposes only.)

Your "UA-#####-#" number will be unique to you. It's important to insert the code on all of your site's pages; otherwise Analytics won't be giving you the whole picture of what's going on.

If you're not ready to insert the code now, you can always retrieve this code later. Depending on the size of your site and the number of pages you need tagged, you may want to discuss installation with your webmaster, if you have one.

How do I view my reports?

After you've finished signup, you'll be taken to the Analytics Settings page. The Status box on the right side of this page will let you know whether the code has been properly inserted. It's important to note, however, that it takes anywhere from a few hours to a full day after code installation for your reports to start gathering and showing information.

Once the Status box in the Analytics Settings page says that you're receiving data, you can click the View Reports link to receive reports about your website traffic. Like this:

That's it for this first installment of Google Analytics 101. Try playing around with a few reports -- the Analytics interface is specifically designed to be intuitive and "discoverable," so to speak. If you can't wait to learn more, the Analytics Help Center is a great resource for information. Look for the next installment soon, when we'll explain more about administering your account and using your reports.

Posted by Christian, Inside AdWords crew

Last week, we announced that the Conversion Optimizer, a free AdWords feature for managing CPA (cost-per-acquisition) bids, was out of beta and available to more advertisers.

We'd like to remind you that the Conversion Optimizer team will be giving a free online seminar tomorrow, January 15th at 10 am PST. This one hour session will cover how the Conversion Optimizer works and how you can use it to get more conversions and improve your ROI. You'll also have the chance to get your questions answered by the team. If you would like to attend, please register here.

If you'd like to learn more about using the Conversion Optimizer, you can also visit the Conversion Optimizer website.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Last September, we launched the Conversion Optimizer, a free AdWords feature for managing CPA (cost-per-acquisition) bids. Since then, the Conversion Optimizer has helped many advertisers save time and money, and we're announcing today that it's no longer in beta. We're also making it available to more campaigns: any campaign with AdWords conversion tracking enabled that has received 200 conversions in the last 30 days can now use the Conversion Optimizer (previously 300 were required). We've received lots of feedback from advertisers using the Conversion Optimizer including Moritz Daan, Webgamic's CEO, who shared with us:

With the Conversion Optimizer, we managed to get 600-plus conversions per day, instead of the usual 200. Also, I thought it wasn't possible to get below €0.60 CPA, but Conversion Optimizer managed to cut our costs down to €0.25 per conversion.

Many advertisers also like that the Conversion Optimizer makes it easier to advertise on Google's content network. Patrick McKenzie, CEO of Bingo Card Creator, writes:

Conversion Optimizer has improved the performance of my ads on the content network…I’ve cut down my involvement with the content network from a very stressful, mandatory daily session to a leisurely, weekly session, which I can skip if I want to. [The Conversion Optimizer] algorithms take care of finding the gems and discarding the trash without my intervention. I really can’t stress how powerful this is for a time-pressed small businessman.

Here's how the Conversion Optimizer works: for each ad group, simply specify a maximum CPA bid, the most you're willing to pay for each conversion like a purchase or sign-up. The Conversion Optimizer does all the rest; using historical information about your campaign, it automatically finds optimal CPC bids for each auction. You still pay per click, but you no longer have to manually adjust your bids to reach your CPA goals.

The Conversion Optimizer uses algorithms to predict which clicks are likely to be most valuable, bidding higher on these clicks and lower on less valuable ones, in real-time. The prediction is based on your specific ad's conversion history and considers the website in the Google Network where your ad appears, the user's location, the user's search query, and other factors.

For example, let's say an advertiser with a custom shirt website gets a higher conversion rate from the search query custom shirts than from just shirts. The Conversion Optimizer learns this difference and bids higher for clicks on custom shirts. By reducing the risk of over-bidding for non-converting search queries and under-bidding for potentially valuable search queries, the Conversion Optimizer can help improve performance substantially. Based on our analysis of the Conversion Optimizer beta, advertisers using this feature have seen more conversions at a lower CPA.

Follow our instructions to get started with the Conversion Optimizer. If you'd like to learn more, register for our free online seminar on January 15, 2008, from 10 am to 11 am PST. Lewis Lin and Andrew Silverman from the Conversion Optimizer team will give a product overview and explain how the Conversion Optimizer can help you get higher ROI and more conversions from your Google search and content campaigns. They'll also have time to answer your questions.

You can also get additional information by visiting the Conversion Optimizer website.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

On Saturday, January 12th, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PST due to our regularly scheduled 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. Next month will be an exception as the maintenance will occur a week later to accommodate Valentine's Day. We'll continue to update you via the blog 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 Feng, Inside AdWords crew

The Time Square ball has dropped for the 100th time and the New Year is officially underway, but before we say goodbye to 2007, we'd like to continue the annual tradition of reminiscing about our top 10 favorite blog moments of 2007. Whether you're a newcomer to the blog or an old-time fan, we think you'll find at least a few posts in this list worth reviewing again:

10. Complimentary optimizations make it easy (and free!) for you to get some expert help with your campaigns.

9. We made a change to the formula that determines which ads get top placement.

8. Meet the Click Quality Team and learn all about invalid clicks.

7. Find out why some websites may merit low landing page quality scores.

6. Turkeys (lots of them!), snowpeople, and a few Inside AdWords bloggers, too... we celebrate the holidays with a touch of whimsy and fun.

5. Google's Chief Economist Hal Varian explains how the holidays may affect clicks, conversions, and CPAs.

4. The content network series takes you deeper inside the world of content ads, and how they can work for you...

3. ...while Placement Performance reports help you better understand where your ads are showing, and how they are performing on the content network.

2. The Optimization tips series offers helpful advice on how to make your ads more effective.

1. Learn more about return-on-investment and why it's important with our ROI series.

With that, we're off to work on our resolutions for 2008. We hope you had a restful holiday, and wish you all the best for a Happy New Year!

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew