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Earlier this year, we mentioned our plans to improve the measurement of conversions for display advertising campaigns on the Google Content Network. Today, 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 Content 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 Content 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 optimize 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 Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Feeding off the momentum of improvements we've made over the past year in AdWords, we recently released beta versions of the updated Keyword and Placement Tools.Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

We've posted before about how testing your website landing page can increase your conversions from AdWords. Back in July we held a webinar on the "7 deadly sins of landing page design" and next week we'll hold the second webinar in that series: "Planning and running your first experiment in Google Website Optimizer."

The webinar will cover how to plan and set up your first experiment for testing your website landing page, while also providing tips and best practices that will benefit even those of you who are already pros at testing and optimizing your landing pages.

The webinar will be on Thursday, September 24th at 10AM PDT. You must register for the event to attend. We hope to see you there!

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

In July we announced US beta testing of the Opportunities tab, a new section in your AdWords account designed to help you find additional cost-effective traffic for your search campaigns.

Today we've begun expanding the beta to additional US advertisers, and we've also started including UK and Australian advertisers in the test. We'll make the Opportunities tab beta fully available to all English-language accounts over the next few business days.

Now that we're expanding the beta, we'd like to answer a few questions we heard during the initial test:

When should I use the Opportunities tab?
You can think of the Opportunities tab as your homepage for account optimization. You can use the tab to get a quick overview of Google's customized keyword and budget ideas for your campaigns and ad groups. You can also compare the impact of different ideas before making changes. So, if you're looking to increase your keyword coverage for a specific product, or have your ads appear more often for your existing keywords, the Opportunities tab is a great place to start.

We regularly update our list of ideas, so even if you've visited the Opportunities tab in the past, you may want to check back every few weeks to see if your keyword or budget ideas have changed.

Where did my AdWords Tools go?
We're not retiring any of the existing AdWords tools with the Opportunities tab beta test, but we've changed where they're found. If you're included in the Opportunities tab beta, you'll no longer see a Tools tab. Instead, you can access AdWords tools by clicking on the Opportunities tab and scrolling down the menu on the side of the page. You can also see lists of ideas by campaign by clicking on any of your campaigns listed in the menu on the left side.


To see a full list of available tools, simply click the "More tools..." link at the bottom of the list.

What optimization tools will I see in the future?
This beta test of the Opportunities tab is just a starting point for a broader set of optimization tools we hope to provide in the future. Over the coming months you can expect to see additional changes to the tab focused on giving you more insight into the broader search marketing landscape and more data to help you better estimate the effectiveness of new ideas.

Ultimately we want the Opportunities section of your account to evolve into a single destination you can visit whenever you want to get new ideas for increasing your ad coverage on relevant search terms, capturing additional clicks in your most profitable campaigns, or simply improving your overall ROI.

We plan to expand the Opportunities tab beta to all global advertisers over the coming weeks, and we'll continue working on improvements to the tab on an ongoing basis. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for improving account optimization, please let us know by submitting feedback in your account.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

For nearly five months we've been running New Interface Thursdays here on the Inside AdWords blog. As the new AdWords interface moves to simply being AdWords, we're bringing this series to a close.
Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

As an AdWords advertiser, you're likely focused on making sure your paid advertising campaigns are performing well and delivering positive results - but have you also thought about taking advantage of the free ways you can promote your physical business location on Google and Google Maps as well? In this post, we'll show you how to ensure your business locations can be found on Google, and then we'll show you how to go a step further by promoting your locations with AdWords location extensions.Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Small businesses often think that television advertising is too costly and cumbersome for them to use. They assume they need a fancy, expensive commercial to use in their TV campaign. But Google TV Ads changes all of that -- we make it easy and affordable for you to make a TV ad, plan a campaign, and reach your customers through the power of television.

We're excited to announce the Google TV Ads' TV for All contest www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest, everyone's chance to advertise on television. Enter your small business' commercial in the contest for the opportunity to win $25,000 worth of free national advertising on cable channels such as CNBC, Hallmark, and Bravo using Google TV Ads!

We're launching the contest today in collaboration with our partner SpotMixer, a self-service video creation service which allows consumers to easily produce professional-quality videos. All you need to do is this:

1. Create a thirty or sixty second commercial for your small business -- you can make an ad on your own or use the free Spotmixer tool (it's easy!).
2. Upload your ad to the TV for All YouTube contest brand channel.
3. Vote! Once your submission is up on www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest, our panel of celebrity judges will select the 10 finalists and the YouTube community will choose three winners, each of whom will receive $25,000 in free national TV advertising through Google TV Ads.

The contest submission deadline is October 5, and winners will be announced on October 30.

Full guidelines, contest rules and tips and tricks are available on the TV for All YouTube contest brand channel at www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest. Enter today!

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew