Car insurance Channel

Over the past year, we've focused on building new solutions on the Google Content Network for campaigns focused on branding. Last year we introduced frequency capping to help you manage how often your Content Network campaigns reach the right people. We then launched an “above the fold” filter to allow you to show ads only in places that appear on potential customers’ screens when the page loads. We also developed innovative tools to measure the impact of brand campaigns.

Today, in response to feedback from many of you who run branding campaigns, we're announcing a new filter that allows you to show your ads only on AdSense sites among the 1000 largest on the web, as defined by DoubleClick Ad Planner. This new feature will ensure that your ads reach a large number of users, but only on well-known sites best suited for branding goals.

To activate the new filter, select ‘non Ad Planner 1000’ within the ‘category filters’ section of your AdWords account. Keep in mind that not all sites in the Ad Planner 1000 are in the Google Content Network and that your ads will only show on those sites that are.

It's important to note that the Ad Planner 1000 does not take performance statistics into account, and that by enabling this filter, you may be excluding many sites that are relevant to your advertised products. Additionally, with this or any of our other brand filters enabled, your campaign will run on fewer sites, so you may need to raise your bids if you’d like to maintain your impression levels. We recommend experimenting to determine which feature or combination of features best meets your goals.

We hope this new feature gives you greater control and assurance over where your ads appear and makes the Google Content Network an even more powerful environment for effective branding campaigns.

Posted by Katrina Kurnit, Inside AdWords crew

Each year since 1963, the President of the United States has set aside a week to celebrate the contributions of American small businesses: National Small Business Week. Taking place in Washington D.C. from May 23rd – 29th this year, the event salutes the estimated 27.2 million small businesses in America.

At Google, we feel it’s especially important to show our appreciation, admiration and respect for small business owners and employees during this time. We get to see firsthand how creative and innovative you are, and we’re deeply committed to helping you drive your business forward.

Take 5 minutes to easily share the story of your business
All small businesses have a story, so we want to give you the chance to tell yours in a quirky, fun way. To kick things off, we’ve put together this quick example video:



To create a Search Story featuring your business’ journey, just follow these simple steps:

1. Watch the video above if you haven’t already.
2. Take a few moments to create your own.
3. We’d love to see it, so share it with us and the world.

Find tools for online success
This year, we’ve partnered with the U.S. Small Business Administration on a site to help your business thrive using online tools. Check it out, and then download our Online Tools booklet to learn how to put these strategies into action.

We’re happy to share that in 2009 Google generated $54B in economic activity in the United States - one business at a time. You can see how Google programs like AdWords helped small businesses in your state at www.google.com/economicimpact.

Google is also a proud sponsor of this year’s Small Business Week celebrations. Visit the National Small Business Week website for more useful resources for your business.

Here’s to hoping for many more prosperous and successful years to come for your company and all of the other small businesses across the country.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew.

Update 1:55PM: Updated with information on Google's economic impact in 2009.

Over the last year we’ve launched a number of ad extensions in AdWords to help you make your ads more useful and relevant to people searching for information on Google. Ad extensions expand your standard text ad with one or more lines of additional information like an address and phone number (location extensions and phone extensions), more page links (ad sitelinks), and product images (product extensions).

In order to help you manage and track the ad extensions in your campaigns, today we’re introducing a new Ad Extensions tab within your AdWords account. From the Ad Extensions tab, you can see statistics for any of your campaign ad extensions. You can choose to see "All" or "All but deleted" extensions, and you can also choose the type of ad extensions to view, such as location or product extensions. For example, if you select “Locations,” the tab will display all location extensions for that campaign (on the campaign details page) or all campaigns (in the “All Online Campaigns” overview).


The Ad Extensions tab automatically appears in your account when you've enabled ad extensions in at least one campaign. You can also enable or disable the tab for your account view by clicking the arrow button next to your existing tabs above your performance table.


To learn more about the new Ad Extensions tab, visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Today at Google I/O, we announced that we’ll begin extending click-to-call advertising to mobile content and apps on the Google Content Network in the coming weeks. Click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps work with phone extensions and appear as animated  banner text ads with a call button on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. Now, whether your potential customers are reading the latest news, checking sports scores, or playing a downloaded game on their phones, you can reach them with relevant ads that let them easily click, call and connect with your business.

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Benefits:

As those of you who already use click-to-call search ads may know, providing a calling option can help you drive more qualified leads and conversions as callers are often more ready to make a purchase. Adding a phone number to your ads can also give your business more credibility, resulting in higher click-through rates and increases in both calls and visits to your website. What’s more, enabling click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps is easy, even if you’re new to mobile, click-to-call advertising, or the Google Content Network.

Getting started:

To get started with click-to-call for mobile apps and content, just follow these three quick steps:

1. Ensure that your campaigns are opted in to serve on the Content Network, either by selecting ‘All available sites’ or specifically checking ‘Content Network’ within your Campaign Settings.

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2. Set up phone extensions and add your business phone number.

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At this time, click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps only support phone extensions and not location extensions.

3. Ensure that you’ve chosen to show your ads on mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

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Improving your performance:

Once you’re all set up, we encourage you to track your results and experiment. Our robust reporting lets you see the number of calls you receive by campaign, ad group and keyword so that you can easily monitor and improve your campaigns. Keep in mind that you pay the same price for a call as for a click, so it’s a good idea to try creating new mobile campaigns for content to figure out what works best.

More innovative mobile ad formats on the way:
At Google I/O today, we also shared a preview of our new expandable ad units that display videos or images on content and apps on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. These new ad units offer you more real estate and let potential customers interact with the ad without being redirected from the content or app they were viewing. When people click to play a video, our ad unit plays on their device’s native video player or YouTube app. Once they close the video, they’re returned to exactly where they left off on their mobile site or app.  You may begin to see these new formats running on our network as part of our beta for US-based advertisers, and we’re excited to make them more widely available soon.

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We recognize that you have many options when planning your mobile advertising strategies and we’re excited to be a part of this rapidly evolving and competitive mobile ads ecosystem. We’ll continue to innovate with new mobile ad formats that we hope will help you better reach your audience in more relevant and engaging ways, driving the mobile ads space forward for everyone.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

We wanted to remind you that this week we’re holding a webinar about our recent innovations in display advertising and how marketers are incorporating it into their strategies.

Join us on May 20, 2010 at 11:00am PST / 1:00pm CST / 2:00pm EST.

Specifically, we’ll discuss:

• Google's vision and recent innovations in display advertising
• How to best take advantage of our offerings, from planning to improving your campaigns
• How advertisers are incorporating the Google Content Network into their marketing strategy

Hope to see you there!

Posted by Katrina Kurnit, Inside AdWords crew

We previously highlighted a campaign that American Apparel ran on YouTube in which they targeted pet videos -- including one of the most famous videos on the site. Part of the secret of American Apparel’s success was their use of Video Targeting, a tool that helps advertisers find and target relevant partner videos on YouTube. As with other products we’ve recently launched, the Video Targeting Tool is integrated with Google AdWords and makes it easier than ever for you to run integrated, targeted, and measurable campaigns across the Web. Here’s how it works:


With so many of you now using the Video Targeting Tool, we rolled out some big improvements, including localized versions in 25 countries around the world. There are also a lot of new features to explore, so we decided to host a webinar that will give you an overview of the tool’s functionality, as well as best practices and case studies.

The webinar is scheduled for 10 am PDT on May 19th, 2010. To register for the event, please fill out the registration form here.

Posted by Katrina Kurnit, Inside AdWords crew

Last year, we unveiled a new feature called location extensions for those of you who use online advertising to drive traffic to your brick and mortar locations. This feature allows you to include information such as your business name, address and phone number in your existing text ads. When a potential customer performs a search, their location or search terms are dynamically matched to your business locations, and your most relevant location appears within your ad on Google.com and Google Maps. 


In order to make this as seamless as possible, we’re offering the following options to help you transition smoothly:

1. Upgrade your local business ads to text ads with location extensions. To take full advantage of the benefits of location extensions and ensure a seamless transition of your local business ads, we encourage you to update your ads through the five simple steps outlined on our website.

2. Automatically transition your local business ads. If you choose not to take any action, in the coming weeks, campaigns containing local business ads will be automatically enabled with location extensions using addresses from your local business ads. We’ll also replace your local business ads with new ads that are compatible with location extensions. While any of your addresses may now appear with the standard text ads in your campaign when relevant, each transitioned local business ad will continue to be linked to a single address and will only show to people near that address. 

We’ve heard from many of you who’ve already switched to location extensions that campaign management and attracting customers in your area is now simpler and more effective. With location extensions, you can deliver more exposure and local relevance by using the same ads for all your business locations without the overhead of maintaining a different ad for each location. Visit the location extension benefits page to learn about other ways it can help improve your campaigns.

We hope these changes help you reach more local customers with your ads, and value your feedback about this transition. Please share your comments or suggestions regarding the process using this form.

Posted by Emily Williams, Inside AdWords crew

Today we're introducing the broad match modifier, a new AdWords targeting feature that lets you create keywords that have greater reach than phrase match and more control than broad match. Adding modified broad match keywords to your campaign can help you get more clicks and conversions at an attractive ROI, especially if you mainly use exact and phrase match keywords today.

To implement the modifier, just put a plus symbol (+) directly in front of one or more words in a broad match keyword. Each word preceded by a + has to appear in your potential customer's search exactly or as a close variant. Close variants include misspellings, singular/plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms, and stemmings (like “floor” and “flooring”). Synonyms (like “quick” and “fast”) and related searches (like “flowers” and “tulips”) aren't considered close variants.

The graphic below illustrates the relative reach of different keyword match type strategies. As you can see, modified broad match keywords match more searches than the equivalent phrase match keyword, but fewer searches than the equivalent broad match keyword. Match behavior also depends on the specific words you modify. For example, the keyword formal +shoes will match the search “evening shoes,” but the keyword +formal +shoes will not.



During initial tests, advertisers who mainly used phrase and exact match found that adding modified broad match keywords increased campaign clicks and conversions, while providing more precise control than with broad match.

Modified broad match keywords have a traffic potential closer to phrase match than broad match. If you mainly use broad match keywords in your account, switching these keywords to modified broad match will likely lead to a significant decline in your overall click and conversion volumes. In order to maintain these volumes, we recommend keeping existing broad match keywords active, adding new modified broad match keywords, and adjusting bids to achieve your target ROI based on observed performance.

If you're in Canada or the UK, you can log into your AdWords account to start adding modified broad match keywords today. You can also use the AdWords Editor or the AdWords API. For more details, examples, suggestions on usage, and answers to many common questions, visit the AdWords Help Center.

This feature is currently available to advertisers in Canada and the UK as an open beta. We’ll be listening closely to feedback to help determine future product direction.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

The AdWords system maintenance, previously scheduled for May 8th, has been cancelled.  If you saw a message in your AdWords account alerting you about the scheduled maintenance, please disregard it. 

Post Posted by Daniel Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Katrina Kurnit, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords provides several ways for you to track the performance of your ads– most of which focus on clicks. Sometimes, however, understanding what happens after people click on your ads is just as important for measuring your AdWords performance. Today at the eMetrics conference in San Jose, we announced a new set of AdWords reports in Google Analytics to help you do exactly that.

The new AdWords reports in Google Analytics give you more insight into what happens after the click. For example, suppose you wanted to see if potential customers searching for your exact matched keywords were more engaged with your site’s content than those who were searching on broader terms. Using the new reports, you can view all the visits from clicks on exact matched ads for any keyword, ad group, or campaign in your account. You can also see how many pages that group visited and the average time spent on site. If you use the funnel reports in Google Analytics, you can even see the specific step where visitors tend to drop off when trying to make a purchase.

Want to see other ways you can use the new reports? Check out this short video:


If you’re ready to use the new reports, you just need to have a linked Google Analytics account with destination URL auto-tagging turned on. This is easy to set up; you can start by clicking on the Reporting tab, and then selecting Google Analytics in your AdWords account.

We’re rolling these new AdWords reports out gradually over the next several weeks, so you may not see them right away. You’ll know when the new reports have been added to your account when you see the AdWords section in your Traffic Sources reports in Google Analytics.


We hope these reports make it easier for you to measure the success of your AdWords campaigns!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

Today we’re announcing a new enhancement to Conversion Optimizer: Target CPA Bidding. With Target CPA Bidding, you can set a bid that reflects the average amount you’d like to pay for a conversion rather than the maximum you’re willing to pay for it.

We launched Conversion Optimizer in 2007 as a tool to improve your campaign ROI. Conversion Optimizer analyzes your conversion tracking data and automatically adjusts your bids for each auction. Over the past few years, we’ve been pleased to hear from a number of you that you've seen significant ROI improvements after implementing Conversion Optimizer. In fact, analysis indicates that, on average, those of you who use the tool experience a 21% increase in conversions along with a 14% decrease in CPA.*

This latest update to Conversion Optimizer was made in response to your feedback. We’ve heard from many of you that you’re more accustomed to thinking in terms of a target or average CPA when it comes to managing your online advertising (as opposed to the Max CPA bids which the tool has historically required). We hope that having the additional Target CPA bidding option will make it even easier for you to boost your AdWords ROI. Of course, if you’re happy using Max CPA bids with your Conversion Optimizer campaigns, then there’s no need to make any changes to your campaigns.


To enable Target CPA bidding, visit the Settings tab in your account, select ‘Focus on Conversions,’ and click ‘Advanced Options.’ Note that Conversion Optimizer is only available for campaigns that have implemented conversion tracking and have received at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days.

Posted by Emily Williams, Inside AdWords crew

*This analysis compares the performance of Conversion Optimizer campaigns over the course of a year with a control set of campaigns and represents the average impact of Conversion Optimizer. The actual impact will vary from campaign to campaign.