Google Partners Blog: Display

Academy for Ads: On-The-Go Training for Google's Ad Products

Monday, October 3, 2016

1Academy for AdsGrow your Google product know-how
Learning paths, Assessments, and AchievementsAdWords Certification exam in Google PartnersAdWords Academy

Digital concepts: Learn the essentials of online ads, including third-party ad-serving, programmatic buying, remarketing, and more.

Get started with AdWords: Learn the basics of AdWords and prepare for the AdWords Certification exam offered by Google Partners.

Get started with AdWords Display: Learn how you can show ads to your online audience via the Google Display Network.

Get started with Video for Brand: Get an overview of digital video landscape and the benefits of Google’s online video offerings, including Google Preferred. Learn how Google's advertising solutions map to awareness, consideration, and brand lift, along with more detailed steps on implementation and policy.

Get started with DoubleClick Bid Manager*: Learn your way around Bid Manager, what it offers and how you can use it to manage your online marketing campaigns.

*Only accessible to DoubleClick Bid Manager clients
Get startedg.co/learnwithpartnersg.co/AcademyforAdsPosted by Tracy Bizelli, Head of Academy for Ads1. 6 Fundamentals to Managing Digital Marketing in 2015, TFM Insights (January 2015)

A better way to buy display

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Display advertising has undergone a bit of a fairytale-like transformation over the past several years, from the medium of “Click Here!” banner ads, to one that can be smart and sexy and help bring big ideas (even those from advertising’s past) to life. Now that display has had its “Cinderella moment,” we figured the “carriage” could use an upgrade as well. So today, we’re unveiling some changes designed to simplify the way you buy and run display through AdWords.
Display’s New Home in AdWords For nine years, AdWords customers have been buying display campaigns through an interface designed for search. This is like trying to run in glass slippers -- it might work, but it’d be a lot more effective with the right running shoes. So we’re giving display its own tab within AdWords. Rolling out over the next few weeks, the new Display Network Tab is an interface built from the ground up to run display campaigns, and will enable you to bid, target and optimize display campaigns all from a single place. Click the image below to see the different Display Network Tab targeting options.
Display Network Tab

click to view larger image
A Revved-Up Contextual Engine The contextual engine, which matches ads to pages based on keywords, is at the heart of display-buying through AdWords. We’ve been hard at work behind-the-scenes to give this engine its biggest enhancement ever, the ability to combine the reach of display with the precision of search, using Next-Gen Keyword Contextual Targeting. This means that you can fine-tune the performance of your contextual campaigns down to individual keyword level, which will help you take the performance of your marketing campaign to a completely new level. It’s now easier for you to extend search campaigns to display and more efficient to run the two types of campaigns together.
For example, let’s say you’re running display campaigns for a Travel Agency who offers a vacation packages in several Caribbean islands. In the past, you would have created themed ad groups targeting vacations to Turks and Caicos and the Caribbean. Now, with this new keyword level transparency you might realize that the keyword “Turks and Caicos vacations” is 4 times more profitable than the keyword “caribbean vacations”. You can optimize your campaigns to aggressively target these high performing keywords, and be more conservative on “caribbean vacations”.
Giving a Visual Edge And like the writers of the best fairytales know, sometimes pictures communicate better than words (or numbers). Along with the new Display Network Tab and contextual engine, we’re introducing a way to visualize the reach of your campaigns, and see how that reach is impacted by combining multiple targeting types, such as keywords, placements, topics, interests or remarketing.

These changes are some of our biggest steps to date towards bringing together the science of search advertising with the art of display. We hope they give you some powerful new tools to connect with their customers and deliver engaging and relevant display ads.
Learn More We’re rolling out the new Display Network Tab to all advertisers in the upcoming coming weeks. For more information on what’s new on the Display Network Tab visit our help center article.

Please join Google in our upcoming webinar on May 15th to learn more about optimizing your targeting strategies for campaigns using the Next-Gen Keyword Contextual Targeting. Check out our new webinar page to register.

Watch Brad Bender, Director of Product Management for Display talk about the new Display Network Tab and the Next-Gen Keyword Contextual Targeting.

Posted by Alok Goel, Product Manager Next Gen-Keyword Contextual Targeting, Rebecca Illowsky, Product Manager Display Network Tab, and Claire Cui, Principal Engineer

A look at how display builds brands for marketers today

Thursday, September 29, 2011

we sharedAnimal Planetread case studyVolvoread case studySealyread case study

Connecting with the right consumer at the right moment.multitude of devicesaudiencecontextualGoogle Display NetworkDoubleClick AdExchangeEngaging them emotionally. rich media adsmobile displayin-stream videoMeasuring more robustly.Campaign InsightsGoogle AnalyticsMulti-Channel Funnelstrue impactgoogle.com/watchthisspace(1) Advertiser Intelligence Reports (AIR) study, Advertiser Perceptions, August 2011(2) The Brand Value of Video and Rich Media Ads, DoubleClick, September 2011(3) YouTube Homepage Impact Study, Compete, December 2010National Sales Director, Display and Video

Latest Display benchmarks now available

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Evaluating the success of display campaigns can be an exercise in relativity. You gauge current campaigns against past performance or compare across multiple campaigns and advertisers within your roster of brands or clients.   
But in seeking more comprehensive benchmarks that reflect trends going on in the display industry, you might find yourself falling short. Advertisers and agencies alike are looking for more data to answer the basic questions of "How do I know if my display ad campaigns are doing well?" and "Are there credible benchmarks can I use to compare the results on my current campaign?"   
It’s no surprise then that our display benchmarks have met with much enthusiasm since we first started publishing the data in 2009. We’re pleased to introduce a dedicated space for display benchmarks data on the Watch This Space website. The first set of metrics you’ll see available are the latest display benchmarks, which cover a breadth of data: from CTR metrics to engagement metrics for rich media ads such as interaction and expansion rate, video complete rates and average interaction times--all across a broad range of ad sizes, creative types and industry verticals.
Some interesting observations from these latest benchmarks are below:

Use of rich media ad formats have doubled. We saw a two-fold increase in the proportion of impressions going to Rich Media ads. In 2010, simple flash ads accounted for 54% of all global formats served via the DoubleClick for Advertisers platform, down from 74% in 2009. Image ads, in comparison, experienced an uptick with 28% of formats served in 2010 up from 17% in 2009. That leaves rich media ad formats growing to 18% of all the impressions served in 2010 up from 9% globally in 2009.

Response and engagement rates have been holding steady since 2009. In the past two years, the overall click-through rate has remained steady at around 0.09%.

(Click for full-size image)

Interaction rates trended slightly lower when comparing Q4 2010 to Q4 2009, but in general this measure of engagement has remained relatively steady over the course of 2010 after coming down from its peak in early 2009. (Note: Due to a change in the DFA methodology for interaction rates back in April 2008, we only reflect benchmarking data for interaction rates from then onward.)

Expansion rates have fallen considerably since early 2009 but now we are seeing rates leveling off with a slight uptick towards the end of 2010.

Video completion rates on rich media ads have generally remained consistent except for a several month peak towards the later half of 2008.

(Click for full-size image)

Larger ad sizes tend to generate greater response. Size does matter apparently. As we have seen in years past, bigger ads perform better. We observed this with the latest set of metrics in which the half-page ad unit (300x600) which had the highest CTR, interaction rate (for both in-page and expandable formats) and expansion rates of all the available creative sizes we tracked for the benchmarks.

Although the U.S. had one of the lowest expansion rates, this market showed the highest expansion time. So Americans seem to expand ads less but when they do spend more time engaging with the ads themselves.

In terms of industry verticals, auto advertisers performed the best in terms of CTR (0.13% for flash ads) but conversely had the lowest interaction (1.9%) and expansion rates (0.2%). For interaction rate, telecom (9.4%) and B2B (9.2%) advertisers were the highest while B2B stood out in terms of expansion rate (7.5%) benchmarks.

A couple of notes about this latest set of online advertising benchmarks. The data for these benchmarks are derived from a robust data set across DoubleClick for Advertisers, based on rigorous methodology with input from the Advertising Research Foundation. The charts cover global benchmark figures for the entirety of 2010 by ad format, ad size and industry vertical. The benchmarks are normalized across hundreds of advertisers, thousands of campaigns, and tens of billions of ad impressions.

For additional insights and access to the full set of available benchmarks, visit the benchmarks section on the Watch This Space website. More in-depth benchmarks by industry are available exclusively to DoubleClick clients so contact your account manager to discuss further.

Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager

Webinar: Display Targeting Strategies for Direct Response

Monday, August 15, 2011

On Thursday, August 4, we held a webinar about how to use today’s powerful targeting technologies to run effective display advertising campaigns for direct response goals. Specifically, we covered:

The "targeting toolbox" for direct response campaigns on the Google Display Network
Strategies for prioritizing and applying the available targeting options to maximize campaign performance and efficiency
Tools, tips and best practices for maximizing ROI

For those of you who missed the webinar, a recording is now available, which you can watch below. You can also download the materials we covered here.

After watching the webinar, share your thoughts and engage with us by following us at @GoogleDisplay. We’d love to hear from you!
Posted by Emel Mutlu, Product Marketing, Google Display

YouTube video ads now on Google Video search results

Monday, August 8, 2011

YouTube’s Promoted Videos recently passed the 1 billion mark in the number of video views delivered to advertisers. Promoted Videos allows any advertiser to promote a video against search results on YouTube or against related videos on YouTube or content across the Google Display Network. Search engine marketers already skilled with Google AdWords have used YouTube Promoted Videos to increase brand awareness and drive sales.

We would also like to highlight a few changes to the product.

Placement on Google Video search results. We are expanding Promoted Video ads to show up on the Google.com Video search results page in the US only. This change gives advertisers more opportunity to connect with potential viewers when they are actively seeking out video content. If you have search ads set up in your account, we will serve either your Promoted Video ad or your Google AdWords search ad, not both, based on a range of factors including your bid and quality score. To make sure you can take advantage of this increase in your clients’ potential audience, please opt into “Search partners” in your campaign.

When you enter your search terms (A) on video.google.com (B), you’ll see your Promoted Video ad above or to the right (C) of your organic search result (D).

Introduction on YouTube Mobile. In the next few weeks, we will allow your Promoted Video ads to show up on our mobile destination, m.youtube.com, which can be easily viewed by web browser across any mobile and tablet devices. New Google AdWords campaigns are opted into “All devices” by default, but you can opt your ads out of showing on mobile devices if you wish. For existing campaigns, you may wish to verify your devices settings to include/exclude mobile placements.

The mobile Promoted Video ad on m.youtube.com will include your ad thumbnail, title and channel name, similar to the organic video results.

Inclusion in TrueView video ads. We recently moved Promoted Videos from a cost-per-click ad format to cost-per-view, focusing on the value of video views. In the coming months, Promoted Videos will join our TrueView family of ad formats which provide viewers with choice and advertisers with engaged, opted-in views. Stay tuned for more updates!

We hope these changes give you more and better resources to grow your business with online video ads.

Posted by Jonathan Goldman, YouTube Software Engineer

Upcoming Webinar - Display Targeting Strategies for Direct Response

Friday, July 22, 2011

The perfect ad and the next phase of the display advertising revolution: Interview with Neal Mohan

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Following his keynote address titled “There’s a Perfect Ad for Everyone” at New York’s IAB Innovation Days @ Internet Week, Neal Mohan, our VP of Display Advertising was interviewed by Willow Duttge.
In his interview, Neal shed further insight into the new user revolution taking place in digital media and what it means for advertisers and publishers. Here are a few key takeaways from the interview:

There’s a big opportunity for advertisers and publishers to deliver an enhanced user experience by employing dynamic rich media formats, delivering ads customized for each user, adopting user-centric metrics to measure campaign success, and offering users much more control over their advertising they see.
Initial steps publishers and advertisers can take today toward this user-centric goal include looking closely at and listening to their audiences and experimenting with new formats and user experiences.
The mobile revolution presents new opportunities for advertisers and publishers looking to connect with users in new and more meaningful ways.

And if you missed the livestream of Neal's keynote, watch it here.
Posted by Google Display Team

YouTube at OMMA Video

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

OMMA VideoTrueView

There's a perfect ad for everyone.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

On, Thursday, June 9th, at 9:15AM ET, Neal Mohan, VP of Display Advertising, will deliver his predictions about the next phase of the display advertising revolution, in a keynote at IAB Innovation Days in New York. Tune in for a live stream on google.com/watchthisspace
Summary of the keynote:Display advertising is going through the biggest change in its history. However, of the billions of display ads users see today, how many do they really love? As an industry, we speak of connecting with consumers, but we focus primarily on targeting, reach, efficiency, DSPs, DMPs and SSPs. While, these technical Innovations are critical to move our industry forward, we need to start focusing more on the experiences we deliver to consumers.
In a world in which ads are becoming optional for users, the key to our industry’s success in future will be delivering ads that people love, remember and share.
The talk, titled "There's a Perfect Ad For Everyone" will stream live starting at 9:15am ET, on google.com/watchthisspace (and you can watch it in, well… a display ad).
For those of you on the west coast, a recording will be available shortly after the keynote.
Posted by the Agency Blog team

Innovate with AdWords

Friday, April 15, 2011

Blog Ad Innovationssearchdisplaymobileperformance measurementUnited KingdomGermanySpainFrance ItalyBrazilhere

Enjoy the spotlight at Cannes Lions for a good cause

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Good WorkGood WorkGood Work here

Display ads on Google Images trial

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

[This has been cross-posted from the Inside AdWords Blog]
As part of our Google Images redesign this July, we introduced Image Search Ads, which include a thumbnail alongside your ad text. We learned that on Google Images, image-based ads provided great results for our advertisers. They are also a highly useful format for users because they show commercial content directly related to the user's query.

Today we're expanding the image ad formats available on Google Images by testing rich media leaderboard units that appear above Google Images search results and invite you to try new products and services. With the introduction of this display ad format on Google Images, you now have a great opportunity to reach users with engaging ads, whether your goal is to build brand awareness, or to drive clicks and conversions.

Ad by Converse on Google Images, designed to gain awareness about their new shoe model.
Ad placed by Range Online, an iProspect Company.

click for full size image

leaderboard format adDisplay Ad BuilderCPMCPCHelp CenterPosted by Nathan Beach, Product Manager

Update your Google Advertising Professionals Qualification to the Google Certification Program by October 31

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

We recently launched the Google Certification Program and we’re glad that thousands of you all over the world have taken the new exams and joined the program. This certification program replaces the Google Advertising Professionals program. To provide you with time to make the transition, we’ve run both programs side by side during a six month grace period which ends in October. To retain certified status and continue using the badge within your marketing collateral, you’ll need to meet the requirements of the new program.

What’s the difference between the two programs? With the Google Certification Program, we’re offering updated learning materials written by Google experts. We’ve developed four in-depth exams on AdWords management called Fundamentals, Advanced Search, Advanced Display and Advanced Reporting & Analysis. The exams are designed to prove proficiency in these areas and are being widely adopted by employees of search marketing agencies. In addition to this, we launched Google Partner Search, a directory to help advertisers find agencies to manage their campaigns. Currently, all Google Advertising Professionals who have opted in are part of Google Partner Search, but this will not be the case by the end of October.

We’re informing all of you who have qualified under the old Google Advertising Professionals program to update to the Google Certification Program. In order to do so, a company must meet a minimum AdWords spend level, and have at least one employee become individually qualified under the Google Certification Program.

If you have an employee that already qualified under the old program, this is a great time for them to update their skills through the Google Certification Program. Upon completion, just update your company profile so that advertisers can find you using Google Partner Search.

To learn more about the Google Certification Program visit our Help Center.

Posted by Jason Shafton, Product Marketing Manager

Google Display Network series: Reach exactly the right audience with precision targeting

Thursday, August 5, 2010

seriesGoogle Display NetworkContextual targeting.contextual targetingPlacement targeting.Placement targetingAd PlannerPlacement ToolRemarketing.remarketing

have visited your website or viewed specific product categories on your site

didn’t convert or who abandoned their shopping cart

have converted (in order to up- or cross-sell to them)

Interest category marketing.interest category marketingAds Preferences Managergeography and languagetimedemographic bidsabove-the-fold targeting

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Marketing Manager, Google Display Network

Google Display Network series: Your toolbox for creative display ads

Thursday, July 29, 2010

last week’s postDoubleClick Ad PlannerGoogle Display NetworkGreat impact through rich media and video.Example of a great rich media ad run by Volvo and the agencies Euro RSCG New York and Media Contacts:

(Click to view larger image)
DoubleClick Rich Media and Video

Choose from a variety of rich media formats, based on your campaign objective.

Access DoubleClick Studio, a free rich media production and workflow tool.

Analyze data on more than 100 unique interactions in every creative unit with Audience Interaction Metrics.

Integration with DoubleClick for Advertisers, a robust ad management, serving and reporting solution, simplifies trafficking, reporting and billing of your rich media campaigns.

approved vendorsBuild display ads in minutes.Display Ad Builder

Create image, video (InVideo, Click-To-Play), Flash and rich media (including expandable) ads using hundreds of fully customizable templates or templates tailored for specific industries.

Stay true to your brand with your own images, text, videos and logos.

We automatically convert the ads you design into most standard IAB ad sizes.

(click to view larger image)

Stand out by blending in.Text adsoptcontextual targeting technologybanner blindness

(click to view larger image)

learn how

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Marketing Manager, Google Display Network

Carnival Cruise Lines Charts their Course with the Google Content Network

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Catherine Schenquerman is an avid traveler and a savvy digital marketer. As the interactive marketing manager for Carnival Cruise Lines, she has been able to merge her love of travel with her interest in experimenting with innovative digital marketing strategies.
Since 2006, Carnival Cruise Lines has worked with its digital agency, Razorfish, to implement successful Google search campaigns that both generate new leads and build brand awareness. But Catherine and her team wanted to explore ways to drive bookings as well. They wanted to be more precise about how they connected with customers at the critical moment in the purchasing cycle, when customers were planning vacations and were about to book a cruise. Catherine sat down with Razorfish to review innovative approaches they could try, and they decided to explore contextual targeting using the Google Content Network.
Experiment, Measure and IterateThe Razorfish search marketing team quickly got to work. First, they set out to optimize the core components of the campaign within ad groups, and then apply those to their content campaign on the Google Content Network. These optimizations resulted in nearly 400 new ad groups with tightly-themed keyword groupings, each with roughly 8–12 keywords per ad group. The new groupings allowed Carnival to better tailor its messages and precisely focus each message on specific sites and content.
Carnival and Razorfish used two Google Content Network tools to measure and fine-tune its efforts. They began by using DoubleClick Ad Planner, a free media planning tool to help identify websites that its target customers are likely to visit, and then used the Placement Performance Report, which shows performance statistics for ads on specific domains and URLs in the Google Content Network.
Smooth sailingWithin the first few weeks of the Google contextually-targeted campaign, the Carnival team began to see a significant increase in cruise bookings sourced from the campaign. After five weeks, online cruise bookings from the Google Content Network increased 284 percent and delivered a 72 percent reduction in cost per conversion. They also saw a 36 percent increase in leads.
“The Content Network proved to be a great new way for us to extend our reach, by giving us both the push and pull,” Schenquerman explained. “The push to associate our ads with relevant content and help stir demand, and the pull to capture someone who says ‘I want to learn more’– and then to pay for that on a cost-per-click basis, makes a lot of sense.”
Building on the success of their text ad campaign, Carnival recently decided to start running display ads on the Google Content Network. They applied what they learned from their search campaigns to run high performing display ads. Razorfish and Carnival Cruise Lines have been very successful in bring the science of search to the art of display.
Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Coffee break with clients: Proving the value of display with View-through conversion tracking

Monday, May 10, 2010

LeadQualView-through conversion trackingCheggWhat was the client's goal?
What Google solutions did you use to meet the goals?
We ran display campaigns on the Google Content Network, and used view-through-conversion tracking to demonstrate the additive value of display to growing Chegg's user base.
Can you describe the implementation process?
Chegg provided the display creative, with variations by season. We then developed contextually-targeted campaigns around themes such as "textbook," "used textbook" as well as target student groups like "fraternity." From there, we used the placement performance report to see which sites performed well, and moved them into management placements campaigns.

To receive view-through conversion statistics, we made sure that conversion tracking was set up.The campaigns began running in fall 2009 and remain active.
How did the Google solution perform?
By using view-through conversion tracking, we were able to show the client that the sales driven from the display campaign were within its cost/order metrics. We found that a quarter of the conversions came from people who had viewed, but not clicked, on one of Chegg's banner ads. If we simply looked at conversions directly from clicks, the cost-per-conversion would have been well above Chegg's goals.

If you did not use this Google solution, how would things have been different?
Without view-through conversion data, we would have had a difficult time convincing the client to invest in display.

For more information on view-through conversion tracking, please visit the Help Center.

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Upcoming webinar: Uncovering opportunities with display advertising

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Display advertising is changing rapidly with the emergence of audience data, engaging new ad formats, dynamic creatives, and new technologies. We'd like to invite you to a webinar about our recent innovations in display advertising and how marketers are incorporating it into their strategy.
Specifically, we’ll discuss:

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

Date: Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 11:00am PST / 1:00pm CST / 2:00pm ESTRegister here
Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Now available: Reach the right audience through remarketing

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Imagine your client is a travel company, and they're trying to excite users about deals to tropical Caribbean destinations. Users may come to the website, browse the offers and think about booking a trip, but decide that the deal is still not cheap enough. Then, they continue to browse the web. If your client later decides to offer discounted deals to the Carribean, how do they reach users who have already expressed interest in traveling there?
To help you to do this, this week we're rolling out a new feature called remarketing. Any AdWords advertiser can use remarketing to reach users as they’re browsing the web on sites within the Google Content Network. Remarketing is a simple way to connect with users, based on their past interactions with your clients' websites.
We began trialing remarketing last March as part of our interest-based advertising beta. We’ve received a tremendous response from the hundreds of advertisers who’ve been using it in recent months, across all industries - including automotive, retail, local and finance. We’ve seen that remarketing has worked well for many different kinds of advertisers - whether they’re looking to boost brand awareness, or drive clicks and sales, and whether they use display or text ads. For example, if you support search advertising clients, you can use remarketing to create an integrated campaign strategy for them. After driving traffic to their sites with search ads, you can then remarket to the users who reach their sites by showing them tailored ads on sites throughout the Google Content Network.
You can easily set up and create a remarketing campaign for clients through the new “Audiences” tab in AdWords. A remarketing campaign allows you to take advantage of the same features and reports you can use today in AdWords - it’s really just a new way to reach the best audience for your clients' ads.

(click for full size image)
Here’s an example of how it works. Let’s say your client is a basketball team with tickets to sell. You can put a piece of code on the tickets page on the client's website, which will let you later show relevant ticket ads (such as last minute discounts) to everyone who has visited that page, as they subsequently browse sites in the Google Content Network. In addition to your own site, you can also remarket to users who visited your YouTube brand channel or clicked your YouTube homepage ad.
You can also run a number of remarketing campaigns at the same time. For example, you could promote discount game tickets to users who’ve previously visited your client's tickets page, advertise VIP hospitality packages to users who clicked on his “How to get to the arena” page, and advertise a sale on team merchandise to users who’ve previously visited his YouTube brand channel.
Remarketing is a great way for businesses to reach users who are likely to be highly receptive to their ads and special offers. For example, Intercontinental Hotels Group has used remarketing to reach potential customers who have visited one of their hotel websites:

Ad by InterContinental Hotels Group using remarketing to offer incentive to users(click for full size image)
It helps advertisers and websites get higher returns. It also means more relevant and useful ads for users, and more opportunities to receive special offers and discounts that may be of interest.
As we announced when we launched interest-based advertising, we want to put users in control of the ads they see, so anyone can opt out of remarketing by using the Ads Preferences Manager. Our remarketing product complies with industry standards developed by self-regulatory groups such as the NAI and IAB and IAB UK.
To get started with a remarketing campaign, visit the AdWords Help Center. Posted by Aitan Weinberg, Product Manager

Partners Blog