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A look at how display builds brands for marketers today
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Last week,
we shared
examples of how direct response marketers are driving strong results with display advertising. But you’ve heard it before -- beyond driving immediate clicks and conversions, display builds brands. And as digital budgets accelerate, we’re seeing that for an increasingly growing number of brands, display advertising has become an ever-important part of their strategy. In fact, in the recently conducted Advertiser Intelligence Reports study, by Advertiser Perceptions, advertisers are planning on spending more digital display dollars in the next 12 months for brand goals than direct response (1).
So this week, we’re turning our attention to pioneering brands who used display advertising as a critical component in their overall marketing mix to connect with their audience, engage them emotionally, and as a result, drive meaningful results. Let’s take a closer look.
Animal Planet
attracted 1.6MM viewers for the season premiere of River Monsters, putting it in the #1 spot among its target audience, by running an integrated video and rich media campaign across YouTube, AdMob, and the Google Display Network. (
read case study
)
Volvo
drove an 88% lift in purchase intent for its new S60 sedan by leveraging the YouTube homepage and masthead unit, interactive video ads on AdMob, and standard IAB ads on the Google Display Network. (
read case study
)
Sealy
reinvented its Posturepedic brand using YouTube promoted video ads and in-stream video ads, which drove 46% of its website traffic during the first week of the campaign. (
read case study
)
At OMMA Global this week, we shared a simple framework for brand building that we developed after analyzing the campaigns of our most successful brand advertisers. These “better practices” focus on three key areas: connecting with the right consumer at the right moment, delivering an engaging message, and measuring the metrics that matter.
Connecting with the right consumer at the right moment.
As consumers continue to access the internet more frequently throughout the day, from a
multitude of devices
, it’s increasingly important for brand marketers to create device-inclusive, rather than device-specific, campaigns. And by targeting a combination of
audience
and
contextual
signals, it’s now easier than ever to reach the right person, at the right time, on the right device through the
Google Display Network
or
DoubleClick AdExchange
.
Engaging them emotionally.
The best display ads don’t just leverage sight, sound, and motion, but also harness display’s interactive capabilities that drive deep engagement with a brand. Our research shows that
rich media ads
drive significantly better brand performance than standard Flash ads--1.7X for brand awareness, 2.7X in purchase intent, and 5X increase in brand favorability (2). We also see that newer ad formats, like
mobile display
and
in-stream video
, are even more effective at moving consumers down the brand funnel. Lastly, we’ve seen masthead ads on the YouTube homepage garner an 11% interaction rate and drive a 4X lift in engagement compared to standard ads (3).
Measuring more robustly.
Looking beyond simple clicks and conversions, brand marketers use
Campaign Insights
to measure increased awareness and interest through the lift in search queries and website visits. Paired with
Google Analytics
and
Multi-Channel Funnels
, advertisers can see a complete picture of the chain of online and offline media that drives brand engagement. And to close the loop, many of our brands match geo-targeted display campaigns to offline sales to measure the
true impact
of a display ad campaign.
More and more studies show that brand marketers who focus on these three levers see the the greatest return on their display ad investment. With display’s ability to connect more precisely with your target consumer, engage more emotionally with interactive messages, and measure robust metrics along all parts of the purchase funnel, it’s no wonder that display builds brands.
Watch this space.
google.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 2010
Posted by Brian Zeug,
National Sales Director, Display and Video
A look at how display drives performance for marketers today
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Few would argue that online display advertising is playing an increasingly important role in the marketing mix. While we frequently talk about how the vast majority of our top advertisers have run a Google display campaign in the last year while continuing to increase their investment, today we’re shining a light on some specific examples.
For each brand we’re highlighting today, display was an integral part of their broader marketing strategy. To make it work, they tapped into a robust display advertising toolbox and applied targeting, creative, measurement and optimization solutions that made the most sense for their campaign objective. Let’s take a look at the results.
Airbnb
increased the number of nights booked from 800,000 to 2 million with help from remarketing on the Google Display Network and TrueView video ads on YouTube. (
Read case study
)
Groupon
acquired millions of subscribers with the help of contextual targeting and auto-optimization on the Google Display Network. (
Read case study
)
ShoeDazzle
got 45% of their conversions from the Google Display Network by applying a variety of targeting and optimization tools. (
Read case study
)
At the heart of each success lies a common theme: Great display advertising happens when smart strategies are applied in three key areas: Finding the right customer, showing them the perfect ad, and measuring and optimizing effectively.
Find the right customer.
Reaching just the right audience is at the crux of any successful campaign. In fact, marketers are saying the biggest driver of increased display budgets is the availability of better targeting technologies. (1) From
remarketing strategies
that reach 84% of users on a typical list, to
interest categories
that show interested users your message while respecting user privacy, we’re constantly innovating to precisely connect your message with your audience. And just last month, we
shared strategies
for applying the right targeting mix to extract the most out of direct response campaigns on the GDN.
Show them the perfect ad.
You can find the right audience, but what do you tell them? With display, marketers have a wide-open canvas to connect with consumers to drive the results they care about. And an effective ad can come in any format. In fact, many of the brands we’re highlighting today used Standard IAB display ad units but with compelling messaging and beautiful creative that really resonated with their audience.
Measure and optimize based on real-time insights.
Advertisers have always benefited from transparency into exactly where ads run, their costs, and the right metrics to measure campaign performance, providing actionable insights to optimize their campaigns. Our recent investments in measurement and optimization take this further. Marketers can now see a complete picture of the chain of impressions and clicks that drives campaign performance with
Multi-Channel Funnels
. And applying Google’s 10 years of experience in developing optimization algorithms, we’ve launched tools like
Display Campaign Optimizer
, which can be used to do fully automated bidding and targeting to boost conversions and ROI.
So today, while we’re celebrating these successes, more than that, there is a valuable insight here. The display toolbox is a rich one. It’s the agencies and marketers who tap into that toolbox and apply it in ways that make sense for their campaigns, who will greatly benefit from display as a medium. So.. will your campaign be the next one we shine a light on?
Watch this space.
google.com/watchthisspace
(1) Effective Audience Targeting Leads To Bigger Display Budgets, eMarketer, May 2011
Posted by Emel Mutlu,
Product Marketing Manager, Google Display, Client Communications
Google+: 108, the +1 button is coming to display ads
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Earlier today we
announced
several exciting new additions to Google+, including many on
mobile
. We’d like to announce one more addition for our AdWords advertisers, +1 on the
Google Display Network
.
Since its
introduction
on search results and search ads, the +1 button has been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily. Starting early October we’re expanding that to include display ads across the web on both desktop and mobile. For the first time, you’ll be able to run social-enabled ad campaigns that work across millions of sites in over 40 countries around the world.
If you’re running display ads through the Google Display Network you may begin seeing the
+1 button and personal annotations
with your ads. With a single click, people can recommend the ad’s landing page to their friends and contacts.
Incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it.
For example, take Elaine, who sees an ad for discount flights. She +1’s the ad, thinking her friends might value similar deals. Now when Elaine’s friends and contacts are logged into Google and see the discount flight ad on any of the millions of GDN partner websites, they’ll see Elaine’s picture across the bottom of the ad with a note saying she +1’d it.
On desktop, the +1 button and recommendations will appear at the bottom of display ads, then fade out until the viewer hovers over the ad. The viewer can also close the overlays by clicking the ‘x’.
On mobile, the +1 button will replace the existing ‘g’ logo and recommendations will appear for several seconds, then fade out.
Elaine’s friends and contacts will also be more likely to see the ad. Because a recommendation from a friend is such a strong signal of relevance, the Google Display Network gives ads that have been recommended an extra boost by including them in the auction for any page a friend visits. Of course, if you’re targeting specific
placements
or audience segments (including
interest categories
and
remarketing lists
), your ads will only show on pages that match those restrictions. Additionally, your ads will never show on any placement or category on an
exclusions list
.
What’s even better is that the +1 button on display ads will work together with +1 buttons on search results, search ads, and websites. A single +1 applies to the same content across the web, no matter where it appears.
On the Google Display Network (GDN), the +1 button will be added to image, animated GIF, Flash, Display Ad Builder ads and select
mobile inventory
. You can also choose to include the +1 button on your
DoubleClick Rich Media
ads, which can run on or off the GDN.
We’re confident from our initial experience with the +1 button on search that this’ll be a great addition to your GDN campaigns. However, if you’re not sure that you want the +1 button and recommendations associated with your ads, starting today you can
opt-out
at the campaign level in AdWords under
campaign settings
.
To learn more about the +1 button and how it affects your ads and search results, visit our
+1 button site
.
Posted by Eider Oliveira,
Senior Software Engineer
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