Author Archives: Charissa Yee

Go beyond the click with the “Landing pages” page

From finding the right keywords to creating the best ads, you invest a lot of time optimizing your campaigns to drive visitors to your website. But none of that matters if your landing pages aren’t turning those visitors into customers.

Did you know that nearly one third of smartphone users will immediately switch to another website if yours doesn't satisfy their needs?¹ In fact, 64% switch because there are too many steps or they can’t find the information they’re looking for.²

In other words, if your landing pages aren’t mobile-friendly, you’re losing customers and sales.

The “Landing pages” page

Earlier this year at Google Marketing Next, we introduced the “Landing pages” page to help you see how your landing pages are performing. We're rolling it out over the next few weeks in the new AdWords experience.^* On this new page, you’ll see which URLs in your account are mobile-friendly, which ones drive the most sales, and which ones may require your attention. For example, find the pages that get a lot of clicks, but aren't mobile-friendly. Then prioritize them for your webmaster so you can convert more of your ad clicks into sales.

Sort “Clicks” in descending order to identify landing pages you may want to fix

“An ad click is just the start of the customer's journey. Everything after that―the speed, mobile-friendliness, ease of use―is paramount to the success of our campaigns. So naturally we're incredibly excited to see this landing page data in AdWords.” ― Nicole Jennings, Senior VP of Paid Digital Media, PMX Agency

“It’s amazing how quickly we can now identify landing page issues and propose the right fixes. When we can get web teams to prioritize changes that improve both organic and paid search performance, it's a big win for everyone.” ― Zach Morrison, President of Elite SEM

Mobile-friendly Click Rate

One of the first metrics you’ll want to look at is “Mobile-friendly Click Rate”: the percentage of mobile clicks that go to a mobile-friendly page, as defined by Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. This metric gives you an idea of which landing pages result in the most or least mobile-friendly experiences. Sort the column in ascending order to identify pages you may want to fix.

Test for mobile friendliness

Once you find a landing page that needs attention, simply click to run a test. AdWords will open up Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test in a new tab so you can review the potential issues, for example the page text being too small or the things people can tap on being too close together.

Google's Mobile-Friendly Test

Learn more

The “Landing pages” page shows data for Search, Display and Video campaign landing pages, however “Mobile-friendly Click Rate” is currently available for Search landing pages only. We’ll be expanding on this data in the coming months. You can learn more in the AdWords Help Center, and learn how Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) can speed up your landing pages to help improve campaign performance.

Posted by Jon Diorio, Group Product Manager, AdWords

1-2. Google / Ipsos Connect, Rising Consumer Expectations in the Micro-Moment, U.S., Dec. 2016 n=1,516 US online smartphone users, A18+
* The new AdWords experience is rolling out to all advertisers throughout 2017. Once you have access, you can switch back and forth between the new and previous experiences.

Source: Inside AdWords

Universal App Campaigns: Steer Performance with Goals

We recently announced that we'll be moving all AdWords app install campaigns to Universal App Campaigns (UAC) later this year.

With UAC, you can reach the right people across all of Google’s largest properties like Google Search, Google Play, YouTube and the Google Display Network — all from one campaign. You also get access to ad placements exclusive to UAC, like the home and app listing pages in the Google Play Store. These placements connect you to users in “discovery mode” as they browse for their next favorite app.

UAC ad in the Google Play store

UAC uses Google’s machine learning technology to analyze hundreds of millions of signal combinations in real time to optimize your bids and ads to find the best app users for your business goals.

In this post, we’ll share some best practices on how to get the best performance from Universal App Campaigns — whether you’re looking for install volume, in-app actions or both.

Pick the right goal for your campaign

You’ll need to pick an objective for your Universal App campaign. Tell your campaign what kind of users you’d like. This means 1) identifying what you’d like your app users to do, and 2) defining the value of that action.

Example: Say you’re a mobile game developer who’s about to launch a new app. You want as many users to install your app as possible for a target cost-per-install (CPI). Say you expect 1 out of 10 people who install your game to buy a $20 upgrade in the first 30 days. You can afford to pay up to $2 per install (or $20 ÷ 10 installs). Pick the campaign objective “Install volume” and set your target cost-per-install (CPI) to $2.

Reach different types of users with different campaigns

If you have multiple goals, you can set up a separate campaign for each one. Each campaign will optimize your bids and ads for a specific type of user you’re trying to reach.

Example: After launching your game, you decide you’d like more users who are likely going to buy something, like a $20 upgrade you offer.

This doesn’t mean that you’d like to stop finding other types of users. You may still want to find people who will install and engage, but not necessarily pay. You create a separate campaign alongside your first one. You set this second campaign’s objective to be “In-app actions.” You calculate your target cost-per-action (CPA) of to be $20, equal to the value of the upgrade.

Setting campaign bidding objectives

Then, you decrease the target CPI and lower the budget for the first campaign focused on “Install volume.” This signals to AdWords that you’re more interested in users who are likely to complete an in-app action.

Use budgets to find the right mix of users

You can also change the mix of new users for your app as your business needs change.

Continuing the example: Say it’s been a couple of months and you’ve added a social feature and new levels to your game. You want to get this update to as many new users as you can.You adjust the target CPI and budget UP for the campaign that’s focused on “Install Volume.” At the same time, you adjust the budget DOWN for the campaign that’s focused on “In-app actions.” You’re signaling to AdWords yet another change in direction.

After setting new target bids and budgets, periodically measure results waiting for at least 100 conversions before making changes as needed. The campaign needs roughly 100 conversions to recognize and apply patterns confidently to find the users you’re looking for.

Marketers are already seeing positive results from their Universal App campaigns:

“Zynga now operates 100% of AdWords spend through UAC, however we did not get here overnight as it was a long process of testing and learning to understand how to make UAC work for us at scale. We are now able to scale up games profitably and increase operational efficiencies across all aspects of our user acquisition efforts by leveraging UAC machine learning.” - Tyson Nguyen, Senior Manager User Acquisition

“Performance is at the core of our business and Universal App Campaigns out-performed manual campaign management, allowing us to achieve efficiency at scale.” - Jonna Onselius, Mobile Marketing Manager

“As the largest online bus booking platform in the world, increasing bus booking transactions is crucial for our business to stay competitive. UAC helped us achieve this by maximizing transactions at a minimal cost and adapting faster to changing market dynamics when compared to standard app install campaigns.”- Rajiv Kondal, Director, Performance Marketing

“Using relevant ad placements in the Google Play Store, Universal App Campaigns have accelerated our new user growth and expansion into new markets.”- Richard Fenning, Digital Marketing Specialist

Tune in next week when we’ll talk about another way you can steer performance for UAC: creative assets.

Meanwhile, you can read our best practices guide to learn more about how to get the most from your Universal App Campaigns.

Posted by Sissie Hsiao, Director of Product Management, Mobile Advertising

Source: Inside AdWords

Important updates to AdWords Terms and Conditions

When you first created your AdWords account, you agreed to Terms and Conditions that provide a common understanding in basic areas like policy, payment and liability. As AdWords grows to meet the needs of businesses around the world, we sometimes need to make updates.

Starting today, we’re rolling out new Terms and Conditions in all countries and territories. Please read through these updated terms carefully. They include:

More flexibility to notify or inform you via phone calls, text messages and emails.
New provisions related to how products and features are tested within AdWords.
In the U.S., Canada, and most countries in Latin America and Asia, a provision to use arbitration to resolve disputes rather than jury trials or class actions.^* Follow the instructions in the dispute resolution section of the terms to opt-out of this provision (U.S. and Brazil only).
New provisions related to the disclosure of technical errors and bugs within AdWords.
New data protection terms related to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other EU privacy frameworks.

As with any legal document, you might consider consulting an attorney if you have any questions.

Action required

Please review and accept the new Terms and Conditions by signing in to your AdWords account. When prompted, click ‘“Accept” to indicate your acceptance.

If you use the AdWords API or a third-party tool, you’ll need to log directly into your AdWords account to accept. Accepting won’t affect any of your bids, budgets, invoicing or other campaign settings. However, if you “Decline,” your ads will no longer be eligible to serve.

Don’t see the new terms?

We’re rolling out the new Terms and Conditions globally over the next few months. If you don’t see the prompt to “Accept” the new terms after signing in to your AdWords account, you may need to wait and accept at a later date—we’ll send an email notification once your account(s) is ready. Or someone you’ve authorized to act on your behalf, for example an advertising agency, may have already accepted.

You can view the previous Terms and Conditions in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Sugeeti Kochhar, Product Manager, AdWords

* Does not apply to countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Source: Inside AdWords

Propel your mobile app growth with Universal App Campaigns

Throughout the day, when people want to go somewhere, watch something, or buy something, they reach for their mobile phones for help. And it's often a mobile app that delivers what they need — whether it's a new pair of running shoes or puzzle game to pass the time during a flight delay.

We launched Universal App Campaigns (UAC) two years ago to make it easier for you to grow your app business. UAC uses Google’s unique machine learning technology to help find the customers that matter most to you, based on your business goals — across Google Play, Google.com, YouTube and the millions of sites and apps in the Display Network.

Since then, UAC has delivered unprecedented growth and app engagement for developers and marketers. Advertisers that optimize for in-app actions with UAC, on average, drive 140% more conversions per dollar than other Google app promotion products.¹

To help more advertisers take advantage of these benefits, we'll be focusing our efforts and moving all AdWords app install campaigns to UAC later this year. Starting on October 16th, all new app install campaigns created in AdWords will run on UAC. Existing Search, Display and YouTube app promo campaigns will stop running on November 15th, so it’s important to start upgrading to UAC as soon as possible.

Three easy steps to help you move your campaigns to UAC

Review your current AdWords app promotion campaigns: log into AdWords > click the Ads tab and identify your top performing text, banner and video ads.

Tip: export your campaign performance to make it easy to determine baseline UAC bids.

Create a new UAC and set the right performance goal: build a new UAC by clicking the +Campaign drop-down menu from the "Campaigns" tab > select Universal app. Copy and paste any top performing creatives, especially images and videos, into your new UAC.

Set up AdWords conversion tracking through Google Analytics for Firebase, Google Play or one of our third-party App Attribution Partners to find more of your high-value users. Learn more
Then, choose the bidding option that best supports your business or campaign goals:

Set the right bids: calculate the average CPI, CPA or ROAS of your existing campaigns as the starting point for your UAC performance goal. Then, monitor your new UAC and adjust bids over time to meet your goal, as there may be some natural changes in performance as you transition between campaign types.

Check out more Best Practices here.

How UAC helps you find more of the right app users

UAC uses machine learning to make the smartest decision for each ad, analyzing hundreds of millions of potential signal combinations in real time — like where people are engaging with your ads and which creatives and keywords perform best.

For example, we may learn that active PayPal users tend to search on Google Play for apps to transfer money to their friends. So, we’ll show more ads on those types of queries and related content.

Over the coming months, we'll deep dive into new features and continue to share best practices to help you get the most out of UAC.

Posted by Sissie Hsiao, Director of Product Management, Mobile Advertising

1. Google Internal Data, July 2017

Source: Inside AdWords

Delivering more informative sitelinks, callouts and snippets

With more searches now happening on mobile than any other device, expectations for the mobile experience are higher than ever. In fact, over 65% of smartphone users now expect to get immediate information while using their smartphone.¹ However, mobile constraints can make this difficult–smaller screens and higher latency often get in the way of you showing your customers what they want to know or buy.

Updates like expanded text ads have already helped to make mobile ads more useful and informative, and we’re continuing to build on those principles with extensions. That’s why, starting later this month, we’re changing how mobile ads show sitelinks, callouts and structured snippets.

Useful, tappable sitelinks

Sitelinks help you send people to specific pages on your site directly from your ad, like your store hours page, product pages and more. Going forward, we’re simplifying how mobile sitelinks will show by using both horizontal buttons and larger vertical links.

This makes it easy for you to send people to more relevant, deeper parts of your site–all while giving them the kind of tappable mobile experience they’ve come to expect. Early results show that people are twice as likely to interact with your sitelinks in this new format.²

Making callouts and snippets more readable

Callouts and structured snippets are extensions that provide additional information below your ad copy. Whether it’s to promote a unique offer or highlight a specific aspect of your business, they can be a great way to show off all that your business has to offer.

Previously, both of these extensions appeared in a separate line below your ad. Now, they’ll appear in-line with your ad copy in paragraph form. This means that, on average, more of your callouts and structured snippets will be available to show with your ad. Based on our user studies, people have found this new formatting to be more informative and engaging.³

Learn more about ad extensions in the Help Center, and read our best practices guide to learn how to make your extensions as appealing as possible.

Posted by James Parker, Product Manager, AdWords

1. Google / Ipsos Connect, Rising Consumer Expectations in the Micro-Moment, U.S., Dec. 2016
2. Google internal data
3. Google internal data

Source: Inside AdWords

Helping publishers bust annoying ads

Cross posted from The Keyword

At some point, we’ve all been caught off guard by an annoying ad online—like a video automatically playing at full volume, or a pop-up standing in the way to the one thing we’re trying to find. Thanks to research conducted by the Coalition for Better Ads, we now know which ad experiences rank lowest among consumers and are most likely to drive people to install ad blockers.

Ads, good and bad, help fund the open web. But 69% of people who installed ad blockers said they were motivated by annoying or intrusive ads. When ads are blocked, publishers don’t make money.

In June we launched the Ad Experience Report to help publishers understand if their site has ads that violate the Coalition’s Better Ads Standards. In just two months, 140,000 publishers worldwide have viewed the report.

"This report is great for helping publishers adapt to the Better Ads Standards. The level of transparency and data is incredibly actionable. It literally says here's the issue, here's how to fix it. I think it will be helpful for all publishers." Katya Moukhina, Director of Programmatic Operations, Politico

We're already starting to see data trends that can give publishers insights into the most common offending ads. Here's a look at what we know so far.

It's official: Popups are the most annoying ads on the web

Pop-up ads are the most common annoying ads found on publisher sites. On desktop they account for 97% of the violations! These experiences can be bad for business: 50% of users surveyed say they would not revisit or recommend a page that had a pop-up ad.

Instead of pop-ups, publishers can use less disruptive alternatives like full-screen inline ads. They offer the same amount of screen real estate as pop-ups—without covering up any content. Publishers can find more tips and alternatives in our best practices guide.

Mobile and desktop have different issues

On mobile the issues are more varied. Pop-ups account for 54% of issues found, while 21% of issues are due to high ad density: A mobile page flooded with ads takes longer to load, and this makes it harder for people to find what they're looking for.

Most issues come from smaller sites with fewer resources

Our early reporting shows that most issues are not coming from mainstream publishers, like daily newspapers or business publications. They come from smaller sites, who often don’t have the same access to quality control resources as larger publishers.

To help these publishers improve their ads experiences, we review sites daily and record videos of the ad experiences that have been found non-compliant with the Better Ads Standards. If a site is in a “failing” or “warning” state, their Ad Experience Report will include these visuals, along with information about the Better Ad Standards and how the issues may impact their site.

We encourage all publishers to take a look at their report. Here’s how.

Gaining access to the report
The Ad Experience Report is part of Google Search Console, which means you need to be a verified site owner to access it. You can either ask your webmaster to add you as an owner or user, or verify ownership yourself. Learn more.
Understanding the report
If your site has been reviewed and the status is “Warning" or "Failing," the report will show videos of the ad experiences that are likely to annoy or mislead your visitors. Click on desktop or mobile reports to see the specific experiences identified.
Fixing the issues and requesting a review
Once you’ve identified the violating experiences, work with your ad ops and site design teams to remove the annoying experiences. After that, describe how you addressed each of the issues in the ‘Request review’ area and click ‘I fixed this’. You’ll receive a confirmation email saying your review is in progress. Learn more.

Looking ahead

Over the next few weeks we’ll begin notifying sites with issues. For even more insights on the types of sites and violations found, publishers can visit The Ad Experience Report API.

The good news is that people don’t hate all ads—just annoying ones. Replacing annoying ads with more acceptable ones will help ensure all content creators, big and small, can continue to sustain their work with online advertising. This is why we support the Coalition’s efforts to develop marketplace guidelines for supporting the Better Ads Standards and will continue working with them on the standards as they evolve.

Posted by Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management, Sustainable Ads

Source: Inside AdSense

Ramp up your calls with call bid adjustments

Click-to-call ads were introduced seven years ago to help you connect with more customers over the phone. Since then, we’ve heard one thing loud and clear: you want to drive even more calls. And it’s no surprise—on average, calls convert three times better than web clicks.¹

To help you generate more calls, we’re rolling out new call bid adjustments, which allow you to control how often the call option appears with your search ads. Use call bid adjustments to increase bids on campaigns that drive valuable phone calls. For example, if you’re a travel advertiser, you may see higher order values from calls because it can be easier to cross-sell rental cars, group tours and other vacation add-ons during a live conversation. Raise your call bid adjustments to show call extensions more frequently and drive more of these high-value call conversions.

“Calls are an important source of new customer leads for us. Call bid adjustments help us improve our click-to-call visibility and ensure we’re appearing in the top 1-2 positions on mobile. Our on-the-go customers convert quickly within a short window of time, so it’s critical to be front and center, and show them that we offer storage units at the right price and location. Since implementing call bid adjustments and bidding higher for calls, we’ve seen a 37% increase in call volume with a 22% decrease in average cost-per-call.”
- Stephanie Christensen, Paid Acquisition Analyst

“Our customers want to speak to a real person to make sure they’re choosing the right medical alert system for themselves or a loved one. When we can walk them through our offerings live and give them that peace of mind, they have a 30% likelihood of converting, which is nearly 2x higher than with web leads. Someone connecting with us from a call extension is more valuable than a website click, so call bid adjustments allow us to optimize for that greater value. We’ve worked with our agency, Metric Theory, to increase bids specifically for calls and improve how often the call extension shows. As a result, we’ve generated 20% higher call volume while decreasing the cost by 60%.”
- Matt Guerrieri, Director of Marketing

“Call bid adjustments have helped us meet a key marketing objective by delivering a strong uplift in performance year over year, with a 79% increase in click to call rate. It has also enabled us to target our audience to generate higher value insurance policies. The flexibility of the service allows us to make the call option more prominent, thereby driving a greater number of relevant calls. Calls deliver a significant proportion of our monthly leads and we are currently working to push call bid adjustments even harder.”
- Anthony Gamble, Head of Digital Marketing (Acquisition)

Call bid adjustments are available exclusively in the new AdWords experience, which will roll out to all advertisers by the end of the year.² To learn more about AdWords calls solutions, visit our Help Center. You can also check out best practices for maximizing calls performance and improving the caller experience.

Posted by Amit Agarwal, Senior Product Manager, Calls & Messaging

1. Google internal data, 2016
2. The new AdWords experience is rolling out to all advertisers throughout 2017. Once you have access, you can easily switch back and forth between the new and previous experiences.

Source: Inside AdWords

AdWords Editor 12 offers a fresh look and new features to help simplify your workflow

A new version of AdWords Editor, with a refreshed design, is now available for all advertisers globally. You'll find it even easier to manage your campaigns at scale with custom rules, faster account downloads and more.

Custom rules help you build high-performing campaigns

With AdWords Editor 12, you can now use custom rules to check for changes that don't align with your best practices. For example, our best practices suggest showing search ads with four or more sitelinks. When you use this rule, AdWords Editor will let you know which campaigns or ad groups don't meet this best practice before your post changes. You can get started by using our recommended rules, or create custom rules based on your own best practices.

Custom rule alerts in AdWords Editor 12

Faster account downloads for new AdWords Editor versions

To reduce the time you spend waiting for your accounts to download after you update AdWords Editor, we'll now transfer more of your data from previous versions.

A new look and feel

You'll also see a new design that better aligns with Google's commitment to material design. While the changes will be subtle and won't affect how you manage your accounts, you'll now have a more cohesive visual experience across AdWords Editor, the new AdWords experience, and other Google products.

and more ...

The new version of AdWords Editor also supports bidding to maximize conversions, uploading up to 20 images and videos for Universal App Campaigns, and using the new customization fields for responsive ads. You can learn more about all Version 12 updates in the AdWords Editor Help Center, or download AdWords Editor 12 here.

Posted by Blake Reese, Senior Product Manager, AdWords Editor

Source: Inside AdWords

Building a better web for everyone

The vast majority of online content creators fund their work with advertising. That means they want the ads that run on their sites to be compelling, useful and engaging--ones that people actually want to see and interact with. But the reality is, it’s far too common that people encounter annoying, intrusive ads on the web—like the kind that blare music unexpectedly, or force you to wait 10 seconds before you can see the content on the page. These frustrating experiences can lead some people to block all ads—taking a big toll on the content creators, journalists, web developers and videographers who depend on ads to fund their content creation.

We believe online ads should be better. That’s why we joined the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group dedicated to improving online ads. The group’s recently announced Better Ads Standards provide clear, public, data-driven guidance for how the industry can improve ads for consumers, and today I’d like to share how we plan to support it.

New tools for publishers

The new Ad Experience Report helps publishers understand how the Better Ads Standards apply to their own websites. It provides screenshots and videos of annoying ad experiences we’ve identified to make it easy to find and fix the issues. For a full list of ads to use instead, publishers can visit our new best practices guide.

“We’ve always put our users first and support the Coalition’s Better Ads efforts and standards. The report’s videos and screenshots are incredibly helpful and make the Coalition’s research actionable for our teams. We’re impressed with the level of detail and transparency Google is providing and commend this initiative.” - Troy Young, President, Hearst Digital Media

As part of our efforts to maintain a sustainable web for everyone, we want to help publishers with good ad experiences get paid for their work. With Funding Choices, now in beta, publishers can show a customized message to visitors using an ad blocker, inviting them to either enable ads on their site, or pay for a pass that removes all ads on that site through the new Google Contributor.

“Over the past year we’ve lost a substantial portion of revenue to ad blockers across all of our properties. Funding Choices allows us to have a conversation with visitors using ad blockers in a way we weren’t able to before. We’ve found that people are generally open to whitelisting once they understand that adblockers negatively impact our ability to create content for them—you just need a way to start that conversation.” - Sam Savage, CEO, Comicbook.com

Funding Choices is available to publishers in North America, U.K., Germany, Australia and New Zealand and will be rolling out in other countries later this year. Publishers should visit our new best practices guide for tips on crafting the right message for their audience.

Chrome support for the Better Ads Standards

Chrome has always focused on giving you the best possible experience browsing the web. For example, it prevents pop-ups in new tabs based on the fact that they are annoying. In dialogue with the Coalition and other industry groups, we plan to have Chrome stop showing ads (including those owned or served by Google) on websites that are not compliant with the Better Ads Standards starting in early 2018.

Looking ahead

We believe these changes will ensure all content creators, big and small, can continue to have a sustainable way to fund their work with online advertising.

We look forward to working with the Coalition as they develop marketplace guidelines for supporting the Better Ads Standards, and are committed to working closely with the entire industry—including groups like the IAB, IAB Europe, the WFA, the ANA and the 4A’s, advertisers, agencies and publishers—to roll out these changes in a way that makes sense for users and the broader ads ecosystem.

Posted by Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce

Source: Inside AdWords

Maximize conversions with Smart Bidding

When your goal is to get the most conversions from your marketing budget, it can be challenging to set the right bid and bid adjustments. Where do you spend your next dollar to get your next customer? To help you make the most out of your budget, we’re introducing Maximize Conversions: a new Smart Bidding strategy that automatically sets the right bid for each auction to help get you the most conversions within your daily budget.

For example, if you’re a clothing retailer trying to quickly sell last season’s styles, Maximize Conversions will help you get you the most number of sales from your existing budget by factoring signals like remarketing lists, time of day, browser and operating system into bids. Smart Bidding uses Google’s machine learning technology to optimize for conversions across every ad auction—also known as “auction-time bidding”.

Trex, a luxury composite decking company, used Maximize Conversions to build brand awareness and saw a 73% increase in conversion volume:

“We wanted to increase the conversion volume of our high-priority campaigns without raising budgets. In our first test campaign, we saw a 73% increase in conversion volume, 59% increase in CVR , and 42% decrease in CPA, with no change in our spending.” - Chris LaRoche, PPC Team Lead at Seer Interactive

It’s easy to set up Maximize Conversions. Simply go to your campaign’s settings page, click “Change bid strategy” and select Maximize Conversions. You can test Maximize Conversions, get insights and monitor your bid strategies to understand their performance.

Set your bid strategy to “Maximize Conversions” to get the most out of your budget

Learn more about maximizing conversions with Smart Bidding in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Josh Moser, Product Manager, AdWords