Category Archives: AdWords Agency Blog

Tips and tools for agencies

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

Becoming a digital advertising expert takes time, and it’s important to get off to a good start. Only 50 percent of marketers say they’re confident in their knowledge of digital advertising,1 despite the wide range of educational materials available – sometimes “more” isn’t the same as “better.” You’ve told us that you want quick, bite-sized training in more interactive formats. And we heard you.

We’re pleased to announce Academy for Ads, a new digital training platform designed to help you learn how to use Google’s ad products in a mobile-first world. We built Academy for Ads to promote learning on-the-go, whether you’re on a laptop, a desktop, or a mobile device.

Grow your Google product know-how
Guided by input from our team of product experts, Academy for Ads courses cover the topics that matter most to Google advertisers – from AdWords basics and the essentials of campaign management to bid strategies, reporting, optimization, and more ways to successfully advertise with Google.



Learning paths, Assessments, and Achievements
We’ve organized the courses into “Learning paths” that you can walk through at your own pace. At the end of each path, take an Assessment and earn an Achievement to show that you know your stuff. Earning an Achievement for AdWords helps prepare you to take the AdWords Certification exam in Google Partners, or try deeper education offerings such as AdWords Academy.


A few example Learning paths:
  • 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 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

Academy for Ads also offers training for DoubleClick clients, with Learning paths covering Bid Manager and Ad Exchange – and more to come.

Get started
If you already use Google Partners, you can sign in through the Partners portal at g.co/learnwithpartners — or, you can go directly to g.co/AcademyforAds to sign up and start sampling courses and Learning paths. We’re constantly adding more content, so if you like what you learn, keep coming back for more.

Posted by Tracy Bizelli, Head of Academy for Ads

1. 6 Fundamentals to Managing Digital Marketing in 2015, TFM Insights (January 2015)

A New Digital Media Buying & Planning Certification for the industry

It’s here! The IAB Digital Media Buying & Planning Certification is live. We are excited to be launching this initiative in partnership with the IAB and 4A’s by offering scholarships to agency media buyers and planners to get certified.

The goal is to grow digital knowledge and capability across the industry for both veterans and newcomers. In support, we are sponsoring a number of agency media buyers and planners to take the exam, and the opportunity for continuing education provided by Google and the IAB.

“Google has long been committed to infusing the media industry with knowledge and skill sets to navigate today’s complex digital ecosystem,” said Tara Walpert Levy, Vice President of Agency Sales, Google. “We’re proud that our partnership with the IAB to develop this program and our ongoing support extends this pledge and enables digital media agency professionals to deliver superior service to their clients.”

We see this initiative being the perfect complement to the educational opportunities being offered in the industry to grow and develop agency talent. Google intends to to offer these scholarships on an annual basis in support of sustaining and growing digital capability in the Industry. We consider this a landmark certification initiative that will provide the ecosystem with a first-of-its-kind professional benchmark for media agency executives. For more information, email [email protected]. Scholarships are awarded at Google’s sole discretion.

Just 8 days until the DoubleClick Announcements livestream

Join me on Tuesday, July 19th at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET for a livestream broadcast of my keynote address from the DoubleClick Leadership Summit (DLS). I’ll be sharing updates on the latest innovations on the DoubleClick platform and how we’re helping advertisers and publishers adapt to today’s mobile world.

At Google, one of our enduring principles is to “focus on the user and all else will follow.” This has been an important guidepost throughout our history, and it has never been more relevant than it is today. People are more ‘mobile’ now than ever before. We spend every waking hour connected to our devices. We expect to find what we want, when we want it. But with only a split second to engage and capture attention, user experience matters more than ever.

In my keynote, I’ll share an update on the technologies we’re developing to help advertisers, agencies and publishers create better experiences for people on the go. You can expect to hear more about Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), Native Ads, as well as new, more immersive experiences like 360 video. I’ll also be unveiling new product features to help our clients and partners more effectively reach, engage, monetize, and measure audiences across screens.

I’m looking forward to the livestream on July 19th. Please register to watch here.


Posted by Paul Muret
Vice President of Analytics, Display, and Video Products, Google

It’s Now Easier than Ever to Find the Right Google Partner

Three years ago we launched Google Partners to help businesses connect with online professionals and agencies. Top Partners began earning their Google Partner badge by demonstrating their business was healthy, their clients were happy, and they were up to date with the latest product knowledge.


Since then, we received a number of requests from our Partners asking for a way to further differentiate themselves. Today, we’re excited to share the addition of Google Partner specializations.


 


The new feature is embedded into the Google Partner badge and designed to help businesses identify the right Partner for their specific business needs.


Partners can earn specializations in 5 areas of expertise:
  • Search
  • Mobile
  • Video
  • Display
  • Shopping


To earn a specialization, badged Partners will need at least one certified individual and a history of consistent product performance.


“The changes to the Google Partner program are exciting for potential advertisers and our company,” says Neal Gann, CEO of Showroom Logic. “These new specializations show Google’s commitment to better serve their Partners and help us highlight what makes our technology and team so unique. It should also help prospective clients make a clear choice because it's now easier for them to find top Partners that are aligned with their immediate goals.”


Additionally, we’re introducing a new Premier Google Partner badge.




The new badge is designed to recognize Partners who manage a substantial portfolio of Google advertising campaigns and deliver great results for their customers. Premier Partners will be required to maintain additional certification requirements and will receive increased support from Google.


"Google identifying and recognizing highly experienced agencies is a great step and a distinctive honor. We are thrilled to be a part of the new designation and look forward to displaying this badge," shares Joe Chura, CEO of Launch Digital Marketing.


We hope these updates will help businesses find the right Partner for their needs and allow our Partners to better differentiate themselves. Learn more at the new Google Partners homepage.


Posted by Allan Thygesen, VP Global Sales & Operations




6 Online Video Insights from comScore to Inform Your 2017 Media Plan

As marketers kick off 2017 planning, consumer preference for online video is higher than ever. Today’s study from comScore, commissioned by Google, shows that adults are 30% more likely to prefer online video platforms over TV when given a choice where to watch video content. Does your media plan reflect that kind of preference?

If online video is your audience’s priority, it should be your media plan’s priority, too. We dug into the recent study and came up with six things to keep in mind about this changing audience as you develop your 2017 plan:

1. They Prefer Online Video Platforms to TV

The popularity of online video continues to grow. Today, when given a choice where to watch video, adults prefer online video platforms 30% more than watching on TV. Among millennials, that number jumps to 105%.
2. People Watching Long & Short-Form Video Prefer YouTube

Among viewers that watch both long and short-form content, 81% cite a preference for YouTube, making it the #1 choice. Compare that to the next-highest choice, TV, which earned just 56% of viewer votes.

3. They Choose YouTube Over Other Online Video Providers

YouTube also wins when compared to other online video providers. When asked to pick one online video platform, 48% of adults chose YouTube (vs. 29% for Netflix and 10% for Facebook):
4. Viewers Take Action on Video Ads, Especially on Short-Form Content

Online video has forever changed the media landscape, with more than half of all people regularly watching short-form videos (like branded content or viral videos), and two-thirds of millennials watching short-form weekly.

That’s good news for brands: comScore’s research shows viewers are more likely to take action after watching ads on short-form content compared to traditional content (like movies and tv shows). Taking action could include sharing on social media, looking for more information about the brand advertised, recommending the brand or product, etc.

5. They Prefer YouTube for Branded Content and Videos Uploaded by Users.

We already heard that adults who watch short and long-form content prefer YouTube, but it’s also preferred across multiple content types. For example, 74% of adults prefer YouTube for videos uploaded by users and—critically—69% prefer YouTube for videos uploaded by brands, companies, and institutions.

6. YouTube Super-users May Surprise You

The final part of comScore’s research examined YouTube’s most passionate fans—“die hards”—and they aren’t who you might expect. Many are parents, live in a city, and 49% are women:
Posted by:
Celie O'Neil-Hart, Product Marketing Manager, YouTube B2B
Howard Blumenstein, Product Marketing Manager, Strategy and Insights, YouTube B2B

Need Help Navigating The World of Video? We got you covered.

We’re announcing the launch of the YouTube Brand Partner Program Certification (youtube.com/certified) live from two of the year’s biggest advertising industry events -- The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France and VidCon in Anaheim, California.
Three years ago, we created the YouTube Brand Partner Program to provide inspiration, education, and support for marketers looking to build content strategies for YouTube. Since then, we’ve welcomed leading brands from all over the world around the globe into the initiative and watched their creative teams adapt our frameworks into innovative campaigns.


As watch time on YouTube continues to grow year over year, advertisers are taking note of trends and embracing originality when it comes to their content. The old saying about content being king continues to ring true whether you’re posting game reviews, comedy sketches, political discourse, or, you guessed it, promoting brands. The stats back it up, too. New research released by Pixability today shows the top 100 brands garnered 50 percent more views this year than last.


Now, we want to continue empowering the agency community to lead the charge by providing easy-to-follow lessons so anyone can construct impressive content campaigns no matter how experienced.


The YouTube Brand Partner Program Certification is an online curriculum designed to equip agencies with the knowledge and tools they need to design effective video content strategies. From publishing frameworks, to how to best partner with YouTube creators, to campaign optimization, the certification provides a guided learning path that will help agencies create successful YouTube content and distribution strategies for their clients. It will be available online for agencies across the globe in 22 languages.


We’ve tapped YouTube thought leaders, as well as popular YouTube creators, such as Hannah Hart, MysteryGuitarMan, Veritasium, My Cupcake Addiction, and Flavia Calina so you get insight straight from the best in the business. Instructors use personal anecdotes and real-life experiences to share best practices for a firsthand account of what works best.


Among the first agencies to sign up for the program as an early adopter was MEC’s Wavemaker who also made a commitment to certify all employees globally in the coming months.


“The launch of the YouTube Brand Partner Program Certification is incredibly timely and exciting for MEC," Global COO Alastair Aird said, "With MEC Wavemaker we have a different kind of content offer, one that helps our clients see exactly what role content and platforms play in their customers’ lives and how that will directly impact their brand’s performance.  
It’s different because we have the data to identify precisely what consumer behaviour needs to change along the purchase journey and create content that’s specifically designed to make that change happen.  Equipping our people with the necessary knowledge to design the most effective video content is key to our service to clients.”

Marketing is evolving. Agencies are leading that change. And YouTube is here to help. If your agency would like to request an invitation to the program, please reach out to your representative or submit your information here.


-Torrence Boone

VP, Global Agency Sales & Services




Your art, our science: Video creative that drives impact on YouTube

With more than a billion viewers each month, YouTube is the place the world chooses to watch. As a platform dedicated to sight, sound and motion, great video ads work well here.  Whether they’re 30 second spots built for TV, 4 minute short films, or 6 second bumper ads, we work to make every video ad have the greatest Watchtime, Audibility, Viewability and Engagement (WAVE), to help ensure you get the full impact of your work.

As thousands of creatives gather at Cannes Lions this week, many are thinking about what makes great video ad creative. Great storytelling in the digital age is both art and science. While we prefer to leave the art up to you, our science has shown that the ads that tend to work best on YouTube are the ones that tend to work best for today’s viewing experience. Whether you are building for our TrueView in-stream ads, which let viewers skip after 5 seconds, or for TV, today’s viewers are impatient. They have a trigger finger on their phone, tablet or remote.  So you better catch their attention right from the start.  

In multiple research studies we did last year, which analyzed hundreds of TrueView campaigns, we saw four key elements emerge:

  • Brand placement matters: Ads that showed the brand visually in the first 5 seconds had higher ad recall and brand awareness lift.
  • No sound? Less impact: We tested 280 campaigns and found that among users exposed to ads with both sight and sound, ad recall had a lift of 43%. Among users exposed to video ads that had no sound, ad recall was significantly lower at 31%.1
  • Calls to action drive impact: We saw higher brand awareness lift among ads with clear calls to action, such as an invitation to visit a YouTube channel or brand website.
  • Time counts: We found that there is a consistent relationship between how long an ad is viewable and increase in brand awareness and consideration. The longer a user views your ad, the higher the lift in these two metrics.
  
All of these factors help ensure engagement. On average, we’ve seen that viewers who completed TrueView ads are 23x more likely to visit or subscribe to a brand channel, watch more by that brand, or share the brand video. And you can amp up Brand Lift results by targeting great video ads on top channels through Google Preferred. When you combine these, you can ‘ride the WAVE to success.’  

For more insights on video creative, check out our latest Unskippable Labs Experiment with Mondelez International and Droga5. If you’re in Cannes this week, swing by our lightning talk,  Advertising in an Age of Infinite Choice, and come relax at #YouTubeBeach.

Posted by Kate Stanford, Head of Global Advertiser Marketing at YouTube

Highlights from Tonight’s YouTube Brandcast Event: What’s Next for Google Preferred


Tonight, YouTube hosted our fifth annual Brandcast in New York, our digital Newfronts event, where we showcase the best of YouTube to advertisers and agencies. With a little help from Big Bird, the Whip Nae Nae, and Sia, we showed that YouTube is where the world chooses to watch: on mobile alone, we now reach more 18-49 year-olds in the U.S. than any broadcast or cable TV network.[1]


As a result, our influence is greater than ever. In fact, nearly 60 percent of YouTube subscribers say they’d follow a YouTube creator’s advice on what to buy over that of their favorite TV or movie star. And the influence of YouTube stars continues to grow—last year, 6 in 10 of the most influential celebrities among teens were YouTubers, and this year that number jumped to 8 in 10.


To help brands capture some of this momentum, we have a premium content offering called Google Preferred that features creators like Lilly Singh, sWooZie and Laura Vitale. Organized into 13 lineup categories—including Comedy, Music, and Food & Recipes—Google Preferred is easy to buy and gives advertisers access to the most-loved and most-watched content on YouTube. In fact, Google Preferred reaches more people in the U.S. on mobile than all full episode players combined.[2] And, we announced at Brandcast that Google Preferred just got better. Here’s how:


1. More Can’t-Miss Moments With Google Preferred Breakout Videos


Pop culture moments like the Harlem Shake and Let It Go are as unexpected as they are popular. While Google Preferred gives brands access to established creator channels, our new Breakout Videos offering lets them advertise on emerging content—the hottest and fastest-rising videos on YouTube. With the launch of Google Preferred Breakout Videos in the U.S., brands can be there alongside the next breakout star.


2. More Ease and Relevance With Programmatic Guaranteed for Google Preferred


To make it even easier to be there in the moment viewers are watching, upfront buyers will soon be able to execute their Google Preferred—and Breakout Videos—buy programmatically through DoubleClick Bid Manager. This means all video campaigns (including TrueView, Google Preferred, and cross-exchange) can be managed in one place.


3. More Sports Fans with NBA Highlights on Google Preferred


NBA Commissioner Adam Silver also took to the Brandcast stage to announce that NBA inventory is now part of Google Preferred. Top NBA highlights will surface in Google Search and on YouTube, offering brands access to the NBA’s loyal fan base across screens. In addition, the NBA will soon launch two new VR series on YouTube that give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at team arenas and their favorite players.


4. More Great Results for Brands


With new additions like Breakout Videos, Programmatic Guaranteed, and NBA highlights, Google Preferred will keep delivering massive reach, and strong results for brands.


Already this year, among the Google Preferred campaigns we measured, 75 percent drove lifts in consideration[3] and 61 percent drove lifts in favorability.[4] Google Preferred is driving results later in the consumer journey, too: it raised purchase intent in two-thirds of campaigns.[5]


Results like these have encouraged nearly twice the number of brands in the U.S. to take advantage of Google Preferred in the last year.[6]


Chime in with your Google Preferred questions and comments on #Brandcast, and check out six questions every brand should consider after Brandcast. We’ll post even more content after the show on the Brandcast website.


Posted by Kate Stanford, Head of Global Advertiser Marketing at YouTube

This post originally appeared on the YouTube Blog.

[1] Google-commissioned Nielsen study U.S., Dec. 2015. Audience Reach among Persons 18-49 for YouTube (mobile only) and 124 individual U.S. cable & broadcast networks (TV only)
[2] Google/Millward Brown Digital Google Preferred Mobile Clickstream Analysis US, October 2015 (Full episode players on mobile browser or app include: Netflix, HBO, Hulu, NBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, sourced from the 20,000 person Mobile Compete Clickstream Panel)
[3] Google Preferred Brand Lift Meta Analysis, 2015 and Q1 2016. Results for 242 US Google Preferred Consideration Studies
[4] Google Preferred Brand Lift Meta Analysis, 2015 and Q1 2016. Results for 44 US Google Preferred Favorability Studies
[5] Google Preferred Brand Lift Meta Analysis, 2015 and Q1 2016. Results for 80 US Google Preferred Purchase Intent studies.
[6] Google data, US, Q1 2016 vs Q1 2015

Join us as we announce the latest Ads and Analytics innovations on May 24th

Tune in live to the Google Performance Summit Keynote on Tuesday, May 24 at 9am PT / 12pm ET to hear the latest Ads and Analytics innovations.


We live in exciting times when technology seems to upend everything as we know, every few years. And nothing has changed consumer behavior and business innovation as much as the mobile phone. People are attached to their phones, tapping and swiping their way through places to go, stuff to buy, and things to do. This presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to connect with customers in more meaningful, relevant ways. And Google is a key partner for advertisers, providing the media and tools to help you make those connections and measure the results.

To ensure we are building the right products for consumers and businesses all around the world, my team and I make it a priority to regularly visit our ads and analytics customers. Last year, we met with advertisers in India, Japan, China, the UK and Germany, and gained new insights from every country.

For example, in Europe, we learned that universal app campaigns are effective at growing installs across a broad range of app users. Now, advertisers want the ability to reach very specific audiences. In Asia, home to three of the five top smartphone markets, advertisers asked for more control and flexibility on mobile devices for both creatives and bidding. And in every country we visited, we saw customers working hard to integrate data from across their organizations and transform it into actionable insights. Marketers want better data to understand the customer journey across devices, contexts and channels.

We were all grateful for these insights and have been using them to build a whole new generation of Ads and Analytics products. We look forward to sharing many new innovations with you at the Google Performance Summit on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 9am PT / 12pm ET.

Register for the livestream here.

Until then, follow us on our +GoogleAds page for sneak previews of what’s to come.

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

YouTube Goes to the Movies

With the Oscars® upon us this weekend, the competition is fierce. Will this finally be Leonardo DiCaprio’s year? Who will take home the Oscar for Best Picture?
As the world gets ready for Hollywood’s biggest night of the year, we partnered with Pixability to analyze the characteristics of the movie space on YouTube, where viewers are watching and engaging with their favorite film content. Here are some of the findings:
The Movie Space on YouTube
People are tuning in to YouTube to watch all types of movie content, across all genres. Of the top movie content on YouTube, trailers are the most popular followed by clips and reviews.1 And, among those trailers, fantasy trailers have the most user engagement, including likes, comments, and shares, followed by action trailers.1
“Most internet platforms feature marketing as interruption, while YouTube remains a platform of engagement for advertisers promoting content. It is still, by far, the go-to destination for people who want to find the latest movie trailers,” said Rob Davis, Executive Director of Social and Content at OgilvyOne.
Trailers are a great way for studios and other creators to tell their stories and get moviegoers excited. Pixability found that fans are significantly amplifying the conversation by posting their favorite trailers on their own YouTube channels, generating nearly as many views and engagements as studio content.1
Not surprisingly, Pixability also found that publishing of movie content peaks on YouTube during the summer blockbuster and holiday seasons,1 which is also when awards season kicks into high gear.1
YouTube Movie Trailers Leaderboard: Oscars 2016
With the Oscars just a few days away, we also took a look at how fans engaged with the eight best picture nominees on YouTube.  In 2015, the top performing trailers from each nominee have collectively been watched over 200 million minutes on YouTube -- that’s over 3.3 million hours,2 or the equivalent of nearly a million Oscar telecasts. So, which of the nominees walks away with the top spot according to fans on YouTube?


And the envelope goes to.... “The Revenant," which took home the #1 spot from YouTube viewers on our Oscar Trailers Leaderboard. Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian followed.2


For the full list, grab some popcorn and visit Think with Google.


1. Pixability, all time global data (2005 - Feb 2016)
2. YouTube Analytics. For nominees with more than one trailer in 2015, the most popular trailer was counted. Ranked in order of views including studio channels and some of the most popular trailer aggregators. Videos uploaded between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015. Global views from YouTube Analytics as of February 14, 2016.