Tag Archives: Best Practices

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.
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)

Tailor your ads with dynamic remarketing – Google Best Practices


If you think people make purchase decisions quickly, think again. Today’s consumers visit websites at least 6 times, on average, in the purchase process.1 And for those who abandon a shopping cart, 75% say they intend on returning to a company’s website to make a purchase.2

We’ve created a new best practices guide, Tailor Your Ads with Dynamic Remarketing, to help advertisers win those crucial “ready-to-buy” moments with dynamic remarketing and relevant ads. As business data feeds are crucial to dynamic remarketing campaigns, this guide focuses on how to create and optimize your feeds. It covers topics such as:
  • Setting up high-quality business data feeds 
  • Providing complete product data 
  • Keeping your business data feed fresh 
  • Activating dynamic remarketing ads 
Check out these dynamic remarketing best practices to drive more relevant ads and improved performance.

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Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing crew
1. Source: Google/Nielsen Study: Mobile Path to Purchase: Five Key Findings, November 2013 
2. Source: BI Intelligence Study: Shopping Cart Abandonment Report, March 2015.

Source: Inside AdWords


A new guide to attribution with AdWords – Google Best Practices

The customer journey can be complex. Being able to identify which ads actually influenced someone’s decision can be challenging, but it’s crucial to get right.

In May, we launched the ability to update your attribution model in AdWords. It’s an update that can help you go beyond last-click measurement, the default in AdWords, and understand your customer’s journey on a much deeper level. As of today, this change has been rolled out to all AdWords accounts.

We’ve published a new guide to help you understand attribution and make the right decisions for your account. This resource offers best practices about what you need to do to go beyond last-click, covering topics such as:
  • Determining if going beyond the last-click is something that you need to do 
  • Choosing a model that fits with your needs 
  • Acting on attribution 
  • Evolving your approach to attribution as measurement gets better 

By going beyond last-click attribution for your Search ads in AdWords, you can understand your customer journey and make changes to improve your campaigns. Users take a while to make decisions; by changing your approach to attribution you can identify how your advertising affects people across all of their crucial, decision-making moments.

Want to stay on top of even more Best Practices? Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter.  

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

Source: Inside AdWords


Making the Most of Display Advertising – Google Best Practices

Guide to Programmatic Advertising on the Google Display Network

Today, people have higher expectations of ads than ever. It’s never been more important to tailor messages to the right people at the right moment as they engage in blogs, news sites and more across the web.

We’ve put together a new guide, Making the Most of Display Advertising, to help you deliver relevant ads and efficient results on the Google Display Network. The guide touches on topics such as:
  • Reaching the right audience at the right moment 
  • Matching the message to the moment 
  • Optimizing for performance 
Check out these display advertising best practices to deliver on consumers’ expectations and drive more sales for your business.

Want to stay on top of even more Best Practices? Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter. 

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

Source: Inside AdWords


A new guide to entering international markets with AdWords – Google Best Practices


A new guide to entering international markets with AdWords

It’s possible to connect across the globe in an instant. Expanding your business to new countries unlocks new opportunities and challenges for your AdWords account.


We’ve published a new guide to help advertisers go global. This resource offers best practices on exporting your AdWords advertising to new countries, covering topics such as:

  • Discovering your opportunities abroad
  • Connecting with the locals
  • Setting up your account for international optimizations
  • Using automation to scale your coverage

By understanding how you can prime your AdWords campaigns for new markets, you can expand your account effectively and take your business worldwide.
Want to stay on top of even more Best Practices? Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter.

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

Source: Inside AdWords


Capture more holiday traffic with click share for Google Shopping

More shoppers are turning to online shopping with each holiday season, increasing the opportunity for you to attract shoppers to your online store. Today we’re launching click share to better help you identify when you’re missing out on traffic. Click share is a new metric that shows the percentage of total possible clicks received by your Shopping ads.
Click share metric for product groups
Let’s walk through an example of how to use click share to identify product groups with potential for more traffic to ensure your ads show prominently enough to maximize traffic to your site on Black Friday. First, add the click share column on the Product groups tab. In this example, you see “winter coats” with a click share of 30%. This means that you only got 30 out of every 100 possible clicks on your “winter coats” ads. Second, take this opportunity to adjust your bids for “winter coats” to make your ads more prominent. Third, make sure to check back frequently, especially for your most popular products, to closely monitor click share and continue to optimize bids.

There is more you can do to ensure holiday success. In addition to driving traffic, you’ll want to fine-tune your campaigns to reach new shoppers and drive sales. We’ve created two holiday checklists to help you manage your campaigns over the coming weeks and through the new year:

  • Holiday Readiness Checklist: Get your Shopping campaigns Black Friday-ready to connect with shoppers at the moments that matter and convert them into customers
  • Holiday Survival Checklist: Follow this checklist to make mid-flight changes to your campaigns and learn how to adjust bids for new trending products 

By taking these lists and checking them twice, and tuning your campaigns based on click share insights, you can increase sales this season...and have a happier holiday!

Posted by Dimitris Meretakis, Product Manager, Google Shopping

Source: Inside AdWords


Google Shopping best practice videos to help you reach more shoppers for the holidays

As the holiday season approaches, your to-do list can seem never-ending. On top of the festivities of the season, you’re managing your bids, adding new popular products to your inventory, and trying to balance your budget — all in hopes of reaching holiday shoppers at the moment they’re looking to buy. Here at Google Shopping, we want to help you succeed during one of the busiest times of the year by connecting shoppers with your products at the drop of a (Santa) hat.

Earlier this year, we shared Google for Retail, our online hub for businesses of all sizes to get up and running with Google Shopping ads. Today, we’re introducing a few new Google Shopping best practice videos to highlight three tactics that help you turn clicks into customers this holiday season.

Manage your Shopping campaign 
After you’ve set up your Shopping campaign, you’ll want to make sure you have your goals, bids, and budgets set for the best results. In the video below, we’ll eliminate the guesswork and walk you through setting up realistic budgets and targets to maximize your reach on Google.
Get more of your products online
When setting up your first data feeds, you may run into issues that prevent your products from appearing on Google. Learn more about how to get your data feed into tip-top shape to show even more of your products online, making it easier for shoppers to find you.
Optimize your Shopping campaigns 
Once your Shopping campaign is up and running, you’re ready to think about how to optimize your ads to get the best return-on-investment (ROI). While there are many ways to do this, the key is knowing what to do first. Learn optimization fundamentals including how to drive traffic to your site and optimize that traffic to maximize your profits and ROI.
By managing your Shopping campaigns, fixing your data feed disapprovals, and optimizing your ads, searching shoppers can find all the products you’re selling -- helping you efficiently and effectively get more sales for the holidays, and beyond.

For more information on Shopping campaign best practices, check out the Google Best Practices Help Center or our Google Shopping YouTube channel.

Want to stay on top of more AdWords Best Practices?  Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter.

Posted by Kim Doan, Product Marketing Manager, Google Shopping

Source: Inside AdWords


Introducing a New Guide, “The Secrets to App Success on Google Play”

By Dom Elliott, Google Play team

With more than 50 billion apps and games downloaded in total, Google Play is helping developers and content creators around the world build successful businesses. In fact, we paid out more than $5 billion over the last year to developers for creating incredible apps that are changing the way people communicate, live, work, and play.

Developing an app or game and distributing it on Google Play is a good start, but it’s only the first step to building a sustainable business. That’s why we’ve written “The Secrets to App Success on Google Play,” a detailed playbook on the best practices and tools you can use to maximize the reach, retention, and revenue of your new app.

The guide is separated into the following sections:

  • Publishing on Google Play — using the Google Play Developer Console to distribute your app to over 1 billion Android users worldwide.
  • Quality — The fundamentals of building a great app and an insight into the Google Play guidelines and policies.
  • Discoverability & reach — Maximizing your app's discoverability and reaching the widest audience possible.
  • Engagement & retention — Converting installations into active users and improving user retention.
  • Monetization — Monetization strategies to generate ongoing, growing revenue streams.
  • Measurement with Google Analytics — Understanding your users and improving your app experience, conversions, and marketing.
  • Going global — Launching your app in local markets around the world.

Download the guide now in English (PDF, 11MB) or get it on Google Play. We’ll release the guide in more languages in the coming months. If you’re in the US or the UK, we also have a limited number of printed copies that we are offering to send for free. Request a printed copy here.

Once you’ve checked out the guide, we’d love to hear your feedback so we can continue to improve, let us know what you think.

Win the Digital Shelf with Our New Guide to Shopping Campaigns

Cross-posted from the Inside Adwords blog

We introduced Shopping campaigns in February to make it easier for you to manage your Product Listing Ads (PLAs). In late August, Shopping campaigns will be the default
campaign type for all PLA advertisers.

To help retailers make the most of their Shopping campaigns, we’re excited to introduce a new best practices guide, “Shape Up Your Shopping Campaigns.” It addresses important questions like:
  • How should you structure your campaigns: by product line, performance, or both? 
  • Which feed attributes have the best chance of improving CTR?
  • Are you adjusting bids quickly enough during peak seasons?
Download the “Shape Up Your Shopping Campaigns” guide now to ensure you’re making the most of your PLAs and data feeds.

 For additional help, here are a few resources:
Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing