Tag Archives: Multi-Screen

[New Resource] Download the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement


Research shows that “29% of smartphone users will immediately switch to another site or app if it doesn’t satisfy their needs.”

In a world where people are making split decisions about what to consume, it’s increasingly challenging but critical for publishers to figure out how to effectively engage their audiences on their sites. To help lay the foundation to a winning engagement strategy, we’ve created the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement.

This guide help you drive toward your goals for growing your site – from defining your brand voice to tips to make your site’s content easy to consume. Don’t waste another moment developing web pages that leave you with little opportunity to engage with your audience. Download the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement here.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

  • How to help your audience become familiar with your brand
  • Best practices to design delightful user journeys
  • How to develop content that resonates with your audience
  • Ways to make your content easy to consume
  • Why you should share the love with other sites by referring to good sources



Check out the guide and share your feedback with us on Google+ and Twitter using #AdSenseGuide. We’d love to hear what you think. 




Posted by Jay Castro
Content Marketing

Source: Inside AdSense


From Micro to Macro: How to find your audience in all the moments that matter

In the last post we talked about the rise of micro-moments. But what about macro-moments?

According to this great response to micro-moments and our own interpretations, the three most important types of macro-moments are:

  • Affinity Moments, when fans act in unison in support of their favorite team or musician. 


  • Buddy Moments, when friends connect and bond everything they see, hear or read -- whether that's a live concert or a funny cat video on YouTube.




  • Deep Knowledge Moments, when someone wants to learn deeply about a topic (maybe political issues or financial news) so they can share that knowledge later.


In essence, micro-moments happen on the go and with intent, while macro-moments are more tribal or community-based. They're deep-dive media experiences that impact individuals in ways micro-moments can’t.

Publishers should remember that preferences and loyalty are shaped by both micro and macro moments. The brands that do the best job of addressing our needs in each moment will gain the greater share of our attention, and they'll be the publishers we start with next time. They will, in short, win.

Where to begin? 

Determining the right macro moment to target a user is no easy feat, but here are some Google tools that can help you discover what your audience is looking for, set your strategy and start taking action.

Google Trends 
What are the biggest events coming up this year? When do searches spike for football or flowers? The Google Trends tool uses real-time search data to help you gauge consumer search behaviors over time. Find out more »

YouTube Trends 
The world's largest video site has a lot of content and a lot of users. The YouTube Dashboard lets you track what's being viewed and shared all over. Compare trending videos by age, gender and location, and see what the world's watching. Find out more »

Google Consumer Surveys 
This fast and affordable market research tool lets you ask questions to Internet and mobile users on high-quality content around the Web. Users who answer the survey gain access to content or get credits they can use for music, apps and more. Google aggregates and analyzes their responses, so you can make more informed business decisions. Find out more »

Marketer's Almanac
From the Super Bowl kickoff to holiday gift giving, each year has trends and events that create huge opportunities to connect with consumers. The Google Marketer's Almanac offers data and insights for these key moments to help you get a jump on planning. Find out more »

And as always, some of your best insights can come from good old-fashioned methods like talking to and engaging with your audience.

Once you have the insights, it's time for action. We'll cover that in our next post.

Posted by:

Chris Jones
Global Audience Development Specialist

Source: Inside AdSense


Micro-Moments for Publishers: Reach your users in their moments of intent

For a long time, we've all heard that we're perched on the edge of a new golden age of digital, like divers on a cliff.

By now it seems clear that we have well and truly jumped off that edge and are swimming, frolicking (and sometimes drowning) in that futuristic sea of digital, connectivity, cams, drones, the Internet of Things… and especially mobile.

Today, we'd like to kick off a three-part blog series that will look at how publishers can do more frolicking and less failing in this digital sea. In particular, we'll look at what we call digital moments that matter, and the best ways for publishers to think about those moments. Part one today is Micro-Moments for Publishers, to be followed by From Micro to Macro and then part 3, Acting On Your Moments.

Where to start? In an age where people create and consume their very own newsrooms on a daily basis, expectations for content are growing higher and higher. Just a few examples:


So the publishing business has changed tremendously over the last two decades, but the big questions are still very much the same:
  • How do I reach the right audience?
  • How do I make sure I stand out?
  • How do I drive enough views and revenue to grow my business?

Today you have more choice than ever in how to approach these questions, thanks in large part to huge changes in mobile consumer behavior.

We don’t 'go online' 
anymore – we
live online

There's no such thing as sitting down for an “online session” anymore. Mobile is not just a hand-held device; it is a human and consumer behavior. It's why we no longer have those empty spaces in our day -- at the bus stop, in line at a store, or even at night in bed.


As a publisher, you don't always have to be there for those moments when users browse their friends' photos and status updates, or find out that they need to pick up milk on the way home from work. In fact, if you try to insert your content when people aren’t receptive, it can do more harm than good.

But certain moments really do matter for publishers: Moments when consumers turn to their phones to seek information or ideas. In those moments they have an intent: a need that can be met, a curiosity fulfilled, or a decision made.

These countless moments are full of intent signals that publishers can capitalize on. A "time for a new one" moment with a worn-out hairdryer can be satisfied with a product review. An "I can fix it" moment is perfect for do-it-yourself articles from publishers. (Over 100 million hours of “how-to” content have been watched on YouTube so far this year.) What about “I want to watch” moments? Can you give those users short and easy-to-watch content?


"How do I reach my audience?" "How do I make sure I stand out?" The answer lies in creating the content for these micro-moments. And in the next post, we'll talk about an opportunity that's similar and yet different: macro moments.

Want to learn more about micro-moments? Check out the Think with Google Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile.

Chris Jones
Global Audience Development Specialist


Source: Inside AdSense


Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 3 speedy ways to improve viewability

Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

Recently on the blog, we focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement. In this post you'll learn tips for improving ad viewability by optimizing your apps and sites for speed and responsiveness.

Here is today's recommendation:



We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability rates.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran,
Product Marketing Manager

Source: Inside AdSense


Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 2 tips to enable viewability measurement

There's a lot that publishers and app developers can do to increase the likelihood that their ads will be measured as viewable. Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability across four categories based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology. These insights and recommendations come from our services teams that have spent thousands of hours working with publishers and developers to improve advertising outcomes.

In this post, we focus on tips you can use to improve ad viewability by optimizing your apps and sites for speed and responsiveness.

Here is today's recommendation:



We hope these recommendations will improve your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below. 

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 3 speedy ways to improve viewability.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran,
Product Marketing Manager

Source: Inside AdSense


Announcing the launch of AMP in Search

Speed matters, particularly on mobile devices. People are likely to abandon websites after just three seconds if the content doesn’t load quickly. This is bad for the user trying to access content, and also for the publisher whose business depends on users engaging with content. That’s why, last October, we joined others across the industry to announce the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project, an open source initiative to make the mobile web as fast as possible.

Earlier today, Google announced that web pages created using AMP will appear when relevant in the Top Stories section of the search results page, giving users a lightning-fast experience --- early tests have found that AMP pages load an average of four times faster and use 10 times less data than equivalent non-AMP pages.


A key goal of the AMP Project is to ensure that publishers’ existing business models are supported. To that end, AMP in Search will have what could be termed as version one of some new features aimed at helping publishers earn money and understand and engage their audience. Full details are on Github and on the AMPProject.org site, but here are the highlights:

  • Ads: Advertising pays for a lot of the great journalism that we all love to read for free, so it’s essential that publishers can run ads on AMP pages with the ad servers and networks of their choice, in multiple formats (including native ads), and with full control over where they appear on the page. AMP also supports the new viewability metrics advertisers and publishers use to measure how users are engaging with ads. Currently publishers can choose from more than 20 ad tech providers who have developed support for AMP, including DoubleClick and AdSense. You can read more about the ads support in AMP in general here.
  • Subscriptions: For many publishers, subscriptions and paywalls are critical to the bottom line. AMP lets publishers retain full control over which readers can access which stories, to ensure that publishers can continue to make money via subscriptions on their AMP pages. Visit Github for more details on subscriptions in AMP.
  • Analytics: Analytics are important to publishers because they help them understand what people like to read and how they read. AMP provides an analytics framework that lets publishers measure data like pageviews, users, time spent, and more. The insights provided by these kinds of metrics can help publishers create appealing stories, build brand loyalty and ultimately make money. Learn more about the analytics support in AMP here and specifically about Google Analytics in AMP here.

While we’re excited to have collaborated with the industry to bring this project forward and improve the mobile web for users, we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible. There’s much work ahead for the open source AMP project and we’re looking forward to the benefits this will bring to users, publishers and advertisers

Posted by Craig DiNatali
Director, Global Partnerships

Nitin Kashyap
Product Manager

Source: Inside AdSense


A new look for your text ads on mobile

Have you noticed the new look of text ads on your mobile site? We’ve given them a makeover.

This new format allows for higher performance with a more beautiful and user-friendly appearance. The text ads feature elements such as a shaded background and a centered button which bring together the parts of the ad into a cohesive whole. The look and feel is inspired by material design, like the richer text ads that we launched earlier this year.

To see these new mobile text ads, choose to show both text and display ads on your site, if you haven’t already done so.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this new mobile ad design. Share your comments below and let us know!



Posted by Clyde Li
AdSense Software Engineer

Source: Inside AdSense


[Infographic] Are you prepared for the busiest quarter of the year?

The holiday season is the busiest time of the year, with shoppers out in full force to gather their holiday gifts, round up their decorations, and treat themselves to something special. 2014 was a record-breaker in terms of ad spend, which goes to show just how important it is that your advertising is as targeted as possible, and that you’re fully prepared for the final, and most lively, quarter of the year.

Check out these stats and tips below which can help you be in tip-top form for the season:
(viewing from mobile? Download it here.)

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!


Posted by Yigit Yucel
Marketing Communications Specialist

Source: Inside AdSense


The time is now for multi-screen


We live in an exciting time, where the number and variety of connected devices are growing at a rapid pace. People are coming online for the first time, and they’re accessing the Web through a mobile device.

Having a solid multi-screen strategy will help you prepare for the next wave of mobile web users. By following the simple steps below, we can help set you up for success on mobile web and answer questions like: How will my users react?, how do I keep my brand identity?, and what will happen to my earnings?

1. Test your site 
Start by understanding how your site currently runs on mobile devices. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to see how your site is performing on mobile and identify your site’s most crucial needs and what to take care of first.



2. Pick your strategy
Next, it’s time to make a choice on which multi-screen strategy to move forward with. The most common solutions are:


The choice is yours and all strategies have both pros and cons. When making the decision, you should consider the following:

  • Do I want to serve the same content to all platforms? If so, a responsive design should do the trick.
  • What’s more important; speed or flexibility? A separate mobile site or dynamic serving allows for better optimization.
  • Do I have the resources to maintain more than one site? Responsive design can help you save valuable time and resources.
  • What kind of technical capabilities do I have? Pick a strategy that best suits your skill set.

3. Follow best practices
We’ve finally made it to the fun part – building the site. No matter what solution you choose, every multi-screen developer should follow these general rules of thumb.

  • Focus on the main action that you want the user to take: While you had plenty of space on desktop, you’ll have to be resourceful on mobile.
  • Make your navigation easy to understand: Users want quick access to key actions, so make things easy to find.
  • Use existing design paradigms: Do you already have a brand identity on your desktop site? Reuse the same design elements when possible. Try adapting to the user’s device, for example using Material Design for Android: users like familiarity.
  • Make sure videos work: Design your look and feel and page animations using modern web technologies. Read more about Look and Feel for video in our Web Fundamentals guide.
  • Limit image-based text: Make use of web fonts when possible. Mobile means lower bandwidth.
  • Simplify payment processes: Auto-populate shipping addresses and contact details. Use existing payment solutions such as Google Wallet.


4. Avoid common mistakes
Learn from other developers by checking out some of the most common mistakes on mobile sites. This can save you time as you plan and launch your multi-screen strategy.

We hope these guidelines are useful when thinking about your multi-screen strategy. Let us know if you have any other tips that have worked well for you in the comments below.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!





Posted by Felix Nermark
Marketing Communication Specialist

Source: Inside AdSense


Engage your mobile audience with these best practices

74% of people say that when a site is mobile-friendly, they're more likely to return to that site in the future, according to a Think With Google study.

If that's not enough to encourage you to build up your mobile audience, consider this: 52% of users in the same study said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company.

Designing a mobile-friendly site is important, and so is creating the best mobile user experience. That includes ads: if you want to make the most of every opportunity to earn, your ads should be designed for mobile, too.

Download The AdSense Guide to Mobile Web Success to learn practical ways to engage and delight your mobile audience. Get tips on how to:
  • Potentially boost mobile ad revenue with the best ad placements
  • Choose the right mobile ad formats for your site
  • Send push notifications to your audience just like an installed native app
  • Help your audience jump back into your content with just a single tap
What’s your favorite way to engage your mobile audience?  We’d love to hear from you in the comments or on Twitter.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up today!



Posted by Jay Castro
Audience Development Specialist
@jayciro


Source: Inside AdSense