Smaaz’s Blog

Google Expands the Conversion Optimizer for Google AdWords

Google announced today the expansion of the Conversion Optimizer bid management feature. The Conversion Optimizer is a new feature that allows advertisers to meet their ROI objectives by automatically managing their cost-per-click (CPC) bids according to a maximum cost-per-acquisition (CPA) goal. The AdWords system makes adjustments with the aim of keeping the cost of each conversion below the specified maximum CPA bid, showing ads when conversions are most likely to occur. Advertisers can save time while achieving more conversions and a lower CPA. Since the Conversion Optimizer first became available as a beta feature in September 2007, many advertisers who have used it have been pleased with the ability to more effectively promote their products and services online.

“The Conversion Optimizer is a great new bidding option for Steve Madden, as it’s both time and cost-efficient in helping us manage our online advertising budget to meet specific ROI goals,” said Frank Siano, internet marketing manager at Steve Madden. “Now that our bids are adjusted automatically, advertising with AdWords is even simpler than before. And because our ads only appear when they’re likely to convert into sales, we’ve seen very high results, such as increasing our daily conversions by 60 percent.”

Starting today, advertisers whose campaigns have enabled AdWords Conversion Tracking and accrued at least 200 conversions in the past 30 days will be eligible to use the Conversion Optimizer. The Conversion Optimizer is ideal for advertisers and agencies who want to manage their advertising costs around clear, defined conversion goals.

By using this free feature, advertisers gain more precision and greater control over their advertising budgets. It allows them to simultaneously increase ROI, receive more conversions and save time by automating the bidding process. Ads using the Conversion Optimizer participate in the standard ad auction and are able to show on both Google’s search and content networks.

To learn more about the Conversion Optimizer, which is now available to qualified advertisers worldwide, visit http://www.google.com/adwords/conversionoptimizer.

Add comment January 11th, 2008

Google AdWords Editor 4.0 for Windows Released

Today Google released version 4.0 of AdWords Editor, the free, downloadable campaign management application. Version 4.0 includes support for mobile ads, the ability to post changes to selected campaigns, custom date ranges for performance statistics, and the ability to update negative keywords along with your regular keywords. You can read the release notes for a list of all the changes in version 4.0.

With the release of version 4.0, AdWords Editor is now available in 23 languages. The six new languages for version 4.0 are: Czech, Hebrew, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), English (Australia), and Turkish.

While this release is for Windows only, a Macs version will be available in the near future.

Add comment August 6th, 2007

Google Expands Pay-Per-Action for Google AdWords

Google announced today the worldwide expansion of its pay-per-action advertising beta. Pay-per-action is a new pricing model that allows advertisers to pay only when a pre-defined action is completed on their site, such as when a user makes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter, or completes any other clearly defined action. Since the initial launch of the pay-per-action advertising beta in March 2007, many advertisers who have used the new pricing model are pleased with the opportunity to have more ways to promote their products and services online.

Starting today, advertisers in the beta will see an alert in their AdWords account informing them that they can now create pay-per-action campaigns. Going forward, advertisers who have enabled AdWords conversion tracking and received more than 500 conversions from their CPC and CPM-based campaigns in the past 30 days will be automatically added to the beta on a rolling basis.

Pay-per-action ads are only shown on publisher sites in the Google content network, also known as Google AdSenseâ„¢ for content sites. Publishers in the Google content network who want greater control over the ads shown on their sites may select between individual ads, a shopping cart of ads, or a specific keyword that is relevant to their site’s content. These publisher-selected ad units contain only pay-per-action ads, and therefore, they do not compete in the auction against CPC or CPM-based ads, which are served in separate AdSense for content ad units.

With this new pricing model, both advertisers and publishers gain more precision and control over their efforts to effectively spend advertising budgets and deliver relevant ads to related website content. Pay-per-action advertising is now available to qualifying advertisers worldwide.

Add comment June 21st, 2007

New Content Placement Reports for AdWords

In an ongoing effort to provide more transparency to advertisers, Google announced today the availability of a new AdWords report, called a Placement Performance report, which enables advertisers to see the exact sites on the Google content network where their ads appear. Placement Performance reports also provide site-by-site performance metrics – including domain, URL, impression, click, conversion and cost data – as well as aggregated metrics for traffic generated from AdSense for domain sites. With these reports, advertisers have much more insight into their contextually targeted advertising spend and are able to leverage the information to more effectively optimize their campaigns and meet their objectives. Designed in response to advertisers’ requests, Placement Performance reports offer advertisers both increased transparency and greater control over their contextual advertising, which ultimately lead to more relevant ads for users.

With a network of large and small publishers, the Google content network provides unmatched reach and customizable targeting for advertisers online. Now, advertisers who are opted in to the content network can clearly identify high and low-value sites for their particular business, and react accordingly based on their performance to meet their marketing objectives on the content network. With Placement Performance reports, Google makes site-by-site data easily available and actionable to help advertisers get the best possible ROI on the Google content network. Sites that perform particularly well can be targeted more aggressively by implementing complementary features such as site targeting. Conversely, specific sites that convert poorly can be excluded or optimized by refining keywords and ads in campaigns.

The reports can also be coupled with conversion tracking tools, such as the Google AdWords conversion tracking feature or Google Analytics, to give advertisers a better understanding of their holistic online advertising performance. Placement Performance reports are now available to all U.S. advertisers, and are launching globally in all countries in the coming weeks.

Add comment June 11th, 2007

Salesforce and Google Form Strategic Global Alliance

Salesforce.com and Google have formed a strategic global alliance to mutually use their product, packaging, and promotional resources to enable companies of all sizes to realize unprecedented levels of success. As part of the alliance, salesforce.com will be the first on-demand company to resell the Google AdWords platform, acting as an official distribution channel for the Google AdWords product. The alliance is across 43 countries and encompasses distribution, technology and co-marketing efforts.

Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords provides an integrated and effective solution that gives companies of all sizes all the tools they need to acquire new customers and grow their business. By encapsulating every element of the customer lifecycle - advertising, creating leads, closing business and retaining customers - in one solution, Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords enables any company to jump start their business by creating an online marketing and sales presence.

Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords enables users to:

• Advertise Online – With Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, companies can immediately connect to Google AdWords, and create an ad that is displayed with the relevant search results on Google.com or across the Google AdSenseâ„¢ content network of partner websites. Users can create an ad in as quickly as five minutes and with as little as $5.
• Attract Prospects – When people search the Web for the products and services that your company sells, your ad appears with the relevant search results. When they click on your ad, visitors are taken to your website.
• Capture Leads – Once you have potential customers on your website, you can entice visitors to fill out a name capture form on your site with an offer for a Webinar or white paper. The information collected on the form flows directly into Salesforce as a new lead.
• Acquire Customers – As soon as a lead is added into Salesforce, it is distributed to the sales team. Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords enables businesses to effectively manage and share leads, track opportunities through the sales cycle and close deals faster. Sales teams can manage all customer interactions in Salesforce and turn qualified leads into new customers.
• Analyze Growth – Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords features dashboards that gives companies a bird’s eye view into lead generation, sales metrics, and company growth. Dashboards and reports are quick and easy to access with real-time information and allow companies to make decisions quickly and alter advertising strategies appropriately.
• Mash-up Other Business Applications – Through the power of Salesforce.com’s AppExchange directory, customers have the opportunity to mash-up any of 600 business applications including technologies for mapping and productivity.

In addition to these features, Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords also includes a custom designed user experience starting with an exclusive login page. Joint customers can go to the Google site at http://www.google.com/adwords/salesforce to login to their AdWords account and can access Salesforce directly at http://www.salesforce.com/google.

Another common thread that brought salesforce.com and Google together in their global alliance is their commitment to corporate philanthropy. In July of 2000, salesforce.com launched the Salesforce.com Foundation, which operates under the company’s innovative 1/1/1 Model — a commitment to deliver 1% Time, 1% Equity and 1% Product to nonprofit organizations and, most recently, to be “one” with the earth.

Since its launch, the Salesforce.com Foundation has donated their product to more than 2,000 nonprofits. Similarly, Google has also given free online advertising to selected nonprofits through its Google Grants program, supporting more than 2,500 nonprofit organizations in 16 countries to date. The Salesforce.com Foundation and Google are now teaming up to donate the new Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords to each other’s nonprofit grantees. These selected nonprofits will be able to gain access to the same integrated sales and marketing success that is available to the private sector at no cost. Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords will also be made available to additional nonprofits within the next quarter.

Add comment June 5th, 2007

Google To Sell Radio Ads Through Clear Channel

Clear Channel Radio and Google, today announced a multi-year agreement that enables Google to sell a guaranteed portion of 30-second advertising inventory available on more than 675 of Clear Channel’s AM/FM stations. Specific financial terms are not being disclosed. Under the agreement, Google Audio Ads advertisers will have national distribution, enabling them to reach specific audiences, at specific times, in targeted geographies. For Clear Channel, this agreement opens up an additional sales channel and provides supplemental revenue by making Clear Channel inventory available to advertisers who previously had not used radio.

“This is a true win-win,” said John Hogan, Chief Executive Officer of Clear Channel Radio. “Clear Channel Radio gets access to an entirely new group of advertisers within a new and complementary sales channel, and Google adds another option for its existing customers. Google has proven its ability to gain premiums for advertising inventory and that fits perfectly into our broader strategy of building value for advertisers while increasing our overall revenue yield. We’re committed to working with the best-in-class and Google has a real economic incentive to produce meaningfully higher CPMs.”

“Clear Channel is the market leader in delivering radio value to consumers and advertisers and has built an innovative platform to manage its on-air ad inventory,” said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. “We look forward to working with Clear Channel Radio by providing a unique set of advertisers and a system that will increase the effectiveness and measurability of connecting advertisers with radio listeners.”

Clear Channel Radio’s national and local sales forces will continue to focus on the company’s most lucrative advertiser relationships, and on the many advertisers who seek specialized advertising packages and concepts. Google will focus primarily on advertisers who currently run ads online but do not run ads on radio.

For Clear Channel, the move is part of a larger initiative to differentiate its on-air ad inventory. The company created a number of special positions (such as first-in-pod and islands), new and innovative spot types (adlets and blinks), unparalleled creative resources (the Creative Services Group), and fresh combinations on-/off-air/online packages. These efforts have produced many new advertiser alternatives and steady gains in revenue yield-per-minute. Using its Viero System, the company already enables sales managers and sellers to dynamically evaluate and price inventory. Clear Channel Radio and Google today separately announced Viero Systems full AdSense for Audio Compatibility.

This agreement complements an existing online advertising partnership in which Google provides text ads to Clear Channel’s radio-station Web sites through the company’s Online Music & Radio Unit.

Add comment April 16th, 2007

Version 3.0 of AdWords Editor is available now

Google has released an update for the AdWords Editor for Windows. This new version contains some new features and also some updates. The new features are:

• Site targeting  - AdWords Editor now provides full support for site-targeted campaigns.
• Negative sites - Add or edit negative sites for keyword- and site-targeted campaigns.
• Edit while you wait - If you manage multiple accounts with AdWords Editor, edit another account while your changes post.
• Count your selection - The status bar now displays the number of rows you’ve selected in the data view.
• Pause or resume ads, keywords, and sites - Use the Status menu in the edit panel to change the status of selected items.

You can find a list of the other updates at the Google AdWords Editor site.

Add comment February 26th, 2007