Clix Marketing PPC Blog

According to this release today, sent to Adsense publishers, Google is experimenting with different formats for ads. I think this is good news for advertisers and publishers – anything that calls attention to the ads is helping both.

See the release below, and below that, the detail they reference:

Readers with sharp eyes will notice that on some rare occasions, your ads may appear or act slightly differently than what you’re accustomed to. Rest assured that this is normal behavior that results from our efforts to improve the experience for all members of the advertising ecosystem. (You may have noticed a similar post about our search results on the official Google blog.)

One way in which we achieve this is by making continued tweaks and innovations to the user behavior and appearance of our ads. In the past, these experiments have included changes to the font styling, coloring, spacing, and other aesthetic components. More specifically, changes such as redesigned ad units and arrows to show additional ads have stemmed from these tests. The purpose of these tests is to identify changes to our product that can bring long-term benefits to our publishers, your site’s visitors, and advertisers.

Before rolling out a change to our ads, we test performance for a limited number of ad impressions, which may not apply to all publishers. Although we don’t notify publishers of these specific changes in order to prevent bias, we closely monitor the performance of these tests. We also welcome feedback from publishers, users, and advertisers, so feel free to drop us an email.

A fresh, new look for AdSense ads

You may have noticed that some of your ad units have started to look a little different lately — we’re happy to announce that, just in time for spring, we’ve given our standard ad units a fresh makeover. After extensive testing and research, we’ve found that the new formats are not only visually appealing to users, but they also perform even better for publishers and advertisers. We’re in the process of rolling out this change to all ad units, and you should see that your ad units are automatically updated over the next few days. But, before you rush to make sure all of your ad units still match your site, please be assured that the fonts and colors of your ads won’t be changed.

Although it’s not possible to opt out of the new designs, we hope that you and your site visitors will find our new ad formats clearer and more attractive. We’re always testing new ways to improve the look and feel of our advertisements, so stay tuned for more format options in the future.

Show me the ads

After months of testing, we’ve just updated our text ad format to include ‘next’ and ‘previous’ arrow buttons for cost-per-click (CPC) ads. When a user clicks on the ‘next’ button, an entirely new group of ads will appear in the ad unit, giving your users greater control over the ads they see and click.

While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher’s content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking — for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the ‘next’ and ‘previous’ buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears.

You won’t generate earnings for clicks on the ‘next’ and ‘previous’ buttons, but these buttons will help improve both advertiser value and your potential revenue. When users click on the buttons, they begin interacting with the ads and are more likely to find the specific offering they’re looking for, which can lead to higher earnings for you.

We’ll be testing and reporting on these – but they look very powerful: mechanisms for rotating creative to reduce “banner fatigue;” the ability to see data on the frequency with which individual visitors have viewed ads; and especially tracking mechanisms so that advertisers can see conversions origially driven by visitors who clicked on content network ads.

Google says:

New enhancements on the Google content network

8/07/2008 05:01:00 AM

Today we’re announcing some key enhancements on the Google content network (partner sites for which we provide advertising) that will offer a better experience for users and better value for advertisers and publishers. These enhancements are the latest result of our integration with DoubleClick and our commitment to making advertising on the Google content network more efficient and accountable. When we purchased DoubleClick, we talked about how we would empower agencies, advertisers and publishers to collaborate more efficiently and effectively, and provide a better experience for our users. We are happy that we have been able to deliver on this promise already, like support for third party vendors on the Google content network.

The new enhancements that we are announcing today and that will be available in the coming months are the next step in our integration and in enabling standard industry functionality on the Google content network:

* Frequency Capping: Enables advertisers to control the number of times a user sees an ad. Users will have a better experience on Google content network sites because they will no longer see the same ad over and over again.

* Frequency Reporting: Provides insight into the number of people who have seen an ad campaign, and how many times, on average, people are seeing these ads.

* Improved Ads Quality: Brings performance improvements within the Google content network.

* View-Through Conversions: Enables advertisers to gain insights on how many users visited their sites after seeing an ad. This helps advertisers determine the best places to advertise so users will see more relevant ads.

We are enabling this functionality by implementing a DoubleClick ad-serving cookie across the Google content network. Using the DoubleClick cookie means that DoubleClick advertisers and publishers don’t have to make any changes on their websites as we continue our integration efforts and offer additional enhancements. This also means that with one click, users can opt out of a single cookie for both DoubleClick ad serving and the Google content network. (If a user has already opted out of the DoubleClick cookie, that opt-out will also automatically apply to the Google content network.)

To learn more, you can check out our updated main privacy policy and a new advertising-specific privacy policy that reflects our integration with the DoubleClick ad serving cookie, and you can visit a section in our Privacy Center devoted to advertising and privacy.

Apologies to those who want/expect this blog to be only about PPC.

But.

Whether you’re Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative or Libertarian or Rastafarian: I urge you to watch this video of Barack Obama’s speech today in Berlin.

My take: the world has not seen a world leader of this caliber and potential impact for the “powers of good” in many years – since before many of you were born.

Those of you who were cognizant in 1968 might remember the person I consider to be the most recent one: Bobby Kennedy. I watched the movie Bobby recently, and was struck by the similarity between the words Bobby and Barack have dared to speak.

Both have had the courage to give voice to the feelings of the majority – words the profiteers of injustice have sought to make unpopular or even criminal.

Words like these from Bobby:

City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio April 5, 1968Mr Chairmen, Ladies And Gentlemen

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed.

No one – no matter where he lives or what he does – can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours. Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet. No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily – whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence – whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

“Among free men,” said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lost their cause and pay the costs.” Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them. Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men.

And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution. But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

This just out from Google – a way to see “examples” of sites that accept Adsense advertising:

Our advertisers have often asked: ‘What kinds of web sites make up the Google content network?’

To help answer this question, we just re-launched the Partners page on the Google content network microsite to include a more comprehensive set of examples of where your ads can appear. After all, the content network is comprised of hundreds of thousands of web sites, from information and news sites like About.com and the New York Times, to blogs like Ask the Builder. And while it’s not possible to individually name all the sites in the content network, the revamped Partners page is meant to better demonstrate the variety of sites available. Below are some features of the new Partners page:

• Sites are organized by category. This will help you browse sites by categories that represent your target audience, such as Finance, News, Entertainment, Technology, etc. For example, if you sell herbal teas, you might browse through the Health & Fitness or Home & Garden categories to see examples of related sites. Or, if your target demographic is female, you can try the Women’s Interest category.

• Once you find a site that’s relevant to your product or service, you can use placement targeting to target your ads to that site directly. We recommend you use the Placement Tool to determine whether a specific site is available for targeting, and to identify other relevant placements to target. Further, if your campaign is already running on the content network, you can see the sites where your ad has appeared by running a Placement performance report.

• For those of you targeting users in other countries, a drop-down menu lets you browse partner sites in countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

(Click on the image for a full size version)

So while the simple question “Where will my ads appear?” may not be the simplest to answer, we hope the new Partners page will help you better understand the variety of sites available to you to help you meet your advertising objectives on the content network.

If you liked my previous SEW Experts Content Advertising column on using software tools to create great Google AdWords keyword-targeted campaigns, you’ll love today’s installment describing a tool that will help you find sites that are perfect targets for your placement-targeted campaigns.

Today’s installment of my SEW Content Advertising column features an easy method for creating keyword lists for Google content campaigns – read it here.

My SEW Experts Content Advertising column published today describes a fast, easy method for creating the best possible keyword lists for keyword-targeted content ad groups.

The article references three files used to illustrate the steps involved – you can download them here:

szetela-content-sewx-21

bodybuilding-words

rpg-words

Today Google announced one sign that they’ve already been working to assimilate DoubleClick technology, even in advance of this week’s finalization of the acquisition. Google Ad Manager is essentially a “self-serve ad server” — or an expanded version of Adsense — that lets site publishers alternate manually-sold ads with AdWords-driven Adsense ads.

It could be a great tool for middle-tier site publishers who can afford the resources to sell premium ad placements but want to make sure every space is “monetized” at all times by serving Adsense ads when premium ad inventory is low.

For AdWords advertisers (especially ones who have been following my SEW Content Advertising series) this is good news and further evidence that the click inventory coming from the Content Network is growing faster than inventory from the Search Network.

Here’s the Ad Manager announcement:

Earlier this week, we completed our acquisition of DoubleClick. Together, we’re now focused on building a full suite of products and tools that help publishers of all sizes improve productivity, manage their inventory, generate additional revenue opportunities and save time so they can focus on what they do best — creating great content and delivering an exceptional experience to their users.

First, let us address the options that publishers have when it comes to selling and managing ad space on their websites. Some publishers use ad networks like Google AdSense to fill their ad space. Still others employ a direct sales force to manage and sell their ad inventory with solutions like the DoubleClick Revenue Center, and partner with third-party ad networks to fill in any unsold space. Regardless, it is a challenge for publishers to effectively manage their available inventory and ensure all of their clients’ campaigns serve on time without a sophisticated ad management and ad serving solution.

Today, we’re announcing a new tool for publishers with the beta launch of Google Ad Manager. Directed at addressing the ad management and serving needs of publishers with smaller sales teams, Google Ad Manager is a free, hosted ad and inventory management tool that can help publishers sell, schedule, deliver and measure their directly-sold and network-based ad inventory. It offers an intuitive and simple user experience with Google speed and a tagging process so publishers can spend more time working with their advertisers and less time on their ad management solution. And by providing detailed inventory forecasts and tracking at a very granular level, Ad Manager helps publishers maximize their inventory sell-through rates.

Google Ad Manager effectively complements the DoubleClick Revenue Center, which is focused on publishers with larger sales teams. We’re excited to add DART for Publishers to our suite of products, and we’re committed to the continued development and enhancement of DoubleClick’s offerings. Today’s announcement demonstrates this promise, and at the same time furthers our goal of creating new opportunities for publishers of all sizes. Dozens of publishers have been using Google Ad Manager successfully in early trials. To hear what those publishers have to say check out some Ad Manager success stories or take a product tour to learn more.

As we are still in beta, Google Ad Manager is available to publishers by invitation only. If you’re interested in learning more about it or would like to be considered for the program, visit the Google Ad Manager site. Existing DoubleClick customers are not affected by this announcement. As we expand the Google Ad Manager beta program, we will be in touch again to include additional publishers and offer updates on our progress.

This morning I was putting the finishing touches on the next installment of my SEW Content Advertising column when the announcement below hit my inbox.

It caught my eye because my article is the first in a series describing the little-known secrets and best practices for advertising on Google AdWords’ Content Network using non-text ads – i.e. static and animated banners and video. These media types are scary to many advertisers because they seem to be so far outside their “text ad comfort zone.”

But as I’ve explained in past columns, advertisers can’t afford to ignore the opportunity to advertise “there” – one Google insider told me new sites are joining the network at the dizzying rate of 100,000 new sites per month. At that rate the potential click inventory may soon rival that of the Search Network.

And “there” is no longer one “place” – Google’s Content Network now includes mobile sites, as well as entirely new media (The New New Media?) like Gadget Ads, and the InVideo ads Google describes here:

We know that publishers are quickly adding video to their sites and
looking for ways to earn additional revenue. If this sounds like you,
look no further than AdSense for video, our solution for qualifying
publishers. You may remember that we announced AdSense for video as a
pilot last May.

Since then, we’ve tested a variety of ad formats with the interest of
users, publishers and advertisers in mind. As a result, we’ve decided
that AdSense for video will use the InVideo ads adopted on our own
property, YouTube, which enable advertisers to make a single buy at
scale. Also competing in the auction – and unique to AdSense for video
and AdSense video units – are text overlay ads which are contextually
targeted to signals in your videos and on the page where the video
lives. The InVideo ads are paid on a CPM basis, while the text overlay
ads are paid on a CPC basis. You can see ad demos at
http://www.google.com/ads/videoadsolutions/demos.html . While we’ll
continue to test a variety of ad formats, we believe that overlays are
the best way to balance user experience with the needs of our
publishers.

AdSense for video is now available to publishers who, at a minimum,
serve one million video streams each month and are based in the U.S.
with English language sites. In the near future, we do plan to expand
the program to more publishers of various sizes and locations.

You may be wondering how this offering differs from the other video
advertising solutions that AdSense (and YouTube) have rolled out in
the last year. To give you an overview, we’ve launched a site at
http://www.google.com/ads/videoadsolutions/.

To apply for AdSense for video beta, please visit the AdSense for
video page on the Google Video Advertising Solutions site at
http://www.google.com/ads/videoadsolutions/publisher.html . You can
also learn about the various ways to earn revenue from video content
by watching this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2hPslGRBfQ

Last November Google made a significant change to the Adsense system – they reduced the “clickable area” of ads (see their blog post on the topic below). They touted this as beneficial to advertisers, since under the previous system, site visitors were accidentally clicking on ads and not converting once they arrived on the advertiser site.

We were curious about whether the move actually produced a significant effect – fewer clicks but better conversion rates, for example. So we went back and ran daily reports for each of our clients’ Content campaigns.

We saw no decrease in the number of clicks and no significant change in the conversion rates. Of course, other factors were at play – since Google made the change at the end of the year, during the holidays, the beneficial effect could have been dampened by seasonality factors.

Have you seen changes as a result of Google’s “clickable area” change? If so, comment here or over on my Content Advertising thread in the SEW forums.

Accidental clicks fade into the background

Earlier this year we stepped back to examine the value users, advertisers, and publishers derive from clicks on content ads. As you integrate ads with your site’s content and navigation, we want to ensure a positive user experience. We identified a few areas for improvement and began implementing changes, starting with our new ad formats in April.

In addition, this new clickable format better aligns with the text ad formats shown on Google.com. We hope this format change contributes to a better, more consistent user experience.

Finally, this change won’t just improve user experience on your site; it benefits advertisers as well. We currently monitor clicks on Google ads for accidental clicks, and the format change complements our monitoring system by further ensuring advertisers only pay for meaningful clicks. By reducing accidental clicks, we hope to increase advertiser campaign value and satisfaction, encouraging additional spend and facilitating higher monetization for all publishers.

My SEW column this week goes into detail about Adwords’ Placement Targeting campaigns – basically Content campaigns that let advertisers specify the sites – or site-subsections – where they want ads to appear. Powerful stuff, and a few surprises here.

Normally I don’t link to every installment of my weekly SEW Content Advertising column, but this week’s is a bit different, and I’d enjoy your comments.