Taking a little time to organize your account can help you to better target your potential customers. It can also save you time and effort when it comes to managing your advertising.
The video below will show you how a few minor changes to your account structure can make a big difference to your advertising performance.
Use these simple tips to structure your account for success, and keep an eye out for the rest of our series of short video clips which we'll post over the coming weeks!
Did you find this video useful? We'd love to hear your feedback, so let us know. For more information on improving your account structure, visit this article in the AdWords Help Center.
More and more people are accessing the internet on their mobile devices. Take advantage of this trend by making sure that your ad campaigns are opted in to show on mobile devices with full internet browsers. If you’d like to take things to the next level, create separate mobile-focused campaigns so that you can optimize your keywords, ad text and landing pages for people using mobile devices.
To help you understand what mobile optimization looks like, we thought we'd share the approach that Razorfish, a global digital advertising agency, took for one of their retail clients:
The Razorfish team started by duplicating the existing desktop campaigns and switching the settings to target mobile devices with full internet browsers.
Since their client had a well-known brand name, they focused on branded keyword terms with enough traffic to help them learn quickly about what was working best for their campaigns.
To measure performance, they tracked several conversion metrics including whether a mobile user looked up the brick and mortar store location or downloaded a coupon from the website. Right away, they saw a 7.5% lower cost per conversion on mobile devices, encouraging them to test ways to optimize their mobile campaigns.
Razorfish tested whether variations in the campaign’s landing page would affect conversion rates. The team hypothesized that mobile users might be looking to take a specific action, and by starting the user’s experience closer to that action, the client would see better results. As it turned out, for this client, they saw much higher conversion rates when the user was directed to a landing page that showed nearby store locations.
Finally, they tested variations in the ad text. Four versions of ad text were tested, including the original copy used in desktop campaigns. Each of the three new versions provided over 9.3% lift in conversion rate over the strongest performing copy in their desktop campaigns.
We hope you can learn from Razorfish's success and apply some of these strategies to your own mobile campaigns.
To learn more about the approach Razorfish took to optimize their client’s mobile ad campaigns, or read about other case studies, check out our Mobile Ads Success Stories.
A few months ago, we updated the email communication options in your AdSense account to give you more choices about the types of messages you'd like to receive from us. You can now pick the types of messages that interest you from five categories:
Customized help and performance suggestions
Newsletters
Google market research
Special offers
Information about other Google products and services which may be of interest to you
If you'd like to receive emails with optimization tips that are targeted to your specific account settings and ad implementation, you'll need to choose the category Customized help and performance suggestions. You'll receive roughly one email per month from us with targeted performance suggestions, so you don't have to worry about your inbox overflowing with messages from us.
In case you aren’t currently opted into this category, we’d like to recommend that you update your preferences to be able to receive Customized help and performance suggestions going forward and not miss out on valuable information on how to optimize your AdSense performance.
Posted by Annette Vorstoffel - AdSense Optimisation team
This week, we'll be hosting two live webinars to help you discover how you can make the most of your AdSense account with a detailed understanding of DFP Small Business and AdSense for search.
The DFP Small Business (formerly Google Ad Manager) webinar will take place on Tuesday, March 2nd. This webinar will cover how you can:
Use DFP Small Business to sell, schedule, deliver, and measure all of your direct-sold and network-based ad inventory (including AdSense)
Have AdSense backfill your directly-sold inventory and compete with your other ad networks
Optimize your AdSense placements
The AdSense for search webinar will take place on Wednesday, March 3rd. In this webinar, you'll learn how to:
We experienced some sound issues when we launched our AdSense Optimization Basics webinar on February 10th. We'd like to apologize to those of you that attended for the inconvenience caused, and let you know that we've rescheduled the event to the same time tomorrow. You can continue to post your questions here and we'll answer as many as possible during the live event.
We hope to see you there.
Posted by Siobhán McCormack - AdSense Optimisation Team
Over the past few months, you may have visited the Opportunities tab to get customized keyword and budget ideas for optimizing your account. Now we're adding more functionality to the Opportunities tab with the introduction of bid ideas. Bid ideas, based on bid simulator data, will help you raise or lower your bids on specific keywords to improve your AdWords ROI. Whether you wish to decrease overall costs or increase traffic to your website, customized bid ideas can help you determine exactly which bids to adjust to make the most of your advertising budget.
You’ll see bid ideas in your account if we determine there's an opportunity for you to:
receive significant additional clicks without a significant increase in cost
save money without sacrificing a lot of clicks
Bid ideas will be visible in some accounts starting today, and available in all accounts in the coming weeks.
Bid ideas are shown with their estimated cost, impression, and click impact. When you click on a bid idea, you'll see a graph showing clicks versus cost for a range of bid amounts. The graph will include your keyword's current bid (marked in gray) and the proposed bid (marked in yellow). If you're raising a bid, consider whether the extra clicks and impressions are worth the potential added cost. If you're decreasing a bid, consider whether the saved cost is worth the potential loss of clicks and impressions.
The estimates you see are variations on your past performance over the last 7 days and are not attempts to predict or estimate future performance. Also, traffic patterns are always subject to fluctuation, so keep in mind that your future performance may shift over time. If you have reason to believe that next week's traffic will be significantly different from the last week, due to seasonal reasons for example, then it's a good idea to incorporate that information when selecting your bids.
While this tool doesn't know enough about your advertising goals to make a recommendation of which specific bid is best for you, it does provide useful data and gives you bid ideas to consider. We suggest that you use the data we provide to gain insight into how different bids could affect your performance. If you'd like even more information on bid ideas, including information on how they're generated, you can read our detailed article in the AdWords Help Center.
You should think of the Opportunities tab as your homepage for account optimization. You can view all your customized optimization ideas in one place, allowing you to make informed decisions before adjusting your account. We suggest checking the Opportunities tab every few weeks to look for new ideas. Continue to look out for new features in the coming months as we work to make the Opportunities tab an even more robust resource.
This year, the AdSense team has brought you a series of live webinars covering a range of topics, and we'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who attended. We hope that you're already profiting from implementing the tips featured in our webinars.
Your feedback to date has been very helpful, and we'll spend the coming weeks developing brand new, interesting content for 2010. If you haven't already done so, we invite you to share with us the topics you'd like to see covered in future webinars.
We've received great reviews from publishers who've attended our webinars, so if you haven't seen one as yet, you can view the recordings of these events whenever it's convenient for you.
Wishing you a happy holiday season and a healthy new year.
Posted by Siobhan McCormack - AdSense Optimisation Team
Shoppers increasingly use their smartphones to search the internet, and we typically see an increase in shopping-related queries on Android, iPhone and Palm WebOS devices during the holiday season.
Ensure that your online campaigns perform well on mobile devices with full internet browsers by viewing device statistics on your Campaign Summary, Ad Groups, or Keyword reports within AdWords. Just select the "Device" segment option under the “Filter and Views” drop down.
You can now compare clicks, impressions, CTR and other performance metrics for desktop vs. high-end mobile devices. Note that this data only dates back to June 3, 2009.
Now is the perfect time to optimize how you target consumers on-the-go. Here are a few best practices we think you'll find helpful:
Create separate campaigns and ad groups for your ads that appear on mobile devices. This makes it easier to customize ads, keywords and bids to optimize performance.
Put your call to action in a spot on your landing page that's easy to find. Keep in mind that it's a bit more difficult to navigate websites on a mobile device, so consider shortening your checkout process.
Most mobile phones don't support flash, so make sure your landing page is written in HTML and contains little or no Flash.
We hope these tips help you create great campaigns both for desktops and mobile devices this holiday season.
We often hear publishers ask for more information about using AdSense most effectively, and so in response, we've initiated a number of free, online webinars. If you haven't yet participated in a webinar, they focus on specific topics such as increasing your revenue with the AdSense program and taking advantage of new features. At the end of each webinar, you can also ask your questions live to our AdSense specialists.
There are still a number of upcoming webinars in 2009, and we encourage you to sign up soon. We've also created a short video about webinars featuring a few members of our Dublin-based team.
Next week on December 7th and 8th, you can catch presentations by the Google AdWords team at SES Chicago. We'll be offering practical tips on how to quickly improve your search and display ads performance in the following sessions:
Finally, if you want to learn more about AdWords optimization tools, you can also watch a video walkthrough of the improvements we've made to AdWords this year. Ariel Bardin, the lead Product Manager for the AdWords web interface, will take you through the major new features and give you tips on managing your campaigns more efficiently.
In the second part of our channels series, we'll focus on custom channels. Boyar Naito will walk you through how to set up custom channels to track the performance of specific ad units. You'll learn about the three pieces of information that are most important to us: ad size, ad location, and page content, and how to analyze this information to figure out what ad formats work best for your website.
You can find more information about custom channels in our Help Center. Catch the last part of this series next week, when we'll cover targetable channels.
As many of you know, channels are a great tool for tracking the clicks and impressions on your ad units, as well as figuring out which ad placements, sizes, and colors generate the most revenue. With that in mind, three of our very own Mountain View-based AdSense optimization specialists have created videos showcasing best practices for setting up channels within your AdSense account.
In the first episode, Matthew Carpenter-Arevalo talks about URL channels which can help you track revenue on a specific URL or domain. You'll learn how to set up a channel within your AdSense account, what metrics you can track using channels, and how to use that data to increase your earnings by generating more clicks on your ads.
You can find more information about URL channels in our Help Center. Check back next week, when we'll cover custom channels.
Following up on our recent webinar geared towards education sites, we're starting to roll out more webinars geared towards specific types of sites. Webinars are free web seminars where one of our AdSense team members will deliver a presentation on a certain topic, after which you can ask the specialists questions about AdSense on your site. Below, we've listed the other verticals we're going to discuss in upcoming weeks, so be sure to sign up!
You may also be interested in checking out the main webinar page in our Help Center for information on other products we'll be talking about such as AdSense for Search, Google Ad Manager, and Google Analytics.
If you have any feedback for us on any of these webinars, or topics that you'd like to see covered in future webinars, please leave us a comment.
Posted by Siobhan McCormack - AdSense Optimisation Team
Alerts are a great way to stay on top of changes in your account. In addition to the account alerts already available for billing and campaign maintenance, you can also use custom alerts to monitor shifts in key metrics like clicks and cost. We'd like to tell you about two additional alert options that we're introducing today.
First, we've added alerts for new keyword and budget ideas in the Opportunities tab. Ideas are personalized tips to help you potentially improve your campaigns' effectiveness. New ideas are usually generated for campaigns and ad groups every few weeks, but you may miss ideas that can expand your coverage and boost your traffic if you don't check the Opportunities tab regularly. Now, when there are new ideas available for your review, you'll see them highlighted along with the rest of your campaign alerts.
Second, if you're using AdWords conversion tracking, you can now create custom alerts for changes in conversion volume, conversion rate, and cost per conversion. By setting alerts for your conversion data, you can make sure that you're quickly notified about fluctuations in your key metrics.
Please note that we're still working to bring custom alerts to all linked accounts for My Client Center (MCC) users. In the meantime, you can still set custom alerts for your individual accounts if you're able to log into them directly.
We're pleased to announce that our Dublin-based AdSense team has just released a new webinar schedule. Over the coming months, we look forward to helping you discover how to take advantage of the full potential of your site. Choose from a range of topics, including optimisation, AdSense for search, Analytics, and Google Ad Manager, and see how you can make the most out of AdSense.
During each of these webinars, an AdSense specialist will guide you through a presentation and will be available afterward to take questions related to the topic. We've heard from previous attendees that they found our webinars worthwhile, particularly for the chance to ask questions and learn more about solutions suited to their sites. We encourage you to join us, and to let us know which webinars would interest you in the future.
The first webinar will take place tomorrow, October 14th, and will cover the essentials of optimisation. To find out more or to register today, visit our Help Center.
Posted by Siobhan McCormack - AdSense Optimisation Team
When talking about optimization here on Inside AdSense, we frequently encourage readers to use the 300x250 medium rectangle. But we've also talked about how bigger ad units tend to perform well, so a few publishers have asked us, "Should we be using the 300x250 medium rectangle or the bigger 336x280 large rectangle?"
We took this question to our Optimization Team, who gave us insight into the strengths of each ad format:
The 300x250 medium rectangle is a widely supported format that advertisers often use when designing their branding and rich media campaigns. Using this ad format and opting in to both text and image ads may generate more placement targeting opportunities, which will help drive up competition for your ad space and should lead to higher earnings over time.
The 336x280 large rectangle tends to have a higher clickthrough rate due to its larger size. It often performs well on text-heavy pages where it's integrated into the content.
Our optimization specialists noted that performance of these two ad formats can vary from site to site, so they can't definitively say that all publishers should always use one format over the other. Just like with all other customization options, they recommend experimenting with each ad format for 3-4 weeks and measuring performance using custom channels.
What's your opinion? Feel free to leave us a comment and let us know how the medium and large rectangles have performed for you.
If you've ever argued over where the pavlova was first invented and are currently enjoying the first signs of spring, the Australia and New Zealand AdSense team is holding a webinar specifically for you! We'll be presenting our techniques for improving your AdSense for content performance, as well as handy tips on making your AdSense implementation more user-friendly.
We'll be running two free sessions that you can choose between; both are exactly the same and will run for approximately one hour. Register for the one you'd like to attend by visiting one of the links below -- even if you're not located in Australia or New Zealand, you're still welcome to register!
Webinar Option 1: 12.00pm AEST Monday 21st of September 2009 (GMT +10:00)
Webinar Option 2: 5.30pm AEST Tuesday 22nd of September 2009 (GMT +10:00)
Once you've registered, you'll receive an email from messenger@webex.com to confirm your time and give you instructions on how to attend the webinar. We recommend that you register in advance.
If you're new to webinars (or web seminars), they're online meetings that you can attend using any computer with an internet connection and speakers or a headset. This Help Center entry will provide further details about what you'll need to participate. You'll also have the chance to ask questions based on the presentation through the interactive chat panel. Here are a few more details about next week's webinars.
Presenters:
Victoria, Mel, and Disha from the Sydney-based AdSense Team
Content:
Introduction - The Google Australia & New Zealand AdSense Team
Google AdSense – AdSense for content optimisation
Ad Formats – Opting in to image and text
Placement – Position and size
Design – Colours and borders
Google Custom Search Engine - Best practices
Working with Google - AdSense account essentials
We'll also be showcasing some real-life examples of how other publishers have optimised their AdSense implementation.
We hope you can make one of the sessions, and we look forward to sharing our best AdSense optimisation techniques with you.
Posted by Mel-Ann Chan - AdSense Optimisation Team, Australia & New Zealand
Your keywords determine when your ad shows to potential customers, but it's the content of your ads that determines if users will actually click and visit your website. So we thought we'd share this short video with some best practices for creating winning ad text. You will see ideas for what you can test when writing your ads, which will help you to differentiate your business from the crowd and drive even more potential customers to your website.
Did you like the video? We'd love to hear your feedback. Let us know. For more information, visit our entry on ad text optimization in the AdWords Help Center.
In the final week of our educational series about speeding up your business in a slowdown, you'll hear tips from Christian Ashlock, an AdSense Optimization team manager, about attracting additional advertiser spend. If you have any final suggestions for growing your business, we hope you'll leave them as comments. If you missed a week or want to re-read tips from our team, you can revisit the series at any time at www.google.com/ads/speedingup.
I'm Christian Ashlock, and I manage an AdSense optimization team at Google that works to help publishers get the most out of their AdSense accounts. Once you create a site with great content and great ad inventory, the best way to earn additional revenue is to make sure advertisers can find you. Today, I'll share two tips to help attract advertisers to spend money on your site, and a third tip to help you access a new pool of advertisers you may not currently be reaching.
Tip #1: Define ad placements in AdSense so that AdWords advertisers can find them and bid directly for them.
Ad placements are simply custom channels that you can expose to advertisers to encourage more placement targeting spend on your site. Ad placements are most effective for sites with lots of different topics or with different sections like articles, a blog, and a forum. You can set up ad placements based on specific categories of interest on your site, like fine arts or sports. You can also set up ad placements to cater to advertisers who are more interested in specific ad unit locations, like above the fold placements, or popular ad unit sizes including the 300x250 medium rectangle or 728x90 leaderboard.
Tip #2: Help advertisers find your inventory outside of AdWords.
Google Ad Planner is a media planning tool that advertisers use to find sites for their media buys. With the recently launched Publisher Center in Ad Planner, you can claim your site and provide information that helps advertisers better understand your content, audience and advertising options. You can also share your Analytics data with Ad Planner to ensure that advertisers see the most accurate traffic numbers for your site. All of this will help advertisers who use Ad Planner as a media planning tool understand the value of your site, and may even help new advertisers learn that your site exists!
Tip #3: Tap into a new set of advertisers: search advertisers.
Google has relationships with many advertisers -- some advertise on Google.com, some advertise on our partner sites through the AdSense program, and many do both. You can tap into advertisers who choose to advertise on our search partner sites by using AdSense for search. AdSense for search lets your site's visitors find what they're looking for on your site and across the web. Just like on Google.com, we'll display ads targeted to what your visitor is looking for along with the search results.
Additional Resources:
Learn more about placement-targeted advertising, and read about best practices for setting up ad placements.
To get the most out of AdSense for search, try our five optimization tips.
Thanks for following our educational series for the last five weeks. We hope you've gained a better understanding of the tools and resources you can use to improve your site and your AdSense earnings.
Posted by Talia Brodecki - AdSense Product Marketing
Have you committed one of the "7 deadly sins of landing page design?"
Since it's the page visitors see after clicking your ad, your landing page is one of your most valuable tools. A bad landing page will drive visitors away, while a good one will turn AdWords clicks into customers. This is why we held a webinar on July 1st to expose the "7 deadly sins of landing page design", and explained how to fix them.
Tim Ash, one of our Website Optimizer Authorized Consultants, led this webinar and shared many insights and best practices to help advertisers improve their conversion rates. A recording of the webinar is now available for anyone who was not able to attend.
The recording is also available on the Website Optimizer Youtube Channel, where you can learn even more about improving your conversion rate with website testing.
We hope you will find these resources helpful as you improve your website landing pages to turn more clicks into customers.
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