Think2010: Series recap

We kicked off the Think2010 blog series 14 weeks ago with the idea of helping you prepare for the coming year by devoting one post each week to big-picture, forward-looking themes supported by actionable tips. Over the course of the series we've covered topics such as relevance, speed, experimentation and innovation. We've discussed the multiple roles that search can play, how to use data to better connect with customers, and the importance of staying focused on the fundamentals. We've also deliberately infused the series with perspectives from thought leaders both inside and outside of Google in order to give you a range of insights on the changing face of marketing. You can find a more in-depth version of this same conversation taking place on our Fast.Forward. YouTube channel.

As our series comes to a close this week and we prepare to usher in 2010, we'd like to thank you for reading and leave you with some parting thoughts. Here's what a diverse group of industry leaders have to say about the new marketing landscape and the vast opportunity that they believe lies ahead for 2010:

(click here to view video)

From the Think2010 team -- best wishes for a prosperous and successful 2010.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

Welcome to our Think2010 Series

In a mere few days, the 4th quarter will be upon us. Seems like just yesterday we were running our Do More with Less series to arm you with tools and tactics to show the 2009 recession who's boss.

As we start wrapping up 2009 and start thinking about what 2010 might hold, we're feeling optimistic. We're hoping we can transition from being your partner through the recession to being your partner through a recovery. That's why we're launching the Think2010: Getting Ahead of the Recovery series. For the next few months, we'll be devoting a weekly post to looking forward. The series will highlight wisdom from Googlers and outsiders alike, and offer opportunities for deeper learning. Over the course of the series you'll see posts on innovation, experimentation, speed, and deeper customer connections -- themes we believe will be critical to 2010 success.

In 2010 you'll likely have products to promote, news to share, and promotions to tout, so you'll need a targeting strategy that is as effective as those messages you have to get out the door. Precision and relevance will be as important as ever as you aim to (re)connect with customers and direct them your way. That's why we're focusing our first webinar of our Think 2010 series precisely on this topic.

Next Tuesday, Oct 6th, we'll be hosting a Think2010 webinar on “Using Data to Better Connect with Your Customers." If you haven't registered, take a look! Our very own Avinash Kaushik will set you out on the right foot for really (truly) making data actionable for decision-making next year -- and right now. He'll discuss core data sources to have in your 2010 targeting toolkit and show you how to capitalize on these tools for refining your targeting approach and honing in on your most relevant and valuable audiences. The webinar will also highlight how free tools like Google Trends for Websites, Insights for Search, and Ad Planner can help you be more efficient and help you confidently make decisions to maximize your return-on-investment.

As you scope your strategy and tailor your tactics for next year, we hope the Think2010: Getting Ahead of the Recovery series will be a good resource to help you charge ahead feeling informed and inspired.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Your top questions from the webinar series

Today we held the last in the series of new interface webinars. Each week we get lots of great questions from attendees about the new interface. Today on New Interface Thursdays we're going to highlight some of the top questions and answer them.

How do I delete keywords?
To delete a keyword, select the checkbox next to it and then click on the Change status menu at the top of the table. There, you'll find the option to delete.

My ad is pending review. What does that mean?
An ad with a pending review status can run on Google search pages, but it won't run on our search partners or on content network placements until we review and approve it. Every time you submit new ads or make changes to existing ads, they are automatically submitted for review. (We review ads in the order they're submitted).

In the previous interface, ads were reviewed and approved in the same way, but this information wasn't visible. With the new interface, we chose to start showing more detailed approval status information to give you a better of idea of where your ads are eligible to show.

Where do I find spreadsheet editing?
Spreadsheet editing is only available at the ad group level. To enter spreadsheet mode, navigate to the Keywords tab of any ad group, then select Spreadsheet edit under the More actions menu.

What is the difference between 1 per click and many per click conversions?
The metric formerly called conversions in the previous AdWords interface is now relabeled 1-per-click conversions in the new interface. This metric measures the number of unique clicks on your ads that lead to conversion events. For example, if you're measuring sales and one ad click leads to three different transactions, only one 1-per-click conversion is counted.

In contrast, many-per-click conversions count each conversion that occurs after a click on your ad. So in the example above, since three different transactions occurred after the initial click on your ad, three many-per-click conversions are counted.

You can learn more about the difference between 1-per-click and many-per-click conversions here.

How do I view Destination URLs for keywords?
You can easily view the destination URLs for your keywords by customizing your columns. From the Keywords tab, click Filters and views and select Customize columns. From there you can turn on the column for Destination URL as well as other metrics for your keywords.

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Where are settings for ad scheduling, frequency capping, ad rotations, etc?
On the Campaign Settings tab, there are a few sections labeled Advanced. For example, below your selected bid type and budget, you'll find an advanced section for position preferences and delivery method. At the very bottom of the page, you'll find some additional advanced settings like ad scheduling, ad rotation settings, and frequency capping. We organized the settings page in this way to make sure it was easy for you to scan through the fundamentals of your campaign while still giving you the option to explore more advanced configurations.

Thanks for all the great questions.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

(Ad)Word of the Day: Ad Scheduling

If you want your ads to only run during certain times of the day or week, consider using ad scheduling, today's (Ad)Word of the Day.

Ad scheduling lets you control the days and times your ad campaigns appear. You may also choose an advanced mode, which allows you to raise or lower your bids for a campaign at certain times of the day.

Ad scheduling can help you better target your ads by selecting the times when you want to show ads. For example, if you offer special late night deals, you can set up an ad group to show those ads only between 10pm and 3am. You can also set different bids for different hours, so if you have better conversion rates during certain hours, you can set your bids higher to try and get more impressions and clicks during that time.

For more information, check out the article on ad scheduling in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursday: You said it, we're fixing it!

We released the new AdWords interface early to get your feedback on it as soon as possible. And you haven't disappointed us! We receive thousands of comments every month covering likes, dislikes, and ideas for ways to further improve the AdWords interface. We read your comments carefully to prioritize the areas to work on next.

And we've made a lot of progress on the top issues our advertisers reported, so today we wanted to share these improvements with you.

Less horizontal scrolling

When working with certain browsers and monitor resolutions (especially 1024x768), you told us you needed to scroll back and forth in order view data tables and controls. We've now condensed the layout of AdWords pages and width of columns in order to eliminate the need to scroll horizontally. If you're still encountering this issue, please let us know.

If you'd like to further condense the view of your account, remember that you can customize your columns. Try hiding columns that aren't important to you and move other columns around to quickly compare important metrics side-by-side.

Support for Safari 4 and Firefox 3.5

Those of you working with the newest versions of Safari and Firefox will be happy to know that the new AdWords interface now works with these browsers. We'll continue to work to support the latest versions all major browsers in the future.

Faster load times

One of our most important goals with the new interface was to improve the efficiency of day-to-day campaign management tasks. We've heard from some advertisers that while integrated reports and roll-up tabs help them quickly access and act on important data, the data didn't always load as quickly as they'd hoped.

We've worked to improve the speed of the interface with the latest releases, and hope you can now see a noticeable improvement. However, our work isn't done, and we'll continue to focus on shortening load times with upcoming launches. For the fastest experience, we recommend using the following browsers: Chrome, Firefox 3+, Safari 4, or Internet Explorer 8.

Searching for keywords

We heard many of you are looking for quick ways to search for keywords, ad text, or campaign names within your account. In previous posts, we talked about how you can use filtering to focus on the data that matters to you.

While text filters allow you to search and act directly on the data you see, they also take a few clicks to set up for the first time. To help you work more quickly, we've added a new shortcut that lets you quickly search by text under the 'Filter and views' menu on any tab.

Try it on your Keywords tab to quickly find all keywords containing a specific term.

Educational materials

You told us you'd like more help with transitioning to the new interface. In addition to New Interface Thursdays and our new interface website, we recently started a series of free educational webinars, featuring the product team. Sign up now for the next webinar on July 10.

If you haven't been using the new AdWords interface to manage your campaigns due to a specific annoyance, now's a great time to to log in and see how the interface has improved. And please, keep your feedback coming. Just click on the Send Feedback link at the top right corner of your account to share your thoughts.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Meet the Networks tab

In this edition of New Interface Thursdays we'll be talking about the Networks tab. The Networks tab replaces the Placements tab from the previous interface, and gives you more insight into where your ads are running. In the Networks tab, you can see your ads' performance across different networks like Google search, Search partners, and the Content Network.

(click for larger image)

When looking at how your Content Network ads perform, you'll see that the new interface divides Content Network statistics into two groups: automatic placements and managed placements.

Automatic placements are pages in the Content Network where your ads have been contextually targeted. Contextual targeting matches the themes in your keyword list to relevant page content on the sites in our network. For instance, if you have 'ski equipment' as a keyword in your ad group, Google might contextually target your ads to a page talking about the best online ski equipment deals.

Managed placements are sites or specific URLs that you've singled out. With managed placements you can set a specific bid for a site. If a site is performing very well for you and you want to increase your exposure, you might bid higher for that placement. On the other hand, if a site isn't very relevant to your offer, you might lower your bid or exclude the site.

When you add a site to your managed placements, we still use your keywords to find contextually matching pages. You can think of it like a Venn diagram:

(click for larger image)

Automatic Placements

Jumping back into the account, we can take a closer look at automatic placements. By clicking show details you'll see a table showing the sites on which your ads are running. If you've used the Placement Performance report in the previous interface this should look familiar to you. With the new interface you have this report right in your account.

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You can see that each site's performance is broken out. The green "Added" badges appear next to the sites which you've already added to your managed placements.

From this table, you have a few actions you can take. You can add a site to your managed placements with a separate bid for that site. If you want to see a breakdown of your performance on individual URLs where your ads were shown, you can select a site and click Show URL report. Also if a site doesn't meet your advertising goals, you can exclude it from your ad group or campaign.

Managed Placements

Your managed placements are shown in a similar table:

(click for larger image)

Since you set specific bids for managed placements, this table has a Max CPC column. Like the rest of the new interface, you can make changes directly in the table. For example, if you want to change your bid for a placement, just click on the bid and enter a new one. As with your automatic placements, you can view a URL report to take a deeper look at where your ads are showing.

At the bottom of the Networks tab you'll find Exclusions. This area lists any placements that you've excluded to prevent your ads from running on them. You can exclude a placement at the ad group level or at the campaign level.

(click for larger image)

That's it for our tour of the Networks tab. You can always find more information in the Help Center and at the New Interface site. 

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Analytics and AdWords tips - Part 4 of 4

Last week we looked at finding your ROI for AdWords and also identifying keywords that aren't performing well. This week, in the last part of our series, the Google Analytics team will take a look at keywords that bring in revenue and also how to use Analytics to improve your ROI overall.

Which keywords drive revenue?

Just like you did with your poor performing keywords, go to the AdWords Campaigns report and click down to the Keyword level. Once you are in the AdWords Keywords report, click in the Revenue column header (you may have to click twice) so that the highest revenue keywords are listed first.

The high revenue keywords may or may not be your highest ROI keywords. If your ROI shows that you are losing or making little money on a high revenue keyword, you might want to adjust your strategy.

Using Analytics to improve overall website ROI

This series has shown you how to use Analytics to identify low and high performing keywords, find your highest revenue keywords, and weed out low performing keywords. Now that you're familiar with Analytics, you might want to explore some of the other ways it can help you improve your website's ROI. Here are some suggestions for getting started:

• Use Analytics to create an optimization plan to improve the conversion rate on your site
• Track your email marketing campaigns with Analytics
• Expand your keyword lists using Analytics with Insights for Search and the Search Based Keyword Tool
• Follow the 9 steps to becoming an Analytics Emperor
  
• Hire a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant to handle all your tracking for you
  

You can also find regular updates on how to improve your Analytics skills on the Google Analytics blog and Youtube Channel.

That's it for this series. Happy tracking.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Analytics and AdWords tips - Part 3 of 4

Once again we've asked the Google Analytics team to share some of their tips on how to use Analytics and AdWords together.  Last week we talked about how to link your two accounts and view your results.  To recap, the three steps you need to take are:

1) Link your AdWords and Analytics accounts (how-to video)

2) Configure goals (Help Center article)

3) Assign a value to your goals

This week we'll show you how to use Analytics reports to find your true return on investment (ROI) and identify poor performing keywords.

Which keywords lose money?

As we mentioned last time, the report for tracking keyword ROI is the AdWords Campaigns report in the Traffic Sources section. To identify the keywords that are losing you money, click the ROI column header twice so that the lowest ROI keywords are at the top of the list. Do you have any -100% ROI keywords? These are keywords on which you lost all of the money you spent (you paid for clicks on those keywords but no one completed actions on your site). But before you take any action in your AdWords account, consider how much you spent and whether you have enough data yet to make a decision. 

Very often, -100% ROI keywords are those that have only received a few clicks. You might want to wait until you receive more than one or two clicks on a keyword before you make any changes. And if you've only spent a few cents on a keyword, it's probably worth waiting to see if the keyword pays off.

If you want to learn more, you can check out this video on finding poor performing keywords.

Short date ranges may obscure your true ROI.

It’s generally not a good idea to make keyword changes on the basis of a few days worth of data. You’ll make better decisions if you also take into account your sales cycle and everything else you know about the specifics of your business online.

Consider your return customers – those that find you via an AdWords ad and then return later to buy again. You’ll miss these repeat conversions if you set too short of a date range. Also, it may take a few days for many of your visitors to become customers. By making decisions based on a date range that is shorter than your sales cycle, you might actually lower your ROI by discounting keywords that are actually profitable.

Try out different date ranges and see how your ROI is affected. Try the most recent days, week, month, and then look at this year’s data. You’ll have more – as well as more interesting – information upon which to base your decisions.

Next week we'll look at the Keywords Positions report and see how your ad position can affect performance.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Analytics and AdWords tips - Part 2 of 4

Last week we talked about how Google Analytics can provide you with rich data about your advertising, and this week the Google Analytics Team would like to share some more specifics about how to analyze your campaigns.

Linking your accounts

Linking your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts gives you more information about your advertising because you can see how visitors from different campaigns and keywords interact with your website. If you've already linked your accounts, skip to the next section to see how you can view AdWords reports in Analytics.

You can link your Analytics and AdWords accounts by clicking the "Analytics" tab in AdWords. If you don't have a Analytics account already, you'll be asked to create one. Once you link your accounts the data from your AdWords campaigns will automatically appear inside Google Analytics (assuming that you've already installed the tracking code). You can check out this video to learn more about linking your accounts.

You'll also need to install the tracking code on every page on your website if you haven't already. Here are some resources to help you get the code installed correctly:

• Google Analytics Blog: Tracking Code Tutorial
• Help Center Article
  

Once installed, your profile overview page will show that everything is good to go by displaying a status icon that looks like a green check mark. If you have a Google Analytics account, but don't know where to find your tracking code, check out this article for instructions.

Finding your ROI

The Google Analytics AdWords Campaigns report (in the Traffic Sources section) let's you drill down and find out where visitors from each of your campaigns are going and what actions they are taking on your site. After going to the Traffic Sources section, click one of the campaigns listed in this report to view the ad groups within the campaign. Within the AdWords Ad Groups report, click one of the ad groups to see the AdWords Keywords report, where you can find lists of your keywords that brought traffic to your site.

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Finally, click the Clicks tab to see ROI metrics for the keywords. With the ROI information for each of your keywords you can then make more informed decisions about where to target your advertising dollars or how to change your website to better capture these visitors. We'll talk about how to find low and high performers in the next couple weeks.

Tracking your revenue

Don't skip this part just because you don't sell online. If your goals don't have values, you won't be able to measure the return on your investment, so let's explore how you can set up your goals and track your return.

If you have an e-commerce site, your return comes from your e-commerce revenue. But, even if you don't have an e-commerce site, you can probably come up with intelligent values for your goals. For example, if you know that 1 out of every 100 PDF downloads results in a $500 sale, you can assign a value of $5 to that PDF download ($500/100 downloads).

If you have an ecommerce site, you can check out this help center article to learn more about tracking your return, and if you don't sell online, read this one.

That's it for this post. Next time we'll start diving into using Analytics to analyze and improve your AdWords campaign performance.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Starting up New Interface Thursdays

You may have heard that we're testing a new interface for AdWords. Many of you are starting to use the new interface, and we want to take time to tell you more about it. So we're starting a series, New Interface Thursdays.

Each week we'll cover some aspect of the new interface, whether it's an in-depth look at some of the new features, tips and tricks, product updates, or announcements.

For this week, we'd like to point you to the new AdWords interface website and highlight what you'll find there. The site has two sections. First, there's a section for videos abut the new interface, including a handful of videos about new features and how these features can help you more effectively manage your account. There's also a video from the AdWords product managers and engineers telling the story behind the new interface:

The other section is the beta resources page. If you're currently using the new interface, you'll find lots of helpful materials like the How to Guide. The interface is still a work in progress so we also have a Known Issues page. The Known Issues pages can suggest possible workarounds and also lets you tell us if you're having a problem.

If you want to try the new interface, but don't have access yet, you can sign up from the new interface website. During the beta, you can switch between old and new interfaces, so you'll still have access to the full range of AdWords tools and reports, if needed.

Finally, if you use Twitter, you can follow @newadwordsui to keep up with the latest news and updates as well as tips and tricks on using the new interface.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Analytics and AdWords tips - Part 1 of 4

In our survey last month you told us you were interested in hearing more about how Google Analytics can help you improve your AdWords results. Today, we're going to kick off a four-part series on precisely this subject.

For those of you unfamiliar with Google Analytics, it's a free tool that lets you see how visitors interact with your site. While AdWords helps you drive traffic to your site, Google Analytics helps you find out what happens to these visitors after they get to your site. For example, if your ad for shoes directs visitors to a page with all the brands of shoes you offer, here are some things Analytics can show you:

• Which types of shoes do visitors view most often? For example, do people prefer sandals or sneakers?
• In which order do visitors view pages? For example, do people view more expensive shoes, but then buy cheaper ones?
• Which pages are the last ones people see before leaving the site? For example, do people get confused on the sign-up page and leave?
• Do people actually complete a goal on your site? For example, how many visitors buy or sign-up?

All this information can help you make better decisions about your website and your AdWords advertising. For example, if your ad directs people to a page that Analytics says has a high bounce rate (where many people leave the site after viewing the page) you can change your destination URL to point to another page. In that way, you can get more value out of your website traffic.

Over the next few weeks we'll explore specific ways that you can use Analytics to maximize your AdWords investment:

Part 2 - Linking your Analytics and AdWords accounts & tracking your revenue
Part 3 - Identifying keywords that lose you money & calculating your ROI
Part 4 - Finding keywords and ad positions that drive revenue

But if you're in a hurry to get started, you can watch the Google Analytics in 60 Seconds series to learn how to effectively use Google Analytics:

Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Find the Best Keywords
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Location Targeting
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Find Poor Performing Campaigns and Keywords
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Placement Targeting
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Identifying High Spenders
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Conversion Funnels
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Tracking Ecommerce with Google Analytics

And if you'd like to learn more about Google Analytics, including case studies and in-depth looks at its features, you can visit the Google Analytics site.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Do more with less -- Part 3 of 3

In last week's post we discussed how to use Conversion Optimizer to get more conversions from your existing AdWords campaigns and keywords. This week, in the final installment of this series on doing more with less, we'll show you how you can tightly focus your AdWords campaigns on the areas that are converting the best, uncover the hidden traffic gems you're missing out on, and expand on what you already know is working.

If you want to refocus your existing budget on your highest performing product areas, or reach potential customers that you are missing, the secret is in the keywords. The Search-based Keyword Tool, a new, free tool from Google, looks at the content of your website and matches it against Google search queries (entered by Google users) providing you with a list of extremely relevant, actively searched keywords. The list of suggestions is then filtered to remove any keywords that you're already advertising on, so every single keyword you see is a new one.

Helping your bottom line
Other than giving you new relevant keywords, how does this help your bottom line? Say you sell two product lines - widgets and gizmos - and you know that your widgets product line is selling much better than your gizmos product line. You can use the tool to identify high-potential widget search terms that you're missing and expand that campaign, applying more of your budget on the campaigns that are most effective.

Focusing your campaigns
The Search-based Keyword Tool is equipped with a number of powerful filters and features to make it easy to find keywords for the parts of your website and business that provide you with the greatest ROI.

• Looking for bargain terms? In the 'more filters' section, sort by 'low-competition' or pick a bid you're willing to pay and sort by 'suggested bid'.
• Only looking for keywords in a particular product area? The tool automatically groups keywords by categories, so simply select the category you want on the left-hand side of the results.
• Can't find the category you're looking for, or want to find terms for a specific page on your website? Click on 'more filters' and enter a term into the 'url contains' field.

The tool also offers additional information on each keyword so that you can choose the best ones for your campaigns. Each suggestion shows the average monthly searches for that term, how competitive placement on that term is, the estimated bid to place your ad in the top three positions, your Ad/Search share for the term, and the page on your site the term is most related to, which you might chose to select as the landing page (destination url) for that keyword.

Getting started
Get started with the Search-based Keyword tool in 4 easy steps:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/sktool
   
2. Sign-in to your AdWords account
3. Enter the url of your website
4. Click 'Find Keywords'

For more information on the tool, please visit our support site. And remember, you can find other helpful Google tools at www.google.com/domorewithless.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Do more with less -- Part 2 of 3

Last week we talked about how Website Optimizer can help you convert a higher percentage of your website visitors (getting you more conversions with the same amount of clicks). This week we'll see how you can get more conversions from your existing AdWords campaigns and keywords with the Conversion Optimizer. We're also happy to announce that the Conversion Optimizer is now available to all campaigns using AdWords' free Conversion Tracking tool that also have at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days. So, if you were previously unable to use the Conversion Optimizer in AdWords, you may now be eligible to use it.

Whether you want visitors to fill out a form, sign up for an account, or buy a product, you want the people who click on your AdWords ad to complete some action on your site. The Conversion Optimizer, a free AdWords feature, helps you get the most conversions for your ad spend by using your conversion tracking data to improve your advertising efficiency. It does this by optimizing the placement of your ads in each auction based on the likelihood of a conversion. This process helps to avoid unprofitable clicks and to get you conversions without requiring you to spend as much time managing your bids - thus saving you money and time (which is particularly useful during a down economy).

For example, say you advertise on the keywords 'shoes' and 'brown leather shoes'. If the Conversion Optimizer determines that people who search for 'brown leather shoes' buy more shoes on your website than people who search for 'shoes', it will adjust your bids so you can appear higher on the page for the more profitable term and lower for the less profitable term.

You might already adjust your keyword bids with the goal of increasing your conversions or decreasing your costs, but the Conversion Optimizer is able to adjust bids using additional factors that are otherwise unavailable. This includes varying bids by broad match query, user location, and the particular search or content partner sites where the ad is appearing. These extra adjustments enable many advertisers to achieve double-digit percentage increases in conversions while paying the same price or less for each conversion.

To learn more or to get started, check out the Conversion Optimizer page. And remember to visit www.google.com/domorewithless to find a list of other Google resources that can help you achieve your advertising goals -- even in a downturn.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

(Ad)Word of the Day: Landing Page

Today on (Ad)Word of the Day, we'll be covering landing page from the AdWords Glossary:

An active webpage where customers will 'land' when they click your ad. The web address for this page is often called a 'destination URL' or 'clickthrough URL.'

Your landing pages are most effective when they are consistent with your ads. For example, if your ad is for a specific product at a certain price, both the product and the pricing should be featured prominently on your landing page.

If you're not sure what landing page design works best with your customers, you can use Google Website Optimizer to try different pages to find the most effective one.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

(Ad)Word of the Day: Keyword Insertion

For today's installment of (Ad)Word of the Day, we're looking at keyword insertion from the AdWords Glossary:

Keyword insertion is an advanced feature used to dynamically update your ad text with your chosen keywords. You insert a special modification tag into your ad text to enable this feature for your ads.

Keyword insertion is a powerful feature that can save you time and also help make your ad text more relevant. This feature will automatically customize your ad to a user's query, which means your ad is more likely to attract a user's attention. And, since ad text that matches a user's search terms is shown in bold, your ads will stand out even more.

Even with these benefits, keyword insertion shouldn't be used all the time. We recommend reading this article and going through this tutorial before you start using keyword insertion.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

(Ad)Word of the Day: Conversion

We all know the importance of measuring the impact of your ad campaigns. That's why, today, we're discussing the term conversion from the AdWords Glossary, which is defined as follows:

When a user completes an action on your site, such as buying something or requesting more information.

In AdWords, a conversion occurs when a user clicks on your ad, then proceeds to complete an action on your web site that you deem valuable, like a purchase, registration, or sign-up. You can track actions like this on your web site by using one (or both) of the tools we offer:

1. Conversion tracking: A tool for measuring conversion metrics for your campaigns.
2. Google Analytics: A more robust tool that tracks not just conversions, but also gives insight into how your web site visitors found your site, how they navigated through it and how you can improve their user experience -- all things that ultimately help you improve the ROI of your web site.

Both conversion tracking and Google Analytics are free tools and are great ways of ensuring advertising accountability and making smarter online advertising decisions.

Learn more about setting up conversion tracking for your AdWords ads, and signing up for Google Analytics. 

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

(Ad)Word of the Day: Ad Variations

Did you know that we have an AdWords Glossary? It's a great resource for learning more about AdWords; so we're starting a new series here at Inside AdWords entitled (Ad)Word of the Day. Each post in the series will cover one term in the glossary and talk a little bit about it.

For our inaugural post, we'll start with ad variations:

Ad variations are multiple versions of an ad for a single product or service, all based on the same set of keywords. Variations are a good way to test many versions of the same message to see which works best with potential customers.

One advantage of using ad variations is that AdWords can automatically show the best performing ad. If you are not sure which message will work best with your potential customers, you can simply create multiple ads for an ad group. AdWords will automatically show the best performing ad more often over time.

We hope you've enjoyed the first part of our new series. If you have suggestions for words you'd like to see, we're always listening at inside-adwords@google.com.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Google Analytics 101 (Part 3)

In this installment of Analytics 101, we'll dive straight into some statistics that you can use right away. Hopefully by now you've finished installing your tracking code and have had some visitor traffic you can look at.

When you sign in to Google Analytics and view your reports, you'll be taken straight to the Dashboard, which is a top-level view of your site so that you can see how you're doing at a glance.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

It's important to make sure you always have the date range you want selected. Use the Date Selector in the top right to choose your range with either the Calendar or Timeline view.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

The large graph shows your Visits over time by default. If you click on the drop-down near the top right of the graph, you can make it expand to select any one of six important statistics for your site: Visits, Pageviews, Pages/Visit, Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site, and % New Visits.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

You might also notice that these same six statistics appear in the Site Usage section under the graph. You can learn how Google Analytics defines the basic terms of Visits, Pageviews, and Pages/Visit from this Help Center article; to be consistent, make sure everyone who'll be using your reports understands them.

The latter three stats are where it really gets interesting. Each of them will provide unique insights into your traffic based on context that only you, the person who best understands your website, can provide.

• Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors who left your site after only seeing one page. For most sites, a high Bounce Rate is bad since people are arriving, taking a quick look around, and leaving immediately. Either the site isn't useful or they're turned off by something. By monitoring your Bounce Rate over time, you can optimize your landing pages and then check to see if your changes worked - a lower rate means people like what you've done with the place. Bounce Rate is best used to compare different sets of your own data. Websites and industries vary too greatly for us to give you here a set number on what a healthy Bounce Rate is. For example, blogs usually have high Bounce Rates no matter what since normal visitor behavior is to read the newest post and then leave.
  

• Average Time on Site indicates the average length of time a visitor spends on your site's tracked pages. A high number may mean that visitors are very engaged with your site, which is great if, say, your goal is to provide entertaining content. However, you may not necessarily want it high. If you have an e-commerce site and people spend a long time on it, perhaps your buying process is too long or confusing. Once you find out which way is best for you, you can take steps to change your Average Time on Site number in the desired direction.
  

• % New Visits tells you the percentage of visitors that have never visited your site before. If you look at a date range where you've run a far-reaching ad campaign, you'd be excited to see an increased number of new visitors who have been exposed to your campaigns and are curious to see your website. Or perhaps your goal is to create loyalty among your customer base, in which case you'd want a significant portion of your visitors to be returning. Because % New Visits is a statistic that usually needs more context and absolute numbers to be useful, go ahead and click on the link to see a detailed report for it. You can do the same for any of the statistics we've discussed. In fact, you can pretty much click on any stat in the Google Analytics interface to drill down for more details.
  

We've just covered the first set of metrics that you can use to measure the performance of your site, as well as the success of any changes you happen to make to it, and we didn't even have to leave the comfort of the Dashboard. Next time, we'll look at another set of useful data, your Traffic Sources reports.

Posted by Christian, Inside AdWords crew

Google Analytics 101 (Part 2)

In Part 1 of Google Analytics 101, we talked about what Google Analytics is, how it helps site owners, and how to sign up. At the end of the sign-up process, we arrived at the Analytics Settings page, which is where you administer your account and make important changes. Let's take a closer look around it (we've numbered the screenshot to make it easier to follow).

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(1) This picture is of an account that hasn't finished code installation. At the top you'll notice the box with the yellow exclamation mark that says the tracking code hasn't been detected. This box will go away once your code is installed. If you need to look at your code again, click the 'Check Status' button to get it.

(2) This grey-headlined box in the middle of the page contains your Website Profiles. Here's the first of some important Analytics definitions: a profile is a set of rules that determines what data shows up in your Analytics reports. The rules for a particular profile include user access levels, advanced configurations, and most importantly, the website being tracked. You can have as many profiles as you want, meaning that you can track multiple domains each with their own profile. Or, you can track one domain with multiple profiles to look at different sets of data. For now we'll stick with one domain and one profile. You have to have at least one profile per Google Analytics account at all times.

(3) To the right of the Website Profiles box are links to our Help Center. These common FAQs in the Help Center fill in a lot of details if you're having trouble setting up, or just feel like poking around.

(4) Underneath the Website Profiles box are links to add more profiles, manage user access, and create filters for your data. These tools, when properly set up, allow you to control what data shows up in your reports, making it easier to focus on certain segments of traffic. We'll give these options individual attention in the future.

That's it for this installment on Analytics Settings. In Part 3 we'll introduce the reports, as well as feature a certain statistic that web analytics experts often say is the one of the single most useful around.

Posted by Christian, Inside AdWords crew

Google Content Network Tips: Optimizing for a content network audience

Recently, we wrote a three part series on the Google content network. Many of you were interested in more optimization advice for the content network, and we're sharing more of those tips today:

On the search network, ads are shown to users who are specifically searching for results using one of your keywords. On the content network, ads are shown to users as they research interests and browse sites that are related to your keywords and ad text. Users on the content network are in a different mindset than users on search, so changes to your keywords, ad text and account structure may be necessary to make the most out of your content network advertising.

• Create separate search and content campaigns.
  This will allow you to:
  
• Optimize your ad groups and ad text specifically for content pages.
• Target different audiences. If you sell flowers, you may want to create a content ad group to show your ads to couples by targeting pages relevant to them.
  
• Use general keywords to strengthen the theme of your ad group, without affecting your search performance.
  

• Think about the type of user browsing a web page and write ads to catch that user's attention.
• It's important for your ad text to relate to the webpage on which it appears. If your target user is going to be on pages related to flowers, mention flowers or closely related products in the ad text.
• Test multiple creatives and ad formats (text, image, video) in all available sizes to gain better insight into what sort of ads will perform the best for you.
  

• Include call-to-action phrases.
• Phrases like 'Register now," "Get a free quote," and "Call now" can can help set expectations for the person who is about to visit your site.
  
• Your call-to-action should be what you consider to be a conversion.
  

• Highlight special offers or features available on your site.
• We've found that advertisers often get higher ROI on the content network when they include product prices in their ads. Prices and special offers can help you stand out from competitors and showcase your best deals.
  

• Link your ad to customized landing pages that match the information in your ad text.
  
• If your ad highlights a special deal on cell phones, make sure that the ad directs users to the specific cell phone page of your site. And ensure that your landing pages are clear and easy to navigate.
  

As you implement these tips and those from the previous optimization post, we recommend that you track the performance of your campaigns and iterate to figure out what works well for you.

• Track the performance of your contextually targeted ads using Placement Performance reports.
  
• The Placement Performance report (PPR) provides information on where your contextually targeted ads are showing up and how they are performing. You can use placement targeting (CPC or CPM) to further target the placements where your ads are performing particularly well and use site exclusion to exclude them from sites where they are not performing well. You can find more tips on how to use PPR effectively to boost campaign performance here.
  

• Let Google track and manage your campaign's performance for you.
• Using the Conversion Optimizer, you can specify a cost-per-acquisition (CPA), and Google will automatically adjust your CPC bids to meet your CPA goal. Learn how Bingo Card Creator used Conversion Optimizer on his content network campaigns to save time and increase his profits.
  

We hope you found these tips useful. Please continue to send us feedback on the content network and what additional content network topics you would like to read about in this blog.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew