AdWords Editor service release for Windows and Mac

Today we released version 6.0.1 of AdWords Editor. In response to user feedback, it's now possible to download performance statistics for selected campaigns and ad groups, instead of always downloading statistics for the whole account. Once you've installed version 6.0.1, you'll be able to download selected statistics by following these instructions.

Unlike our last release, this update won't affect your comments or unposted changes. As a result:

- You don't need to export an archive of your account. In the auto-update prompt, choose the 'Update without Backup' option.
- After you upgrade, your account will already be in the new version. You won't need to download your account again.

If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically. You can also visit our website and click 'Download AdWords Editor.'

For more information about AdWords Editor, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

Free online webinar for Google's analysis products

Staying competitive in the online space can be hard if you don't have the proper tools at your disposal. That's why we offer solutions like Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer to help you improve your site's effectiveness and functionality.

Used individually, each product can provide valuable and actionable information about specific aspects of your site. However, by using all three together, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of your pages' visibility on Google, where your visitors come from, how they interact with your site, and what content motivates them to take the action you want.

For the first time ever, the Webmaster Tools, Analytics, and Website Optimizer teams will join forces to hold a free webinar entitled The Google Trifecta. This session will be held Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 from 9:00 - 10:00 am PDT. Register to attend here.

During this online seminar, team members will:

• Provide brief introductions to their products
  
• Highlight recent product updates and releases
  
• Discuss the benefits of using all three products together
  
• Answer common questions submitted by attendees
  

Upon registration, we also invite you to submit any specific topics you'd like to see covered. We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

Introducing Google Ad Planner

If you're a media planner at an ad agency, you know that planning an online display buy can be challenging, particularly in scaling your campaign's reach while keeping it relevant for your target audience. Plus, how do you keep track of the millions of sites out there that might be just right for your campaign?

To make your life easier, we're introducing Google Ad Planner, a research and media planning tool that connects advertisers and publishers. When using Google Ad Planner, simply enter demographics and sites associated with your target audience, and the tool will return information about sites (both on and off the Google content network) that your audience is likely to visit. You can drill down further to get more detail like demographics and related searches for a particular site, or you can get aggregate statistics for the sites you've added to your media plan.

While Google Trends for Websites, announced last week, is designed for all users, Google Ad Planner is designed with media planners in mind. Using Google Ad Planner, you can quickly create media plans and export to a .csv file, which can be opened in most spreadsheet applications. Or, you can export to DoubleClick's MediaVisor, which helps you manage all your other media planning, buying and campaign management activities.

(Click the image for a full-size version)

We hope you'll find this tool useful and discover many relevant sites--small and large--that would otherwise be hard to find. As Ad Planner is a new product, it's currently available by invitation only. If you're interested in trying it out, you can apply here.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Use the Conversion Optimizer with AdWords Editor and the AdWords API

The Conversion Optimizer, our free cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding feature for AdWords, came out of beta in January. One of the top requests we've heard is from advertisers wanting to use the Conversion Optimizer with AdWords Editor and the AdWords API. Today, we are pleased to announce that the Conversion Optimizer is now supported by both AdWords Editor and the AdWords API.

Many advertisers have told us that by using the Conversion Optimizer, they have not only made their campaigns significantly more profitable, but also they save time managing their accounts. Though one question we often hear is, "How does the Conversion Optimizer make my campaign more profitable than I can on my own?"

You probably already vary your bids by keyword and may also use separate bids for the search and content networks. The Conversion Optimizer takes this strategy a step further by automatically adjusting your bids to take into account many additional factors, including: the country the user is browsing from, the specific content network site or search partner site your ad appears on, and the broad match terms a keyword has matched on.

As part of AdWords, the Conversion Optimizer is able to consider all these factors, and then adjust your bids based on the potential value of each click. Clicks vary in value because every click has a different likelihood of converting. For example, the keyword "flowers" may have a 2% conversion rate while the keyword "roses delivery" may have a 7% conversion rate. That doesn't mean that you don't want any clicks on "flowers," but you probably wouldn't want to spend as much on that keyword as you might be willing to spend for clicks on "roses delivery." The Conversion Optimizer uses information like this to adjust your bids based on how valuable each click is for you.

If you would like to use the Conversion Optimizer, you'll need to have AdWords Conversion Tracking enabled and have at least 200 conversions in the last 30 days. To get started, check out the Conversion Optimizer homepage.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Place ads on television with Google TV Ads

We'd like to introduce Google TV Ads, a flexible, all-digital system for easily and efficiently buying more accountable and measurable TV advertising. The program, which has been an invitation-only beta test since June 2007, is now available to all US-based advertisers.

Television is a great way to reach new customers who might not be familiar with your product or service. Research shows that 37% of online search users were prompted to perform a search as a result of exposure to television advertising.* Now, you can launch a national television ad campaign right from your existing AdWords account.

How does it work?
First, you'll need a TV commercial. If you don't have one yet, check out Google's Ad Creation Marketplace, where you can connect with industry professionals who provide script writing, editing, production, and voice-over talent at an affordable package cost. It's free to search for specialists and send them requests for project bids, and you aren't under any obligation to work with them until you accept a bid. To celebrate our launch, for a limited time Google will cover the cost of creating your TV ad through our Ad Creation Marketplace, up to $2,000. Learn more about this special offer.

Next, you're ready to create your campaign. You can choose the networks and dayparts on which you'd like your ad to run. If you're looking for guidance on how to best reach your target audience, TV Ads offers recommendations based on audience demographics, or you can request a free customized campaign proposal. You can also run your ads during specific television programs that are relevant to your product or service. If you search for program content such as "home improvement," TV Ads suggests programs based on matches with the title, program description, cast, genre, episode information and networks.

With Google TV Ads' auction model, you choose the maximum cost-per-thousand impressions that you're willing to pay, and only pay when your ad airs.

Ready to learn more?
We'll be holding online webinars led by AdWords and TV advertising specialists covering tips on how Google TV Ads can help drive more web traffic and increase your sales volume, turning TV viewers into your customers. Sign up here for the upcoming webinar.

You can also read about how other advertisers are finding success with Google TV Ads, and check out our product demo to learn how to create a campaign step-by-step. Click on the image below to be taken to the demo.

(click the image to go to the demo)

* iProspect Offline Channel Influence on Online Search Behavior, August 2007 (PDF)

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

Improvements to AdWords Conversion Tracking

AdWords conversion tracking is a free AdWords tool to help you understand what happens after a user clicks on your ad. By knowing which clicks most often lead to conversions, you can spend your money most effectively – on the clicks most likely to lead to a conversion.

We've recently improved conversion tracking. You can now define the actions that are most important to your business and track conversions on each of those actions independently.

Why is conversion tracking important?
Clicks on different keywords can lead to different types of conversions and in different frequencies, so it’s important to know how well a particular keyword performs when deciding how much to bid. Most advertisers will want to bid higher on keywords which convert well for them and lower on the others. In this way, conversion tracking helps you improve your ROI.

How does it work?
Using conversion tracking involves inserting a small snippet of code into specific pages on your website that indicate an important event has occurred, for example, the order confirmation page you show after a purchase. When a visitor clicks on your ad and eventually reaches this page, AdWords will register a conversion. You can then view this data as part of your account statistics and reports.

Please note that Quality Score does not consider data from AdWords conversion tracking. However, your conversion rates are taken into account by the Conversion Optimizer when determining whether ads have high enough bids to show.

What's new?
You can now define and track your own conversion types that are important to your business. For instance, if you are selling flowers online, you might have one conversion type for Mother's Day bouquets, and another for graduation bouquets to differentiate between your two best-selling products.

Defining and tracking several types of conversions will give you more detail about how conversions occur on your website. Using AdWords Conversion Tracking is also the first step towards qualifying for the Conversion Optimizer, AdWords' CPA bidding feature which has helped many advertisers save time and money.

You can start using AdWords conversion tracking by clicking on “Conversion Tracking” in your AdWords account. If you are using AdWords Starter Edition, you will need to graduate to Standard Edition before using conversion tracking. For more information and help getting started, take a look at these articles in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Website Optimizer Now Out of Beta

Today, we're announcing that Google Website Optimizer is officially out of beta. For those unfamiliar with it, Website Optimizer is Google's free content testing and optimization tool. It allows you to test different variations of your site content and design to determine what will be most effective at converting your visitors into customers.

Based on advertiser and agency feedback, we've released several updates to make the product even more accessible and effective for users:

• We've made it easier for you to sign up and use Website Optimizer. In addition to accessing the tool through your AdWords account, you'll now be able to sign up for and access the tool without having to first sign into your AdWords account. Also, you can now use Website Optimizer even if you are not an AdWords advertiser.
  

• You'll experience an improved setup flow for multivariate experiments, with more straightforward tagging instructions and a sample tagged page for you to examine.

• The Website Optimizer microsite has been updated to include more educational information, including archived webinars, articles on optimization, testing strategies, and best practices.

You can keep up with Website Optimizer at the new Website Optimizer blog where you'll find the latest product news, industry insights, and testing recipes straight from the Website Optimizer team.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Webinar: Introduction to AdWords Editor

Regular readers may have noticed that we've offered quite a number of webinars lately. If you've been waiting for an 'entry level' webinar to help you learn to manage your campaigns using AdWords Editor, we have excellent news for you.

On March 20th at 11-12pm PDT, Mollie Klurfeld, an AdWords Editor specialist, will be presenting a free "Introduction to AdWords Editor" webinar. The agenda includes demonstrations on how to use AdWords Editor to make the following bulk changes:

• Adding campaigns, ad groups, ad text, and keywords
• Editing ad texts and keywords
• Copying/moving ad groups and keywords
• Find/replace ad text, find duplicate keywords
• Advanced bid and URL changes

Following these demonstrations, you'll also have the opportunity to ask questions of our team of specialists. We hope you'll join us.

If you'd like to attend, please register here. Or, you may join the session right before it begins -- by using the 'Join Event Now' entry fields on that same page.

For more information about AdWords Editor, please visit this page.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Category Exclusion for the Content Network

We've updated the Site Exclusion tool to give you more control over where your ads appear on the Google content network. It's now called the Site and Category Exclusion tool, and it allows you to exclude certain categories of webpages from your content network campaigns in addition to excluding individual sites.

If you find that you're repeatedly excluding many sites of the same type, either to optimize for the content network or to further control your campaign's exposure, using category exclusion can be a simpler way to control your ads' visibility. Category exclusion can be used with any type of campaign running on the content network: keyword-targeted or placement-targeted.

Here's how category exclusion works: when we use our contextual targeting technology to scan a page in the Google content network and determine relevant ads to show, we also check to see if the content on the page matches any of the topics or page types available for exclusion. If there is a match between a category you've excluded and the page's classification, your ads won't show on that page. We classify pages dynamically, so even as the content of a page changes your ads should be prevented from showing for categories you've excluded.

Before using category exclusion, it's important to consider the following points:

• All sites in the content network are already required to comply with Google's AdSense policies. Several levels of review are in place to detect that pages in the network comply with these guidelines. However, some advertisers have requested the ability to avoid additional types of content that don't meet their advertising goals, and we've released category exclusion in order to provide this control.
  
  
• Excluding a category could potentially block your ads from appearing on a number of relevant pages and severely impact your campaign performance. We recommend that you refer to the statistics provided in the Site and Category Exclusion tool before making any exclusions. Keep in mind that a low clickthrough rate on content network pages is not necessarily an indication of poor performance, especially if your goal is to maximize ROI. Further, your ads' clickthrough rate on the content network does not affect your quality score, minimum bids, or position on Google.com or other pages in the search network.
  
  
• While webpages are categorized to the best of our technology's ability, excluding a category does not guarantee that you have excluded every related webpage. If you see that your ad has shown on an undesired webpage, you can exclude that page by adding the URL through the tool's Sites tab.

Category exclusion is our latest tool to give you increased control over your content network campaigns. If you are looking for additional insight and flexibility when advertising on the Google content network, we encourage you to check out CPC bidding for placement targeting and Placement Performance reports.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Webinar: Website Optimizer, What Should I Test?

We continue to receive a lot of questions about Google Website Optimizer, our website testing and optimization tool. Those of you who are familiar with Website Optimizer may have seen the Quick Start Guide and read our advanced testing strategies. Recently, however, you've asked us for more insight on what you should be testing on your webpages. "Should I test my headlines, images, or buttons? Google, what do I test?"

To answer these questions and more, we'd like to invite you to join Website Optimizer's Product Manager, Tom Leung, and guest presenter Bryan Eisenberg (Chief Persuasion Officer, FutureNow, Inc.) for a free online seminar.

TITLE: Website Optimizer: What Should I Test?
DATE: Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
TIME: 9:00 - 10:00 am PST (Pacific Standard Time)
JOIN US: Register to attend

During this online seminar, Tom and Bryan will:

• Provide a brief introduction to Website Optimizer for newer users
• Delve into testing best practice
• Discuss some of the top elements to test on any webpage
  
• Review top mistakes people make when developing new content to test
  

Upon registration, we also invite you to submit specific topics you'd like Tom and Bryan to cover.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew