Linking all of your AdWords accounts to Google Analytics

This is part of our series of posts highlighting the new Google Analytics. The new version of Google Analytics is currently available in beta to all Analytics users. And follow Google Analytics on Twitter for the latest updates. This week, Gavin Doolan, an Analytics specialist shares some of improvements to AdWords linking in Google Analytics v5.

We are happy to announce a new feature that will allow you to use multiple AdWords accounts with Google Analytics more effectively.

Previously it was only possible to link a single AdWords account to a single Google Analytics account. This made it more challenging to use auto-tagging and the AdWords reports inside of Google Analytics.

Starting today, you can now link multiple AdWords accounts to your Google Analytics account. The new data sources section in the Google Analytics account settings area makes it easy to use auto-tagging with multiple AdWords accounts and import your AdWords data into Google Analytics.

Let’s take a look at how to set this up:

Before you start, make sure that you're using a Google account that has access to both your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts, and is an Administrator for the Analytics account.

If you want to link multiple AdWords accounts to a single Analytics account, you need to set the new version of Analytics as your default:

1. Sign into Google Analytics at http://www.google.com/analytics.

2. Click New Version at the top right of the page.

3. Click Make this version default.

If you skip this step, you won’t see the new linking interface when you sign into AdWords.

Linking your accounts

1. Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.

2. Click the Reporting and Tools tab, then click Google Analytics.

3. Click the gear icon at the top right.

4. Click All Accounts at the top left of the page.

5. Click the account to which you want to link the AdWords account.

6. Click the Data Sources tab.

7. Click the AdWords tab.

8. Click Link Accounts button.

If you are linking from a My Client Center child account the process is very similar. You can more in this article: Linking Analytics Accounts to My Client Center (MCC) Accounts.

Improvements to applying AdWords account data to multiple profiles

Now that you can link multiple AdWords accounts to Google Analytics, we’ve also made it easier import your AdWords data into multiple profiles in Google Analytics. We have put together a quick video demonstrating how to do this:

If you’re less of a visual learner, you can always find instructions on how to link accounts in the Google Analytics Help Center.

Happy linking!

Gavin Doolan

Google Analytics Team

Sharing recent innovations at Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco

Two weeks ago, we headed up to San Francisco to participate in the Search Engine Strategies conference. Over two days, our AdWords and DoubleClick representatives were able to share, listen, and learn with several hundred of you. For those unable to attend, here's a summary of some of the recent innovations we highlighted at the show, and a few photos from our booth on the expo floor.

The AdWords team took the stage to share some of our latest Ad Innovations with the SES audience. During our presentation, we covered three areas of innovation designed to:

• Make AdWords easier to manage with automation features like Automated Rules and the Opportunties tab
• Make ads more relevant and useful with new ad formats such as Ad Sitelinks, Product Listing Ads, and mobile ad formats like Click to Call Phone Extensions
• Help you make smarter decisions with AdWords Campaign Experiments and just-launched Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics

The DoubleClick Search team showed attendees how the new DoubleClick Search V3 makes it faster and easier to manage large search campaigns across Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter, and Yahoo Search Marketing. Large advertisers and agencies are already taking advantage of the improved workflow and reporting features in V3, while revamped bid optimization features have helped improve the return on investment from their campaigns.

We hope to see you at a future event. In the meantime, visit the Ad Innovations pages and the DoubleClick Search blog to stay on top of new features and share your feedback.

David, a Googler, takes questions from SES attendees

Devin, a Googler, demos the +1 button

The DoubleClick booth is set up to welcome visitors.

Kit follows up his talk about new features in V3

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

The Multicultural Opportunity of Internet Radio

We have known for a long time that listening to radio is a favorite activity of Hispanics and African Americans. In particular, listening to the radio has a long tradition in Latin America where radio is the town crier and the central point of communities where people find lost items, find jobs, get announcements, news, etc. Clearly also, music is a great part of the tradition of listening to the radio. I have been curious as to whether or not Internet radio has continued that tradition or not.

In our Spring 2011 Multicultural Marketing study at Florida State University with the support of DMS Insights, we asked consumers of different cultural backgrounds to tell us “In an average week about how many hours do you spend listening to Internet radio like Pandora or Last.fm in English” and also “in another language.” At first we recoded the data so we could simply know who listens and who doesn't in either English or another language.

We found that those consumers who are online are listening to Internet radio to a surprising extent, and the groups most likely to listen are those that I suspected would. In English, African Americans and Hispanics who prefer to communicate in English are the most avid listeners. But when it comes to listening in another language the picture is interesting if not surprising.

Those who are more likely to use a language besides English seem to have some attachment to Internet radio in their native language. Hispanics who prefer Spanish are particularly keener on listening to Internet radio in Spanish. And remember, that besides Pandora, Last.fm, and others, there are radio outlets like Batanga.com that specialize in Spanish language and Latin music.
While we cannot directly add those who listen in Spanish with those who listen in another language because there is an overlap, it is interesting to notice that there is a noticeable predilection for Internet Radio among emerging minorities. I then added up the average number of hours per week of radio listened over the Internet for English and other languages. The results of actual time spent are remarkable.

Online Latinos who prefer Spanish spend almost six hours per week listening to Internet radio, compared with about four hours for Hispanics who prefer English and African Americans. Asians spend about two and a half hours, and non-Hispanic Whites spend the least amount of time in this endeavor.

To me the implications for marketers are clear.

Internet radio as an emerging medium and a promising advertising vehicle, is being favored by Hispanics and emerging minorities to a larger extent than by the shrinking non-Hispanic White population. Using this medium to promote both music and commercial messages seems like a no-brainer, particularly when attempting to get the favor of the consumer groups that are leading the new digital era.

The data for this study was collected during March 2011. This online sample was comprised of 500 respondents per segment, for a total of 2,500, based on quotas by gender, age, and geographic location. DMS Insights managed the sample and data collection and they graciously contributed their effort to the academic program of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University. This study was conducted by the faculty and students of the graduate Multicultural Marketing Communication course offered by FSU.

Introducing two new versions of the Management API

Today we are releasing two new versions of our Management API into public beta; a brand new version 3.0 and a backwards compatible version 2.4. While the data the API exposes is the same, both versions migrate the Management API from the existing Google Data Protocol to Google’s new API infrastructure. This impacts the way you request and handle data from the API.

With this change, we are also announcing the deprecation of the legacy version 2.3 of the Management API. It will continue to work for 2 months, after which all v2.3 requests will return a v2.4 response.

The biggest changes in switching to the new versions are that developers need to register their applications via the Google APIs Console and use a developer token. Also the URL endpoints have changed, which influence how you request OAuth authorization tokens.

Here’s a rundown of what’s new:

Version 3.0
Is the latest major version of our API and is not backwards compatible. Features include:

• A faster response over version 2.3


• An improved quota policy


• Integration with the Google APIs console to manage API access and request more quota


• OAuth 2.0 is now the recommended way to Authorize users


• The URL to make requests is now at https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/management/...


• The API response is more compact using JSON


• New Google API client libraries, which support many more languages


• Support for the Google Discovery API

All future development of the API will be done to this version so we also added some exciting new data only in version 3, including:

• Event goals are fully represented


• An internal web property id which can be used to deep link into the GA user interface


• Profile configurations for the default page and site search query parameters

Version 2.4
This is a minor version upgrade and we tried hard to make it backwards compatible with the existing Version 2.3. New changes include:

• A faster response over version 2.3


• An improved quota policy


• Integration with the Google API console to manage API access and request more quota


• Continued support for existing authorization mechanisms; OAuth 2.0 now supported


• The URL to make requests is now at https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v2.4/management/...


• Supports XML response only


• The Google Data JavaScript client library will not work with this version

The XML output from this version is the same as version 2.3 so the existing Google Data client libraries will continue to work.

If You’re a Developer, What You Need To Do
Take a deep breath and get excited ;)

While we typically don’t share our roadmap, to alleviate any concerns, we wanted to give you some insight on where we’re going and how this release fits into the bigger picture. Today’s release adds two new versions to the Management API, v2.4 and v3.0. We also have a Data Export API that provides access to report data, which is still on version 2.3. In the future, we plan to do a similar upgrade to the Data Export API Data Feed by releasing two new versions for it, and deprecating version 2.3. At that time, we also plan to completely deprecate the Data Export API Account Feed.

The future of our APIs is to access all configuration data through the Management API and all processed report data through the Data Export API.

So for now, if you are already using the Management API, we recommend you migrate to the latest and greatest version 3.0.

If you are still using the Account Feed in the Data Export API, we highly recommend you test out the new Management API and start planning your migration. But, you can probably wait to do a full migration until all our APIs are on version 3.0.

If you have any questions feel free to reach out in our Management API developer group.


Posted by Jeetendra Soneja and Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team

CDTV.net Interview about "Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with the New Latino Consumer"

On August 26 CDTV.net Financial News interviewed me about our new book "Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with the New Latino Consumer." Click here to listen to the interview.

For a special offer from the publisher click here

Boost sales through affiliate marketing

Are you looking to infuse new life into your marketing strategy? If so, we’d like to tell you more about Google Affiliate Network, a powerful platform that gives you access to trusted affiliate publishers who actively promote your products and drive high-quality traffic to your site. Best of all, you only pay for valid conversions.

What is affiliate marketing?



Over one third of global marketers use affiliate marketing as a key component of their online marketing strategy. Affiliate marketing allows you to leverage the reach, influence, and promotional methods of trusted publisher affiliates. These publishers place your ads or links on their site with the goal of driving a sale, lead, or other high-value online goal that you define. You pay only when a user clicks through one of your affiliates and performs a desired action.

How is affiliate marketing different from my AdWords campaigns?



Unlike the campaigns you run through AdWords, affiliate marketing is an ongoing performance-based program that you actively run with a group of affiliates whom you have selected to promote your product or service. Your affiliates choose which of your ads to run on their website, and they earn a performance fee for valid conversions. Google Affiliate Network’s online interface allows you to set up your affiliate program, track conversions, manage your affiliates, and promote your site to our thousands of publishers. A well-executed affiliate marketing program can be a great complement to your search, display, and offline campaigns.



What types of publishers are in Google Affiliate Network?



Google Affiliate Network has a rapidly-growing global network of publishers in all verticals. All publishers in the network abide by both AdSense and Google Affiliate Network policies, ensuring that you pay only for valid conversions. Below are just a few examples of the publishers in our network:

• Loyalty/Rewards: Cartera Commerce, DBG Loyalty, Ebates, FatWallet, Upromise



• Shopping/Promotions: CouponCabin, DesignerApparel, Offers.com, Savings.com, Whaleshark Media



• Community/Content: Blogpire Productions, Olioboard, Polyvore, ShopStyle, StyleFind



• Comparison Shopping: Milo, Shopping.com, ShopWiki, Smarter.com, TheFind Inc.

Ready to apply?



If you’re an online business interested in starting an affiliate program, Google Affiliate Network may be a good fit for you. Please note that advertising with Google Affiliate Network is currently only available to advertisers based in the United States, and a select group of advertisers based in Canada and the UK. We will be sure to let you know when other locales are supported. Click the “Sign up now” button below to receive more information about Google Affiliate Network and speak with a sales representative.

If you are an online publisher and would like to monetize your website with affiliate ads, please visit our publisher sign-up form.



Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager, Google Affiliate Network

A Monday Motivational Moment

Greetings....

Hope you all had a GREAT weekend.  Friday night was the start of high school football...my son's Senior season!  While the game didn't turn out on our winning side, it still provided plenty of fun and motivation for next week.

While sitting in the stands, I read the back of a t-shirt from a fellow Northmont parent.  It was a quote from a long-time Northmont soccer coach that had coached hundreds of area youth and unfortunately passed away recently.

The quote made me stop in my tracks and think about a lot of things...and the reach for greatness was one of those items.

So, for Monday morning...I share a quote to help each of us reach for greatness!

• Celebrate your accomplishments loudly... yet set the bar a bit higher each time you reach success.

Cheers!

Bruce Clapp

AdWords Editor Version 9.5 for Windows and Mac now available

Today, we’re excited to announce Adwords Editor 9.5! This version supports Campaign Experiments, Location Extensions, and plenty of other features to boost your productivity while managing your AdWords campaigns. We've highlighted the key changes below, and you can see the complete list of feature updates in the AdWords Editor Version 9.5 release notes.



AdWords Editor Version 9.5 highlights:

Campaign Experiments

You can now do the following to maintain your campaign experiments:

• Apply and edit an experiment status (e.g. “control only”, “experiment only”, “control and experiment”) at the ad group, ad, or keyword level.
• Apply and edit a Default Max. CPC, Display Network Max. CPC, or Max. CPM bid multiplier at the ad group level.
• Apply and edit a Max. CPC bid multiplier at the keyword level.
• Import and export experiment status and bid multipliers in both CSV and XML formats.

Location Extensions

Version 9.5 supports new and existing location extensions. You can create new manual location extensions for any address, modify existing locations, and download/upload location extensions in CSV and XML formats.

Background Download

If you’re working on several large accounts, you can now download them in the background while you’re working on another open account. This can be a great timesaver by allowing you to continue working rather than waiting for the download to finish.

We also listened to your feedback and made several usability improvements, including improved revert functionality and streamlined Add Multiple Items workflow.

The next time you log into your AdWords Editor account, you will be prompted to upgrade. You may also download Version 9.5 from the AdWords Editor website. After you install the new version of AdWords Editor, you will need to download your accounts again. To preserve your comments and unposted changes, select the Backup then Upgrade option in the automatic upgrade prompt and save the backup file to your computer. Then, re-download your account and import the backup file to AdWords Editor. A small portion of users may need to manually uninstall the previous version of AdWords Editor.

For more information, check out the release notes and visit the AdWords Editor Help Center.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Introducing Multi-Channel Funnels: discover untapped opportunities in your conversion path

An ad is clicked, and a purchase is made. Marketers have long used Google Analytics and similar tools to see which marketing efforts drive sales and conversions. Measurement is fundamental to ROI-focused marketing. Now, we’re taking this measurability a few steps further.

When a customer buys or converts on your site, most conversion tracking tools credit the most recent link or ad clicked. In reality though, customers research, compare and make purchase decisions via multiple touch points across multiple channels. So marketers that measure return solely on the last channel that a customer touches before conversion are getting an incomplete picture, and potentially missing out on important opportunities to reach their customers.

That’s why we’re excited today to introduce Multi-Channel Funnels to all Google Analytics users. This set of five new reports in Google Analytics gives marketers insight into the full path to conversion over a 30 day period, not simply the last click.

By looking at interactions across most digital media channels, including clicks from paid and organic searches, affiliates, social networks, and display ads, you can understand how different channels work together to create sales and conversions.

We’ve been piloting Multi-Channel Funnels with several customers over the past few months, and we’ve seen our customers gain valuable insight into the buying-cycle and understand the often hidden contribution of channels like social and display to conversions.

One of our early partners in the pilot, HUGO BOSS, uncovered significant contributions from upper funnel efforts, helping to better inform marketing strategy. "Knowing more about how our customers find us is very important, and this data helps us make better decisions. We found out that nearly two out of every three conversions involves more than one touch point,” said Patrick Berresheim, Director E-Commerce/CRM for HUGO BOSS. “It's now possible to value the contributions of assisting channels, which had previously been hidden by looking only at the last click.”

If you use Google Analytics on your website, and have goals or e-commerce tracking enabled, you can begin using the reports today by clicking on the My Conversions tab, with no further setup required. If you are an AdWords customer, make sure to link your AdWords and Analytics accounts to get the most detail on your ads performance. Starting today, you’ll see complete data in the reports for the past two months, and we’ll be expanding to encompass data back through January 2011 in the coming days. Update: This data is now available in Multi-Channel Funnels reports.

To help you learn more about the type of analysis you can do using Multi-Channel Funnels, including advanced features such as conversion segments and custom channel groupings, we’ll be scheduling a free webinar - look out for the registration details on the blog in a couple of weeks or sign up here to be notified by email. We’ll be walking through the reports and common use cases and you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions - we hope you’ll be able to make it.

Update: September 1, 2011 10:30am PST - Conversions are now available in the Multi-Channel Funnel reports going back to January 2011

Posted by Bill Kee, Product Manager for Google Analytics

Doing more with the +1 button, more than 4 billion times a day

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

In June we launched the +1 button for websites, making it easier to recommend content across the web. In July, the +1 button crossed 2 billion daily views, and we also made it a lot faster. Today the +1 button appears on more than a million sites, with over 4 billion daily views, and we're extremely excited about this momentum.



It's just the beginning, however, and today we're launching two more features that make +1 buttons more useful for users and publishers alike.



Sharing with your circles on Google+

Clicking the +1 button is a great way to highlight content for others when they search on Google. But sometimes you want to start a conversation right away—at least with certain groups of friends. So beginning today, we're making it easy for Google+ users to share webpages with their circles, directly from the +1 button. Just +1 a page as usual and look for the new "Share on Google+" option. From there you can comment, choose a circle and share.

The new +1 button on Rotten Tomatoes

+Snippets

When you share content from the +1 button, you’ll notice that we automatically include a link, an image and a description in the sharebox. We call these "+snippets," and they're a great way to jumpstart conversations with the people you care about.



Of course: publishers can benefit from +snippets as well. With just a few changes to their webpages, publishers can actually customize their +snippets and encourage more sharing of their content on Google+. More details are available on the Google Webmaster blog.









We're rolling out sharing and +snippets globally over the next week, but if you'd like to try the new +1 button now, you can join our Google+ Platform Preview. Once you're part of the Preview, just visit a site with the +1 button (like Rotten Tomatoes) and +1 the page. Thanks for all of your feedback so far, and stay tuned for more features in the weeks and months ahead!

Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering

Who determines the culture and voice of your blog?

These days, companies and individuals include blogs as part of their marketing arsenal and social media outreach to promote their product or service and/or to build buzz about a corporate, non-profit, or personal brand. While some blogs have several writers or bloggers, others feature only one. So who determines the culture and voice of a blog?

If you are promoting a product or service in the B2B (business-to-business) arena, you probably use industry-specific lingo that your target audience understands and often uses. But if you are promoting something in the B2C (business-to-consumer) arena, you probably use informal language, brief sentences, and one-topic paragraphs in order to capture and keep readers’ interest.

Your blogger or bloggers most often determine the voice of your blog, so would a company president be the main writer? Or would the marketing or public relations departments take responsibility for writing the posts? Or would the IT or HR departments chime in with ideas?

Once your company or non-profit determines who will write the posts, here are some things to keep in mind for successful blogging:

• Create a schedule that includes topics and timing for posting (daily vs. weekly).


• Monitor word count so that you avoid discrepancies between a 250-word post and a 2,000-word post.


• Choose graphics that align with the subject matter of each post.


• Ask readers for opinions.


• Proofread the posts several times before you publish.

In the words of Brian Clark, CEO of Copyblogger Media and founder of Copyblogger.com, “Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.”

Web Analytics TV #20 - The lost episode with a Special Guest

Welcome to another magical episode of Web Analytics TV! This time we have a special guest Caleb Whitmore from Analytics Pros, who is also a Google Analytics Certified Partner. Welcome Caleb! If you’re having difficulty implementing Google Analytics, Caleb has built the exceptional GAPE, Google Analytics Pros Engine, solution which simplifies tracking on your website. Check it out!

Ok. We had so much fun doing this episode, you are going to have a blast as well.

Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your questions. In this episode we had questions from Australia, India, Denmark, England, Germany Netherlands and so many other places. Y’all rock!

If you’re new to this show, our process for this show is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski answer them. :-)

Here is the list of last episodes questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

• (0:37) eCommerce conversion rate in custom reports


• (1:05) Pan session analysis


• (2:28) Controlling conversion attribution


• (4:20) Impact of changing the campaign cookie timeout


• (6:19) Tracking users across multiple sections of a website


• (7:56) Tracking internal site campaigns in GA


• (8:21) Report filters to mimic Custom Variables profile filters


• (9:10) Tracking embedded YouTube videos


• (10:24) Determining all organic traffic to a particular page


• (11:52) Drilling into channel paths in Multi Channel Funnels


• (12:32) Excluding traffic from bots


• (13:48) Reporting the number of visitors between two sites


• (15:08) Using a single vs multiple landing pages to track different campaigns


• (17:00) What metrics to use for a single page website


• (19:35) Filtering monitoring solutions like Gomez


• (20:13) How you can use _getVisitorCustomVar


• (21:21) Creating funnels with groups of URLs


• (22:08) Why you can see more visits than pageviews (esp in Android tracking)


• (23:47) Can you influence the timestamp of requests to GA


• (24:05) How to track conversions for non-ecommerce websites


• (24:51) Configuring goals that match both on pages and events


• (25:55) Why you should change to async tracking


• (27:18) How sampling in Google Analytics works

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• Tracking internal campaigns (house ads) by Justin Cutroni


• Youtube Player JavaScript API Reference Docs


• Vinny’s Demo to track embedded YouTube videos with Google Analytics


• Understanding Multi-Channel Funnels by Justin Cutroni


• A custom report to measure cross site traffic with source and referral path


• Use paditrack to segment funnels


• Phone call tracking solutions which integrate with Google Analytics


• Using different match types to group pages in goal funnels


• Optimizing Android Apps with Google Analytics - Google I/O video


• I got no ecommerce. How do I measure success? by Avinash


• Measure macro and micro conversions by Avinash


• Sampling conceptual overview article

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you are there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions.  Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Twitter Launches "Recent Images"

I'm here to share a #twitter feature that has left me feeling a bit uplifted and inspired.  I think it makes great sense for today, even if it may not be officially "Twitter Tuesday" for us here in this space.







Have you noticed Twitter's latest feature? It appears as "recent images" on the left-hand side of the user profile.  You can get a sneak peek below.  Then, if you click on "view all", a page is filled with a collection of the images you've most recently shared.



I'm sharing my most recent images below.  I don't know about you, but I like the picture that this slice of me paints.  I think it shows that I'm a woman exploring her way through life with the help of art and inspiration.  Color, faces, light, happiness. 







Take a look at your images.  What are they saying about you?  It's a fun exercise! I hope your images line up with your heart and your goals.  If they don't, it may be time to regroup.



Have a great day!



Laura Catherine Otero is a marketing professional and blogger in
Charleston, SC
who has been active in social media since 2005.  If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to this blog via Email or  RSS. Laura can also be found on Twitter (@LauraCatherineO), Facebook, and LinkedIn. 

Winning the Game

It's Friday in the fall...and that means high school football!

I LOVE this time of year...the only thing better is spring training for baseball!

I am constantly reminded when I watch high school football of several key things that easily translate to your job as a bank or credit union marketer:

1. The games not over until the whistle sounds


2. One play can alter an entire game


3. Its the most prepared team that wins...

For each item, the translation to your job is:

1. Keep plugging along and refocusing your efforts...the competition isn't slowing down and neither should you!  If you are behind goal at mid-year, reevaluate what you can do the remaining months...the goal is STILL within reach!


2. Its all about focus...  Keep the focus, its the little plays and small decisions you make and the small demonstrations of support and encouragement that can completely change the outcome of a game!


3. The most prepared team...not always the most athletically gifted or the bank/CU with the best rates or best locations.  The team that works most together as a team and keeps sight on the end prize while having done their prep work WILL be the winner!

Hope you have a GREAT Friday...

Cheers!

Bruce

Introducing Learn with Google

(Cross posted on the Google Small Business Blog)

School is back in session and here at Google, we’ve been looking for ways to help you learn how to grow your business online. Many of you have been looking for one central place to go to get smart about online tools and strategies, and we hear you. That’s why we’re pleased to introduce Learn with Google, a new educational site designed to be a one-stop shop for businesses to learn about Google products and services like AdWords, Google Apps, Places, Analytics, and more. Whether you’re looking to grow your business or just be more productive, we hope that this collection of short videos, handouts, and resources will arm you with best practices and tips that you can use right away.

(click for full-size image)

On the site, you’ll learn about:

• Starting Your Business Online: Learn why having an online presence is critical for growing your business and how to create an online marketing plan. Discover how local marketing tactics can help you reach customers near you.

• Marketing Your Business Online: Master the basics of online marketing and AdWords to get more for your money. Learn how to choose the right keywords, write compelling ads, and optimize your advertising spend.

• Running Your Business Online: Learn how the Google Apps suite of online communications and productivity tools, like Gmail and Google Docs, can make your team more collaborative and your business more efficient.

To get started, check out the videos, worksheets, and checklists at Learn with Google. From there, we’ll recommend other tips and how-to’s that will help you grow your business online. We’ll be adding more content and improving the site over time, so be sure to check back often.

Posted by Barbara Yang, Product Marketing Manager, Small Business Team

Tracking your ad position with ValueTrack

Today, we're announcing a small update to ValueTrack, a feature for those of you who use third-party tracking software or have access to your web logs. With the new additional ValueTrack parameter we’ve recently added, {adposition}, you can now see the position on the page that your ad appeared in.



Starting now, your destination URL can include the {adposition} parameter. The {adposition} parameter works for search campaigns and google.com. Here's a quick example of how you might use this parameter:



Let's say you have a search campaign. If your website is www.example.com, you can use the new and existing ValueTrack parameters in your AdWords campaign to set the destination URL to: http://www.example.com/?adpos={adposition}.



When you receive a click, your display URL will show in your logs with the ad position replaced with values such as:

• “1t2” = page 1, top, position 2
• “1s3” = page 1, side, position 3

In cases where we cannot return this info (e.g. Display Network), we will show “none”.



Here are examples of what you may see in your logs:

• http://www.example.com/?adpos=1t2
• http://www.example.com/?adpos=1s3
• http://www.example.com/?adpos=none

To learn more about all of the ValueTrack parameters and see additional examples, visit the AdWords Help Center.



Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords crew

Latest Display benchmarks now available

Evaluating the success of display campaigns can be an exercise in relativity. You gauge current campaigns against past performance or compare across multiple campaigns and advertisers within your roster of brands or clients.



But in seeking more comprehensive benchmarks that reflect trends going on in the display industry, you might find yourself falling short. Advertisers and agencies alike are looking for more data to answer the basic questions of "How do I know if my display ad campaigns are doing well?" and "Are there credible benchmarks can I use to compare the results on my current campaign?"



It’s no surprise then that our display benchmarks have met with much enthusiasm since we first started publishing the data in 2009. We’re pleased to introduce a dedicated space for display benchmarks data on the Watch This Space website. The first set of metrics you’ll see available are the latest display benchmarks, which cover a breadth of data: from CTR metrics to engagement metrics for rich media ads such as interaction and expansion rate, video complete rates and average interaction times -- all across a broad range of ad sizes, creative types and industry verticals.



Some interesting observations from these latest benchmarks are below:

• Use of rich media ad formats have doubled. We saw a two-fold increase in the proportion of impressions going to Rich Media ads. In 2010, simple flash ads accounted for 54% of all global formats served via the DoubleClick for Advertisers platform, down from 74% in 2009. Image ads, in comparison, experienced an uptick with 28% of formats served in 2010 up from 17% in 2009. That leaves rich media ad formats growing to 18% of all the impressions served in 2010 up from 9% globally in 2009.

• Response and engagement rates have been holding steady since 2009. In the past two years, the overall click-through rate has remained steady at around 0.09%.

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• Interaction rates trended slightly lower when comparing Q4 2010 to Q4 2009, but in general this measure of engagement has remained relatively steady over the course of 2010 after coming down from its peak in early 2009. (Note: Due to a change in the DFA methodology for interaction rates back in April 2008, we only reflect benchmarking data for interaction rates from then onward.)

• Expansion rates have fallen considerably since early 2009 but now we are seeing rates leveling off with a slight uptick towards the end of 2010.

• Video completion rates on rich media ads have generally remained consistent except for a several month peak towards the later half of 2008.

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• Larger ad sizes tend to generate greater response. Size does matter apparently. As we have seen in years past, bigger ads perform better. We observed this with the latest set of metrics in which the half-page ad unit (300x600) which had the highest CTR, interaction rate (for both in-page and expandable formats) and expansion rates of all the available creative sizes we tracked for the benchmarks.

• Although the U.S. had one of the lowest expansion rates, this market showed the highest expansion time. So Americans seem to expand ads less but when they do spend more time engaging with the ads themselves.

• In terms of industry verticals, auto advertisers performed the best in terms of CTR (0.13% for flash ads) but conversely had the lowest interaction (1.9%) and expansion rates (0.2%). For interaction rate, telecom (9.4%) and B2B (9.2%) advertisers were the highest while B2B stood out in terms of expansion rate (7.5%) benchmarks.

A couple of notes about this latest set of online advertising benchmarks. The data for these benchmarks are derived from a robust data set across DoubleClick for Advertisers, based on rigorous methodology with input from the Advertising Research Foundation. The charts cover global benchmark figures for the entirety of 2010 by ad format, ad size and industry vertical. The benchmarks are normalized across hundreds of advertisers, thousands of campaigns, and tens of billions of ad impressions.



For additional insights and access to the full set of available benchmarks, visit the benchmarks section on the Watch This Space website. More in-depth benchmarks by industry are available exclusively to DoubleClick clients so contact your account manager to discuss further.



Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager