Manage and Track your extensions with the new Ad Extensions tab

Over the last year we’ve launched a number of ad extensions in AdWords to help you make your ads more useful and relevant to people searching for information on Google. Ad extensions expand your standard text ad with one or more lines of additional information like an address and phone number (location extensions and phone extensions), more page links (ad sitelinks), and product images (product extensions).

In order to help you manage and track the ad extensions in your campaigns, today we’re introducing a new Ad Extensions tab within your AdWords account. From the Ad Extensions tab, you can see statistics for any of your campaign ad extensions. You can choose to see "All" or "All but deleted" extensions, and you can also choose the type of ad extensions to view, such as location or product extensions. For example, if you select “Locations,” the tab will display all location extensions for that campaign (on the campaign details page) or all campaigns (in the “All Online Campaigns” overview).

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The Ad Extensions tab automatically appears in your account when you've enabled ad extensions in at least one campaign. You can also enable or disable the tab for your account view by clicking the arrow button next to your existing tabs above your performance table.

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To learn more about the new Ad Extensions tab, visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

The Wave of Indifference

It seems that every company wants to focus their marketing message on providing, "outstanding service."

Yet most places we go, we're met with a tidal wave of indifference.

Seriously, it's when you're helped by someone with a personality that the service really stands out. That's a bit sad.

Shop

Take a day and shop your competitive branches. Trust me, it'll be eye opening. Besides, the weather is beautiful this time of year and it'll give you a reason to get out of your office.

Simply ask the first employee you see about checking accounts and see how they handle it. Do they ask you leading questions that will help them make a recommendation:

• Where do you bank now?
• What do you like about your account?
• Why do you want to change?
• What kind of balances do you carry?
• Etc, etc, etc

Or do they simply hand you a brochure and say, "If you have any questions come back and see us."

You'll quickly find out which banks or credit unions will be climbing the market share ladder and which will be sucked under the wave of indifference.

Training

When I speak on this topic, I love to use a Disney example and you can too.

Last summer I took our family to Disney. My 5 year old daughter wanted to see Sleeping Beauty. That's all she had talked about for months and we finally were there. We drove for two days to get there in a van who's A/C broke as soon as we hit the Florida border. We were at the park on the hottest day on Disney record ... 115 degrees - no exaggeration. We paid a king's ransom for the privilege of baking in the "Happiest (frickin') place on earth." By lunch, my 7 year old son was actually crying, "Don't make me go back out to Disney." But we hadn't seen Sleeping Beauty yet. When it was her scheduled time, we waited in line for about an hour and a half and finally came the moment of truth...

Now, imagine if Disney staffed their parks with the same employees that ride the wave of indifference. And how upset my daughter would have been and how I might have actually strangled someone.

The reality is that Sleeping Beauty and all of the other princesses, in heavy gowns and full make-up during the hottest day of the year, where exceptional! They all were on stage and they all brought their "A" game. It made the entire experience worth while and the rest of day quickly became MUCH better - especially when it cooled down.

The point? All of your employees are on stage. And there is no way of telling what trials our customers had to face to get to our branch on a given day. We need to jump off the wave of indifference and drown our customers in positive feelings. Smiles, sincerity, and an honest attempt to help. It's really not that hard, but it's also few and far between.

Do you want to differentiate your bank or CU? Spend less time worrying about checking rewards and focus on the faces and voices that customers deal with everyday.

Happy Friday,

Eric

Banking on Social Sites Unlikely

According to a new research report by Forrester, Banking On Social Sites Is A Work In Progress, while social networking sites have a 30-day active population of more than 400 million users of which more than half visit on any given day, that love doesn't extend to banking through social networks. In fact, more than 70% of online households surveyed showed little or no interest in accessing their accounts through social sites like Facebook. Not surprisingly, the reasons for the lack of interest revolves around privacy and security concerns more than anything else.

So, while the majority of large financial institutions continue to look for more ways to leverage social networking's ability to engage customers, resolve problems and ultimately build loyalty, the reach of these sites beyond stronger interactive communication remains to be seen. At the very least, consumers will need the stronger security guarantees, authentication and more that is already afforded customer who use online and mobile banking.

Go Mobile! Series: Introducing click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps

Today at Google I/O, we announced that we’ll begin extending click-to-call advertising to mobile content and apps on the Google Content Network in the coming weeks. Click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps work with phone extensions and appear as animated  banner text ads with a call button on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. Now, whether your potential customers are reading the latest news, checking sports scores, or playing a downloaded game on their phones, you can reach them with relevant ads that let them easily click, call and connect with your business.

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Benefits:

As those of you who already use click-to-call search ads may know, providing a calling option can help you drive more qualified leads and conversions as callers are often more ready to make a purchase. Adding a phone number to your ads can also give your business more credibility, resulting in higher click-through rates and increases in both calls and visits to your website. What’s more, enabling click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps is easy, even if you’re new to mobile, click-to-call advertising, or the Google Content Network.

Getting started:

To get started with click-to-call for mobile apps and content, just follow these three quick steps:

1. Ensure that your campaigns are opted in to serve on the Content Network, either by selecting ‘All available sites’ or specifically checking ‘Content Network’ within your Campaign Settings.

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2. Set up phone extensions and add your business phone number.

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At this time, click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps only support phone extensions and not location extensions.

3. Ensure that you’ve chosen to show your ads on mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

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Improving your performance:

Once you’re all set up, we encourage you to track your results and experiment. Our robust reporting lets you see the number of calls you receive by campaign, ad group and keyword so that you can easily monitor and improve your campaigns. Keep in mind that you pay the same price for a call as for a click, so it’s a good idea to try creating new mobile campaigns for content to figure out what works best.

More innovative mobile ad formats on the way:
At Google I/O today, we also shared a preview of our new expandable ad units that display videos or images on content and apps on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. These new ad units offer you more real estate and let potential customers interact with the ad without being redirected from the content or app they were viewing. When people click to play a video, our ad unit plays on their device’s native video player or YouTube app. Once they close the video, they’re returned to exactly where they left off on their mobile site or app.  You may begin to see these new formats running on our network as part of our beta for US-based advertisers, and we’re excited to make them more widely available soon.

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We recognize that you have many options when planning your mobile advertising strategies and we’re excited to be a part of this rapidly evolving and competitive mobile ads ecosystem. We’ll continue to innovate with new mobile ad formats that we hope will help you better reach your audience in more relevant and engaging ways, driving the mobile ads space forward for everyone.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

It’s now easy to set up new sites with Asynchronous Tracking

We’re happy to announce that the asynchronous tracking tag, which came out of beta last week, is now available in your admin interface when you set up a new profile. This makes it easy for everyone to start off tracking new sites with this very fast, state-of-the-art tag.

Whether you’re tracking a single domain, or a more complex site with multiple subdomains or top level domains, there’s an option in the interface to give you exactly the code you need.

Simply select the scenario that fits your needs. The admin interface now provides the asynchronous tracking code by default, but if you need the traditional tracking snippet you can find it here.

We also encourage you to upgrade your existing sites to the new tag. To help you, we’ve created complete instructions and migration examples.

Enjoy your new, faster site!

Posted by Jesse Savage, Google Analytics Team

Videos From Master Class In Singapore Now Online

Last month we held 3 successful Google Analytics Master Classes in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Sydney. We were pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount of interest in web analytics in this region with close to 1000 advertisers, agencies, bloggers, developers, and technophiles attending the events. For those of you who made it out, we thank you for your participation and interest, and hope you gained valuable insights from our all star team of speakers.

The videos of all the talks from the Singapore event are now available. Each session was kept deliberately short - no speaker goes on longer than 20 minutes - in order to maintain the audience’s interest and to keep the topics flowing at a good pace. Therefore, each video is a good length to watch during work, on break, or at home, enriching your Google Analytics knowledge in convenient bite-sized portions.

Above is Beth Liebert’s (Google Analytics Product Manager, Google) keynote on web analytics. Please surf on over to this post on the Solutions for Southeast Asia blog for the full list of the videos.

Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, JAPAC Google Analytics Lead, Global Technical Services

Top 10 Resources for Teamwork and Organizational Behavior

Teamwork – everyone talks about, but how many people genuinely embrace it? How many times has a supervisor said “there is no I in teamwork” but you would have preferred to work on a project on your own? You don’t have to answer. The simple truth is that the creation of effective teams is one of the hardest jobs a leader has. And, more often than not, leaders are unsuccessful in this area, which is the reason that many management/C-level executives change companies so often. Here are some resources to assist with team-building at all levels within a business (small, mid-sized, or large) in any segment (B2B, B2C, or non-profit), which will also improve organizational behavior and corporate culture.

X-Teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate and Succeed
By Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman
c. 2007

Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers and Facilitators
By Patrick Lencioni
c. 2005

The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player: Becoming the Kind of Person Every Team Wants
By John C. Maxwell
c. 2002

Teamwork 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know
By John C. Maxwell
c. 2008

How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers and Project Teams
By Charles J. Pellerin
c. 2009

Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Results
By Geoffrey M. Bellman and Kathleen D. Ryan
c. 2009

Results Without Authority: Controlling a Project When the Team Doesn’t Report to You – A Project Manager’s Guide
By Tom Kendrick, PMP
c. 2006

Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships
By James W. Tamm and Ronald J. Luyet
c. 2005

Organizational Behavior
By John R. Schermerhorn, Jr., Dr. James G. Hunt, and Dr. Richard N. Osborn
c. 2008

Organizational Behavior: A Strategic Approach
By Michael A. Hitt, C. Chet Miller, and Adrienne Colella
c. 2005

Lastly, in the words of H.E. Luccock: “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.”