An easier way to view advertising policies

Understanding AdWords advertising policies is an important part of successfully managing your account and delivering ads that are safe and useful to users. To help you understand how policies affect the delivery of your ads, we recently introduced a status insights icon on the Ads tab. We’re now following up with another feature to help you identify policy issues more quickly: a new Policy Details column.

The Policy Details column allows you to scan and sort policy issues across all of your ads (without hovering individually over each status one by one). You’ll find information like:

• Approval status for each ad
• Disapproval reasons, if applicable
• Specific policies that can limit where your ads show

This information is available for paused ads as well, which can be particularly helpful if you want to know the status of your paused ads or if you need to temporarily pause a campaign while you work out some policy problems.

Here’s what the Policy Details column will look like, alongside some fictional example ads:

To find this new column, navigate to your Ads tab and click the “Columns” button to start customizing your columns. Under the “Attributes” section, click to add “Policy details” and save. You’ll then see the new Policy Details column in your Ads tab. (One note: this new policy column isn’t yet downloadable in your reports, but we’re working on it!)

Posted by Katie Miller, Google Ads Team

4 Tips to Get More From Your Next Conference

There is a lot that I love about being a conference speaker!

First, conferences are rarely held in undesirable locations … I’ll see you next week Hilton Head!!!

But even more than the sunny locales, it’s the people, the energy and the brainpower packed into hotel conference rooms (and occasionally the hotel bar) that I love.  I’ve found that you can never get a group of marketers together without great ideas taking flight.

As you prepare for your next conference, here are a few tips to help you avoid simply collecting great ideas and actually putting them to immediate use.

Immediacy:

Don’t wait until you get on the plane or back to the office to create your summary notes.

• Use the voice memo feature on your phone to remind yourself of the really great ideas
• Send yourself emails so that great ideas are waiting in your inbox

Network, network, network:

We all know the value of exchanging great ideas with colleagues, but have you ever asked for a copy of someone else’s session summaries?  By trading session notes you can:

• Gain a whole new perspective on sessions you mutually attend
• Extend your conference reach by gaining session notes on breakout topics that you did not attend. 

Bring the Learning Home:

As you sit in your sessions, consider what will be best to share with your management team and staff:

• Any new ideas
• How the ideas fit into your existing plan
• How your customers or members will benefit

Ultimately, listen to your speakers and ask yourself:

• What ideas can I turn into training?
• What ideas should be the focus of our next management meeting?

Once you have your world-changing ideas summarized:

• Prioritize them based on what makes sense immediately and fits your existing plan and what should wait for future initiatives.
• Outline next steps and assign responsibilities to get it done.

Action Plan:

In short, to get the most from your conference experience, you need to treat the conference like a project or campaign with:

•  Timelines
• Milestones
• Measurement

By moving from idea collection to bringing home meaningful, actionable plans, you can better demonstrate the value of conferences and, hopefully, justify attending more.

For a quick video blog on this topic, click here.

With more than 115,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs.  

We bring these marketing philosophies to community banks and credit unions nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too.  Contact us to see how.

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker.  Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

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MarketMatch is a marketing firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community.  We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the right story that will generate the greatest  MOMENTUM and prove the best RESULTS with our written ROI Guarantee.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

The results are in for the Google Online Marketing Challenge

What happens when you give hundreds of student teams across the world an AdWords online advertising budget of US$250 and three weeks to help a local business improve their marketing campaign? A great lesson for advertisers of all kinds. In an effort to help build the next generation of innovative digital marketers, Google has been annually hosting the annual Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) which is now in its fifth and most competitive year yet. A total of 11,000 students from 86 countries/territories participated in this year’s challenge and the results are in.

Global Winner
The Global Winning team comes from the Warsaw School of Economics in Poland, under Professor Tymoteusz Doligalski. The team of Piotr Wawrysiuk, Kamil Borkowski, Joanna Sakowska, Aneta Maliszewska, and Łukasz Kanownik worked with Rowery Embassy, a bicycle company in Warsaw that specializes in beach cruisers. The team is the first ever Global Winner to come from Europe and helped to increase bicycle sales and brand awareness. Their three-week campaign generated almost 40,000 impressions and over 300% return on investment.

Regional Winners

• The Asia Pacific Winner comes from the University of Asia and the Pacific in the Philippines, under Professor Kahlil Corazo. The team of Hannah Ishael Tan, Danna Anne Marie Lee, and Kyne Darby Santos worked with Olivia and Fifth, a fashion boutique. The student team increased current and future sales by boosting alert sign ups and order leads.

• The Americas Winner comes from James Madison University in Virginia, under Professor Theresa Clarke. The team of Rachel Krause, Tara Goode, and Nicole Behr worked with Triple C Camp, a summer day camp and challenge course located in Virginia. The Triple C Camp campaign successfully grew website traffic and CTR.

• The Europe Winner comes from the University of Applied Science Würzburg-Schweinfurt (FHWS) in Germany, under Professor Mario Fischer. The team of Urs Merkel, Christian Pregitzer, Martin Gelowicz, and Stefanie Niggemann worked with MTRShop24, an online fashion accessories boutique. The MTR24 campaign had two key goals, to boost awareness and increase shop sales, which the student team achieved.

• The Middle East/Africa Winner comes from Technion- Israel Institute of Technology, under Professor Sarit Moldovan. The team of Alex Zhitnitsky, Oshri Rozenheck, and Boris Fridman worked with the Perach Tutoring Project, a mentoring/tutoring program for disadvantaged children. The Perach campaign focused on increasing volunteers for its tutoring project which it succeeded in doing with over 150 volunteer sign ups.

Full 2012 Team Results
Click here to see the rankings of all competing teams, including Finalists and Semi-Finalists.

To learn more about the Google Online Marketing Challenge, please visit our website: www.google.com/onlinechallenge.

Posted by Sowmya Ramakrishnan, Product Marketing Manager

Helping Merchants Succeed: Updates to and Reminders for Google Shopping

We’re dedicated to helping merchants succeed with Google Shopping and a huge part of this success involves making it easy for businesses to optimize their accounts, especially before the holiday season. For example, we recently released an update to AdWords Editor that allows retailers to easily manage Product Listing Ads at scale and delivered a series of four Hangouts on Air to help merchants make the transition to Google Shopping.

We’re continuing to actively release improvements to the product and we recently started ranking the results in Google Shopping based on a combination of relevance and bid price--just like Product Listing Ads are ranked. While products listed without a bid will continue to show until the final transition to a commercial model is complete in the fall, advertisers who are promoting their products with Product Listing Ads will have better positioning and increased traffic.

Merchants who create Product Listing Ads will also have greater control over where their products appear in Google Shopping, due to the inclusion of bid as a factor in ranking. And in the future, they will have the opportunity to differentiate their businesses and market special offers, such as, "30% off all refracting telescopes”.

9 Days Left To Take Advantage of Limited Time Offer

In May, we announced Google Shopping, a new initiative to improve our shopping experience that makes it easy for shoppers (your customers) to easily research purchases, compare different products, their features and prices, and then connect directly with merchants to make purchases.

A key part of this initiative was helping make this transition easier for merchants by offering two incentives:

• All merchants that are promoting all of their online product inventory and who are compliant with Google Shopping policies by August 15, 2012, will receive a monthly AdWords credit of 10% of their total US spend on Product Listing Ads through the end of the year.
• Additionally, merchants active on Product Search as of May 30, 2012 can fill out this form by August 15, 2012 and receive a $100 AdWords credit to use toward Product Listing Ads.

With only 9 days left until the August 15th deadline, we suggest visiting this site to learn more about these incentives today.

We’re focused on ensuring that merchants of all sizes succeed with Google Shopping and the roadmap includes even more exciting changes that will make it easier to manage Product Listing Ads. To get started with Google Shopping, visit our getting started guide.

Posted by Jennifer Dulski, Director of Product Management, Google Shopping

New Learn with Google Webinars Help Make the Web Work for You

It’s almost back-to-school time, but students aren’t the only ones who are getting geared up to learn. Today, we’re announcing our next series of Learn with Google webinars, which will arm you with the tools you need to get the most out of Google’s advertising products and solutions. Over the next couple of months, 13 webinars will teach you tips and how-to’s to help make the web work for your business.

Join us as we kick things off this Thursday, August 9th with a webinar on multi-channel attribution and check out the full schedule below:

• Aug 9 at 9am PDT Multi-Channel Funnels: Attribution Across Channels
• Aug 23 at 10am PDT How to Kick Start Social with Google+ (Hangout on Air)
• Aug 28 at 10am PDT Optimizing your Video Ad Campaigns
• Aug 29 at 10am PDT Google+: Enhancing Marketing and Making Social Accountable
• Sept 5 at 10am PDT Go Bigger, Faster with AdWords Editor
• Sept 6 at 10am PDT Making the Most of Recent AdWords Updates
• Sept 12 at 10am PDT Driving Cost-Effective App Downloads with AdWords
• Sept 13 at 10am PDT Go Bigger, Faster with AdWords Scripts
• Sept 18 at 10am PDT Better Together: Combining Targeting Strategies in Display
• Sept 19 at 10am PDT The Importance of Search Advertising
• Sept 20 at 10am PDT Measuring the Impact of Online Advertising on Offline Sales
• Sept 26 at 10am PDT GoMo: Mobilize your Site and Maximize your Advertising
• Sept 27 at 10am PDT Optimizing Display Campaigns: Tips, Tricks, & Tools

Visit our webinar page to register for any of the sessions and to access past webinars on-demand. We’ll be adding new webinars as they’re scheduled, so check back regularly for updates. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by adding our Learn with Google Webinar calendar to your own Google calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars.

Whether your goal is to engage the right customers in the moments that matter, make better decisions, or go bigger, faster, we hope that you’ll use these best practices and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to having you in class at an upcoming Learn with Google webinar!

Posted by Erin Green, Marketing Coordinator

Webinar this Thursday: Multi-Channel Funnels

Over the past few months, we’ve hosted a series of webinars on marketing attribution, exploring how you can get better results by understanding and valuing your customers’ full journey -- from the first ad they see until they make a purchase.


This week, please join Neil Hoyne, Google’s Global Program Manager for Attribution, for an in-depth look at Multi-Channel Funnels. Neil will discuss how Multi-Channel Funnels can reveal customer interactions across different digital media, show how these channels work together to create sales and conversions, and how these tools tie to the larger attribution narrative. We’ll explore the different reports and discuss how to get the most out of Multi-Channels Funnels to improve your campaign performance.

Date: Thursday, August 9, 2012
Time: 9am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT
Register: http://goo.gl/B49ma

Hope you’ll join us on Thursday!

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Product Marketing Manager for Conversion and Attribution

When it Rains...It Pours!

When it rains...it Pours!

Famous words that have endured the test of time and advertising.  Whenever I am thinking branding, brand development or positioning, many times my mind wonders to Morton Salt.  They are the purveyors of salt and also branding genius!

I believe their brand efforts were Herculean and worthy of one of the "All-Time Greatest" positioning efforts, ever!  Think about it...when Morton Salt created the "Morton Salt Girl" salt was bought and sold in 5 pound paper bags and was a generic commodity.

However, Morton talked to consumers, understand the end-use needs, and crafted a brand position focused on a core issue with the common salt packaging methods... it easily caked and clumped and became very difficult to pour and use.  They created a new package (cardboard round container) and sold it in smaller quantities and a higher price...

The genesis of their "When it Rains...it Pours" was from a keen understanding of the customer and product use.  The brand has endured the test of time and STILL is relevant and changed the packaging, branding and sales of salt forever.

If a banker was in charge of that brand...they may have easily gone with the "free salt" angle or the "10% off" price position.  However, a price approach rarely, if ever, stands the test of time and usually results in a brand pricing against itself, to regain the "energy" of the initial price concession.

The MarketMatch Branding Mantra

Be what you are, share what you are...
just make sure what you are is sustainable and relevant!

So...

We firmly believe is VALUE marketing and branding vs. price marketing...why?  Because people may shop on price (and even some ONLY buy on price) but most people BUY on emotion and perceived value.

Today's version of value vs. price positioning?

Target

Wal-Mart

Each has chosen a brand position...and with each it has permeated their entire organization.  Target infuses designers and fashion -- Wal-Mart infused low cost and ease of purchase.  Which is right? You may be able to argue either way...the EPS is close for either while Wal-Mart is clearly larger, Target sells a higher margin per square foot of retail space.

The lesson to learn is that taking the price option may be easy...but a value orientation focuses the entire organization on delivery and takes a master approach.  our vote?  Value branding...

Three branding MUST-DO's

1. Be organic... know what you are, how you do it, and the value that it brings
2. Be attentive... know what your customers want and think and match against the market needs and opportunity
3. Be thorough... its the little details that impress people and secure the value of your brand!

Take Morton Salt's lead...know your customer, know their needs, and apply creative thinking to the basics...you just never know when you will strike GOLD (or salt!).

Cheers!

Bruce

With nearly 115,000 visitors worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs.  

We bring these marketing philosophies to community banks and credit unions nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too.  Contact us to see how.

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker.  Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MarketMatch is a full-service marketing firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community.  We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the right story that will generate the greatest  MOMENTUM and prove the best RESULTS with our written ROI Guarantee.

 

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-832-7894 x101