Start the year with learning: Two upcoming webinars

Welcome back! We hope you enjoyed the holidays. To start 2009 off right, we'd like to offer you two webinars: Shaping the Heart of Your Marketing Strategy: Valentine's Day 2009 from the AdWords Retail team and Travel Shopping in Today's Economy from the AdWords Travel team. You can read more about each webinar and sign up below.

Shaping the Heart of Your Marketing Strategy: Valentine's Day 2009 Webinar

Wednesday, January 7th at 10 AM PST - Register to attend

As we wrap up the holidays, it's time to plan ahead for the new year and adapt your business strategy for upcoming opportunities and challenges. In this webinar, we will discuss strategies retailers can take to get the most out of this Valentine's Day. Join the Google Retail team and the Google Tech team on Wednesday, January 7th at 10 AM PST to learn about these topics:

• Understanding retail trends to reach consumers in today's landscape
  
• Building effective Valentine's Day ads using new Google tools
  
• Planning ahead based on online campaign performance trends
  
• Tips and tricks for optimizing your search campaigns
  

This webinar will run approximately 30 minutes, followed by a 30-minute Q&A session. Register here.

Travel Shopping in Today's Economy, presented by Compete and Google

Wednesday, January 14th at 11:00 am PST - Register to attend

As the economy has slowed, having an up-to-date perspective on consumer travel demand and preferences is more important than ever. Using an in-depth survey of traveler perspectives and a detailed online behavioral analysis, Google and Compete have partnered to create a new study exploring how consumers are shopping for travel in today's economy.

Join us on Wednesday, January 14th at 11:00 AM PST to learn:

• How the volume of travel research and booking activity changed as the economy has weakened
  
• How consumers are shopping for travel differently now than they have in the past, and what implications this has for travel marketers
  
• Consumer outlook on their plans for travel in the future and how travel sellers can take advantage of this
  

This webinar will run approximately 45 minutes, followed by a 15-minute Q&A session. Register here.

We hope these webinars help you get the most out of your 2009 campaigns.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Here's Why I Don't Make New Year's Predictions!

As we get ready to say goodbye to 2008 and ring in the new year, I will avoid the temptation to make any predictions—at least not in print for the entire world to criticize in hindsight. 

A case in point.  Here are some of the worst predictions that were made about 2008.   These were all events that affected each of us financially, personally and politically.  You just can’t make this stuff up.

1.     "A very powerful and durable rally is in the works. But it may need another couple of days to lift off. Hold the fort and keep the faith!" -- Richard Band, editor, Profitable Investing Letter, Mar. 27, 2008

(At the time of the prediction, the Dow Jones industrial average was at 12,300. By late December it was at 8,500.)

2. AIG "could have huge gains in the second quarter." -- Bijan Moazami, analyst, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, May 9, 2008

(AIG wound up losing $5 billion in that quarter and $25 billion in the next. It was taken over in September by the U.S. government, which will spend or lend $150 billion to keep it afloat.)

3. "I think this is a case where Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are fundamentally sound. They're not in danger of going under I think they are in good shape going forward." -- Barney Frank (D-Mass.), House Financial Services Committee chairman, July 14, 2008

(Two months later, the government forced the mortgage giants into conservatorships and pledged to invest up to $100 billion in each.)

4. "The market is in the process of correcting itself." -- President George W. Bush, in a Mar. 14, 2008 speech

(For the rest of the year, the market kept correcting and correcting and correcting).

5. "No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble." -- Jim Cramer, CNBC commentator, Mar. 11, 2008

(Five days later, JPMorgan Chase took over Bear Stearns with government help, nearly wiping out shareholders.)

6. "Existing-Home Sales to Trend Up in 2008" -- Headline of a National Association of Realtors press release, Dec. 9, 2007

(On Dec. 23, 2008, the group said November sales were running at an annual rate of 4.5 million -- down 11% from a year earlier -- in the worst housing slump since the Depression.)

7. "I think you'll see (oil prices at) $150 a barrel by the end of the year" -- T. Boone Pickens, June 20, 2008

(Oil was then around $135 a barrel. By late December it was below $40.)

8. "I expect there will be some failures. I don't anticipate any serious problems of that sort among the large internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system." -- Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, Feb. 28, 2008

(In September, Washington Mutual became the largest financial institution in U.S. history to fail. Citigroup needed an even bigger rescue in November.)

9. "In today's regulatory environment, it's virtually impossible to violate rules." -- Bernard Madoff, money manager, Oct. 20, 2007

(About a year later, Madoff -- who once headed the Nasdaq Stock Market -- told investigators he had cost his investors $50 billion in an alleged Ponzi scheme.)

10. A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win, the title of a book by conservative commentator Shelby Steele, published on Dec. 4, 2007.

(Mr. Steele, meet President-elect Barack Obama.)

Sometimes as bank marketers we have to go against the grain even when conventional wisdom, from pundits both inside and outside the bank, is telling us otherwise.  We have to continually balance the market realities in which we operate against the validity of the information we are receiving.

As I contemplate 2009, the only prediction that I can safely make is that I’m sure that I will have plenty of grist for this year-end blog next December.

A happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all!

Cheers,

Nick Vaglio, CFMP

Our Top 10 for 2008

2008 is coming to a close, and we want to leave you with our favorite posts for 2008. The posts were chosen based on FrankRank, and represent the team's favorites over the last year.

1. Introducing Google Ad Planner
   There was a ton of interest in the tool, and the post announcing it was the most read post here on Inside AdWords for the whole year.
2. Improvements to Ads Quality
   This year, we made two big changes to how we calculate Quality Score and rank ads. This post explained the new changes in detail.
3. Build your own display ads in minutes
   We liked this post as it showed off a new tool that helps you broaden your advertising campaigns easily.
4. Keyword tool updated with search volume
   A theme for this year's top posts is providing our advertisers with more information to make their advertising decisions. The keyword tool updates definitely fit in with this theme.
5. Announcing Google Insights for Search
   Like the keyword tool, Insights for Search is another useful tool for your business.
6. Tie: New ways to look at Search & Content Network statistics and Separate metrics for Google and search partners now available
   Both these posts announced improvements to AdWords reporting that had been heavily requested by advertisers.
7. New features in Website Optimizer
   The new features addressed some of the top requests for Website Optimizer.
8. Use keywords and placements together on the content network
   This new feature gave advertisers better control over their advertising on the content network.
9. Groundhogs, Seasonality, and Trends
   A fun post looking at how you could use Google Trends to plan your campaigns around seasonal traffic patterns.
10. Announcing the Search-based Keyword Tool
    Another tool we released this year. The Search-based Keyword Tool helps you locate missed opportunities for advertising campaigns.

That's it for our top 10 for this year. We'll be off celebrating the holidays for the next two weeks, so you won't see any posts from us. We'll be back here blogging in January. Have a great holiday!

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Who is Your "Uncle Dave?"

“'I might have to make a visit to Uncle Dave,' which is what people in Ouray say when they need to take a loan from the local bank, Citizen’s State, whose chairman is named David Wood.”

This is an excerpt from Twilight of a Mountain God, an article about Rick Trujillo - who said the quote - in the January, 2009 Runner’s World magazine.

Trujillo is part mountain goat … his trail running accomplishments, tenacity, endurance and downright stubbornness made me say, “Wow.”  Then I got to this quote and said ... well, let’s just say it was more than “wow.”

Sure, the city of Ouray, Colorado has fewer than 1,000 residents – but any community bank or credit union in ANY city can have an “Uncle Dave.”  It can be your chairman, president, or branch manager.  Even in a metropolitan area, a community institution can have the "Uncle Dave" of the neighborhood surrounding the branch.

Essentially, Uncle Dave is the community’s go-to-guy when it comes to banking.

Think of the power of having an Uncle Dave … especially in this economy with money transferring and trust wavering. 

My goal for 2009 is to begin to create at least one Uncle Dave (this type of rep won’t come overnight). 

You just need to:

• Have the right Uncle Dave – someone who can represent the bank or credit union well and “own the role.”
  
• Be the first to market – it won’t do to be the second Uncle Dave in the market
  
• Be consistent – Uncle Dave is a THE community banker
  

If you have an “Uncle Dave,” please share some thoughts about it in this blog.

Have a very merry Christmas and happy holidays.

Take care,

Eric

Analytics, AdWords, and Big Spenders

In the spirit of the holidays, we would like to offer tips on how to increase visibility into your e-commerce performance and your advertising spend using Google Analytics. For many, seasonality influences purchasing decisions and affects business revenues. Analytics can help keep a close eye on your advertising spend and e-commerce trends to run a cost conscious business.

We recommend 3 simple methods captured in the videos below. You can find these videos and more on the new Google Analytics Youtube Channel.

1. Use Google Analytics to track your e-commerce activity. As an e-commerce site, you likely want to know who is visiting your site and the goods they are purchasing. By enabling E-commerce tracking on your site, Google Analytics will provide vital metrics including overall revenue, revenue per product, average transaction amount, and more.

Coupled with our Motion Charts feature, you can easily see how the the products trend over time by various dimensions including: revenue, quantity, and average price.

2. Identify your high spenders to better target your website promotions and ad spend. With additional information on ROI for keywords and spending trends, you can focus your efforts on the traffic you care about the most.

3. Link your AdWords and Analytics accounts to track ROI, Revenue per Click, campaign and keywords performance. Added benefits include drilling down to the ad campaign, ad group, and keyword levels for goals conversions and e-commerce transactions.

And don't forget, even a few minutes a day with Google Analytics can help your website.

Posted by Melissa Hsieh, Google Analytics Team

Hispanic Marketing Trends: 2009 and Beyond

The future for Hispanic marketing in the United States is bright, full of "dualities" and opportunities. The future is indeed bright. While the media propagates bad news as their way of attracting attention, they ignore the positive trends in the economy. Hispanic marketing is one of them.

1. Economic crises are not new to Hispanics… Hispanics should be more optimistic in comparison to other cultural groups, thus leading the recovery with optimism... that is our only choice

2. On the other hand migration misinformation and increasing discrimination are setting a negative tone for the role of Hispanics in the US... the voices of negativism can not prevail

3. As a consequence of the above marketers should emphasize achievements and contributions of Hispanics to raise self esteem and build brand equity

4. Faster acculturation. Marketers should place more emphasis on what unites Hispanics beyond language. More leadership potential and higher aspirations for the future can mean a major transformation

5. Identifying the core of the new and emergent multicultural society… third culture…

6. A growing emphasis in communicating in Culture, while communicating in language will stabilize

7. A stronger emphasis on lifestyle segmentation as opposed to sheer acculturation

8. Increasing cross-over from Hispanic products and brands to the overall population… the Hispanization of America

9. Increased used of technology, particularly the Internet… over indexing in several categories… and this goes for all emerging minorities--- Hispanics are leading in the use of social media, and social media marketing is a great vehicle for incorporating Hispanic sensitive brands in the culture

10. Better appreciation of the consumer bicultural chemistry in the home… English and Spanish incorporated in the decision making… more collective than individual decision making

11. Almost 2 million Hispanic owned businesses… more of a focus on BtoB

12. Integrating marketing efforts in corporations and avoiding the marginalization of ethnic marketing… targeting needs to be more inclusive and precise

13. More cause marketing… as these consumers are increasingly green and socially aware

14. The future is in grassroots and high-touch marketing

AdWords Editor 7.0 for Windows and Mac

This week, we released version 7.0 of AdWords Editor for Windows and Mac. The new version includes the long-awaited first page bid estimates and keyword Quality Score, along with several updates to the Keyword Opportunities tool. Version 7.0 also provides the option to enable usage tracking, which lets Google collect anonymous statistics to help us improve AdWords Editor. Learn more about these and other new features in the release notes.

If you're not already using AdWords Editor, you can visit our website and click 'Download AdWords Editor' to get started. If you're an existing user, you'll see a prompt to upgrade to version 7.0 the next time you run the application.

Important: Existing AdWords Editor users will need to download their accounts again after upgrading to version 7.0. We've discovered an issue with the automatic upgrade feature (the 'Backup then Update' option in the upgrade prompt), so please refer to these special instructions to save comments and uposted changes when you upgrade.

If you'd like to wait to upgrade, you can click 'Don't Update' in the automatic update prompt.

To learn more about the benefits of using AdWords Editor to manage your ad campaigns offline, please refer to these frequently asked questions. Also, comprehensive instructions and tips are available in our Help Center.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew