Cross-posted from the Google Agency Blog

Measurement has been top of mind in our recent conversations with advertisers, and for good reason. As we’ve said many times, “If you can’t measure it, how do you know it worked?” Committing to measurement is critical, but just the first step. We believe that that the industry needs metrics that are trusted, transparent and easily verified. Today, we’re pleased to share several updates on the work we’re doing with third party verification and audit partners to ensure that the metrics available from Google are objective and accurate.

Transparency and trust are the core principles of our measurement strategy. We strongly believe in the need for third-party accreditation through the Media Rating Council (MRC). We gained our first accreditations back in 2006, and for over ten years we’ve partnered with the MRC, advocating for standards across the industry and contributing to ongoing discussions that set guidelines for measuring the effectiveness of ads. We currently maintain over 30 MRC accreditations across display and video, desktop and mobile web, mobile apps, and clicks, plays, impressions and viewability.

MRC accreditation for 3rd party viewability reporting on YouTube

Since 2015, we've completed integrations with Moat, Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify to enable third-party viewability reporting on YouTube. These integrations offer advertisers additional choice for measuring viewability on YouTube, alongside Active View.

Today, we’re announcing that each of these integrations will undergo a stringent, independent audit for MRC accreditation. The audit will validate that data collection, aggregation and reporting for served video impressions, viewable impressions, related viewability statistics and General Invalid Traffic (GIVT) across desktop and mobile for each integration adheres to MRC and IAB standards. In short, advertisers will have even greater confidence in the metrics returned by these third party partners about their campaigns on YouTube.

“Google’s announcement that they are undertaking an independent audit of their 3rd party viewability reporting integrations is a positive step forward for marketers. At the ANA, our goal is to create transparency for the advertising supply chain. This action from Google today demonstrates their commitment to partnering with us to deliver this goal."
—Bob Liodice, President and CEO, Association for National Advertisers

New MRC accreditations for DoubleClick and AdWords

Our commitment to MRC accreditation goes beyond our media to include our platform solutions as well. We maintain several accreditations for DoubleClick already, and today we’re announcing that we are now fully accredited for video impressions and viewability statistics for desktop web, mobile web and mobile app in DoubleClick Campaign Manager.

We are also seeking MRC accreditation for video impressions and viewability statistics and GIVT detection for display and video in both AdWords and DoubleClick Bid Manager. These MRC audits will span across all video available through these buying platforms — including YouTube and partner inventory.

"Google's commitment to MRC's initiatives has been unwavering over time, and their participation in industry standards projects has been helpful. We look forward to working on these new audits and expanding the industry's trust as it relates to YouTube's third party integrations and DoubleClick Bid Manager."
—George Ivie, CEO and Executive Director, Media Rating Council

“Google’s announcement to bring more media transparency is important progress that will help move the industry forward. At P&G;, we are encouraged by Google’s actions, which should make a positive impact on creating a clean and productive media supply chain.”
—Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, Procter & Gamble

With so much activity underway, we know that it can be difficult to stay current. For an up to date list of all MRC accreditations, click here.

Transparency and trust are fundamental to measurement, and they’re fundamental to our strategy for giving marketers and publishers the metrics and insights they need to make better decisions. A solid foundation has been created, but there is much more work to do. In 2017, we’ll continue to seek ways to raise the bar on transparent and trustworthy measurement, and we welcome your partnership along the way.

Posted by Babak Pahlavan
Senior Director of Product Management, Analytics Solutions and Measurement, Google

Building better experiences is the subject of the discussion at the annual EMEA DoubleClick Leadership Summit that kicked off yesterday at Google’s European headquarters in Dublin. And key to building a better consumer experience is reaching consumers with more precise and relevant marketing.

Today we’re excited to announce new DoubleClick precision marketing innovations that allow more relevant marketing for consumers, and that allow marketers to reach and measure their audiences across screens, programmatically, in a brand-safe and verifiable way.

Buy app inventory with more control.

Building better experiences means, in part, ensuring that your brand is present where and when you intend it to be. We know brand safety and control are important to advertisers, and we continue to develop tools that both safeguard your brand as well as help you reach the most relevant audiences for your message.

Sensitive category classifiers, now available in DoubleClick Bid Manager, let you specify categories of apps to exclude based on their fit for your brand. And coming soon to both DoubleClick Bid Manager and DoubleClick Campaign Manager, app verification will provide you with greater insight around the apps your ads ran in, so you can understand where and how your brand appeared. (DoubleClick Bid Manager users can learn more about our brand safety capabilities here.)

Understand the impact to your brand across screens.

An important part of building better experiences is understanding when users see your ads, wherever they may be.

Active View measurement is rolling out for apps in DoubleClick Campaign Manager and DoubleClick Bid Manager, so you can understand when consumers see your app ads. Brands like Bank of Montreal have already seen the benefits of using Active View in DoubleClick to measure viewability across the web, and these insights are now available for display and video app inventory.

Lastly, we’re announcing a new JavaScript API in Google Chrome, called Intersection Observer, which provides viewability measurement for your mobile and desktop web placements without the need for Flash. Built directly into the Chrome Browser, Intersection Observer improves viewability coverage for all video and display formats across screens by solving technical challenges associated with mobile viewability measurement. It also provides faster browsing and less battery drain, improving the consumer experience.

These innovations help marketers reach consumers with more precise and relevant marketing, enabling better user experiences across all screens for better results.

Posted by Steve Chang
Product Manager, DoubleClick

In February, we announced that DoubleClick Digital Marketing, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and the Google Display Network are going 100% HTML5. Starting June 30th, 2016, display ads built in Flash can no longer be uploaded into DoubleClick Campaign Manager, DoubleClick Bid Manager, or AdWords.

DoubleClick advertisers who currently use Flash ads in their campaigns have several ways to ensure your creative can continue to show up in your live campaigns. Read more here.

Posted by Becky Chappell
Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

Cross-post from the Google Analytics blog.

On the Google Analytics team, we believe a primary goal of analytics is to make your marketing smarter. It should help you understand your customer’s journey, gain and share insights, and create an engaging experience for your audience.

But just as your organization can’t achieve these goals in a silo, neither can your website analytics data. Your customer’s journey includes both their experience with your marketing campaigns as well as their experience on your sites and apps. So you need complete data, connected from marketing through to site experience, to actually gain insight and deliver a great customer experience.

Analytics 360, part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite, is proud to provide this type of end-to-end understanding with our existing AdWords integrations. Beginning today, we are now offering this same capability with the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform. In addition to our existing integration with DoubleClick Campaign Manager^*, you can now view user engagement information for users acquired through DoubleClick Bid Manager^* and DoubleClick Search^* campaigns directly within Analytics 360. It’s super easy to connect your Analytics 360 account to DoubleClick Digital Marketing and there’s no implementation work needed (e.g. no site or campaign re-tagging).

With these new capabilities, marketers using Analytics 360 are better able to see the customer journey from when a customer was exposed to their marketing campaigns all the way through to that customer’s eventual purchase on their site (or lack thereof). User engagement with your site can be analyzed for both users who viewed an ad (view-through) and for users who clicked on an ad (click-through). View-through information is especially important for display, video, and mobile because users often view these ads and then visit the website later rather than clicking directly on the ad.

Companies like Panasonic are already using our integrations with marketing media to improve their return on investment (ROI) from digital marketing campaigns. With the Analytics 360 ads integrations, Panasonic was able to aggregate all digital campaign data into one platform to gain insight about their customers. They then shared these insights back to their media tools to better find engaged audiences and provide those audiences with the right experience at the right moment, driving an ROI increase of 30%.

In light of these latest integrations with Google ad technologies, we wanted to take a moment to discuss the two capabilities we enable across all our ads integrations that help you achieve smarter marketing: 1) understanding the customer and their journey and 2) creating relevant experiences for users.

Understanding the customer and their journey

They saw and / or clicked on your ad and arrived on your site. But who are they? What happened next? Did they bounce immediately? Did they research specific products? Did they sign up for your newsletter? What were the users who interacted with your digital marketing doing on your site? Ads integrations with Analytics 360 can help you answer these questions and more, for example:

• You are launching a new product and start running display and search advertising campaigns to attract customers. You find that one campaign has a low conversion rate and you’re considering deprecating it. But you review your site analytics data for this campaign and find that some specific ad exchanges and certain keywords are driving many new users to your site. And some of these exchanges and keywords are driving new users who are highly engaged — they view a lot of product detail pages and spend a lot of time on your site. So, instead of shutting down the campaign, you refine the targeting for the ads in this campaign to focus more on the ad exchanges and the keywords that drive engaged new users to your site. Then, you create a remarketing campaign to bring these engaged new users back to your site for purchase.


• One of your campaigns drives a lot of click and view-throughs, but has a low conversion rate. Analysis in Analytics 360 reveals that most users bounce immediately, but a certain segment who click on or view that ad (e.g. women aged 18-35) have a really high conversion rate. You refine the messaging and creative in your ads, adjust where these ads are served, and bid higher in order to find and attract more of this high-performing audience.

Creating relevant experiences for users

User behavior on your site can tell you a lot about them and what they’re interested in. Shouldn’t you use that information to inform your marketing strategy? Some examples:

• You run a shopping site and have users who spend a lot of time looking at an item or even put that item in their cart, but don’t end up purchasing. At the end of the season, the clothes on your site go on sale. You create remarketing campaigns to these users who showed interest but never purchased letting them know that the item they were interested in is now on sale.


• You are a cable company and you’d like to offer your new online streaming HDTV service to existing customers who subscribe to your high speed Internet plan. You create remarketing ads for customers who have the high speed plan, driving higher lifetime value for these customers.

These are just a few examples of how analytics data can blend with campaign data to create real value for both companies and for their customers. It's a win-win — customers get marketing that is truly relevant to them, and companies put their marketing dollars to work with the customers who are most likely to be interested.

Visit the Google Analytics 360 Suite Help Center to learn more about our new integrations with DoubleClick Bid Manager and DoubleClick Search. You can also learn about our existing integrations DoubleClick Campaign Manager and with AdWords. Stay tuned for more updates from Analytics 360 as we continue to invest in new and exciting capabilities. Happy analyzing!

Posted by Abhi Aggarwal and Jocelyn Whittenburg
Google Analytics team

^{*Note: Must be a Google Analytics 360 customer to view these links.}

E-commerce in Brazil has grown 20+% year over year for the last five years¹. In this highly competitive environment, choosing the right advertising partner is a critical strategic decision for a retail brand to ensure their message breaks through.

Netshoes is the world's largest sports retailer, selling everything from basketball shoes to fitness gear across all of Latin America. Historically they have been deeply focused on performance advertising, and at times have used up to 8 different advertising platforms and retargeters at once in search of the best results.

But recently, Netshoes decided this approach wasn't giving them the best results. They found they were competing against themselves by bidding for the same audience with multiple ad providers, driving costs up and ROI down. When they consolidated their media buys across display and video with DoubleClick Bid Manager, the results speak for themselves:

• 400% better conversion rate than with other channels.
• 30% view rate on TrueView video ads, with CPVs lower than the market average.
• 15% time savings across the Netshoes media buying team.

"The results we get from DoubleClick are simply much better than those from other partners in our past"
—Danilo Mangini, Marketing Manager, Netshoes

Learn more about Netshoes’ approach in the full case study.

Posted by Kelly Cox Product Marketing Manager, Google

^{1 Source: e-bit Webshoppers}

Just a few weeks ago we announced the release of comScore vCE in DoubleClick, the first completely tagless GRP measurement solution integrated directly into an ad server. With comScore vCE in DoubleClick, Brand Marketers in the US get the trusted comScore audience measurement solution for both video and display ads that delivers 100% coverage.

Register now for a webinar on October 21st at 11am PST / 2pm EST, where you’ll be joined by Anne Hunter, SVP Global Marketing Strategy at comScore, Inc. and Paul Trieu, Product Manager at Google, to learn about:

• How reach, demographics and GRPs can help enhance campaign success
• Share practical tips for enabling comScore vCE in DoubleClick in DoubleClick Bid Manager and DoubleClick Campaign Manager
• Unveil best practices on using comScore vCE in DoubleClick to measure campaigns
• Perform a demo of the new simple and easy to read reports
• Host Q&A

Posted by Anish Kattukaran Product Marketing, Video Platforms & Brand Measurement, Google

Mobile has forever changed the way we live, and it’s forever changed what we expect of brands. It’s fractured the consumer journey into hundreds of real-time, intent-driven micro-moments. Each one is a critical opportunity for brands to shape our decisions and preferences. In these I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go consumer moments, people are turning to mobile apps, in addition to websites, to find what they need.

Given this consumer shift, companies from industries as diverse as Finance, Retail and Travel have jumped into the game, building branded app experiences to engage with their customers. So it’s important that marketers be able to measure and attribute their app-related activities, whether installs, engagement, or purchases, back to their advertising campaigns.

That’s why, today, we’re excited to announce the ability to integrate app install and event data from key third party measurement partners into DoubleClick. Working with third parties (starting with TUNE) we are able to increase the measurement accuracy between different app attribution trackers and DoubleClick, ensuring your data is accurate and reliable.

With this launch, marketers can now use supported third party measurement partners to attribute in-app activities back to the in-app ads they have run through DoubleClick, enabling them to reach their performance goals as they acquire new app customers.

This launch provides customers with:

• Choice: Use one of several (supported*) app tracking tools, while still accurately attributing installs to your DoubleClick ad campaigns.
• Accuracy: Get reliable and accurate metrics so you can report on your results with confidence, while getting the benefits of a unified view of all your programmatic or reservation app attribution data inside DoubleClick reporting.
• Better performance: Minimize cost-per-acquisition to get the best performance for your budget. You can optimize your bids in DoubleClick Bid Manager against your post-view and post-click conversions. You can also create targetable audience lists based on these in-app activities (e.g. customers who’ve installed your app or customers who’ve logged in).

By allowing more choice to advertisers using their preferred third party app measurement tools, we are able to provide more robust and actionable metrics for marketers running mobile app install campaigns on DoubleClick.

To get started with this feature, please follow the directions here for DoubleClick Bid Manager, and here for DoubleClick Campaign Manager (accessible by customers only.)

Posted by Steve Chang
Product Manager, DoubleClick Digital Marketing

*At launch, this feature supports a verified integration with TUNE. Verified support for other third party app trackers is expected to launch later this year.

Need to beat the heat? Set aside time this summer to catch up on DoubleClick Campaign Manager training. We offer cool ways to learn like DCM Academy, a role-based learning path to help you learn based on how you use the product. We also offer Fundamentals eLearning and live webinars covering Reporting, Event Tags, Attribution, and more. And don’t miss our New Features Webinar to learn about the latest product releases.

Register today and find upcoming webinars via the Training page in the DCM or DFA Help Centers (sign-in required).

Start with DCM Fundamentals eLearning

Are you an ad trafficker, analyst, or media planner who needs to learn the basics? Try DCM Fundamentals eLearning and Certification to learn key DoubleClick Campaign Manager concepts. If you need an introduction to the fundamentals and want to learn best practices, this is the place to begin.

Pass the exam and get a certificate of completion demonstrating your knowledge of DoubleClick Campaign Manager. Register

Join a DoubleClick Campaign Manager webinar

If you want to learn about DoubleClick Campaign Manager in a live setting, register for an upcoming training webinar.

DFA6 to DCM for Existing Users – 7/2, 7/9, 7/22, 8/13, 9/17
Upgrading to DoubleClick campaign Manager? Learn about the latest features and key functionality and workflow differences compared to DFA6. 

DCM Fundamentals – 8/12 (North America), 7/9, 8/13 and 9/10 (Asia-Pacific)
If you want a live webinar experience to support the DCM Fundamentals eLearning, join this 2.5 hour session to learn how third-party ad serving works along with the steps for setting up Floodlight and trafficking your first campaign. This session also touches on remarketing. 

Campaign Trafficking Demo – 7/16, 8/6, and 9/3
Join our product trainer for a walkthrough of how to create a campaign and assign campaign elements. 

Prerequisites: This session is a companion to DCM Fundamentals, and assumes that you’ve taken the DCM eLearning and Certification (or attended the DCM Fundamentals webinar). Before attending, make sure you know how DoubleClick Campaign Manager defines a campaign, placement, ad, and creative. 

DCM New Features Webinar – 7/8
Join our product trainer for a walkthrough of the latest product features.

Advanced webinars
In these webinars, we’ll discuss featured topics to help you more effectively manage your campaigns. Before attending, make sure you’re familiar with basic reporting and DFA6/DoubleClick Campaign Manager concepts.

Reporting Basics – 7/10, 8/14, and 9/11
Learn how to run reports in Report Builder, and slice and dice data in the Summary tab (dashboard view). Get a demo of Reporting as well as how to pull common reports, including Standard/Performance, Reach, and Floodlight.

Understanding Event Tags – 8/7
Learn about the Event Tags, a DCM feature that helps you to apply 4th party impression and click pixels to your creatives. This webinar will cover Event Tag creation, application and site whitelist/blacklisting.

Reporting: Attribution – 8/28
In this session, you’ll learn about the attribution options available in Reporting, and uses for Multi-channel funnels, Attribution, and Modeling. This session is also helpful if you’re upgrading from DFA to DCM and want to expand your knowledge of what the Reporting tool offers.

Prerequisites: Make sure you’re familiar with ad trafficking in DFA6 or DoubleClick Campaign Manager before attending these sessions. If you’re not, attend the Fundamentals webinar first.

DFA webinars
Still using DFA6? That’s okay, we still offer webinar training! Get trained online with DFA Fundamentals eLearning and Certification (eLearnings and exams available in Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, and more). We also offer webinars for DFA6 Fundamentals and MediaVisor.

DFA Fundamentals – 7/30 and 9/10
Join this webinar if you're using DFA6 and are new to third-party ad serving. This webinar mainly focuses on the basics of ad trafficking, but also touches briefly on Floodlight tags and DFA Reporting. 

MediaVisor Fundamentals – 8/5
Learn the most common uses of MediaVisor, including how to plan and create campaigns, advertisers, and site placements. You’ll also learn how to send RFPs and IOs, as well as how to traffic placements from MediaVisor to DFA.

Running into a scheduling conflict? Check out the pre-recorded webinars and training videos in the DCM Help Center, and DFA Help Centers – you might find a pre-recorded session ready to watch.

Don’t forget to sign up for the DoubleClick Digest to get the latest DoubleClick news, research, events, and product updates!

Posted by Sarah Payne, DoubleClick Campaign Manager Product Trainer

Video is how brands tell stories, how they surprise us, make us laugh or make us cry. No other medium brings together sight, sound and motion, and now with digital, interaction. As I’ve said for a while, our goal is to make digital work for brands. To do that, we have to make online video work for brands and their publisher partners, a topic I’ll be addressing this morning at our annual DoubleClick customer event. 

Introducing Google Partner Select, A Programmatic Premium Video Marketplace

Publishers are investing like never before in compelling, high quality video experiences. Brand marketers are eager to buy against this content -- in fact eMarketer projects video ad spending to grow from $4 billion last year to nearly $6 billion in 2014. One big hurdle to growth remains, though: much of this content is hard to access. 

Our brands and agencies want to buy this premium content programmatically, but have difficulty finding the high quality inventory they want. Our publisher partners also want to take advantage of the ease and efficiency of programmatic to connect with top brands, but with transparency and control over how that happens. In order to grow the marketplace for everyone, we need to invest in the systems that will make it easier for brands and premium publishers to transact at scale. 

As a step towards that goal, today we are introducing Google Partner Select, bringing together the best of brand with the best of programmatic. This new premium programmatic marketplace will connect a select set of publishers investing in top-quality video with the brands that want to buy against it. 

What we’re most pleased about is the reaction to Partner Select that we’re getting from clients:

“As a longtime Google partner, we are excited about what this marketplace has to offer. Video is the fuel for effective brand marketing and having more top quality video content available programmatically is going to open up all sorts of new possibilities for brand clients,” said Josh Jacobs, Global CEO, Accuen & President, Platforms and Partnerships, Omnicom Media Group. “That’s what Google is looking to accomplish with this marketplace and we look forward to working with them as it evolves.”

“Video has become central to our strategy, and being able to sell premium video programmatically to top brand partners is a requirement in this dynamic marketplace,” said J.R. McCabe SVP, Video, Time Inc. “We are looking forward to working with Google to enable this technology and to develop this premium marketplace.” 

Partner Select helping marketers and publishers also requires having the right buying technologies in place. Along with Google Partner Select, we’re introducing a way for marketers and publishers to execute direct, reservation-based sales through the DoubleClick platform. This new option is meant to help streamline what today can be a cumbersome process, involving days of back-and-forth negotiations, dozens of phone calls and sometimes, yes, a fax machine. We hope brands and publishers will be able to spend less time on logistics and more time building partnerships and winning creative and content.

I’m inspired every day by the rich experiences that brands and publishers are creating. Together with our partners, we can make digital a medium where brands, agencies and publishers can flourish. 

To hear more of our thoughts on this, join us for our livestream here. 

-- Posted by, Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display and Video Advertising Products, Google

Spring is in bloom in most places, trees and flowers are growing (or at least the snow is melting), and more agencies and marketers are upgrading! It’s the perfect season to learn and master DoubleClick Campaign Manager based on your role and how you use the product. We offer multiple learning options, from the basics to more advanced topics like In-Stream Video, Attribution, and more – so come check us out!

Register for the eLearning and see upcoming webinars via the Training page in the DCM or DFA Help Centers (sign-in required).

Start with DCM Academy and Fundamentals eLearning

Are you an ad trafficker, analyst, or media planner just getting started? Try DCM Academy for easy-to-use learning paths that guide you through core Help Center articles and online training material, including the recently-launched DCM Fundamentals eLearning and Certification. 

Pass the exam and get a printable certificate of completion demonstrating your knowledge of DoubleClick Campaign Manager.

Join a DoubleClick Campaign Manager webinar

Whether you’re starting to upgrade to DCM or you’ve already made the move, attend these webinars to better understand and use the product.

DCM Fundamentals – 4/29 and 6/10
Similar to the eLearning, this 2.5 hour webinar will teach you everything from how third-party ad serving works to the steps needed to set up Floodlight tags and traffic your first campaign. This session also touches on Remarketing. Attend this webinar if you need an introduction to the fundamentals and want to learn best practices.

DFA6 to DCM for Existing Users – 4/2, 4/16, 4/30, 5/14, 5/28, 6/11, 6/25
Learn what's changed in DoubleClick Campaign Manager. Get a demo of the key differences compared to DFA6. Attend this webinar if you’ve been using DFA6 and want to know about functionality and workflow differences between DFA and DoubleClick Campaign Manager before you upgrade.  

Campaign Trafficking Demo – 4/9, 5/7, and 6/4
Join our product trainer for a live walk through of how to create a campaign and assign campaign elements.

Prerequisites: This session is a companion to the DCM Fundamentals eLearning, and assumes that attendees have taken the DCM eLearning and Certification or attended the DCM Fundamentals webinar. Before attending, you should already know how DoubleClick Campaign Manager defines a campaign, placement, ad, and creative.

Advanced webinars

In these webinars, we’ll discuss featured topics to help you more effectively manage your campaigns. Before attending, make sure you’re familiar with basic reporting and DFA6/DoubleClick Campaign Manager concepts.

Understanding In-Stream Video – 4/17
In this session, you'll learn the basics of trafficking In-Stream Video creatives in DCM.

Reporting: Report Builder – 4/3, 5/1, and 6/5
Learn how to run reports in Report Builder, and slice and dice data in the Summary tab (dashboard view). Get a demo of Reporting along with how to pull common reports, including Standard/Performance, Reach, and Floodlight.

Reporting: Attribution – 5/15
In this session, you’ll learn about the attribution options available in Reporting, and uses for Multi-channel funnels, Attribution, and Modeling. This session is also helpful if you’re upgrading from DFA to DCM and want to expand your knowledge of what the Reporting tool offers.

Prerequisites: Users should have familiarity with ad trafficking in DFA6 or DoubleClick Campaign Manager before attending these sessions. If you’re not familiar with DoubleClick Campaign Manager or DFA6, attend the Fundamentals webinar session first.

DFA webinars

Still using DFA6? That’s okay, we still offer plenty of training! Get trained online with DFA Fundamentals eLearning and Certification (eLearnings available in Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, and more). We also offer webinars for DFA6 Fundamentals and MediaVisor.

DFA Fundamentals – 4/23 and 6/4
DFA Fundamentals is the first step if you’re new to third-party ad serving and DFA6. This webinar mainly focuses on the basics of ad trafficking, but also touches briefly on Floodlight tags and DFA Reporting.

MediaVisor Fundamentals – 4/22 and 6/17
Learn the most common uses of MediaVisor, including how to plan and create campaigns, advertisers, and site placements. You’ll also learn how to send RFPs and IOs, as well as how to traffic placements from MediaVisor to DFA.

Some sessions mention prerequisites where we recommend background knowledge. Be sure to note these to get the most out of each session. Lastly, be aware of any regional time differences before enrolling in any live sessions.

Running into a scheduling conflict? Check out the pre-recorded webinars in the DCM Help Center, and the DFA Help Center – you might find a pre-recorded session ready to watch.

Don’t forget to sign up for the DoubleClick Digest to get the latest DoubleClick news, research, events, and product updates!

Posted by Sarah Payne, DoubleClick Campaign Manager Product Trainer

Advertising helps fund the digital world we love today -- inspiring videos, informative websites, entertaining apps and services that connect us with friends around the world. But this vibrant ecosystem only flourishes if marketers can buy media online with the confidence that their ads are reaching real people, that results they see are based on actual interest. To grow the pie for everyone, we need to take head on the issue of online fraud.

This is a fight we’ve taken seriously from the beginning. Over the years, we’ve invested significantly in the technology and talent to prevent fraud and create greater accountability online. For example, we put extensive resources towards keeping bad actors out of our ad systems -- last year alone, we turned down millions of applications from sites looking to join our network because of suspected fraudulent activity. We also introduced new measurement tools, like MRC-accredited Active View, which lets advertisers buy only those ads that are viewable on a page. Active View offers greater peace of mind to all media buyers, but is especially important for brand marketers who want to know, first and foremost, that their ad has a chance to be seen.

Today we’re announcing our latest investment: we’ve completed an acquisition of spider.io, a company that has spent the past 3 years building a world-class ad fraud fighting operation.

Our immediate priority is to include their fraud detection technology in our video and display ads products, where they will complement our existing efforts. Over the long term, our goal is to improve the metrics that advertisers and publishers use to determine the value of digital media and give all parties a clearer, cleaner picture of what campaigns and media are truly delivering strong results. Also, by including spider.io’s fraud fighting expertise in our products, we can scale our efforts to weed out bad actors and improve the entire digital ecosystem.

Of course, this is not an issue we’re fighting alone. We applaud industry efforts like the IAB’s Traffic of Good Intent (TOGI) task force, which also play a critical role, as well as major commitments from others in the space. As an industry, we can address this issue and block those who seek to game the system. We can make digital the platform of choice for all marketers -- including brands -- to invest. And we can offer accountable media for all; we’re excited to take this big next step.


Posted by Neal Mohan, VP, Display Advertising

With the new year, now is the perfect time to learn the DCM interface and dive into the new workflow. Whether you're upgrading or haven't yet used DCM, we offer multiple ways for you to learn the basics, and learn about advanced training topics.

Take a look at our upcoming DCM and DFA webinars and enroll through the Training page in the DCM or DFA Help Centers (sign-in required).

DCM webinars
Whether you’re upgrading to DCM or have already upgraded, attend these webinars to better understand and use DCM.

DCM Fundamentals – 2/12, 2/26 and 3/12
Designed for new DCM users, this webinar will teach you everything from how 3rd party ad-serving works to how to set up Floodlight tags and traffic your first campaign. This session also touches on Remarketing. Attend this webinar if you need an introduction to the fundamentals of DCM and want to learn best practices.

DFA6 to DCM for Existing Users – 2/5, 2/19, 3/5, and 3/19
Learn what's changed in DCM. Get a demo of the key differences in DCM compared to DFA6. Attend this webinar if you’ve been using DFA6 and want to know about functionality and workflow differences between DFA and DCM before you upgrade. 

Reporting: Report Builder – 2/6 and 3/6
Learn how to run reports in Report Builder, and slice and dice data in the Summary tab (dashboard view). Get a demo of Report Builder (Reporting) as well as how to pull common reports (Standard/Performance, Reach, and Floodlight). This training also covers the differences between Report Builder and ReportCentral.

This session is designed for users with a basic knowledge of DFA6 or DCM. If you’re not familiar with DCM or DFA, attend the Fundamentals webinar session first.

Advanced webinars
In these webinars, experts will discuss featured topics to help you more effectively manage your campaigns in DCM. Before attending, users should be familiar with basic reporting and DFA6/DCM concepts.

Understanding Ads and Creatives: Properties – 1/23
In this session, you'll learn about the properties of your ads, including priority, delivery goals, creative rotation, and targeting. This will also cover creative labeling, which can be used to isolate and view the performance of similar creative messages in reporting.

Understanding Event Tags – 2/27, 3/20
This session addresses the new Event Tags feature in DCM, which helps you to apply 4th party impression and click pixels to your creatives in DCM. Learn about Event Tag creation, application and site whitelist/blacklisting.

Understanding Remarketing – 3/13
This session will cover the use of remarketing in DCM, including the creation of remarketing lists and the use of those lists for the purpose of targeting ads in DCM.

Reporting: Attribution – 2/20
In this session, you’ll learn about the attribution options available in Reporting. Get a look at uses for Multi-channel funnels, Attribution, and Modeling. This session is also helpful if you’re upgrading from DFA to DCM to expand knowledge of what the Reporting tool offers.

DFA webinars
Still using DFA6? No worries! Get trained online with our DFA Fundamentals eLearning (available in Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, and Swedish, Italian, and more). We also offer webinars for both DFA6 Fundamentals and MediaVisor.

DFA Fundamentals – 1/21, 2/19, 2/26, and 3/26
Learn the basics of trafficking in DFA6. The bulk of the session focuses on ad trafficking, but touches briefly on Floodlight tags and DFA Reporting. DFA Fundamentals is the first step if you’re new to third-party ad serving and DFA.

MediaVisor Fundamentals – 2/11 and 3/11
Learn the most common uses of MediaVisor, including how to plan and create campaigns, advertisers, and site placements. You’ll also learn how to send RFPs and IOs, as well as how to traffic placements from MediaVisor to DFA.

Some sessions mention prerequisites where we recommend background knowledge. Be sure to note these to make sure you get the most out of each session. Lastly, be aware of any regional time differences before enrolling in any of the live sessions.

Running into a scheduling conflict? Check out the pre-recorded webinars in the DCM Help Center as well as the DFA Help Center – you might be able to find a pre-recorded session ready to watch.

Don’t forget to sign up for the DoubleClick Digest to get the latest DoubleClick news, research, events and product updates!

Posted by Sarah Payne, DCM Product Trainer

A few months ago, we launched the new version of DFA - DoubleClick Campaign Manager - globally.

The launch coincided with DFA’s 15th anniversary, so we wanted to use this opportunity to hear from some of our longtime partners. Surely, the world has changed since the early days of DFA, 15 years ago. With new opportunities to reach consumers in more ways than ever, come many new challenges for digital marketers. And marketing platforms must continuously evolve to meet the demands of a shifting and ever-growing industry. 

We asked industry leaders Kurt Unkel, President of Product & Solutions at VivaKi, Megan Moldovan, Director of Platform Logistics at Annalect, and Angelina Eng, VP of Digital Media Ops at Carat what they value in a platform in this day and age, and how DoubleClick has evolved to address those needs. Here’s what they told us:

• Efficiency, reliability, and simplicity are crucial to helping marketers streamline the campaign management process. Kurt Unkel said, ”What we get with DoubleClick that we struggle to see anywhere else is simplicity - the ability to integrate a lot of disparate technologies into a common stack. That’s something that really makes a difference in our business, because it allows us to focus on the bigger, strategic things.”
• Marketers need integration across channels and screens, and to be able to track and execute across their efforts within one system. Angelina Eng notes, “When we talk about all of these different things that are coming out - verification, video, mobile - how do make that work all together? A company that’s embracing that is one that we want to work with.” 
• Platforms must help marketers gain more actionable insights and act on them in real-time. “We have almost too much data at our disposal,” Megan Moldovan tells us, “and it can sometimes be hard to sift through all of that information and understand what it really means, and particularly understand what everything means when you look at it together.”

With DoubleClick, we are investing in tools to help your digital teams work more efficiently to maximize your results across channels and screens. 

In the coming weeks and months we will deep dive into many of the new product features available in DoubleClick Campaign Manager. Stay tuned to the blog to learn about the new tools that will simplify digital, help you engage across channels, and enable better decisions.

If you’re an existing DFA customer, reach out to your account manager about upgrading to DoubleClick Campaign Manager today. You can stay on top of new updates by following us on our Google+ page.

With the recent DoubleClick Campaign Manager announcement, now is a great time to learn the about the basics in our DCM Fundamentals webinar.  For those who have already started the move, we also have a webinar focused on helping you prepare for upgrading to DCM.

Take a look at our upcoming DCM and DFA webinars and enroll through the Training page in our Help Center (sign-in required).

DCM Fundamentals - 10/23, 11/20, and 12/11

This webinar is intended for new users to DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM). It will provide an introduction to the fundamentals of DCM (Trafficking) and offer best practices for beginners.

DFA6 to DCM for Existing Users - 10/9, 10/17, 11/6, and 12/3

This webinar will focus on the differences between DFA6 and DCM functionality (i.e. what to watch out for when your account is upgraded). Ideal for clients that have been using DFA and will be upgrading to DCM (DoubleClick Campaign Manager) soon.

Reporting: Report Builder - 10/31 and 12/5

Learn how to run reports in Report Builder, and slice and dice data in the Summary tab (dashboard view). This session is designed for users with a basic knowledge of DFA6 or DCM.

If you’re not familiar with DCM or DFA, attend the Fundamentals webinar session first.

Reporting: Attribution - 10/17, 11/14, and 12/19

In this session, you’ll get a deep dive on the Attribution tab in DFA Reporting. Get a look at uses for Multi-channel funnels, Attribution, and Modeling. This session is also helpful for those upgrading from DFA to DCM to expand knowledge of what the Reporting tool offers.

If you’re not familiar with Report Builder, we suggest attending the Report Builder webinar first.

DFA Fundamentals - 10/16, 10/30, 11/13, 12/4, and 12/18

Learn the basics of trafficking in DFA6. The bulk of the session focuses on ad trafficking, but touches briefly on Floodlight tags and DFA Reporting. DFA Fundamentals is the first step if you’re new to third-party ad serving and DFA.

MediaVisor Fundamentals - 10/15, 11/19, and 12/17

Learn the most common uses of MediaVisor, including how to plan and create campaigns, advertisers, and site placements. You’ll also learn how to send RFPs and IOs, as well as how to traffic placements from MediaVisor to DFA.

Some sessions mention prerequisites where we recommend background knowledge. Please take note of these to ensure you get the most out of each session. Lastly, be aware of any regional time differences before enrolling in any of the live sessions.

Excited about a webinar but running into a scheduling conflict? Be sure to check out pre-recorded webinars in the DCM Help Center as well as the DFA Help Center – you might be able to find a session already recorded and ready to watch.

Still on DFA6? Get trained online with our DFA Fundamentals eLearning (also available in Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, and Swedish!) and live webinar sessions.

Don’t forget to Sign up to receive the latest news, product updates, features, tips, and research information from DoubleClick!

Posted by Jessica Osborne, DFA Product Trainer

When you’re in display advertising, school is always in session. And now is is the perfect time to build your skills!

We’ve heard from DFA users that they need more customized learning based on how they use DFA. For example, if you’re an ad trafficker, you might need a broad understanding ranging from the basics all the way to troubleshooting. If you’re an analyst, you might not need to know all the details a media planner might be responsible for but you might still like to know how conversion data is tracked and counted.

To help you learn through a more established, role-based curriculum, we’ve launched DFA Academy, an easy-to-use, self-paced learning path designed to guide you through core help articles and online training courses.

DFA Academy includes these checklists:

• Basics for new users: The core curriculum, including DFA Fundamentals eLearning and certification
• Implementation guide: Learn how to implement a new DFA account or advertiser
• QA and troubleshooting: It’s not shop class, but you’ll learn all about QA’ing tags, creatives, and more
• Advanced topics: Become an expert through DFA Personal Trainer for Advanced Users, learn about integrations with DoubleClick Bid Manager, Google Tag Manager, and other topics
• Rich Media: When Rich Media isn’t an extracurricular activity, learn tips and best practices for trafficking DoubleClick Rich Media in your DFA account

Since DFA Academy covers a lot of material, we've set it up in checklist format so you can track progress by checking the boxes at the end of each step. Your progress will be saved so if you have to take a break, you can come back anytime and pick up where you left off.

Whether you're a freshman ad trafficker new to display, an analyst on the Dean’s list, or a Media planner feeling like a 5th year student, you can find customized training based on your role to help you ace DFA.

Keep in mind, the DFA Help Center is only available to current DFA users so you'll need to sign in with the Google account you use for DFA.

Want extra credit? Be sure to also sign up for the DoubleClick Digest to get the latest DoubleClick news, research, events and product updates.

Posted by Sarah Payne, DFA Product Trainer

Summer... a time for cookouts, pool parties, road trips, and DoubleClick training.  Whether you're new to display advertising or just need a refresher with certain DFA features, you can find a variety of training sessions to help you beat the heat. Here’s a look at our upcoming webinars:

DFA Fundamentals

In this webinar, you’ll learn the basics of trafficking in DFA6. The bulk of the session focuses on ad trafficking, but touches briefly on Floodlight tags and DFA Reporting. DFA Fundamentals is the first step if you’re new to Third-party ad serving and DFA.

Register: North America or Asia/Pacific

We also offer online eLearning and Certfication.

Reporting: Report Builder

In this session, you’ll learn how to run reports in Report Builder, and slice and dice data in the Summary tab (dashboard view). This session is designed for users with a basic knowledge of DFA6.

Register: North America / Europe

If you’re not familiar with DFA6, attend the DFA Fundamentals eLearning or webinar session first.

Reporting: Attribution

This session covers the Attribution tab in DFA Reporting. Get a look at uses for Multi-channel funnels, Attribution, and Modeling. This session is also helpful for those upgrading from DFA to DCM to expand knowledge of what the Reporting tool offers.

Register: North America

If you’re not familiar with Report Builder, attend the Report Builder webinar session first.

MediaVisor Fundamentals

Learn the most common uses of MediaVisor, including how to plan and create campaigns, advertisers, and site placements. You’ll also learn how to send RFPs and IOs, as well as how to traffic placements from MediaVisor to DFA.

Register: North America

Some sessions mention prerequisites where we recommend background knowledge. Be sure to take note of these to make sure you get the most out of each session. And, Be sure to note any regional designations before enrolling in any of the courses.

Visit the DFA Help Center to enroll in our free webinars and eLearning and certification. While you’re there, check out our pre-recorded webinars too.

Our webinars and training options can help you achieve display advertising mastery while staying cool this summer. Be sure to also sign up for the DoubleClick Digest to get the latest DoubleClick news, research, events and product updates.

Posted by Amanda Gangl, DFA Product Trainer

Since our launch of DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM) in October last year, we've been busy upgrading customers and adding new features to the platform. Today, we wanted to shine a light on the results advertisers are seeing after upgrading to DBM, and highlight some of the new capabilities that help them achieve these results.

A proven performance engine: An average 2.4x improvement in CPA

With DoubleClick Bid Manager, we are focused on helping advertisers maximize campaign performance. And it's paying off. Recent analysis shows advertisers who upgrade to DoubleClick Bid Manager from Invite Media see an average 2.4x improvement in performance - with conversion volumes rising, and CPAs declining, for identical campaigns that ran first on Invite Media, then on DBM (1).

In addition to lower CPAs, advertisers also saw more consistency in their CPA values with DoubleClick Bid Manager. As you can see from the CPA ranges below, advertisers not only saw a lower average CPA on DoubleClick Bid Manager, but CPAs also remained lower (2).

Powerful tools that maximize performance

With DoubleClick Bid Manager, we’ve made big investments to enable advertisers to run smarter, more efficient campaigns and achieve results like these. Below is a quick overview of some of the big bets we’ve made in this area since the launch of DBM:

A best-in-class algorithm. At the heart of programmatic buying is a prediction engine - powerful algorithms that ensure advertisers meet their goals, and at scale. Google’s 10+ years of experience in predictive technology inform how we build the algorithmic capabilities in DBM, allowing advertisers to pay exactly what the impression is worth to them, based on their unique goals. Today, our technology evaluates 20+ unique signals when determining optimal bid value, and we add additional parameters monthly, making it more and more precise over time.     

Real-time remarketing across your digital channels. DBM's integration with the DoubleClick Digital Marketing suite allows advertisers to manage remarketing lists and count conversions across all DoubleClick products with a single tag:

• Remarketing from DFA. Remarketing lists collected by the DFA Floodlight tag are ported directly and seamlessly into DBM for targeting -- improving cookie fidelity and potential reach.  Of course, for non-DFA advertisers, DBM provides full pixel creation, implementation and tracking capabilities.
• Remarketing from DoubleClick Search. Thanks to seamless integration with DoubleClick Search, advertisers can use display remarketing from search ads to remarket with display ads to users who clicked on their search ads. Read about Vivaki’s success using this feature.

Keyword contextual targeting.  Audience targeting has always been at the heart of programmatic buying as it evolved, helping advertisers reach their audience across the web, based on first party remarketing and robust third party audience data. However, studies show combining audience targeting with contextual targeting can result in better performance. In fact, 59% of US advertisers combine contextual and audience targeting in their display campaigns because it yields stronger performance than either alone (3).  

With DoubleClick Bid Manager, we doubled down on keyword contextual targeting (KCT), which helps advertisers reach their audience as they engage with content related to their products and services. Based on over 10 years of experience in semantic targeting technology, KCT was built to scan eligible web pages, extract relevant concepts and themes, and match that with advertisers messages in real-time.

We’re thrilled to share today these measured performance improvements for advertisers now using DoubleClick Bid Manager. Rebuilding a platform from the ground up is only worthwhile when customers see a marked improvement for their campaigns. Even though advertisers are already getting more value out of their media dollars on DoubleClick Bid Manager, the work is still not done. Our aggressive roadmap plans for even greater performance-driving functionality. To find out more about how you can take advantage of these media efficiencies and more, contact your sales representative.  

Posted by David Yaffe, Product Manager for DoubleClick Bid Manager

1. Internal DoubleClick data; Analysis based on a random sample of 143 campaigns across a global mix of advertisers who upgraded from Invite Media to DoubleClick Bid Manager. The analysis evaluated campaigns that started on Invite Media then upgraded and continued to run on DoubleClick Bid Manager. The analysis represents campaigns from a broad mix of industry verticals, managed- and self-service accounts and a healthy mix of marketing tactics -- remarketing, prospecting, algorithmic, contextual and more.

2.  CPA ranges represent a 95% confidence interval of the average 7-Day CPA on both Bid Manager and Invite Media. (n=143, p=.00006). This confidence interval provides insight into estimated range the actual 7-day CPA is likely to differ from the mean, a single point estimate of where the 7-day CPA is likely to be. Reader should interpret lower CPA as stronger performance.

3. “Display Media Buyers Value Audience in Context.” Forrester Consulting commissioned by Google, September 18, 2012.