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We’ve explained how Programmatic Guaranteed in DoubleClick Bid Manager and Native Ads in DoubleClick for Publishers help ensure your brand shows up in the right place and context. But once you’re present, you have to show a relevant, engaging message to each viewer. Today, we’re excited to launch three new mobile video formats for DoubleClick and a new Creative Preview App, to make it easier to deliver compelling experiences across screens.
Bring interactive video to mobile devices: Video Cue Points component in Google Web Designer
The Video Cue Points component, now available for download, allows developers to build an interactive video ad that looks like VPAID, except that the video runs directly within the display ad on mobile devices. Interactive HTML5 banners with video might take 2-3 weeks of developer time to hand code, but with Google Web Designer and our Video Cue Points component, it can take as little as 3-4 hours. 

“Teaser Reels” mobile video component in DoubleClick Studio
With Teaser Reels, you can easily create an HTML5 display ad with an autoplay video teaser. Imagine an interstitial between game levels or directly within mobile web content - a user sees the teaser video automatically and then can click to play the entire video on their device. This will be launching in mid-July, so check back on our help center for more details. (Studio login required)

New mobile in-app templates in Google Web Designer
Our mobile starter templates make it easy to create rich in-app experiences, such as this expandable HTML5 video unit, built by the creative agency Think Jam to promote the release of Warner Brother’s Hobbit film. Learn more about Google Web Designer templates here

The new Creative Preview App
Once you've built ads specifically designed for mobile, you'll want to preview them across device types to ensure the user experience is positive in every environment and size. We’ve launched the Creative Preview App, now available for Google Play and coming soon to iOS, which allows you to push mobile ads from DoubleClick Studio directly to your mobile device. Now you can preview and test mobile ads in an actual mobile environment. You can also test the exits in your ads to see reporting metrics come through in the DoubleClick Studio output console on your desktop. 
We’re working to make the process of building rich, engaging ads for every environment more seamless for brands and agencies, from creative authoring through to delivering the right ad to the right customer at the right time. 

Posted by Karin Hennessy, Product Manager, DoubleClick Creative Solutions

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At the DoubleClick Leadership Summit, we discussed the implications for brands, broadcasters and publishers of the shift from Primetime to All-the-time.

As part of our presentation, we focussed on four ways for brands to break through the noise and cut through the cross-screen complexity to drive more effective video advertising:
  • Be on the best screen for the moment
  • Connect and engage with every interaction
  • Buy smarter across every screen
  • Focus on impact not views

Read the article on the new DoubleClick.com to learn what each of these mean for advertisers, broadcasters and publishers?

-
Published by 
Rany Ng, Director of Product Management, Video & TV Advertising, Google
Anish Kattukaran, Product Marketing Manager, Video Platforms & Brand Measurement, Google

Posted:
Last week at the DoubleClick Leadership Summit, we announced the availability of Native Ads for Apps on our DoubleClick platforms. In this post, we’ll dive into the details of this new ad format and what it means for our clients.

The mobile revolution has changed the way we engage with content. We check our phones literally hundreds of times a day: to catch up with friends and family, read an article, or watch a video while waiting in line. In these moments, we believe ads have the best chance to be effective when they are placed with respect to a user’s context.

At Google, helping advertisers connect with the right audience in the right moments has been our aim from the beginning. From search ads complementing Google search results to TrueView ads on YouTube, we’ve found that the less disruptive we can make ads, the more open consumers are to them. That’s why we’re adding access to YouTube’s TrueView format and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets on DoubleClick Bid Manager, our programmatic platform. And now, we’re excited to help advertisers connect with publishers to bring rich native ad experiences to apps with our native ads solution in DoubleClick. 

Introducing Native Ads on DoubleClick
Native ads fit in with the look and feel of publisher content, enabling better, more effective ad experiences for users. Context is incredibly important on mobile, and that’s why over the next few weeks we’re rolling out our native ad solution for apps to DoubleClick for Publishers clients globally.
Native ads for apps in DFP provides publishers with the full flexibility needed to create seamless ad experiences for their users. Instead of serving a static banner ad, DFP delivers ad components (headline, image, links, etc) to a publisher’s app where they’re rendered into a native ad. By providing the building blocks of an ad, our native solution allows an advertiser to work with their DFP partners to create ads that are seamless with content, can take advantage of mobile features like swipe gestures and 3D animation, and can be adjusted to create beautiful ads for any device or screen size. 

Setting up native ads for apps with your DFP partners will be easy. Publishers that enable native ads will be able to offer two of the most popular mobile formats, app install ads or content ads, or create fully custom native ads by including any additional fields for DFP to send to their app.

Of course, it’s essential that native ads are clearly marked as advertising. Ads that trick users into clicking or are indistinguishable from content are bad for the whole ecosystem including users, advertisers, and publishers.

Native experiences are essential on mobile
When users pick up their phones it’s critical that they’re presented with a seamless ad experience. With native ads in DFP, publishers can maintain a beautiful user experience in their apps while providing brands an opportunity to reach their audience on mobile. Advertisers should reach out to their publisher partners to find out how they can use native ads to connect with their customers and reach them when they’re most receptive.

If you want to learn more about native ads in DoubleClick reach out to your account manager today. Also, visit the mobile solutions section of our website to see how DoubleClick can help you engage your audience on every screen. 

Posted by Josh Cohen, Senior Product Manager 

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Support for AdWords Upgraded URLs for all DoubleClick Search customers globally is now available. If you haven’t done so already, you must upgrade your URLs via the DoubleClick Search migration tool by July 1, 2015 to prevent any interruptions in managing your campaigns.

Pre-migration steps
Before upgrading URLs, review the migration checklist below. This is important to ensure tracking and campaign management capabilities.

After you complete the above steps, you're ready to migrate and complete a few post-migration tasks, described below.

Migrate by July 1, 2015
Once ready to migrate, refer to our Help Center to learn more about launching the migration directly from DoubleClick Search.
Migrations should be completed by July 1, 2015 to prevent issues with managing your keywords, ads, and sitelinks. As of July 1, 2015, AdWords will no longer allow the creation of new keywords, ads, sitelinks, or editing landing pages for accounts that haven't been migrated. These actions will result in trafficking errors when attempting to change the landing page and when trying to create new keywords, ads, or sitelinks.

If you’re unable to migrate your account before July 1, 2015, you will be able to do so after the deadline. Any errors due to updating landing pages you see in DoubleClick Search will be resolved and changes will be pushed to AdWords during the migration.

Post-migration steps
Once you’ve migrated to AdWords Upgraded URLs, you can use custom parameters to replace {copy} parameters in sitelinks (if applicable). Learn how.

If using DoubleClick Search placeholder keywords to track unsupported objects, see these instructions for further steps.

If you have any questions regarding the above, please contact your Account Manager, Ads Solutions Consultant, or email Customer Support via ds-support@google.com.


Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

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Last week at the DoubleClick Leadership Summit we announced several innovations designed to help advertisers and publishers thrive in a moments-driven world. In order to capture these moments, marketers are increasingly turning to programmatic buying to deliver the right experience to the right consumer, in real-time. We are pleased to share more details on two of the programmatic buying innovations we announced last week: Programmatic Guaranteed and Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager.

New Frontiers for Media Buying
Programmatic buying might be better known for helping marketers streamline the ad buying process with auction based buying but it certainly has evolved beyond these confines. As marketers continue to strive to get the content and the context right, programmatic direct has emerged as a way for brands to combine the efficiency of programmatic with traditional direct-to-publisher buys. The popularity of programmatic direct deals will continue to increase with eMarketer estimating that programmatic direct will account for 42% of digital display ads by 2016. In fact, over the last year across Google systems we’ve seen 2X YOY programmatic direct growth across desktop display and 3X YOY growth across mobile.

But to date programmatic direct deals haven’t included the reservation buys that make up a majority of marketers’ spend. Reservations are largely made in time-consuming, offline negotiations that can take up to 40 steps to complete. Advertisers not only find it difficult to optimize across different media buys but reservation buys also don’t allow marketers to set frequency caps to control for the saturation of ads to a viewer across programmatic and reservation media - resulting in a bad user experience and wasteful spending.

Introducing: Programmatic Guaranteed
Programmatic Guaranteed is a new deal type that allows advertisers to access guaranteed inventory on higher impact formats such as video and mobile rich media with programmatic targeting and frequency capping across all digital media. Marketers will be able to save media dollars by minimizing wasted impressions on users already reached, instead optimizing that budget to reach new users across all their buys. It is also possible to apply remarketing lists to reservation deals using first and third party data and to truly serve the right creative at the right time by reaching users based on where they are in the marketing funnel and not based on media type. We are currently piloting Programmatic Guaranteed, globally, and several clients are seeing great results.

"Programmatic Guaranteed is proving to be a powerful tool to drive full efficiency in the media buying process. In particular, it offers the opportunity to control each component of the media plan, at the same time, in a synergistic and systematic way. Programmatic Guaranteed represents a key application in relieving digital media planning from the time-consuming management process. Partnering with Google has allowed Amnet to test this cutting-edge solution and serve as an innovator and trend-setter in this space." -Massimo Fontana, Head of Amnet IT
"We see Programmatic Guaranteed as another important step to connect advertisers with premium publishers’ inventory. Google’s technology helps automate the buying and selling of premium inventory, which is important to ensure that we can deliver the best experience for our advertising and publisher partners”. -Darby Sieben, President of Mediative, a Yellow Pages Digital & Media Solutions Limited Division
Introducing: Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager
Even with all of this functionality, discovering the right kind of publishers and inventory can be cumbersome and difficult to scale. Marketers should be able manage all of these deal types simply and easily. That is why last week we were excited to announce the global alpha launch of Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager -- a shoppable storefront that will empower marketers to discover, negotiate and manage all their inventory from a single place. Advertisers will have greater visibility into publisher offerings, giving them a richer, more detailed discovery experience for all deal types, including Programmatic Guaranteed. Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager is currently in Alpha and will be more generally available by end of year.

Innovating for the future
If digital is the future of media then programmatic is the future of digital. Brands no longer have to decide ahead of time where their message will get the best response. With these new innovations in programmatic, ads can fluidly reach each person in their audience at the best time, place and channel for that person - regardless of how the deal was signed.

We’re excited about the future of programmatic buying and selling and the possibilities it will bring for all of our partners. If you’re interested in learning more about Marketplace in DoubleClick Bid Manager or Programmatic Guaranteed reach out to your account manager today, and stay tuned as we look to expand our pilots to more buyers.

This is the second announcement in our post-DLS series. Join us over the next week as we release more details of all our recent product announcements. Next up, Native Ads in DoubleClick.

Posted by:
  • Roshan Khan, Product Manager, DoubleClick 
  • Steve Suppe, Product Manager, DoubleClick 
  • Kelly Cox, Product Marketing, DoubleClick

Posted:
Cross posted on Inside AdWords Blog

With over 30 million songs, Google Play Music provides access to the music people want. And today, we’re launching a free, ad-supported version so even more people can enjoy music that makes whatever they’re doing better.

At any moment in the day, Google Play Music has music for what people are doing – whether they’re working, working out, or working it on the dance floor – offering curated radio stations that deliver the right song at the right time. Our team of music experts, including the folks who created Songza, crafts each station song by song so listeners can just enjoy the music, effortlessly.

This new ad-supported version is great for advertisers interested in connecting with consumers through premium content and delightful mobile experiences. This Google Play Ads inventory is available through DoubleClick Bid Manager and the Google Display Network (GDN), which gives advertisers access to engaging and beautiful ad units such as TrueView video ads and Lightbox ads – all mobile-optimized, seamless across screens, and simple to set up. Plus, advertisers can take advantage of all GDN’s targeting options to promote their product or service to the right people – including keywords, affinity audiences, remarketing and demo targeting.

Many advertisers are already investing in this new music inventory, including the media agency Omnicom. Steve Katelman, EVP of Global Strategic Partnerships at Omnicom shared that: “We want to reach customers where they're spending the most time, so music is a critical part of our media mix. As a launch partner for Google Play Music, Omnicom Media Group can offer our clients an invaluable head start in delivering engaging, high-impact brand messages on mobile and the web to music-loving consumers.”

To get started with ads on Google Play Music, set up your campaign in AdWords or DoubleClick Bid Manager today.

Posted by Elias Roman, Product Manager, Google Play Music

Posted:
Last week during the DoubleClick Leadership Summit (DLS), we introduced cross-device measurement across all of our DoubleClick advertiser products. Today, as the first post of our week-long DLS series, we're excited to announce that these cross-device metrics will be rolling out to all DoubleClick advertisers in the next week.

Mobile continues to reshape how consumers engage on digital: they are increasingly turning to the nearest device to act on an immediate need in the moment and then seamlessly shifting their attention from screen to screen to complete their journey. With the path to purchase becoming increasingly fragmented, it’s essential marketers understand how consumers interact with their brand across all devices. When marketers have access to cross-device insights, they will also make the best decisions about how to invest their marketing dollars.

With this launch, advertisers can access cross-device metrics in all buying tools within our platform -- DoubleClick Campaign Manager, DoubleClick Bid Manager, and DoubleClick Search. 
What advertisers can measure
Cross-device measurement in DoubleClick allows advertisers to gain insight on the true performance of their campaigns across the web, even when users switch devices in their path to conversion. This means advertisers can measure conversions that begin on one device, and continue or end on another, answering questions like:

How many additional conversions is my digital investment delivering that I haven’t been able to measure?
Which sites/campaigns/ads are driving the most conversions across devices? 

Let’s say a user is reading bicycle reviews on her phone, and clicks on a display ad that takes her to a bike shop’s website. Later, when she gets home, she pulls up the shop’s site on her computer to continue her research, and ultimately buys the red cruiser she’s been eyeing. This is an example of a cross-device path to conversion that you will now be able to measure with our tools. In fact, cross-device measurement enhances the most powerful use cases for our customers:
  • If a user clicks on a search ad on desktop, then completes a purchase on mobile, we can measure that.
  • If a user clicks on a display ad for a smartphone app on their desktop, and then later downloads that same game on their smartphone, we can measure that. 

Principles of cross-device conversion measurement 
We built cross-device measurement for DoubleClick with the following principles at the core:

User-first. We’re investing in these capabilities while prioritizing user privacy. We measure mobile behavior using industry-standard device identifiers that users can see, reset and configure to opt out from interest-based advertising. Additionally, advertisers can only access anonymous and aggregated performance reporting on their campaigns.

Accurate. The cross-device metrics are calculated using fully deterministic data sources. Performance measurements are only displayed to advertisers when there is a sufficient sample size and a strict 95% confidence interval is reached. 

Comprehensive. Built to work across any type of buy (programmatic or reservations), screen, channel (search and display), and format, these tools are consistent with DoubleClick’s core value of giving advertisers a unified view of their audience. 

To learn more about cross-device measurement, register for the webinar on July 9th at 12 PM ET and subscribe to our newsletter. If you have a DoubleClick login you can also read more in our Help Center.

Join us on Wednesday for our second post in our DLS series, focused on the Programmatic Guaranteed and DoubleClick Marketplace announcements. 

Posted by Luke Hedrick, Product Manager, DoubleClick

Posted:

In May, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):
  • Support for AdWords "Mobile app installs" campaigns: Use DS to create, target, measure, and optimize on “Mobile app installs” campaigns, a new, simple type of AdWords campaign that focuses on getting people to download your app. Ads from these campaigns appear only on phones or tablets, and they land directly on your app page in the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Learn more.
  • Manage and report on local inventory ads: Local inventory ads advertise products that are available in nearby stores when a customer searches for items on Google. You can now use DS to manage and report on your local inventory ads along with online ads in AdWords Shopping campaigns. Learn more.
  • New reporting column for AdWords campaigns: The Invalid clicks column displays the number of clicks on ads that Google considers to be illegitimate, such as unintentional clicks or clicks resulting from malicious software, as reported by AdWords.
  • Ad rotation settings for Bing Ads: If you create more than one ad in a Bing Ads ad group, Bing Ads can either rotate through the ads evenly or predominantly show ads that have the highest click-through rate (CTR). You can use the DS UI or DS bulksheets to specify how Bing Ads should rotate ads in an ad group.

We also updated the following features:
  • DS URL templates are now hierarchical: Use DS URL templates to apply a redirect URL or a set of URL parameters to landing page URLs for keywords and sitelinks. You can create DS URL templates at multiple levels within an engine account. For example, you can create separate URL templates for each campaign or ad group. Learn more.
  • Improved support for Merchant Center multi-client accounts: If you use DS to manage AdWords Shopping campaigns or inventory keyword campaigns and you have a parent Merchant Center accounts, known as a multi-client account, you only need to link the parent account to DS and AdWords. Learn more.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Posted:

Yesterday at the DoubleClick Leadership Summit, we discussed the changes in consumer behavior and the ways that marketers and publishers need to pivot to own the moments that matter. 

As part of our presentation, we identified three key behaviors that characterize today’s consumer:
  • We follow unscripted, non-linear journeys 
  • We are loyal to the moment, not the brand
  • We expect you to know our intent and context

What do these behavioral changes mean for advertisers and publishers? 
Read on to learn more.

Published by Jason Spero, Vice President - Global Performance Solutions & Becky Chappell, Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

Posted:
This morning, we’re hosting the DoubleClick Leadership Summit in Key Biscayne, Florida. This marks the 15th year that we’ve been bringing together our large advertiser, agency and publisher partners to discuss the future of digital marketing. And we have a lot to discuss. As we convene today, we’re in the midst of one of the largest shifts in consumer behavior ever, thanks to the rise of mobile devices.

We no longer “go online” but instead, engage in many small moments throughout the day, reflexively turning to the nearest device to solve an immediate need. In these moments, we expect the right answer and we expect it right away. In these I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do, I-want-to-buy moments decisions are made and preferences shaped. Brands that are there and relevant for consumers in these moments that matter win. 

Today, we’re announcing improvements to our DoubleClick products for advertisers and publishers designed to help them thrive in this moments-driven world. Here is a preview of what we’ll be announcing; you can also view a recording of the live stream announcements at the link below. 


Cross-device measurement, across the web
Today, the decision to make a purchase rarely starts and ends on the same device. For example you may first see an ad for a pair of running shoes while scrolling through the news at work, then actually decide to buy them a few days later when you realize your old ones need replacing. 

For almost two years, we’ve been investing in solutions that help marketers measure these cross-device conversions in AdWords. And the results have been amazing: marketers are finding that they see up to 16% more conversions from search when they look across devices and take the cross-screen journey into account. Check out our AdWords blog for some in-depth research on that front. 

Now, cross-device measurement is coming to all of our DoubleClick advertiser products, so marketers can measure conversions that start as a click on one device and end with a conversion on another for all their campaigns across the web, not just with the ads they buy from Google.

Cross-device measurement is already generating important insights for our clients. Here is what we heard from John Gray, SVP of Platforms & Partnerships at Team Detroit, a WPP agency:
“Cross-device measurement is a big step towards having metrics better represent what's actually happening with consumers in today's mobile-first world. This is essential insight for marketers. It not only allows us to achieve our clients' goals more efficiently, but helps us better understand the consumer journey, and reach them with the right messages as they take that path. In our early cross-device measurement tests, we're already seeing a material increase in conversions attributable to mobile, and making changes as a result.”

Support for native ads across DoubleClick
As consumers spend more and more time on their mobile phones, providing ad experiences that respect their context are more important than ever--for example an ad that shows up between levels of a mobile game, rather than disrupting the game itself. Publishers are embracing this change and introducing different types of “native” ad units that are designed to work within their environment, but it’s been a challenge for marketers and publishers to create and deliver these ads at scale. So we’re announcing support for native ads in DoubleClick. 

With this new solution, publishers can create their own clearly labeled custom native formats, and decide what ads on their apps should look like. DoubleClick then automatically generates the ads, serves them at scale, and provides metrics to fine tune those native ad campaigns. We will also provide standardized native templates that work across publishers at scale to make native ad buying easy for advertisers. 

Introducing Programmatic Guaranteed
In the early days of programmatic, it was all about direct response advertisers, buying and selling banner ads in an open auction. Today, however, programmatic is relied upon by major brands and premium publishers, across apps, mobile web, video and now native formats. 

Along with this expansion, we’re seeing that direct deals, those favored by brands and large publishers for premium inventory, are fast on the rise. Just across our own platforms, the volume of programmatic direct transactions has jumped 2x in the past year and eight of our top 25 publishers are now selling at least 10 percent of their impressions via programmatic direct.

To reflect this new reality, we’re introducing a new way of buying: Programmatic Guaranteed--guaranteed inventory, sold programmatically at pre-negotiated rates. The early numbers show that this is truly premium inventory, on par with reservations--with CPMs 15x the open market rate.

And finally, we’re refreshing the DoubleClick brand (www.doubleclick.com) to better represent our focus on helping marketers and publishers succeed in today’s hyper-connected world. 
After all, connection is what we’re all about: connecting advertisers and publishers, brands and consumers, messages and moments. We’re excited about the updates announced today and can’t wait to see how marketers and publishers use these new tools to own THEIR moment.


-- posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President, Video & Display Advertising


Check back on Monday for a week-long blog series where we’ll dive deeper into each of these announcements.

Posted:
Laura Desmond, Global CEO at Starcom Mediavest Group, will be keynoting the live stream from the DoubleClick Leadership Summit on June 17th. We caught up with Laura for a quick glimpse of what she’ll be speaking to and what owning the moment means to her. 

Register now to hear her live on June 17 at 9AM ET.

The rate of change is only accelerating, driven by rapid technology advancements and evolving consumer behaviors. FOMO isn’t just for millennials anymore—it’s a pressure our industry feels everyday.

Brands need to shift from mass-market strategies to precision ones that deliver relevancy along with immediacy. Core to delivering is keeping the consumer at the center, understanding them deeply, and delivering experiences that match their pace and purpose. 

Owning the moment requires more than just being “real-time.” Winning now depends on the ability to mix velocity and relevancy, drawing upon data, unification, personalization and agility. 

On Wednesday, I’ll be sharing how against a backdrop of great change, brands can drive impact with velocity marketing. Today’s best marketers are much like the hottest EDM mix artists -- leveraging technology, data, and collaboration to own the moment, deliver relevancy, and spur action. 

Register now to hear more from Laura on Wednesday, June 17th at 9AM ET.

Guest post by Laura Desmond, Global Chief Executive Officer, Starcom Mediavest Group

Posted:
On June 17th at 9 a.m. ET, join us for a live stream broadcast from the DoubleClick Leadership Summit, our annual event bringing together industry leaders for a conversation about the future of digital marketing. We’ve received several questions about what to expect from this year’s event. Below are some of the most commonly asked questions, and what we are able to share for now.

Remember to register here and tune in to the live stream for the full scoop!

The theme for this year’s summit is “Own the Moment.” What does that mean?
Thanks to mobile, we’re currently in the midst of one the largest shifts in consumer behavior ever. What we’re finding is that consumers are no longer “going online” in long digital sessions, but turning reflexively to the nearest device to solve an immediate need in countless moments throughout their day. For marketers, the next big challenge -- and the one we want to help them solve -- is how to effectively reach consumers at those moments in a relevant and engaging way. You can expect to hear much more about this at our summit.

Who are some of the speakers we can expect to hear from this year?
We’re really excited about our slate of speakers both from within Google and from our partners. Laura Desmond, Starcom MediaVest Group’s Global CEO, will join us to talk about how brands can amp their relevance and impact with velocity marketing. We’ll also be joined by The New York Times’ EVP & Chief Revenue Officer, Meredith Kopit Levien who’ll do a deep dive on the topic with Laura, while sharing a publisher’s perspective.

This event is usually full of announcements. What will you be announcing this year?
You can expect a heavy focus on mobile this year and innovations that we’ve developed to help large advertisers, agencies and publishers succeed in a multiscreen world. We’ll touch on new ways both marketers and publishers can create engaging experiences for the mobile environment, as well as how marketers should be thinking about measuring every moment that matters.

Sign up for the live stream now!

Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Manager

Posted:
Today we're shining a light on the SEM platform capabilities that played a role in HP's decision to switch from an incumbent platform to DoubleClick Search. 

Paid search is core to HP's digital marketing programs. Strategically, it’s critical for the company to have a strong line of sight across all marketing disciplines, including search. It also wants to efficiently respond in real time to marketing opportunities across the globe. HP and its agency Optimedia recently saw an opportunity to optimize performance from improved real-time and cross-channel capabilities by switching SEM platforms.


Having experienced mixed results with other automated bidding platforms in the past, Maren Wesley, VP of Global Search, and the rest of the Optimedia team were initially skeptical of the results possible with DoubleClick Search. "We were looking for proof that the performance for all areas of the program would improve with DoubleClick Search," said Wesley.


In partnership with DoubleClick, the teams deployed a 2-phase test to compare campaign performance between DoubleClick Search and the incumbent SEM platform, which the teams had been using for several years.


At the end of phase 1, DoubleClick Search bid strategies had reduced costs by 23% and increased revenue by 16%, resulting in a 33% improvement in cost per order dollar (CPOD) versus the incumbent platform.


At the end of phase 2, DoubleClick Search bid strategies had reduced costs by 18% and maintained revenue at high levels, resulting in a 17% improvement in CPOD versus the incumbent platform.


The strong results the teams saw from their SEM platform comparison led them to fully migrate to DoubleClick Search as the platform of choice, and as a proven way to realize their real-time and cross-channel goals. Jay Dark, Director of Search and Global Marketing at HP says, "The positive results allowed us to make the decision to switch to DoubleClick Search and because of that decision, we are doing a global rollout across both our B2B and B2C businesses."


For all the details behind HP and Optimedia's SEM platform evaluation, download the full DoubleClick Search case study (PDF).

You can catch up on our real-time series by reading about how real-time helps on big launch days, how to use real-time data to optimize your search ads and Shopping Campaigns, and our initial research on what the real-time gap means for search marketers.



Posted by Nick Macrae, Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick Search


Posted:
We’re excited to announce that support for migrating to AdWords Upgraded URLs for all DoubleClick Search customers globally is launching this week.

Customers should review our migration guide, which details the steps you should take to prepare and migrate your accounts to AdWords Upgraded URLs in advance of the July 1, 2015 AdWords deadline.


The steps required for migration depend on whether your landing page URLs in DoubleClick Search already meet the AdWords definition of a final URL. For most DoubleClick Search customers, you’ll simply need to review and approve to migrate, but some of you will need to make changes to your existing URLs before you can migrate to Upgraded URLs. To help you prepare, we’ve added expanded functionality to URL templates in DoubleClick Search.


Using DoubleClick Search URL templates to prepare for Upgraded URLs

DoubleClick Search URL templates are now even more powerful with support for lower level URL templates at the campaign, ad group, keyword, ad, and sitelink level. In addition, DoubleClick Search URL templates work seamlessly with AdWords Upgraded URLs, so there’s no extra work required for migration once they’re setup.

For customers who use additional redirect URLs, you’ll need to specify landing page URLs at the keyword level. You can then use DoubleClick Search URL templates to specify redirect URLs, giving you flexibility to customize your redirect URL structure to meet your needs.


Example: Keyword URLs before and after migration

Here's an example of the URLs associated with a keyword before and after you migrate:

For additional details on how to take advantage of DoubleClick Search URL templates to prepare for your migration to AdWords Upgraded URLs, please read our Help Center article.


Migrating your accounts

Once you’re ready, you’ll be able to migrate from the DoubleClick Search UI (one account at a time), or from a bulksheet (many accounts at a time), at a time that suits you. You’ll have complete control as to how and when you migrate, so long as it’s completed by the AdWords deadline. In addition, we’ve taken care to ensure that your historical data can be preserved, meaning you can pick up right where you left off.

Please review our Help Center for full details about migrating to AdWords Upgraded URLs in DoubleClick Search, and how to launch and confirm the migration. If you require assistance as you prepare for this process, contact your DoubleClick Search representative.

Posted by
Amit Varia, Product Manager, DoubleClick Search
Nick Macrae, Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick Search

Posted:
Cross-posted on the Google Analytics blog

Modern marketers live in a world that’s dominated by data. Advancements in programmatic buying enable marketers to leverage data and analytics to connect precisely, in real time. Advertisers who are smart about organizing, segmenting, and acting on this data are realizing the benefits of more personalized marketing. BT, a leading telecommunications firm in the UK, did just that and saw fantastic results.

BT wanted to increase the relevance of their remarketing campaigns by creating more precise audience lists. With the help of their media agency Maxus, BT found that using Google Analytics Premium with DoubleClick Bid Manager offered the ideal solution.


Google Analytics Premium gave BT the ability to create granular audience segments based on site behavior metrics such as recency, frequency, referral source, and stage of cart abandonment. Once these audience lists were created, the native integration between Google Analytics Premium and DoubleClick Bid Manager meant they could be shared with the platform to make more precise media buys in just a few clicks.


Using Google Analytics Premium with DoubleClick Bid Manager put Maxus and BT in the driver’s seat of their media campaigns. They not only gleaned full transparency with a single customer view and de-duplicated metrics across all channels, but also saw better measurement through unified reporting, and the ability to optimize based on the results.

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"Our goals were to build up ‘best practices’ of programmatic display remarketing techniques with a focus on driving post-click sales,” says Alison Thorburn, Head of Digital DR Media at BT. “The DoubleClick suite of products enabled us to do this quickly and efficiently as audience data can be easily organized and utilized.”

The new analytics-driven approach produced a 69% increase in post-click sales and an 87% reduction in post-click cost per acquisition compared to the previous year’s remarketing activity. It also compared favorably to the remarketing activity that ran simultaneously outside of DoubleClick Bid Manager; post-click sales were 30% higher and post-click cost per acquisition was 42% lower. BT has now consolidated its display remarketing through DoubleClick BidManager.


Read the full case study here.


Posted by-
Kelley Sternhagen, Product Marketing, Google Analytics
Kelly Cox, Product Marketing, DoubleClick


Posted:
The abundance of choices consumers have today means people are consuming content in more places and actively tuning out what’s not relevant in the moment. In this environment, programmatic buying is redefining how marketers can connect with consumers in all the moments that matter. And to take advantage of its benefits, advertisers are adopting programmatic at dramatic rates. In fact, eMarketer predicts that 83% of all display buys will be bought programmatically by 2017.

However, achieving the promise of programmatic is not a guarantee. It takes partnering with the right platform to effectively craft, execute, and manage a programmatic strategy. But with so many options, how should advertisers choose the right platform to reach their unique goals today, and in the future with programmatic buying?

To help marketers better understand what to look for when Choosing a Programmatic Buying Partner, we uncover the five areas of expertise to look for in a potential platform.

This buyer’s guide will help marketers define and prioritize selection criteria for a programmatic buying platform that’s the right fit for your short- and long-term goals. Download the whitepaper here.


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Posted by -

Kelly Cox, Product Marketing, DoubleClick