This is day 5 of the “Going Back to School with DoubleClick” series. Ready for a quick review? Check out our past flashcards: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4

Like Kia, you can get top marks on your “report” card with better measurement across channels using a unified digital marketing platform. Kia wanted a better way to understand and optimize their marketing investment to address fast-changing consumer behaviors; to do so, they adopted DoubleClick to simplify and more accurately measure the impact of their digital marketing across channels. The result? DoubleClick attribution tools helped Kia improve their cost per acquisition (CPA) by 30%. Take a peek to learn more here.

Now, go on and ace that final exam! For more information on DoubleClick Digital Marketing, stay tuned to the DoubleClick blog, sign up for our newsletter,, or follow us on Twitter and Google+.

In March, we introduced Shopping campaigns support in DoubleClick Search, offering a simpler, more flexible way for retailers to manage their Product Listing Ads (PLAs). Thanks to these tools, advertisers have already seen success with Shopping campaigns. As Casandra Jones, Associate Director at iProspect, says: “It’s been incredibly helpful having DoubleClick Search be first to market with a solution for Shopping campaigns. We were able to transition to Shopping campaigns more quickly and determine best practices that work for our brands -- giving us a competitive edge, long before the majority of retailers hit the market.”

Since then, we’ve been focused on building solutions with the scale and speed you need to capture every retail opportunity. Now, we’re excited to announce three new tools from the DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite to help make your reporting and optimization even easier. Below, we’ll unpack these features by highlighting the what, the why, and how customers are using our solutions today.

Automated campaign optimization with adaptive Shopping campaigns

	What: Adaptive Shopping campaigns is a new way to dynamically create and optimize your Shopping campaign structure, based on product performance. Native integration with Google Merchant Center means we’ll monitor your feed and automatically subdivide existing product groups by product ID, based on the conversion rates of the products in each group.
	Why: We’ve found that 90% of the median advertiser’s cost comes from only 9.5% of its products(1). However, advertisers often lump these high-spend products into bid groups with other, lower-converting products -- leading to bid values that are not optimized, based on relative performance. Adaptive Shopping campaigns ensure your most popular SKUs get the right bid by creating product groups for each item earning high traffic.
	What do customers think? Andrea Bywater, Marketing Coordinator of Paid Search at BuildDirect, says: “Using adaptive shopping campaigns will be incredibly helpful in helping us group ‘winning’ SKUs together -- especially when things get even busier with the holidays and Black Friday just around the corner. Not only will this be more effective in saving time; it’ll also help us save money on products with lower conversion rates.”

Smarter, faster bid optimization for Shopping campaigns

	What: Earlier this month, we rolled out bid optimization for Shopping campaigns -- giving you the ability to extend the same powerful bidding algorithms from our Performance Bidding Suite to your Shopping campaigns, with smarter bidding based on near real-time data.
	Why: We know bid optimization can make or break campaign results. Bidding strategies need to be flexible enough to meet your business objectives, while algorithms need to be fast enough to act quickly in a competitive landscape. With bid optimization for Shopping campaigns, you can: Easily define your goals -- setting individual bid strategies, or combining different strategies, just as you do with your DoubleClick Search text ads. Target precisely and efficiently by setting Shopping campaign bid strategies on campaigns, ad groups, or even product groups. Reach shoppers on the go by automatically setting a mobile bid modifier. And as with the rest of your bids, bid optimization for Shopping campaigns benefit from up-to-the-minute conversion data. This means you can use fresher data to more closely track to your promotion goals -- even during the busiest marketing days.
	What do customers think? Ashlee Wiltshire, Analytics & Technology Account Manager at Performics, recently helped her team implement Shopping campaign bid strategies for several of their key retail clients. Wiltshire says: “Within two weeks, we've seen CPCs come down 11.2% and ROAS improve by 3.4%. It's also freed up a lot of the teams’ time, and as a result we’re able to build out more granular campaigns without worrying about manually updating bids."

Better transaction insights with purchase detail reports (beta)

	What: Purchase detail reports (currently in beta) let you better understand the products consumers purchased, and the ads that drove those sales. Once you specify the products sold in a transaction using the DoubleClick floodlight tag, you can customize and report on specific product sales by any attribute, including color, size, product line, and style. Best of all, these reports are available for any type of campaign -- whether that’s text, Shopping, on AdWords or on Bing.
	Why: With ever-changing shifts in seasons and trends, retailers often focus on selling a certain products at a given time. Fashion advertisers, for example, need to sell the latest styles before they fall out of favor. In the past, figuring out if your search advertising actually lead to these product sales has been complex -- requiring lots of time and effort in reporting analysis. Purchase detail reports give granular transaction details for better insights into your campaign performance: Identify the impact of your advertising on achieving core business goals like maximizing profitability or selling off inventory. Improve ad targeting by matching ads to the products that consumers are most interested in purchasing. Understand the real value of brand and general terms in selling your highest margin or most important products.
	What do customers think? Justin Johnson, Paid Search Manager at Cabela’s, says: “Having insights into where we spend our money, in addition to what people are looking for,  has been invaluable in helping us make better decisions. With this data, we have a better look into where we may not have adequate coverage, and are able to quickly make changes to address that. Being able to pull in margin data to see if certain keywords are actually better or worse at driving profitable traffic than we anticipated helps us be more thoughtful with our spending.”

Reach out to your DoubleClick Search representative or our support team at ds-support@google.com.

To learn more about upcoming DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite developments in easy workflows, insightful reporting, and smarter optimization, stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog, sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Google+.

1. DoubleClick Search internal data, 2014

This is day 4 of the “Going Back to School with DoubleClick” series. Ready for a quick review? Check out our past flashcards: day 1, day 2, day 3

No need to pull those all-nighters; an integrated digital marketing platform can help you make better use of your time. Using DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform across the stack, Mindshare went from working more than 100 hours to around 30 hours over the Black Friday weekend -- reducing their work time by over 70 hours year-over-year. And as a bit of ‘extra credit’, the team still saw a lift of more than 25% in ROAS. These time savings allowed Mindshare to focus more on making strategic optimizations by looking more closely at the data and insights -- leading to record-breaking campaign performance for their client. Ready for the deep-dive lesson? Check out the lecture notes here.

Tune in tomorrow for our next flashcard on how integrated platforms can help you make the grade this school year, and beyond!  

Starting today, DoubleClick clients will have a brand new way to manage their planning and buying: DoubleClick Planning. In today’s fragmented media landscape, marketers need a simple way to put their dollars to work across channels and screens, whether the media is bought programmatically or traditionally. DoubleClick Planning begins to unify programmatic and traditional reservation inventory management, enabling you to carry out all of your buys in one place. 

We will host a live webinar (register here) and discuss the feature at IAB MIXX, but in the meantime, we chatted with Adam Champy, lead Product Manager for DoubleClick Planning, to hear his thoughts on the changing digital media landscape and thinking behind DoubleClick Planning.

Q: What is the vision for DoubleClick Planning?

A: Marketers can only make better decisions if they are looking at their media plans holistically - across all channels and screens. Our goal is to help marketers and agencies make smarter buying decisions, seamlessly coordinate with inventory providers, and ultimately drive better campaign performance. To achieve this, we had to rethink how buyers and sellers communicate - challenging today’s methods and timelines in the traditional RFP process. The vision for DoubleClick Planning is to help marketers and agencies do just this: plan, discover, and acquire inventory in one place, across channels and screens. 

Q: How does DoubleClick Planning fit in today’s digital media buying landscape?

A: We are seeing that digital media teams today are trying to break down the silos that are in the way of making fast, smart decisions. One critical divide has been between channels and media - as specialized teams and platforms were built to tackle one particular piece of the digital marketing puzzle - such as programmatic-, mobile-, or video-specific platforms. As a result, most products in the market today don’t help marketers and agencies actually make decisions across channels and all types of buys.

We started to address this with the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform, built to unify the process and enable a true cross-media customer experience. Now, DoubleClick Planning is a tool within the platform that brings together reservations and programmatic capabilities to help marketers and agencies discover and buy the best inventory, regardless of how it is bought. DoubleClick Planning was built to help teams work better together, across the customer journey, with the following features:

Today

• Two-way sync between planning and campaign execution 
• Most of the information required to traffic campaigns is already generated during the planning process. Now you can take advantage of that, with the seamless integration of planning and campaign execution, by pushing campaign information directly into trafficking.
• Efficient Request for Proposal (RFP) process
• Create, issue, and track RFPs so publishers can provide inventory options that meet your goals. You can also track negotiations and publisher provided inventory electronically.
• IO management and billing actualization
• Create order documents like insertion orders and change orders with custom terms and contracts. And create billing actualization reports to measure delivery against contracted amounts.

In the next few months

• Unified Alerts
• Automatically get alerts and notifications about discrepancies between planning and trafficking, including under-delivery and verification errors.
• Integrating DoubleClick Insights 
• Learn from previous campaign data and optimize media allocation across channels and inventory sources with auto-generated insights built directly into DoubleClick Planning.

Q: What is the plan for MediaVisor?

A: MediaVisor has served our customers well over the years, but this new world of buying and planning requires new tools. We’ll be winding down support for MediaVisor by the end of 2014 and working with our customers to transition them to the new tool

Q: Looking ahead, what are the major opportunities for digital planners and buyers in the next year?

A: First, there is a major opportunity to make media planning and buying even more efficient. For example, in the next few months, we’ll be bringing automation to traditional reservations. The elements that make products like DoubleClick Bid Manager so powerful - direct access to inventory, zero-discrepancy clearing, and buyer data and targeting - will become available for guaranteed reservation deals. 

Second, marketers will begin to consolidate their insights across channels and screens, building one, integrated media plan across all types of buys. Whether a published proposed inventory or you are buying on an exchange, you will be able to put together a multi-channel plan, and get a unified view of your inventory portfolio.

Faster and more efficient cross-channel planning will enable more responsive strategies, better discoverability of unique inventory sources, and ultimately, better campaign performance.

Learn more about DoubleClick Planning by registering for our webinar with the product team, which will include a live demo and time for Q&A.

You can stay on top of new updates by subscribing to our newsletter and following us on Google+ and Twitter.

This is day 3 of “Going Back to School with DoubleClick” series. Ready for a quick review? Check out our past flashcards: day 1, day 2

Sometimes it’s about working smarter, not harder. As shown in a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study, “Cutting Complexity, Adding Value”, campaign teams spend on average only 1 day in 5 on ‘value-creation’ activities, with 80% of their time spent on low-value activities such as trafficking. By adopting a unified ad technology, organizations can improve productivity by up to 33% across the campaign lifecycle. Skip study hall and learn how to save time with digital platforms; check out the cheat sheet here.

Tune in tomorrow for our next flashcard on how integrated platforms can help you make the grade this school year, and beyond!  

This is day 2 of the “Going Back to School with DoubleClick” series. Ready for a quick review? Check out our day 1 flashcard here.

Double-majoring in search and display? Unified advertising platforms can help you get that competitive edge. For VivaKi, an integrated platform provided the team with new ways to drive results across their digital marketing channels. By incorporating their paid search signals into their display activity using DoubleClick display remarketing from search ads, VivaKi aced the performance test with a 60%+ improvement in CPA across their travel and auto advertisers. Want to brush up on how they did it?  Check out the full report here.

Tune in tomorrow for our next flashcard on how integrated platforms can help you make the grade this school year, and beyond!  

Alright bookworms, it's Back-to-School time. That means new teachers, new friends, new shoes -- and for digital marketers, new seasonal promotions. 

Back-to-school searches have jumped 45% since last year, and many shoppers report that online research will have a notable impact on their in-store purchase decisions. So as a digital marketer, how do you work faster, act smarter, and make better decisions across channels -- all before that recess bell rings?  

In a recent report, 75% of organizations believe an integrated platform could meet all of their marketing needs. To help make your digital marketing campaigns look as good as that meticulously-planned “first day” outfit, every day this week we’ll be sharing a few fun and educational flashcards around need-to-know stats, tips, and tricks from DoubleClick. 

So sharpen those pencils, crack open that notebook, and let’s get started! Here's today's flashcard:

Integrated and real-time technologies can help you race to the top of the class -- and the results page. Using smart, fast, and unified tools that act from up-to-the-minute conversion data, iProspect exceeded their luxury retail client’s expectations by more than tripling revenue on the first day of their promotion, while decreasing cost per clicks (CPCs) by over 60% year over year. Ready to study up on how? Check out the full notes here. 

Tune in tomorrow for our next flashcard on how integrated platforms can help you make the grade this school year, and beyond!  

In July, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):

• Attribution models: You can now choose from one of several multi-channel, pre-defined attribution models or models authored in DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM).  An attribution model determines the method of distributing credit for a conversion among all of the activity in a conversion funnel. The information is reported in DoubleClick Search Floodlight columns. Learn more about selecting an attribution model.

• Executive Reports: Combined mixed bar and line charts: You can now compare metrics and trends in a single chart in Executive Reports. One metric will display as bars and another metric as a line. Learn more.
  

• Optimize Shopping campaigns using bid strategies: You can now apply ROI bid strategies to Shopping campaigns as well as individual product groups. You can even use the same bid strategy to manage bidding for both keywords and product groups and let DS determine the best bid for reaching your ROI goals. Learn more.

• Sign in to multiple Google accounts: If you use different Google accounts to access different agencies or advertisers within DoubleClick Search (DS), you can sign in to multiple accounts in the same browser window. This allows you to quickly switch between accounts or use different accounts at the same time. Learn more.

We also updated the following features:

• Enhanced Bing Ads support
  • Exclude locations:  To give you more control over where your Bing Ads display, you can now exclude locations from a Bing Ads campaign or ad group in the DoubleClick Search user interface or by bulksheet. 
  • Radius targets: You can use DoubleClick Search to remove radius targets that were added in Bing Ads. DS will remove the radius targets when it traffics the change to Bing Ads. Learn more.

• Richer data analysis using the DoubleClick Search API
  • Report on product groups: You can view performance metrics and settings for your Shopping campaign product groups by using the DS Reporting API.
  • Attribute offline conversions to Shopping campaigns: You can use the DS API to attribute offline conversions to the right Shopping campaign ad and corresponding keyword, product target, or product group. Learn more about uploading offline conversions.

• Use reserved URL parameters: You are now free to use any formerly reserved parameter name such as ds_s_aid and lid for tracking purposes. Just change your engine account's parameter-handling option to Include full URL (unencoded) and DoubleClick Search wraps your landing page URLs.

• Yahoo! Japan device targeting removed:  DoubleClick Search has removed device-targeting settings from Yahoo! JAPAN campaigns, both in the user interface and in bulksheets, because Yahoo! Japan no longer supports the ability to specifically target tablets and other mobile devices. You can still use mobile bid adjustments to adjust bids for ads on mobile devices such as laptop computers, tablets, and smartphones.

Watch the recorded webinar for July features to see these updates in action.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

As part of our mission to offer the most actionable data and reporting, from all sources, DoubleClick Search lets you report on Google Analytics goals. You may not know that we also have the capability to use Google Analytics Goals as targets for DoubleClick Search bid-strategies. When you create a bid strategy in the Doubleclick Search Performance Bidding Suite, you can optimize to conversions and revenue based on Google Analytics goals and transactions. This feature extends the flexibility of DS bid strategies, which already support optimization to Floodlight activities and formula columns. This release also extends bid optimization support to goals based on site analytics metrics such as pages per visit and visit duration.

Make better decisions based on user behavior insights 
Google Analytics goals make it possible to have user behavior prior to purchase drive your bidding decisions. Conversion windows vary by vertical. Some customers finalize their purchases/actions within minutes or hours, while other customers may take days, weeks or even months to research before converting. If you understand the propensity of a user to convert based on their session behavior, you can bid more for keywords that drive higher quality customers. This is where site analytics data comes in as it provides useful post click data such as  "users from ad group X spend an average of 5 minutes on the site after clicking".

Our Google Analytics integration gives you access to powerful new metrics to enhance bid optimization and create custom models that not only include the final conversion but also values keywords that lead to pre-conversion user behaviors including time on site, pages viewed, etc.

Getting started with Google Analytics goals 
Getting started with Google Analytics goals & DoubleClick Search bid-strategies is simple. They work in the same way as the DoubleClick Floodlight-targeted bid strategies you are already familiar with. Just create a new bid strategy using the wizard and select Conversions, Revenue, or Advanced targeting as the goal. Then Google Analytics can be selected as a conversion source (shown below).



If you want to mix Floodlight Tags and Google Analytics Goals in the same bid-strategy, first define the relative value of the Tags and Goal inside the formula column. For example, suppose you wanted a ROAS strategy for your travel agency. Your main objective is to drive revenue from ticket and package sales, but you value a user spending 10 minutes reading about vacation packages at $1.50 since you expect they will return later to buy. The following formula column would capture this valuation:

FL_ticket_revenue + FL_package_revenue + to_money(1.50 * GA_10_minute_session) 

In the above formula: FL=Floodlight, GA=Google Analytics

Once you've created this formula columns, create a new bid strategy, in step 2 select the conversion source to be "formula column". If you haven’t linked your Google analytics account with DS, you can find a step by step guide here. If you are interested in using the site analytics level goals, please follow the guide here (note: you only need to complete Step 1: Transferring Property). To learn more about DS bid-strategies and Google Analytics integration, please check out our help center article.

Last week’s updates to Google Web Designer included cool new features that make it easier for creative designers and developers to build robust HTML5 creative. These features, combined with DoubleClick’s audience and environment information can help advertisers and agencies improve creative messaging for even more successful cross-screen marketing campaigns.

Today’s consumers expect to see tailored and relevant ads, and DoubleClick Dynamic Creative can help you use the information about who is viewing an ad to build smarter and more relevant creatives for every viewer. Learn about DoubleClick Dynamic Creative today by visiting our Dynamic Solutions page on the Rich Media Gallery and joining this week’s training webinar series.

Watch this video:

Find DoubleClick Dynamic Creative solutions by vertical.
Check out our Dynamic Creative Solutions page in the Rich Media Gallery to learn how to get started with DoubleClick Rich Media Dynamic Creative. You’ll find industry-specific information, best practices and creative examples for retail, travel, auto, and telecom verticals.

Join this week’s DoubleClick Dynamic Creative webinar series.
Want to learn more in an interactive environment? Join our product experts for this week’s DoubleClick Dynamic Creative webinar series. See the schedule below and register through the links below.

Introduction to Dynamic Creative – 8/12 at 9 AM PST / 12 PM EST
Learn about the benefits of DoubleClick Dynamic Creative and see how it works. You’ll also learn the differences between basic and advanced formats, how to set up and make changes, and how to use advanced targeting. Register

Advanced Dynamic Creative Workflow – 8/13 at 9 AM PST / 12 PM EST
Learn the advanced dynamic creative workflow. We’ll cover the pre-launch, launch, and post-launch processes for advanced formats, along with advanced dynamic strategy kits. You’ll also learn troubleshooting tips and tricks to help you with the more advanced dynamic creatives. Register

Dynamic Creative Best Practices – 8/14 at 9 AM PST / 12 PM EST
Build your knowledge and learn best practices for designing, developing, and revising dynamic creative. We’ll cover advanced features, like creative dimension filtering, autosizing, and more. Register

If you’ve taken Fundamentals training for DoubleClick Campaign Manager and DoubleClick Rich Media, these resources will help you better understand how to implement dynamic creative. If you haven’t already, be sure to take DoubleClick Campaign Manager Fundamentals and Rich Media Fundamentals and get your certificate of completion.

Watch a pre-recorded webinar.
Can’t make this week’s webinar series? No worries! You can watch a recorded webinar in our Help Center to learn more dynamic creative best practices. While you’re there, be sure to read about our latest release notes.

Stay connected with DoubleClick Training by subscribing to training updates.

Posted by Ilinka Zaharčeva, DoubleClick Rich Media Product Trainer

Marius Veltman’s thought experiment yesterday utilized the Tech Lab’s Full Page Flex and Motion Sensor components to enable viewers to navigate the scenery of the ad in full screen, by tilting their mobile device. 

This component is just one example of many that are being developed by Google’s new Tech Lab, a project created by Google’s Creative Technical Consultants to produce new innovations, push the boundaries of rich media and partner with creative agencies to help take these solutions to the next level. Even the best designers and developers need inspiration, and the Tech Lab has been established to help our DoubleClick Studio Certified Partners experiment with the latest, most innovative ad formats and features for their campaigns. 

HTML5 is still a bit of a “wild west,” both risky and alluring in that it is unchartered territory. There is space for creative designers and developers to experiment with new executions. As Marius pointed out in his article, “the experimentation process … is crucial to developing new ideas and pushing the creative envelope.” 

The Tech Lab helps designers and developers build never-before-seen formats and features into their rich media campaigns. These fresh ideas haven’t been used in many (if any) campaigns before, meaning they are exciting but also untested; but these are the realities of living on the edge of technology. 

To date, the Tech Lab has created 15 innovative formats and features, and today the group is launching three new ones for HTML5:

• HTML5 Autoplay Video: Start any video within an HTML5 creative automatically, without requiring a user interaction.
• HTML5 Shake and Shout: Boost your HTML5 creatives by adding cool interactions: Let people blow or shout onto their device and the mic will pick up the cue; or let them shake the phone and the accelerometer will pick up the cue. 
• HTML5 Twitter Widget: Boost your HTML5 creative’s social IQ by adding the twitter widget and letting viewers view, tweet, retweet, and follow your twitter account directly from your mobile ads. 

If you’re a DoubleClick Studio Certified partner, reach out to your DoubleClick rep to begin working with the Tech Lab. To become a Studio Certified partner, visit our exam page. 

Posted by Becky Chappell, Product Marketing Manager, Google Web Designer

Yesterday, we announced a revamped Google Web Designer, brimming with new features that make it even easier for creative designers and developers to build robust HTML5 creative. 

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Marius Veltman, a rich media expert from Holland and a life-long creative technologist. We first met Marius last year when he tested out the alpha version of Google Web Designer and gave us a list of improvements for the product.

For this launch, Marius gave us a peek into his world as an artist and designer and helped us push the limits of HTML5 with a “Google Web Designer Thought Experiment.” We asked him to create an awesome HTML5 ad unit, using only Google Web Designer, that takes advantage of different device form factors and successfully conveys a brand’s message. 

We selected the Google Cultural Institute as the brand and used the Street View imagery from their Great Barrier Reef World Wonders Collection as the assets. We then set out on an adventure through Holland to document Marius’s creative process as he worked to develop the ad.

Watch as Marius’s sketches come to life through the medium of HTML5 and the help of Google Web Designer. Marius's ideas develop in parallel to his own story as a designer. Then, check out the actual ad unit and learn more about his process.

Posted by Becky Chappell, Product Marketing, Google Web Designer

Back in May we launched custom Floodlight variables (CFVs) in DoubleClick Search. CFVs allow you to track and report on non-PII user activity associated with conversions. If you use Floodlight tags to track conversions, you can now leverage CFV data in your DoubleClick Search reports.

CFVs can be either metrics or dimensions. Metrics reflect numeric data and dimensions reflect alphanumeric or numeric strings. Let’s say that I represent a bank and created a metric to capture the number of credit card sign ups and a dimension to track different credit card types, such as cc gold, cc silver...etc. With both metric and dimension data in DoubleClick Search I’m able to analyze the number of sign ups for each credit card type and make decisions about how to allocate the bank’s advertising budget.

Once CFVs are available in DoubleClick Search you can include CFV metrics in Floodlight columns and/or filter results by CFV dimensions. For example, I may want to see the number of credit card sign ups for a specific Floodlight tag and credit card type, such as “CC Gold”. For more info, please refer to this article.

For views containing Floodlight data, such as Actions, Transactions, or Floodlight columns, you can report on CFV dimensions using segmentation or dimension grouping. For example, I may want to understand how the different credit card types are performing across ad groups within a campaign. Segmenting a report by a CFV dimension will return a row with each ad group and CFV dimension value combination (e.g. one row for ad group #1 and cc gold & one row for ad group #1 and cc silver). If instead I want an aggregated view of CFV dimension data, I can select the CFV dimension from the Dimensions tab. This will return a row with data for each CFV dimension value (e.g. one row for cc gold & one row for cc silver).    

To take advantage of this feature you’ll need to take the following steps:

1. Create CFVs in DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM). More info.
2. Add the CFVS to the Floodlight tags on your website. More info.
3. Set up CFVs within the Advertiser Settings section in DS. More info.

We encourage you to give CFVs a whirl and share your feedback and findings with your DS account management team.

Almost one year ago, we launched Google Web Designer, a free, easy-to-use, professional-grade HTML5 authoring tool. Over that year, we’ve seen increased adoption of HTML5 and Google Web Designer across the industry.

Fast facts, one year in: 

• In the first half of 2014, DoubleClick Rich Media ad impressions from HTML5 grew 140% compared to the second half of 2013.
• Ads built with Google Web Designer have garnered 2.5B impressions since the launch of the product.
• Over 20% of Google Web Designer’s user base are returning users and 72% are located outside the United States. 
• We partnered with the IAB to launch the “Make Mobile Work” Initiative, which has reached thousands of people through press outreach, an industry open letter, and quarterly webinar series.
• Advertisers are seeing performance improvements as a result of adopting HTML5. For example, TalkTalk decreased their eCPA by 12% and reduced their backup image rate by 13% by adding HTML5 to their campaign. 

So what’s launching in Google Web Designer? 

Today’s launch provides more granular control and creative flexibility to creative developers and designers, and allows them to easily build more interactive and animated HTML5 content and get it published quickly.

• Revamped Events and Components allow designers to make any element interactive, and customize the types of interactivity within their creative. 
• The updated timeline provides more granular control for designers to easily build animated content. 
• Tighter integrations with Google Drive, DoubleClick Studio, DoubleClick Campaign Manager and AdWords let users collaborate on their works-in-progress and publish finished units more quickly. This integration marks the first time that AdWords will support HTML5 ads.

Simplifying cross-screen advertising

In addition to Google Web Designer, we are continuing to develop tools to make it easier for advertisers and agencies to build successful cross-screen advertising campaigns. 

We recently launched several features in DoubleClick to help you execute and measure your campaigns across screens, including in-app remarketing and conversion tracking in DoubleClick Campaign Manager. We also launched MRAID 2.0 support in DoubleClick Studio and we have certified 69 large publishers and networks for in-app formats, meaning developers can build mobile in-app ads with the confidence that they’ll be accepted across more publishers and networks. 

Through its integration with Google Web Designer, AdWords now supports HTML5 ad creatives. In addition, Flash ads that are uploaded to Adwords will automatically be converted into HTML5 ads and can be uploaded via AdWords Editor and other 3rd party tools coming soon. Over the next few months, we’ll also be releasing tools and services that will resize ads to some of the most popular mobile sizes, without requiring any additional work on the part of the agencies.

Want to learn more?

• Creative Agencies:
• Visit our revamped website and download the product for free. 
• Register for our Google Web Designer overview webinar on Wednesday Aug. 13th. Our lead Product Manager and Creative Technical Consultant will walk through the new Google Web Designer features and demo some cool creative executions. 
• Media Agencies:
• Register for our third webinar in the Make Mobile Work Series, focused on best practices for mobile targeting, on Tuesday, Aug. 12th. Google will be presenting alongside speakers from Millennial and Facebook.

Posted by Sean Kranzberg and Tony Mowatt, Engineering Manager and Lead Product Manager for Google Web Designer