AdWords MENA Blog

Adwords Performance Summit (APS) Recap

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Building for the next moment
Billions of times per day, consumers turn to Google for I want-to-know, I want-to-go, I want-to-do, and I want-to-buy moments. And at these times, consumers are increasingly picking up their smartphones for answers. In fact, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan. This presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to reach people throughout all the new touchpoints of a consumer’s path to purchase.
Together, we’ve come a long way since this time last year:

Our suite of app promotion tools are now driving real results, even as we’re piloting new innovations like ads in the Play Store. A study published today shows that search engines and app stores are among the top ways smartphone users discover new apps.

Businesses around the world are measuring the impact of their search and display campaigns as consumers switch between multiple devices, using cross-device conversions.

And with mobile searches driving in-store commerce, we're helping businesses measure the full impact of their campaigns. Our store visits measurement is now available in the US, Canada and Australia and will roll out for thousands of advertisers in 10 countries in the coming months.

But there's so much more to come. This morning, we announced more AdWords innovations in front of a global livestream audience of 20,000 customers. Below are highlights from today’s announcements.
Ad experiences that win the moment
Consumers, particularly on mobile devices, now have higher expectations than ever before - they want everything right, and they want everything right away. This requires that marketers answer their needs in the moment, whenever and wherever they are. Our investments in mobile are driven by consumers’ expectations for immediacy and relevance in the moment. Based on your feedback and our insights about how people search for information, we’ve built a whole new generation of ad experiences that are richer, more engaging and designed for screen-swipes instead of mouse-clicks so we meet consumers’ needs, right when they are looking:

Automotive: Car buyers spend up to 15 hours online researching, comparing and learning. When people browse the web for automobiles, they want to see pictures and visuals of their dream car. In fact, about half of Google searches for cars contain images. That’s why we introduced Automobile Ads - a new search ad format that takes you directly from Google.com to a beautiful carousel of car images that shows you how a car looks inside and out -- like how the sleek metallic finish looks with the black leather and wood trim. Tapping on an image brings up more information about the car, like horsepower and estimated MPG while tapping on the “Dealers” link takes you to a page with nearby dealer listings.

Hotel Ads: There are millions of searches for hotels everyday — that’s millions of potential hotel bookings. When people search for hotels, they’re looking for information like rates, availability, locations, user reviews, editorial descriptions, Google Street View, and high resolution photos. Today, we announced that Hotel Ads will start to show globally for hotel partners around the world, one click away from Google.com. Hotel Ads show current prices from a variety of sources and when a traveler is ready, they can select “Book” to complete their reservation on the partners’ sites.

Mortgages: Buying a home is one of the biggest financial decisions in life, so understanding your options and having the right tools is critical. Today, we introduced the newest addition to Google Compare in the US: mortgages. Whether someone is a first-time home-buyer or looking to refinance, consumers will soon be able to find the latest mortgage rates from multiple mortgage providers, and review a customized set of criteria like interest rate, terms of the loan and fees. They’ll be able to apply directly with an approved lender or speak to a qualified adviser for more information, directly from the Google search ad.

Automation to capture moments at scale
Consumers engage with brands, across billions of monthly searches, billions of hours of videos watched every month, and billions of interactions with various sites and apps. The sheer scale can be staggering, but with automation you can master the complexity and show exactly the right ads for consumers’ intent and context.

Automated Bidding AdWords bid strategies are setting billions of bids per day for tens of thousands of advertisers, enabling you to be more efficient and effective. Today, we introduced a new reporting dashboard that provides more transparency and control as you evaluate the performance of bid strategies over time. New simulation tools also show advertisers the tradeoff between volume and cost at different CPA targets.

Dynamic Search Ads are a powerful way to automatically show timely and relevant ads based on the content of your website -- without the need to manage keywords. Today, we announced significant enhancements, including recommended category targets based on your website's content, suggested CPCs for every category and more visibility into the ads that will show and pages where your customers will land.

Measuring every moment that matters
Marketers need to ensure they’re measuring all the moments that matter -- from first impression to final conversion. To do so, you need methods and metrics that speak to today’s increasingly complex path to purchase--across devices, apps, calls, and stores. By incorporating all of these touchpoints, marketers can measure the full impact of their campaigns and make better decisions for their business.
Today we introduced several new products to help you do so:

AdWords attribution We are making it easy for search marketers to move beyond a last-click attribution model. You’ll be able to select an attribution model for each of your conversion types. The choice you make will be reflected in your AdWords reporting and integrated into your automated bidding. We’re also introducing data-driven attribution, which uses your own conversion data to calculate the actual contribution of each keyword across the conversion path.

Cross-device conversions integrated with automated bidding New consumer paths to purchase make it more important than ever for marketers to measure activities that start on one device and are completed on another. Later this year, you’ll be able to take action on these insights when cross-device conversions are integrated into automated bidding. This is part of a broader update that will give you the option to include cross-device conversions as part of the Conversions column.

Marketing experiments This morning, we introduced new tools to help marketers measure the incremental impact generated from your Google ads. HomeAway, a global vacation rental marketplace, worked with the Google account team and learned that its Google Display Network ads are driving a 49% lift in click-related traffic to its website. Read the case study here and reach out to your AdWords account team to learn more.

Google is a company built on intent and immediacy. Our mission has always been to connect people with what they are looking for in the exact moment they are looking. These are moments that matter to consumers, to marketers and to us at Google because they are when decisions are being made and preferences shaped.
Thank you to everyone who attended the AdWords Performance Summit or watched the livestream. I can’t wait to see the great things you do with these new products. We look forward to continuing this journey with you: delivering the best possible experiences for consumers in the moments that matter.
Jerry Dischler, Vice President, Product Management, AdWords

Join us as we announce the latest AdWords innovations on May 5th

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Mobile has forever changed the ways people engage with the world around them -- from the way we shop to the way we communicate. In fact, 91% of smartphone users now turn to their phones for ideas while right in the middle of a task1 -- like picking out new running shoes or looking up a chocolate cake recipe. Because we can be online anywhere at any time, we count on information being immediately available and relevant. This expectation has changed how people make decisions and has created tremendous opportunities for marketers.To meet the heightened expectations of today’s consumers, Google is focused on delivering AdWords innovations that enable you to better reach and influence your customers in the countless moments throughout the day when they are looking for answers, discovering new things, or making decisions. On May 5, 2015 at 9:30am PT / 12:30pm ET, I will be hosting a livestream to share these new products with you. You can watch the 45-minute event live, right here on the Inside AdWords blog.Register for the livestream here.Join us to learn about new products that are designed to:

Create better mobile experiences for your customers at the moments when they’re looking for your products and services

Measure all the moments that matter to your business – online and offline, across multiple devices and touchpoints

Customize and scale everything you do in AdWords, to unlock the full potential of increasingly complex consumer journeys

These innovations are built based on unique insights about how consumers engage with technology and feedback from customers, large and small, from around the world. I can’t wait to share them with you.Please register and join us May 5th. Until then, follow us on our +GoogleAds page for sneak previews of what’s to come.
1Google/Ipsos Consumer Research Study, March 2015
Posted by Michelle,The MENA Google Adwords Team

AdWords app launches on Android

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Staying on top of your campaigns just got easierToday, we’re introducing the AdWords app, an easy way to view and manage your ads’ performance when you’re on the go. This new Android app is available globally for existing AdWords customers.Businesses, large and small, are increasingly using smartphones to manage everything from customer support to product orders to marketing. Now, you can use your smartphone to keep your AdWords campaigns running smoothly—no matter where your business takes you. As a companion to your desktop account, this app lets you:

View campaign stats

Update bids and budgets

Get real-time alerts and notifications

Act on suggestions to improve your campaigns

Call a Google expert

Download the AdWords app for AndroidTommy Sands, Senior Paid Search Manager from Philly Marketing Labs, tells us, “Having the ability to quickly review and take action in my AdWords accounts when I only have my mobile device enables me to be better and more efficient at managing my campaigns. It's nice to know that I'm only a few taps away from the information I need, no matter where I am.”Review (and make changes) on the goWhenever you open the app, you’ll see an overview of your clicks, costs, and conversions. For deeper insights, you can view metrics by ad group, day of week and device.Changes in campaign performance can happen at any time—now you can address them quickly, even when you’re away from your desk. For example, if you see your best performing campaign is maxing out on budget, you can make adjustments so you don’t lose out on potential sales. You can even pause or enable a campaign for a time-sensitive promotion.You’ll also receive customized suggestions that you can act on immediately. For example, if there’s an opportunity to get more impressions by adjusting your bids, we’ll let you know so you can make the change right from the app.

Get the appThe AdWords app is now available for devices that use Android 4.0 or later. To get started, download it today from the Google Play Store. And for more information, visit our Help Center. We look forward to hearing your feedback as you bring AdWords with you on your business adventures.Posted by MichelleThe MENA Google Adwords Team

Charge up your phones with call-only campaigns

Thursday, March 5, 2015

If you’re shopping for insurance or looking for storage space, chances are you’ll make a phone call. In fact, 61% of mobile searchers say that click to call is most important when making a purchase, as opposed to when researching. As a result, many businesses value these phone calls more than clickthroughs to their website. That’s why today we’re introducing call-only campaigns, an easy way to only drive calls to your business.
Call-only campaigns allow you to create mobile-ready ads that feature a click-to-call button and description text, so your customers can only call you from mobile search results.

Let’s say you’re a self-storage business where a majority of reservations are made over the phone. You can use call-only campaigns to drive people exclusively to your call center to take advantage of your higher call conversion rates. Or let’s say you’re a local business working to develop your mobile web experience. With call-only campaigns you can still reach your mobile, on-the-go customers on Google search and connect with them over the phone.
“Call-only ads have been a great tool for connecting us with customers at a specific point in their buying cycle, without having to send them through a website first. In the end, this leads to better performance for our ads and a better customer experience.” Josh Leibner Director of Paid Search at Red Ventures Optimized for calls

Simplified bidding Call-only campaigns are designed for and will only show ads on devices that make calls. You’ll only pay for clicks to call your business, as opposed to click to your site. That means you can adjust keyword bids and optimize directly based on the value of those calls -- no mobile bid modifier needed.

Customized for your business When you connect with customers over the phone, it’s important to provide the information they’re looking for about your business. With call-only campaigns, you can customize your ads to enhance the click-to-call experience. For example, your ad might say “Call to get a quote” to encourage more qualified leads, or “Speak with a specialist today” to let customers know they can talk directly to a real person.

If you are currently using a setting in call extensions to create call-only ads, details on how to upgrade to call-only campaigns will be shared in email communications over the next few weeks..
Learn more You can learn more about creating mobile call-only campaigns in the AdWords Help Center. If you want to be sure you’re doing everything possible to drive calls for your business, check out Driving Calls in AdWords, a new Best Practices guide.
Michelle The MENA Adwords Team

Get faster and easier URL tracking with new Upgraded URLs

Thursday, March 5, 2015

URL management just got easier
Constant connectivity has increased the ways that people engage with your business, meaning more data and metrics for you to use to manage ad performance. That’s why we are introducing Upgraded URLs to provide an easier and faster way to manage and track important information about each click on your AdWords ads*.
Upgraded URLs offer several benefits for advertisers, including:

less time spent managing URL tracking updates

reduced crawl and load times on your website

new ValueTrack parameters that help you gain additional insights about your ads. Learn more.

Johannes Lipka, Product & Solution Manager at eProfessional GmbH, says: “Upgraded URLs have been one of the most time-saving tools we’ve used in AdWords. It’s allowed us to change custom tracking parameters for a group of URLs all in one place, without re-setting ad stats. We plan to upgrade our clients’ accounts over to upgraded URLs as soon as possible.”
Destination URLs today
If you use URL tracking today, you’ll notice that Destination URLs are made up of two components:

Landing page URL This is the URL that customers see in their browsers when they get to your landing page after clicking on your ad.

Tracking This section includes information like redirects to third party tracking services, ValueTrack parameters, or custom creative IDs.

In the example below, blue represents the landing page, and green represents the tracking information.
www.example.com?creative=12345
With destination URLs, anytime you need to adjust tracking, you have to update the entire destination URL. This triggers a re-review of your entire destination URL and your ads stop running while your URL is re-reviewed -- causing you to lose time and potential new business.
What’s changing with Upgraded URLs
Upgraded URLs let you enter the landing page portion of your URL and your tracking information separately in AdWords. Now you have the option to update your tracking information at your account, campaign or ad group without having to re-set your ad stats.
Let’s see how the example URL above could be constructed using the new upgraded URL fields.
Final URL is where you’ll enter your website’s landing page URL. Screen Shot 2015-02-04 at 17.06.47.png

The landing page ‘www.example.com’ is now entered in the Final URL field
Tracking templates are where you enter your tracking information and tell AdWords how to assemble your URLs. Now, if you’d like to scale your tracking updates across multiple URLs, you can use a shared tracking template at the account, campaign or ad group level. If you’d prefer to manage your URL tracking information at the individual URL level, you can use a tracking template at the ad, keyword, or sitelink level.
In the example below, we’ve used a tracking template at the account level to apply our tracking information across all of the URLs in the account.

Tracking information for all URLs in the account is placed in the account level tracking template
Custom parameters let you customize the information you’d like to monitor as well as the specific values that get inserted into your URLs when your ad clicks are triggered. For example, if you’d like to insert the value 12345 whenever this specific ad is clicked, you can set the custom parameter {_mycreative} in this ad. Screen Shot 2015-02-04 at 17.12.43.png

Enter ‘_mycreative’ in the custom parameter field to insert 12345 whenever that ad is clicked
New URLs, new insights
As part of this upgrade, you’ll gain access to many new insights about your ad clicks.
New ValueTrack parameters let you track additional insights about your business. For example, if you’d like to track how many ad clicks were triggered for your creative by location, you can use the new {loc_physical_ms} ValueTrack parameter. To optimally use the new ValueTrack parameters, you can set them up at the account level so you can track these values across all the URLs in your account. Learn about the new value track parameters. Screen Shot 2015-02-05 at 12.23.07_v03photoshop.png

Screen Shot 2015-02-05 at 12.23.07_v03photoshop.png

The valuetrack for location {location_physical_ms} is in green in the account level tracking template
Next steps
We’ll be rolling out upgraded URLs to all advertisers starting this week. We encourage all advertisers who use tracking in their URLs to upgrade to the new system by July 1, 2015. Starting on that date, your URLs will begin updating to the new structure.
If you're using a tracking platform to manage your URLs, we encourage working with them to manage these changes.
To learn how you can start using Upgraded URLs for your new ad URLs, please see our article on Help Center.
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*Everywhere we say ads, we also mean other targeting options available for the Search Network, Display Network, and Shopping.

Michelle The MENA Adwords Team

Case Study | Opensooq | PERF - App download

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Published by Jeannette Ashak - Google AdWords Team

Managing your accounts at scale, made easier

Monday, November 17, 2014

A few months ago, we announced ad customizers, a tool for optimizing your ad text and connecting with your customers in real-time. This kicked off a series of Tools for the Power User built to help you simplify campaign management, and act on key business insights at scale.
As the holiday season approaches, advertisers are busy ensuring their campaigns are set up for success, making it more important than ever to manage time-sensitive updates and make changes to your campaigns quickly and efficiently.
This month, we’re turning our focus to scalable and efficient workflow management in AdWords. Our goal is to help you find time-saving ways to manage these tasks at scale using simpler, integrated workflows within AdWords, so you can focus on your core business.
Our workflow tools fall into three core areas:

Bulk editing directly within AdWords

Advertisers need to manage multiple campaign tasks directly in the AdWords interface more efficiently. We’ve added new tools for editing your settings and extensions in bulk across your campaigns and ad groups. For example, you can edit location targeting or ad rotation settings across multiple campaigns, or update your ad extensions -- like sitelinks, callouts, and apps -- to promote your latest holidays deals across hundreds of your ad groups with just a few clicks.

Change multiple sitelinks using the Edit menu in your +Extensions tab
CarsDirect.com was able to add sitelinks across its accounts using the new bulk editing features, and saw a 13% increase in CTR, and 6% decrease in CPC. Allison Query from CarsDirect says, “The bulk feature for ad extensions has been crucial for keeping us competitive in the search results! It has trimmed our work time from hours to minutes."
You can also take advantage of other existing bulk workflows supported in AdWords to scale your work. Save time by using the copy and paste feature to swiftly copy over your existing keyword lists, ads, and ad groups into your new campaigns.

Improved tools for uploading changes in bulk

Advertisers need easier ways to make quick changes offline in spreadsheets, and apply them directly into AdWords where and when they need them. The improvements to bulk uploads include more intuitive spreadsheet formats, in-context options to upload changes directly into the appropriate campaigns and ad groups, and the ability to preview your updates and check for errors before posting them. Now, you can quickly upload new seasonal keywords into your ad groups, update your budgets across several campaigns, and post your changes with confidence because you can review them before you post them.

Review your spreadsheet edits with the preview tool before applying them to your campaigns

Advanced tools for more customized changes across your accounts

Earlier this year we launched AdWords Scripts for MCC to help advertisers with more complex editing needs quickly make customized changes across multiple accounts. You can use simple JavaScript code to make cross-account changes, create customized reports, send automated emails, and even pull data into and out of Google Spreadsheets. Learn more.
Many agencies are using AdWords Scripts for MCC to power customized ad text changes across their customers’ accounts, save time, increase relevancy, and improve their ad performance. iProspect uses Adwords Scripts to dynamically insert sitelinks into Cleartrip’s ad units and change their landing pages on the fly, resulting in a 34% increase in CTR and 24% decrease on Cost-of-Acquisition. Performics is using AdWords Scripts for MCC to update ad parameters with real-time discounts across their customer's accounts. Using MCC scripts for MonShowroom, Performics cut their workflow time by 60%.
These are just some of the tools we’ve created to help you move faster, and make changes at scale across AdWords. Stay tuned as we continue to improve AdWords Editor -- another important tool to help with complex changes at scale. New updates are coming soon!
The AdWords MENA Team