AdWords MENA Blog

Top of Page Bid Estimates

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

We’re excited to announce a new metric in AdWords, top of page bid estimates, to provide additional assistance in optimizing your ads to show above the search results. Analogous to first page bid estimates, this metric approximates the cost-per-click (CPC) bid needed for your ad to appear regularly in the top positions above the search results.

This feature compliments the new “Top vs. side” report segment, which allows you to see how your ads perform above and to the side of Google search results. This information helps you better optimize your search campaigns by more deeply examining the relationship between your ads’ locations and their clicks and conversions. On average, ads that appear above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads that appear on the side. Using this information in with the new top of page bid estimates can give you greater insight with which to plan your bidding strategy.

Note: While the top of page bid estimates can help guide your bid planning, bidding higher than the top of page bid estimate will not guarantee a top ad position. Ad position will still depend on Quality Score, your CPC bid, your budget and account settings, and user and competing advertiser behavior.

Here’s how you can view your top of page bid estimates:

Go to the Keywords tab.
Click the Columns button.
Select Customize columns from the drop-down menu.
Check the Est. top of page bid box and click Save.

Written by Andrew Truong - Inside AdWords crew
Posted by Omar Selman - Google AdWords MENA

How is an AdWords Account Structured?

Monday, August 29, 2011

There are three levels to a Google AdWords account: account, campaign, and ad group. The diagram below shows the account structure and the settings that are applied at each level. In summary:

Your account is associated with a unique email address, password, and billing information.
At the campaign level, you choose your daily budget, geographic and language targeting, Google Network distribution preferences, and end dates.
At the ad group level, you create ads and choose keywords and placements. You can also set bids for the ad group or for individual keywords or placements.

Within each ad group, you create one or more ads and select sets of keywords, placements, or both to trigger those ads. Each ad group has its own set of keywords and placements. If you create multiple ads in an ad group, the ads will rotate.

Posted by Omar Selman - Google AdWords MENA

AdWords Editor Version 9.5 for Windows and Mac

Friday, August 26, 2011

Today, we’re excited to announce Adwords Editor 9.5! This version supports Campaign Experiments, Location Extensions and plenty of other features to boost your productivity while managing your AdWords campaigns. We've highlighted the key changes below, and you can see the complete list of feature updates in the AdWords Editor Version 9.5 release notes.

AdWords Editor Version 9.5 Highlights:

Campaign Experiments

You can now do the following to maintain your campaign experiments:

Apply and edit an experiment status (e.g. “control only”, “experiment only”, “control and experiment”) at the ad group, ad or keyword level.
Apply and edit a Default Max. CPC, Display Network Max. CPC, or Max. CPM bid multiplier at the ad group level.
Apply and edit a Max. CPC bid multiplier at the keyword level.
Import and export experiment status and bid multipliers in both CSV and XML formats.

Location Extensions

Version 9.5 supports new and existing location extensions. You can create new manual location extensions for any address, modify existing locations and download/upload location extensions in CSV and XML formats.

Background Download

If you’re working on several large accounts, you can now download them in the background while you’re working on another open account. This can be a great timesaver by allowing you to continue working rather than waiting for the download to finish.

We’ve also made several usability improvements, such as improved revert functionality and streamlined Add Multiple Items workflow.

The next time you log into your AdWords Editor account, you will be prompted to upgrade. You may also download Version 9.5 from the AdWords Editor Website. After you've installed the new version of AdWords Editor, you will need to download your accounts again. To preserve your comments and unposted changes, select the Backup then Upgrade option in the automatic upgrade prompt and save the backup file to your computer. Then, re-download your account and import the backup file to AdWords Editor. A small portion of users may need to manually uninstall the previous version of AdWords Editor.

For more information, take a look at the release notes and visit the AdWords Editor Help Centre.

Posted by Omar Selman - Google AdWords MENA

Some Advanced Tips for Using the Keyword Tool

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Keyword Tool is a great way to find new keywords for your ad campaigns. This tool can help you when you're trying to do any of these things:

Find keywords based on your site content. Instead of entering your own keywords, try using the Website Content option. It lets you enter the URL of your business website, or of any site related to your business. The AdWords system will then scan your page and then suggest relevant keywords.
Create new, separate ad groups with similar keywords. We recommend creating several ad groups in each campaign, each with a small, focused set of similar keywords. Use the Keyword Tool to discover relevant keywords, then divide them into lists of 5 to 20 similar terms. See examples of ad groups promoting a single product or service and multiple products or services.
Identify negative keywords. The Keyword Tool can show you off-topic keywords that users may be thinking about. Suppose you sell cut flowers and you give the Keyword Tool the keyword 'flowers.' It may suggest the related term 'gardens,' and you may want to add that term to your ad group as a negative keyword. That will keep your ad from showing on searches for 'flower gardens' or similar terms. This helps make sure only interested customers see your ads.
Specify a language and location. If you're using the Keyword Tool while signed in to your account, you may see an option to tailor results to a particular location and language. If you happen to be targeting Spanish speakers who live in France, make sure you set the Keyword Tool to that language and location.
Start broad and then get specific. Try broad terms like 'flowers' in the Keyword Tool first. Then try specific terms like 'red roses' or 'miniature cactus.'

Posted by Omar Selman - Google AdWords MENA

Doubleclick Ad Planner - from A(rabic) to U(kranian)

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

As part of Google’s commitment to deliver information to users in the language they speak, the DoubleClick Ad Planner team is launching in 19 new languages. This brings our total up to 35 with coverage across 90%+ of internet users. But we won’t stop here. We’ve still got a handful of languages to cover before we meet our own goal of supporting 98% of all internet users with 40+ languages. Check out Ad Planner in Arabic today!

Posted by Omar Selman - Google AdWords MENA

A new Google search ads experience for tablet devices

Monday, August 1, 2011

We’re excited about the growth we ’ve seen in tablet usage over the past year, and we’re continuing to improve the user and advertiser experience on tablets with full internet browsers. Today we announced the launch of a refreshed Google Search for tablet users. Now tablet users can experience an optimized version of Google Search designed to maximize the screen real estate of a tablet and be easy to navigate via touch.

In turn, we’ve updated the look and feel of search ads on tablets to customize the experience for tablet users. Aside from the visual changes, the number of ads which show on Google Search will now be dependent on the orientation of a tablet:

If you enter in a search query when the tablet is in landscape mode, there will be a maximum of two top ads above the search results.
If your search query occurs when the tablet is held in portrait mode, there will be a maximum of three ads above the search results.
Similarly to high end mobile devices, there will also be a maximum of three ads at the bottom of search results regardless of tablet orientation.

All campaigns targeting tablet devices will show on this new tablet-optimized search experience. However, here are some ways in which you can make use of AdWords account features to review and manage tablet ad performance:

We hope that this updated tablet search experience will help users continue to find the most relevant information, and advertisers to see improved performance on tablet campaigns. We’re excited for the ways in which tablet devices will help businesses and consumers connect with each other. Learn more about targeting tablet devices here.

Written by Surojit Chatterjee, Product Manager, Mobile Ads
Posted by Omar Selman - Google AdWords MENA

Google Display Network: Announcing changes to campaign settings

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Recently, we made a minor change to the way Google Display Network campaign settings work. This change affects campaigns that meet these criteria:

Are opted in to the Google Display Network
Are targeting only keywords in at least one ad group
Have the campaign setting "Relevant pages only on placements, audiences and topics I manage"

Background

When you set up a Google Display Network campaign, you have two options to choose from:

Relevant pages across the entire network
Relevant pages only on placements, audiences and topics I manage

With option (1), Google automatically places your ad on relevant web pages based on the keywords in your campaign. With option (2), you have greater control over where your ad appears: your ads show on relevant web pages only within specified placements, audiences or topics.

Currently, if you choose option (2) and only add keywords, your ads aren't eligible to appear. As a result, you receive zero impressions in those ad groups on the Google Display Network.

For example, say that you're selling tennis shoes and using the keywords "sports shoes", "tennis shoes" and "trainers”. If you're only opted into the Display Network and you've selected "Relevant pages only on placements, audiences and topics I manage" as your setting, your ads are only eligible to appear on specified placements, audiences or topics. Because you aren’t using any topics, placements or audiences, your ads won't appear on the Google Display Network.

What's changing?

With the recent change, ads with this type of setting conflict will start appearing on relevant pages across the entire Google Network based on your keywords. In the previous example, ads would show on pages about "sports shoes", "tennis shoes" and "trainers" on the Google Display Network.

If you add a placement, audience or topic, your ad will continue to appear only on relevant pages within that placement, audience or topic.

Important: No changes are needed to existing ad groups, as those that meet these criteria will be prevented from appearing on relevant pages across the entire network. Learn more

To make these campaign settings clearer, we also renamed the settings. We changed these two options to:

Show ads on pages that match the broadest targeting method
Show ads only on pages that match all selected targeting methods

For more information on how to use our campaign settings and targeting methods to control where your ads appear, visit the help centre.

Written by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Omar Selman - Google AdWords MENA