(Cross posted from the AdWords Agency Blog)

Google’s Dan Taylor presents at Digiday Agency event Dec. 12, 2011

It’s that time of year again, the time to reflect on 2011 and think about resolutions for the new year. We may not be able to help you lose those extra 5 lbs., but we can inform some New Year’s resolutions for your business.

Last week, Google’s Dan Taylor presented at the Digiday Agency event on the 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Display Advertisers. See video and summary below.

Resolution # 1: I will be strategic in how I use remarketing

Remarketing is like plugging a leaky bucket, where the leak is website visitors leaving your site, and the plug is display ads that bring past visitors back to your site.

There are many ways to ‘plug’ the leak, but we offer up the follow strategies to be the most effective in doing so.

• Target based on audience: Layering demographic targeting on top of remarketing campaigns can help you tailor the message even more. For example, have one message for men, and a different one for women.
  
• Target based on intent: You can send a general message to homepage visitors and product-oriented reminders to visitors that browsed product pages but didn’t make a purchase. Using a creative with dynamically related products is a great way to do this.
  
• Expand your list sources: Some of our most effective remarketing customers use several sources to get their lists, such as YouTube mastheads and channels, their main website and campaign landing pages. Expanding the lists enables you to reach more potential customers.

Resolution # 2: I will use video to its full potential

Video is a great way to reach customers, yet it is often underutilized. Here are the best ways to use video to its fullest potential.

• With the latest changes to the YouTube homepage, we’ve pivoted the YouTube site experience to focus on channels and a socially-driven feed, the contents of which are controlled by the left hand sidebar. This gives marketers a powerful opportunity to enhance their brand exposure.
  
• Through the new AdWords for video front end, we’ve drastically reduced the time it takes to create a video. Easily run click-to-play or TrueView in-display formats across Google Display Network.
  
• We’ve also found that rich media, in tandem with video, is more effective than simple Flash. When you’re running rich media campaigns, think about including video to increase purchase intent.

Resolution # 3: I will fuse social media with display

Making display ads social increases the conversation with your customers. Here are some ways that this can be accomplished:

• Make social media a primary destination: Try linking Trueview ads back to a similarly branded channel for a great social experience.
  
• Social interactions within the banner: Actually having users interact with the banner (by playing a game, watching videos, etc.) and then having them share their experiences through social media continues the conversation.
  
• Bring social media endorsements in the banner: This is becoming more popular, and is a great way for friends to share recommendations.

Resolution # 4: I will go mobile with my display campaigns

Just as users are now moving more and more to a multi-screen experience via desktop, mobile, and display, so must marketers think about a display strategy that isn’t siloed.

• Tablet targeting: Users expect more from tablet ads and are increasingly using these for online shopping. We support tablet targeting including zeroing in on tablet audiences by device, location, time of day and contextually.
  
• Get smarter with smartphone targeting: Finding what’s right for your business is key here. With so many format options to choose from that are specific to mobile devices (click to video, click to map, click to call) it’s worth it to think what could be the most effective for your business.

Resolution #5: There’s a perfect ad for everyone.

It’s really the biggest resolution we’re focused on at Google that encompasses all the other ones and it’s adopting the philosophy that 'There’s a perfect ad for everyone.'

Our recipe for the perfect ad for everyone is driven by simplicity and also by the technology that’s enabling us to customize the advertising experience for everyone at scale.

There’s a simple recipe to the perfect ad: The right person + the right message + the right time + the right context = the perfect ad.

What are your new year’s resolutions for your business? Let us know by tweeting @GoogleDisplay.

Mary Shirley, Product Marketing

Last month we introduced the ability to add a +1 button to ads trafficked in DFA. Now we’ve added a couple of features to the +1 creative template in DFA to make it even more effective as a recommendation engine for your brand.

Viewers of your ad can now see the faces of friends who have +1’d the ad. Putting a face to the name makes for more powerful impact as it makes the ad more personal and relevant. The result, we believe, are that people who see your ad will be more likely to click and respond to your call to action. In fact, 71% of shoppers say that recommendations from friends and family impact their purchasing decisions (Harris Interactive, June 2010).

Also, you now have full control over the placement of a +1 button in your display ad. For instance, you can set the size and annotation style of the button so aligns well with your creative concept.

Please note that if your account had previously been enabled for the +1 creative template functionality, you will now have access to the updated version. For more information on the +1 button and on the incorporating the +1 button in DFA reference this article in the Help Center (DFA sign-in required).

Posted by Gabe Stein, DFA Technical Specialist

(Originally posted on 11/29/11, updated 12/5/11)

It’s no secret that the mobile web is exploding. According to IDC, more people in the US are projected to access the web via a mobile device than on a computer by 2015. This makes mobile a very attractive opportunity for advertisers, and is creating a wave of new revenue opportunities for publishers.

In order to bring more mobile inventory to buyers on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, we’ve launched two important initiatives for the mobile-specific 320x50 ad size.

First, buyers will be able to access AdMob in-app mobile inventory from AdMob publishers and application developers. Last week, we opened access to this inventory to a preselected set of Ad Exchange buyers. Second, as of today, we are beginning to test the ability for Ad Exchange publishers to opt in their 320x50 size mobile web inventory into the Ad Exchange. This will open up new mobile web inventory for Ad Exchange buyers. As publisher participation in these initiatives grows, we expect the inventory pool for in-app and mobile web inventory that’s specific to the 320x50 ad size to expand as well.

With the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, this new mobile inventory can be purchased via RTB or the UI. Ad Exchange buyers who are interested in the new 320x50 ad size should be sure to share their interest with their account manager.

Posted by Atul Bhandari, Product Manager, DoubleClick Ad Exchange

As a follow up to the September launch of Report Builder in DoubleClick for Advertisers, we’re pleased to announce several new features that will make the tool even more useful.

Incorporating Reach and Media Cost
New reach reports in Report Builder show an estimate of how many unique users have interacted with your ads. With the flexibility of Report Builder, you can choose specific advertisers, campaigns, ads, and placements, and gain insight into how many people they reached during a selected timeframe.

Media cost is now an available metric in Report Builder and you can add it to your reports as you would any metric. Media cost represents the cost of all impressions, clicks and activities during the specified date range, based on the schedule and pricing information you input into DFA for each placement.

Saved and Deferred Reports
A major benefit of Report Builder is the ability to create detailed reports with exactly the dimensions and metrics you need. Now you can save report reports, which act as templates so you can quickly re-run or reconfigure frequently-run reports.

You also now have the option to defer report generation, which saves the file so you can come back and download it later. This is especially helpful when running a big report, because you can keep working without having to wait for the report to finish generating.

To learn more about these latest features available in Report Builder reference this article in the Help Center (DFA sign-in required).

Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager

Our product teams have been rapidly innovating to bring more format support to DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Recent format innovations include:

• Mobile web inventory. According to internal data from October, mobile web inventory on DoubleClick Ad Exchange from high-end phones and tablets already makes up around 9% of global inventory and 15% of U.S. inventory.
• Mobile in-app inventory. In the coming weeks, AdMob publishers and application developers will be able to make their in-app mobile inventory available on DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Read the full announcement here.
• In-stream video. Q3 was our first full quarter of making in-stream video inventory available to buyers. Between the beginning of Q3 to now, we’ve tripled the number of buyers accessing this inventory.
• Rollover to expand. We’ve added the rollover to expand rich media format to our existing click-to-expand and in-page formats.

Recently at OMMA Display, Chip Hall, Director, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, spoke about these innovations in a presentation titled, “Unlocking Opportunities With the First Truly Cross-format Exchange.” In case you missed it live, you can watch it here:

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

(cross posted from the DoubleClick Search blog. To learn more about DoubleClick Search, contact your Account Manager or request a call from a DoubleClick Search specialist.)

We heard from several of you about the importance of improving the process of downloading reports and uploading files in DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3). You offered comments and suggestions for making the functionality better. As a result, the DoubleClick Search team spent the past few weeks prioritizing and focusing on the changes that would provide the biggest impact. We hope that the improvements described below will make a major difference in your use of DS3.

Faster upload processing of large accounts

Our Engineering team made several changes behind the scenes to improve the upload processing times of large engine accounts (engine accounts with over 100,000 keywords). In the past, uploads of large accounts took a much longer time to process. Now, these previously delayed uploads will process at least 20 times faster per row.

Uploaded keywords now include dashes (-) and periods (.)

Before this release, DS3 would remove all dashes (-) and periods (.) from uploaded keywords. You can now upload keywords with the confidence that they will remain intact.

Downloaded reports now include AdWords broad match modifier (+)

Before this release, DS3 would remove the Google AdWords broad match modifier (+) from downloaded reports. The downloads now include the modifier, and it will also remain if you need to make changes to the report and upload it back into DS3.

We’ll continue to look for new ways to make the download and upload processes better in the future. Please contact your Technical Account Manager or email ds-support@google.com with any suggestions.

For more information about other new features in this DS3 release, including new bid strategy reporting columns, check out the release notes. And keep an eye on the blog for more exciting features in upcoming releases.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

In 2009, we launched the DoubleClick Ad Exchange as a way to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, drive performance for our advertiser and publisher partners, and open up the display marketplace. In the two years since, exchange-based trading has taken off -- we’ve seen the volume of trades on our own exchange grow by more than 150% in the past year. At the same time, display, as a medium, has evolved.

Display started as just banner ads on websites, but has grown to include a range of formats as diverse as the web itself -- rich media ads that bring a page to life, in-stream ads that play before your favorite online video, and ads that run in the mobile version of your daily newspaper. To reflect this growing diversity, we have been expanding the types of formats in the Exchange. We support the most popular types of rich media ads, including units that run in-page with video, or expand when you click or mouse over them. It’s also possible to buy ads across the mobile web. Earlier this year, we announced that in-stream video formats were coming to the Exchange, and we’ve seen huge demand since launch: the number of buyers for in-stream video has tripled over the past quarter.

Today, we are announcing another step forward -- in the coming weeks, AdMob developers will be able to make their in-app inventory available on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Initially, a small number of pre-qualified buyers will be able to compete for this inventory. Over time, we'll be rolling it out more broadly. Ultimately, this will give app developers and publishers access to a wider pool of buyers like demand-side platforms and agency trading desks, improving their potential returns, and helping grow the overall mobile web economy. And marketers on our Exchange will be able to buy, in real time, ads that run inside people’s favorite mobile games, news apps and more. With this important addition, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange will be truly cross-format...and will become the first exchange to support this full range of ad formats.

VivaKi, one of our key partners on the Exchange, is gearing up to start buying in-app ads on the Exchange. “We are delighted to be working with Google as they open up the DoubleClick Ad Exchange to include AdMob in-app inventory, and to deliver this opportunity to our clients,” says Kurt Unkel, Senior Vice President, VivaKi Nerve Center. “We anticipate this experience will help us bring mobile to scale to our partners, and will provide insight into the operational elements and the creative assets that work best in this environment.”

A cross-format exchange is just one of the ways we’re looking to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, but one we think will create tremendous value for advertisers and publishers. We will continue to work with our partners to help them get the most out of what the evolving display market has to offer -- today, tomorrow, and in the years ahead.

Posted by Chip Hall, Director, DoubleClick Ad Exchange

One benefit of DoubleClick Ad Exchange is that buyers can bring their own data, optimization and bidding strategies to the exchange in order to meet their own goals. In a new case study with Quantcast, we look at how they do exactly these things in real-time and at scale through their product, Quantcast Lookalikes.

Data and scale are two things Quantcast embraces. For example, across DoubleClick Ad Exchange, Quantcast achieves an amazing callout rate close to 100%, which means they can respond to almost all of the impressions DoubleClick announces to them. This matters in RTB because the best impressions for a campaign become easier to pick when the buying system sees them all. And since the start of 2011, Quantcast has doubled the number of impressions it handles from DoubleClick Ad Exchange and its overall data processing capability grows rapidly. Quantcast’s system currently generates a live feed of 400,000+ events a second, adding up to over five petabytes (five million gigabytes) of data processed a day with an incredibly high frequency of data points.

Quantcast especially appreciates DoubleClick Ad Exchange as a source of real-time inventory.

As Crispin Flowerday, Real-time Platform Manager at Quantcast says, "Quantcast helps advertisers and publishers get the right impression to the right person at the right time, so we seized on DoubleClick Ad Exchange's real-time bidding API as soon as it was available to us in 2009. RTB is a key pillar of our efforts to make advertising relevant and audiences valuable and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange is helping us make that dream a reality."

For more details on how Quantcast Lookalikes are used on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, download the full case study here.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

(cross posted from the DoubleClick Search blog. To learn more about DoubleClick Search, contact your Account Manager or request a call from a DoubleClick Search specialist.)

We recently described some new DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) features designed to improve your workflow and productivity. Now, we have even more improvements to enhance your reporting and upload capabilities.

Inferred match type

When we launched DS3, we provided the ability to set a bid for each match type on a Microsoft adCenter keyword. As each keyword could correspond to three match types and we couldn’t determine with certainty which match type caused the conversion, we were unable to populate the Match type column in reporting. However, many of you duplicated keywords to have a 1-to-1 match type relationship and asked us to display match type. As a result, the new Inferred match type column allows you to see a match type attributed to your adCenter keywords and makes it easier to compare keywords across engines.

DS3 infers the match type from the bids you have set for adCenter keywords:

• - If a broad match bid is set (in other words, greater than 0), DS3 assumes it’s a broad match keyword.
• - If a phrase match bid is set but not broad, DS3 assumes it's a phrase match keyword.
• - If an exact match bid is set but not phrase or broad, DS3 assumes it's an exact match keyword.
• - If a content match bid is the only bid set, DS3 will leave the Inferred match typecolumn blank.

After you select the Inferred match type column, you'll be able to see it in DS3 reporting on the UI and on downloaded reports. A few other things to keep in mind:

• - To make it easier to compare keywords across engines, DS3 will copy the Match type column value into the Inferred match type column for Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing keywords.
• - This is a read-only column: You won’t be able to update match type by changing the value in the Inferred match type column and uploading.
• - This column does not appear in DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) reporting. You won’t be able to see a match type for adCenter keywords in DFA.

Upload email confirmations

Tired of constantly checking the Uploads list to see if the spinny has stopped and your important upload processed? You can now opt to receive emails when an upload is complete. The email will contain a link to the upload page; if there are errors, you can download the error sheet from the uploads list, make corrections, and attempt the upload again.

Names for emailed reports

When you set up a report to be emailed from DS3, you can now customize the name that will appear in the email subject line. This is useful if the default name isn’t descriptive enough to differentiate between reports. For example, you could email two reports for the same campaign, but set up different date ranges, and include the date ranges in the report names.

To make sure you learn about new DS3 features as they’re released, enter your email address in the Follow by Email field in the upper righthand corner of the blog and click Submit. You’ll receive an email every time we add a post to the blog.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search Team

(cross posted from the DoubleClick Search blog. To learn more about DoubleClick Search, contact your Account Manager or request a call from a DoubleClick Search specialist.)

In addition to Floodlight segmentation, we’ve made some exciting enhancements to the DS3 UI over the past few weeks, including new filter options, keyword defaults, and a settings bar for campaigns and ad groups. Read on to learn how these new features can help you work faster and better in DS3.

New filter options: ‘Does not contain’ and ‘Starts with’

When you set up a filter that has the options Contains, Equals, and Does not equal, there are now two additional options: Does not contain and Starts with. When combined with the recently released ability to filter by multiple terms, you have an even more powerful set of filtering options.

Apply default settings to keywords

When creating keywords in the DS3 UI, you can now apply default values to keywords as you enter them in the text box. This makes it easy to apply the same values to several keywords, while also customizing the settings for some keywords when needed.

For example, if one keyword in an ad group is performing well, you can set a specific max CPC bid of $10, while keeping all other keywords at the default bid of $5. To apply a default, exclude the field from the row in the text box. Learn more about the proper formatting of default keyword settings in the Help Center.

New settings bar for campaigns and ad groups

When you select a campaign or ad group in DS3, you’ll now see a settings bar near the top of the page. This bar gives you a quick overview of campaign/ad group settings. If you need to make a change, you can simply click the Campaign settings or Ad group settings button and edit the settings in the inline panel that appears. Look for even more useful information in this bar in the future.

For more information about the latest DS3 release, including fixes to known issues, check out the release notes. And keep an eye on the blog for information about improvements to uploads, downloads, and reporting!

Posted by the DoubleClick Search Team

Last March, Google introduced the +1 button on search results and ads to make it easier for people to get recommendations from the people they trust right when they’re searching. With just a single click, the +1 button lets signed-in Google users publicly recommend content to friends and contacts. Since then, webmasters have been installing the +1 button on their pages. The button has already been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily. These +1 recommendations tell others, “This is something to check out!”

Starting now, advertisers have the option to include the +1 button in any DoubleClick Rich Media ad. This provides advertisers with the ability to include the +1 button in our third-party rich media creatives and to control the inclusion of the +1 button at the creative level. This new option provides rich media advertisers with a simple and scalable way to increase positive and public advocacy of their brand online.

Xbox and AKQA London have worked with DoubleClick to include the +1 button in their upcoming rich media ads for the Gears of War 3 release.

Beginning in October, the +1 button will also appear across display ads served directly through Google Display Network (GDN) and in select mobile inventory. Wherever a +1 action originates, be it from Google’s search engine, in a display or mobile ad on GDN, in a DoubleClick Rich Media ad or from a web page, the +1 endorsement applies universally to a single page. Each +1 action adds to the overall +1 count for a page.

We look forward to helping advertisers accelerate social recommendations of their content by adding the +1 button to DoubleClick Rich Media ad units. For more details and best practices on including the +1 button in DoubleClick Rich Media ad units, please download our overview here. To get started with +1 in your next campaign, contact your DoubleClick Rich Media account representative.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

The rise of Ad Exchanges has made it easier for buyers and sellers to connect, using technologies such as real-time bidding (RTB) to help unlock more value for every impression. Exchanges have also provided a number of efficiency benefits such as the elimination of paperwork (known as “insertion orders”) and trafficking for every transaction. Increasingly, deal types have been evolving on this platform as publishers have been making exclusive tiers of inventory available to select buyers via exchanges, a model typically known as a “private exchange”. Private exchanges can provide buyers with enhanced access to premium inventory.

While buyers and sellers have been transacting with anonymous inventory in the DoubleClick Ad Exchange auction for more than a year, it was clear that the industry was also ready for yet another evolutionary step in exchange buying. Both buyers and sellers wanted even more flexibility, control and pricing certainty for some transactions. In tandem, we’ve continued to evolve the Ad Exchange to meet these needs by rolling-out a new solution called Ad Exchange Direct Deals.

This new type of exchange deal allows buyers to access inventory from publishers at a fixed price through DoubleClick Ad Exchange. This differs from typical deals where the price is set through the auction. With Direct Deals, buyers get access to inventory on a pre-auction basis, thus getting “first look” access.

For buyers, this creates a bridge between the spot and reserve markets for display inventory. It helps buyers benefit from the high quality publisher inventory that the reserve market is known for while preserving the audience targeting power that the data-driven spot market is known for. With Direct Deals, buyers keep the efficiency of the exchange transaction, such as “insertion-orderless” buying and an ability to buy on an impression-by-impression basis, all while enjoying the pricing certainty of the directly negotiated deal. Accessing inventory through Direct Deals in combination with using brand-friendly formats like in-stream video and rich media will help advertisers execute brand campaigns against specific audiences and further unlock the branding potential of exchange-based buying.

Premium publishers, such as Washington Post and About.com, have been early testers of this feature working with leading exchange buyers such as re-targeting network, Criteo. For Criteo, this feature has meant new opportunities to connect with publishers. Jonathan Wolf, Chief Buying Officer at Criteo says, “Working directly with publishers has always been critical for Criteo, as a way to access the best inventory and deliver the highest CPMs to publishers. We are delighted to be using Direct Deals as a new way to achieve this, with all the advantages of a real-time mechanism.”

Here at Google, we are excited to introduce this new level of flexibility to Ad Exchange to help buyers improve the effectiveness of their campaigns and sellers profit from real-time display buying on their terms. DoubleClick Ad Exchange advertisers and publishers can contact their account manager to join the Direct Deals beta program.

Posted by Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management

In September 2009, the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange (ADX), built on Google technology, opened for business with support for real-time bidding (RTB). Since then, we’ve witnessed explosive growth in RTB. For example, RTB spend as a percent of spend on ADX has risen from 8% in January 2010 to 68% as of May 2011. Plus, the volume of impressions purchased via RTB for the first half of 2011 is 6.4x that of the first half of 2010.

At Google, we believe that the overall display advertising pie can get bigger and see RTB as one of the technologies that can help get us there. In February 2011, we did a “Real-Time Display Advertising State of the Industry Survey” with Digiday, which found that advertisers and agencies are reporting that they will spend more on digital advertising in 2011 because of the benefits of RTB.

To help buyers achieve the benefits they expect from RTB, we’ve published a white paper that shares our view of real-time bidding for online display advertising. Based on research and primary interviews with Google’s RTB experts across our product, sales and services organizations, this paper provides a clear definition of what real-time bidding is and how buyers can get involved with it. Whether you are a large or small advertiser, an agency or a trading desk or a media buying intermediary, Google would like to help you succeed with real-time bidding. We hope that this paper helps.

Download the free white paper (PDF)

Update posted 8/4/2011: Figure 1 in this white paper was missing the demand-side platform LucidMedia. We have now added them.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

Last week, we participated in an IAB Interactive Insights Webinar titled, “The Arrival of Real-Time Bidding.” In this webinar, Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management for DoubleClick Ad Exchange joined guests from Forrester Research, Inc. to define real-time bidding (RTB) and walk attendees through its impact on the marketplace for online ad inventory. Joining from Forrester Research, Inc. were Senior Analyst Joanna O’Connell and Analyst Michael Greene. Joanna explored how advertisers view the RTB trend and Michael explored how publishers view it. Scott, our foremost expert on RTB, discussed how Google works with advertisers and publishers on RTB.

For those of you who missed the webinar, we’ve posted the full recording here:

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

(Cross-posted from the Google Agency Blog)

Following his keynote address titled "There's a Perfect Ad for Everyone" at New York's IAB Innovation Days @ Internet Week, Neal Mohan, our VP of Display Advertising was interviewed by Willow Duttge.

In his interview, Neal shed further insight into the new user revolution taking place in digital media and what it means for advertisers and publishers. Here are a few key takeaways from the interview:

• There’s a big opportunity for advertisers and publishers to deliver an enhanced user experience by employing dynamic rich media formats, delivering ads customized for each user, adopting user-centric metrics to measure campaign success, and offering users much more control over their advertising they see.
• Initial steps publishers and advertisers can take today toward this user-centric goal include looking closely at and listening to their audiences and experimenting with new formats and user experiences.
• The mobile revolution presents new opportunities for advertisers and publishers looking to connect with users in new and more meaningful ways.

And if you missed the livestream of Neal's keynote, watch it here.

Posted by the Google Display Team

Real-time bidding (RTB) solves the challenge of efficiently and effectively acquiring ad space online. It requires two distinct layers of technology: a “pipe” and a “brain.”

The “pipe” provides a server-side connection to an inventory source and announces each impression individually as they become available for purchase. In June of 2010, Criteo integrated with DoubleClick Ad Exchange’s RTB API to access a “pipe” for RTB.

The “brain” is a buying system responsible for making the best inventory acquisition decisions possible, on behalf of the advertiser. Criteo’s platform, which does retargeting on a pure performance, pay-per-click (PPC) basis, is a highly intelligent “brain” of RTB. Criteo submits a different price for every single impression it sees. As an advanced buyer, Criteo manages to handle 100% of the ADX impressions it sees, and submits hundreds of millions of bids every day.

Together, Criteo and DoubleClick Ad Exchange are producing great results. Criteo’s VP of Marketing, Karen Dayan reports, “The relevance of our advertising is demonstrated by the great CTRs and great conversion rates we deliver. For many publishers we regularly deliver CTRs of 1%--which is huge, when the average display CTR is closer to .1%.”

Criteo’s Chief Buying Officer, Jonathan Wolf, says, “Real-time bidding is enabling us to further scale our business, and drive increased volume and performance for our advertisers, while also improving CPMs for publishers. We appreciate the global reach of Google and how easy it is for us to turn on RTB in a new market. That’s what makes DoubleClick Ad Exchange so valuable to us.”

Today, Criteo is a high volume, global buyer with live campaigns through ADX in 19 different countries. Google’s Head of Buyer Development for ADX, Chip Hall, says, “Criteo’s technological focus and entrepreneurial spirit has made them a great partner for DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Their sophistication in buying via real-time bidding on a global scale is impressive and has made them one of our top global partners.”

For more details on how Criteo uses DoubleClick Ad Exchange for retargeting audiences at scale, download the full case study here.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

We’ve written before that DoubleClick Ad Exchange has seen rapid uptake of real-time bidding (RTB). Ad Exchange inventory bought through RTB jumped from 8% in January 2010 to 66% in April 2011 -- a tremendous upswing in just over one year.

One company contributing to this upswing is TellApart. The company’s pay-per-conversion business model brings more dollars to display by ensuring ROI for e-commerce retailers. It’s adding as much as 8% in total revenue growth for top sites like Diapers.com, eBags, Drugstore.com, CafePress, Hayneedle and more.

Josh McFarland, CEO and Co-Founder of TellApart reports, “In our move to real-time bidding, we saw both our click-through rates and the volume of clicks increase, which means we’re getting more clicks at the right price. We’re increasing our spend with the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, because we know every new dollar spent returns new revenue for our clients.”

For more details on how TellApart uses DoubleClick Ad Exchange as a core component of its model, download the full case study here.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

(Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Search blog)

The DoubleClick Search team has been hard at work to bring you a slew of great new features you’ve been asking for. A month ago we released the new agency and advertiser home pages. Two weeks ago we unveiled the DS3 preview. Today we continue the momentum with the launch of three new features in DS3. All of these are live and available to use starting today.

Find What’s Most Important With Filters
With filters you can sift your data down to just the campaigns, ad groups, ads or keywords that you care about. Filtering can be done on statistics such as clicks, impressions, or transactions as well as attributes like campaign budget, or keyword name. Filters are also saved as part of the report view. Once you’ve saved a report view it’s as easy as two clicks to review your best performing keywords, find ad groups with unusually high cost per clicks or pretty much any way you’d like to slice and dice your search advertising campaigns.

Really large bulksheets can take a long time to upload, and previously it was difficult to tell just how far along it was. But there’s one thing worse than not knowing when the upload will complete. It’s realizing you mistakenly clicked on the wrong file and watching helplessly in horror as it gets uploaded and processed.

Starting today, users of DS3 no longer have to worry - bulksheet uploads now include a progress bar, as well as the ability to cancel any upload in flight. We can’t help you pick the right file the first time, but now you can easily correct an errant click.

Drag and Drop Customized Columns
DS3 already includes powerful column customization that lets you customize and save report views. Today we’ve made column choosing even easier by adding the ability to drag and drop columns to change the order they show for reports.

This is just the beginning - we’ve got a ton of new features in store for you over the coming weeks and months.

If you like what you see already and are interested in upgrading to DoubleClick Search V3, contact your TAM for more information.

Stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog for the latest!

Posted by Vanessa Howell, Product Manager

(Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Search blog)

DoubleClick Search began in 2006, a tool for larger agencies and advertisers running large-scale online advertising campaigns across multiple platforms. It’s designed to manage the execution of paid search campaigns and centralize the measurement of performance across search and display advertising.

Think of search campaign management like an air traffic control system: directing one airplane to take off from a given airport at the right time is relatively simple. Coordinating thousands of airplanes, across many airports is more complex. The same is true of search campaigns: managing a search campaign is easy, but managing multiple campaigns and search engines, and comparing performance of search and display strategies, can be more difficult.

Today at SES New York, we’re giving the first glimpse of the latest version of DoubleClick Search (version 3), designed to make these tasks simpler.

We’ve spent the last 9 months talking to our customers and agency partners about what you want from a search campaign management tool, and we’ve heard you loud and clear: you want a powerful solution that lets you manage millions of keywords, across the leading search engines, from a fast, easy-to-use platform. So we took a look at our existing DoubleClick Search product and decided to rebuild it from scratch, designing it to take the activities you do on a daily basis and make them simpler, faster and more effective.

We are currently beta testing DoubleClick Search v3 with select partners and will be rolling it out to all partners later this year. Here are a few ways we’ve made our DoubleClick Search product better:

Workflow: We’ve simplified navigation with an easy-to-use, AdWords-like interface and enabled you make changes to your campaign directly from DoubleClick Search or directly in the search engines. We’ve also added the ability to upload campaigns in spreadsheets with up to 1 million rows, and manage campaigns globally with many language and currency options.

Reporting: DoubleClick Search now includes powerful filters and labels that allow you to highlight important keywords. Our revamped reporting features also allow you to manage where your ads appear with precise position controls, design your bidding strategy to meet specific ROI goals, and compare how your campaigns are performing across search and display, thanks to seamless integration with DoubleClick’s display platform, DoubleClick for Advertisers.

Optimization: We’ve given you new tools to enhance optimization, including the ability to view performance data across all the major search engines and a customizable reporting view so you can focus on what matters most to your business.

Here is a sneak peek at what the new DoubleClick Search will look like:

(Mock screenshot)

There will be more news in the weeks and months ahead, so please be sure to check back at our DoubleClick Search blog.

Posted by: Ariel Bardin, Director of Product Management

(Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Search blog)

Over the past few months, we've been hard at work on a brand new version of DoubleClick Search. With significant improvements in workflow, optimization, and reporting, DoubleClick Search V3 was built to make your life as a search professional much easier.



Please come see DoubleClick Search V3 and meet the AdWords and DoubleClick Search executive team. The session will take place on March 22 from 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM at SES New York. 



Also, visit our booth in the Expo Hall (#1001) for a personal meeting with the AdWords and DoubleClick Search team. 
We're looking forward seeing you at SES in NYC.

Posted by Fredrik Keerberg, Product Marketing Manager

The ability to buy and sell impressions in real-time is a major enabling feature of the fundamental changes powering the display marketplace today. Impressions are coming up for sale as they occur in real-time. Savvy buyers are evaluating these impressions and making data-driven decisions about their value. Display advertising is becoming more accountable, scalable and lucrative.

To learn more about this real-time trend, we recently undertook an industry study with Digiday, surveying more than 300 digital media buyers, agencies, intermediaries and publishers about their thoughts on real-time display advertising. Highlights from these findings will be presented today at DIGIDAY:ONMEDIA in Los Angeles. Some of the revealing findings include:

• 88% of buyers plan to buy via RTB in 2011, up from 75% last year.
  
  
• 47% of media buyers say that the benefits or RTB will increase their overall digital advertising budget this year (16% said it would not, 37% were unsure).
  
  
• Spending on RTB is quickly moving out of the "test budget" range: 79% of buyers estimate that more than 10% of their digital display budgets will go to RTB in 2011. 33% estimate that 50% or more of their digital display budget will go to RTB. And 7% estimate 90-100% of their digital display budget will go to RTB.
  
  
• 29% of media intermediaries (such as DSPs, ad networks, and exchanges) anticipate their volume of real-time bidding will increase by 100% or more versus last year. 19% believe it will go up by at least 200%.
  
  
• More formats are moving to RTB: 34% of buyers say they are extremely or very likely to purchase rich media ads via RTB this year, 32% are extremely or very likely to purchase dynamic creative ads via RTB, 20% are extremely or very likely to purchase mobile display ads via RTB, 18% are extremely or very likely to purchase in-stream video via RTB and 14% are extremely or very likely to purchase mobile rich media via RTB.
  
  
• Nearly half (48%) of publishers surveyed say they plan to increase the amount of inventory they will make available via RTB. 28% are still deciding. Only 24% said they were not planning to increase RTB inventory.
  
  

Real-time bidding is a major enabling force behind this sea change in the way digital media is transacted in today’s advertising marketplace. Yet, RTB is just part of an explosion of technology advancements in display. Read more about this technological Big Bang.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

(originally posted on the DoubleClick Search Blog)

In the blog post from January 18, we mentioned that we’ve been working on an updated version of DoubleClick Search, called V3. We’ll soon be introducing some of the features from V3 to the current version of DoubleClick Search: the new Agency Home and Advertiser Home pages. In addition, we'll be adding a unified DoubleClick Search sign-in page on the Google domain. Benefits include:

• Performance: This move to the Google infrastructure will provide a faster and more stable environment for DoubleClick Search with the Agency/Advertiser release, and allow us to make product changes more quickly in future releases.
• Instance consolidation: You'll be able to access agencies and advertisers from all instances at one sign-in page.

• Workflow: It will be easier and faster to select agencies and advertisers, to display only the advertisers that matter to you, and to access the Reporting Center.

• Preparation for V3: These changes will help to pave the way for even bigger changes in the coming months: the full release of the updated DoubleClick Search V3! Come see us at SES in NYC on March 22 for the premiere of DoubleClick Search V3.

To see a preview of the DoubleClick Search Home release, sign up for the webinar on February 24.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team