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Posted:
While global sales of L'Oréal Luxe makeup brand Shu Uemura were booming, reaching its target audience across North America proved challenging. By collaborating with Karl Lagerfeld (and his cat, Choupette) and using DoubleClick Bid Manager and Google Analytics Premium, the campaign delivered nearly double the anticipated revenue.
Goals
  • Re-introduce and raise awareness of the Shu Uemura cosmetics brand in North America
  • Drive North American sales of Karl Lagerfeld’s Shupette collection for Shu Uemura
  • Grow the Shu Uemura email subscriber list
  • Approach
  • Organized website audiences with Google Analytics Premium
  • Used programmatic buying to lead prospects down the path to purchase
  • Leveraged a range of audience data in DoubleClick Bid Manager to buy paid media in display and social channels
  • Results
  • Drove almost 2X the anticipated revenue
  • Exceeded CPA targets and achieved a 2,200% return on ad spend (ROAS)
  • Increased web traffic and email subscriber
  • To learn more about Shu Uemura’s approach, check out the full case study.

    Posted by Kelly Cox
    Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

    Posted:

    Last year we started the Make Mobile Work initiative in partnership with the IAB to foster adoption of HTML5 and cross-screen creative, and it quickly became the IAB Mobile Center’s lynchpin for marketer outreach as interest in the program accelerated.

    For 2015, we’re excited to bring back Make Mobile Work for another round of educational and practical conversations for brand marketers, to help them succeed in our increasingly mobile-first world.The importance of HTML5 for digital marketing continues to be at the center of the Make Mobile Work message, building on the success of the HTML5 Week we hosted last week.

    Make Mobile Work webinars will address three important topics over the remainder of 2015. These webinars are curated with marketer business decision-makers in mind—they will keep the jargon to a minimum and focus on sharing practical examples and learning.


    The IAB’s Tech Lab is also working to update their standard ad units to reflect the file size needs of HTML5-based ads. This is a timely effort as connectivity technologies have changed along with the rise of HTML5 and it’s vital to realign buyer and seller expectations around ad file weights that will enable engaging ads, while not harming webpage or ad-load performance. Make Mobile Work will help to spread the word about this process and its outcomes and implications.

    Along with the other members of the Mobile Center, we’re looking forward to continuing to help brands large and small, novice and experienced, get the know-how they need to make mobile work for them.
    Posted by Becky Chappell
    Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

    Posted:

    We dubbed last week #HTML5Week and launched multiple HTML5 resources, hangouts and product updates to help make it easier to build all your ads in HTML5. Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of our Google Web Designer Certification exam and training resources. 

    Google Web Designer helps you create engaging HTML5 content. Use animations and interactive elements to bring your creative vision to life and enjoy integrations with other Google products, including a shared asset library and one-click-to-publish integration with DoubleClick Studio, compatibility with AdWords, and the ability to collaborate on works-in-progress in Google Drive. 

    The new Google Web Designer Fundamentals Certification allows new users to demonstrate proficiency and understanding of the Google Web Designer interface and features. The exam will help you learn:

    • How to use the Google Web Designer interface
    • How to create templates and animations
    • How to build interstitial ads
    • How to build advanced expandable ads

    View step-by-step eLearning that takes you through the basics of Google Web Designer and helps you get trained quickly in building HTML5 ads using the tool. Once you finish the eLearning and build a few test ads, you can take a certification exam to test your knowledge and demonstrate your proficiency. If you pass the certification, you can get your name listed on the Certified User list in the Rich Media Gallery. 

    We hope this new certification exam helps you learn the ins and outs of the Google Web Designer tool, so that you can more easily create your HTML5 ads.
    Posted by Becky Chappell
    Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

    Posted:
    For the past week, we’ve shared best practices and new resources to help you learn how to build HTML5 ads. To cap off #HTML5Week, we're making it even easier for our DoubleClick Campaign Manager clients to run mobile-friendly HTML5 ads by offering unlimited file sizes...for free. 

    HTML5 ad files are much larger than Flash ads, meaning they need a larger file size (k size) allowance and should utilize a polite load function to be publisher friendly. 

    We launched Enhanced Formats in DoubleClick Campaign Manager early last year, as an option for media agencies to upload larger creative files to DoubleClick Campaign Manager directly. Now that all ads need to be built in HTML5 to show up properly across screens and browsers, we’ve decided to offer the unlimited file sizes free of charge. Starting August 3rd, we will be automatically upgrading all DoubleClick Campaign Manager accounts to support Enhanced Formats. [No action necessary by clients.]

    In addition to unlimited file size, Enhanced Formats offers automatic polite load functionality (which allows main web page content to load before the ad unit finishes loading,) a way to easily add basic engagement metrics to standard banner ads, and the ability to track metrics such as multiple exits, interactions, backup image views, HTML5 views, and display time. You can learn more about Enhanced Formats in the help center.

    During the month of August, we’ll also be making some other changes to the way we handle campaigns that contain Flash ads:
    • In DoubleClick Campaign Manager, our systems will automatically show the HTML5 version of an ad, where available. (Before, the HTML5 version would only show in environments where Flash wasn't supported). 
    • DoubleClick Bid Manager will stop supporting bids for Flash ads in Chrome (which pauses Flash ads automatically). This means advertisers won't end up paying for ads that will be paused by default.
    While making the switch to HTML5 may seem daunting, we hope that these product updates, combined with the resources and training provided this week, will help you tackle the challenge. Here is a recap of the resources that are now available:
    • HTML5 Overview Hangout and step-by-step tutorial
    • Google Web Designer Landing Page with components and templates 
    • HTML5 Toolkit -- everything you need in one place 
    • Upcoming HTML5 Immersion Days: (All Immersion Days are hosted at Google’s offices. Please contact your DoubleClick Rep if you’d like to join.) 
      • In NYC: Monday, Jul. 27 (10am-1pm) and Thursday, Jul. 30 (10am-1pm) 
      • In LA: Monday, Jul. 27 (1:30-3:30pm) and Monday, Aug. 10 (2-4pm) 
      • In SF: Tuesday, Jul. 28 (1-3:30pm) 
      • In Chicago: Wednesday, Aug. 12 (1-3pm) 
    Posted by Becky Chappell, Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick and Google Web Designer

    Posted:
    Today the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) announced a new pilot blacklist to protect advertisers across the industry. This blacklist comprises data-center IP addresses associated with non-human ad requests. We're happy to support this effort along with other industry leaders—Dstillery, Facebook, MediaMath, Quantcast, Rubicon Project, The Trade Desk, TubeMogul and Yahoo—and contribute our own data-center blacklist. As mentioned to Ad Age and in our recent call to action, we believe that if we work together we can raise the fraud-fighting bar for the whole industry.

    Data-center traffic is one of many types of non-human or illegitimate ad traffic. The newly shared blacklist identifies web robots or “bots” that are being run in data centers but that avoid detection by the IAB/ABC International Spiders & Bots List. Well-behaved bots announce that they're bots as they surf the web by including a bot identifier in their declared User-Agent strings. The bots filtered by this new blacklist are different. They masquerade as human visitors by using User-Agent strings that are indistinguishable from those of typical web browsers.

    In this post, we take a closer look at a few examples of data-center traffic to show why it’s so important to filter this traffic across the industry.

    Impact of the data-center blacklist

    When observing the traffic generated by the IP addresses in the newly shared blacklist, we found significantly distorted click metrics. In May of 2015 on DoubleClick Campaign Manager alone, we found the blacklist filtered 8.9% of all clicks. Without filtering these clicks from campaign metrics, advertiser click-through rates would have been incorrect and for some advertisers this error would have been very large.

    Below is a plot that shows how much click-through rates in May would have been inflated across the most impacted of DoubleClick Campaign Manager’s larger advertisers.

    Two examples of bad data-center traffic

    There are two distinct types of invalid data-center traffic: where the intent is malicious and where the impact on advertisers is accidental. In this section we consider two interesting examples where we’ve observed traffic that was likely generated with malicious intent.

    Publishers use many different strategies to increase the traffic to their sites. Unfortunately, some are willing to use any means necessary to do so. In our investigations we’ve seen instances where publishers have been running software tools in data centers to intentionally mislead advertisers with fake impressions and fake clicks.

    First example

    UrlSpirit is just one example of software that some unscrupulous publishers have been using to collaboratively drive automated traffic to their websites. Participating publishers install the UrlSpirit application on Windows machines and they each submit up to three URLs through the application’s interface. Submitted URLs are then distributed to other installed instances of the application, where Internet Explorer is used to automatically visit the list of target URLs. Publishers who have not installed the application can also leverage the network of installations by paying a fee.

    At the end of May more than 82% of the UrlSpirit installations were being run on machines in data centers. There were more than 6,500 data-center installations of UrlSpirit, with each data-center installation running in a separate virtual machine. In aggregate, the data-center installations of UrlSpirit were generating a monthly rate of at least half a billion ad requests— an average of 2,500 fraudulent ad requests per installation per day.

    Second Example

    HitLeap is another example of software that some publishers are using to collaboratively drive automated traffic to their websites. The software also runs on Windows machines, and each instance uses the Chromium Embedded Framework to automatically browse the websites of participating publishers—rather than using Internet Explorer.

    Before publishers can use the network of installations to drive traffic to their websites, they need browsing minutes. Participating publishers earn browsing minutes by running the application on their computers. Alternatively, they can simply buy browsing minutes—with bundles starting at $9 for 10,000 minutes or up to 1,000,000 minutes for $625. 

    Publishers can specify as many target URLs as they like. The number of visits they receive from the network of installations is a function of how long they want the network of bots to spend on their sites. For example, ten browsing minutes will get a publisher five visits if the publisher requests two-minute visit durations.

    In mid-June, at least 4,800 HitLeap installations were being run in virtual machines in data centers, with a unique IP associated with each HitLeap installation. The data-center installations of HitLeap made up 16% of the total HitLeap network, which was substantially larger than the UrlSpirit network.

    In aggregate the data-center installations of HitLeap were generating a monthly rate of at least a billion fraudulent ad requests—or an average of 1,600 ad requests per installation per day.

    Not only were these publishers collectively responsible for billions of automated ad requests, but their websites were also often extremely deceptive. For example, of the top ten webpages visited by HitLeap bots in June, nine of these included hidden ad slots -- meaning that not only was the traffic fake, but the ads couldn’t have been seen even if they had been legitimate human visitors. 

    http://vedgre.com/7/gg.html is illustrative of these nine webpages with hidden ad slots. The webpage has no visible content other than a single 300×250px ad. This visible ad is actually in a 300×250px iframe that includes two ads, the second of which is hidden. Additionally, there are also twenty-seven 0×0px hidden iframes on this page with each hidden iframe including two ad slots. In total there are fifty-five hidden ads on this page and one visible ad. Finally, the ads served on http://vedgre.com/7/gg.html appear to advertisers as though they have been served on legitimate websites like indiatimes.com, scotsman.com, autotrader.co.uk, allrecipes.com, dictionary.com and nypost.com, because the tags used on http://vedgre.com/7/gg.html to request the ad creatives have been deliberately spoofed.

    An example of collateral damage

    Unlike the traffic described above, there is also automated data-center traffic that impacts advertising campaigns but that hasn’t been generated for malicious purposes. An interesting example of this is an advertising competitive intelligence company that is generating a large volume of undeclared non-human traffic.

    This company uses bots to scrape the web to find out which ad creatives are being served on which websites and at what scale. The company’s scrapers also click ad creatives to analyze the landing page destinations. To provide its clients with the most accurate possible intelligence, this company’s scrapers operate at extraordinary scale and they also do so without including bot identifiers in their User-Agent strings.

    While the aim of this company is not to cause advertisers to pay for fake traffic, the company’s scrapers do waste advertiser spend. They not only generate non-human impressions; they also distort the metrics that advertisers use to evaluate campaign performance—in particular, click metrics. Looking at the data across DoubleClick Campaign Manager this company’s scrapers were responsible for 65% of the automated data-center clicks recorded in the month of May.

    Going forward

    Google has always invested to prevent this and other types of invalid traffic from entering our ad platforms. By contributing our data-center blacklist to TAG, we hope to help others in the industry protect themselves. 

    We’re excited by the collaborative spirit we’ve seen working with other industry leaders on this initiative. This is an important, early step toward tackling fraudulent and illegitimate inventory across the industry and we look forward to sharing more in the future. By pooling our collective efforts and working with industry bodies, we can create strong defenses against those looking to take advantage of our ecosystem. We look forward to working with the TAG Anti-fraud working group to turn this pilot program into an industry-wide tool.

    Posted by Vegard Johnsen, Product Manager Google Ad Traffic Quality

    Posted:
    In June, we added the following features to DoubleClick Search (DS):
    • Estimated cross-device Floodlight conversions: Cross-device conversions occur when customers see or click a search ad on one device but convert on a different device. Floodlight activities can estimate the total number of cross-device conversions that occur, giving you a better picture of how your search ads are contributing to your overall total conversions.

    • Create and report on AdWords callout extensions in DoubleClick Search: Callout extensions allow you to add additional descriptive text in your AdWords ads and then report on performance in DoubleClick Search. They give you the opportunity to promote popular or unique aspects of your business. For example, you can use a callout extension to add Free shipping, 24-7 customer service, and Price matching to your ads:
    • Set AdWords proximity targets in DoubleClick Search: You can create proximity targets (also known as radius targets) in your AdWords campaigns to show your ads to customers who are within a certain distance from a location. Proximity targets also enable you to set bid adjustments to better reach likely customers. For example, you could target the city where your business is located and bid more for those searches because people who are in the area are more likely to visit.

    We also updated the following features:

    • Copy AdWords campaigns to Baidu engine accounts: If you need to manage the same campaigns on multiple engine accounts, instead of manually creating the campaigns one by one on each account, you can create them once in AdWords, and then copy the campaign and applicable settings to Baidu accounts (as well as Bing Ads, Yahoo! JAPAN, and other AdWords accounts). If later you make changes to one of the campaigns, you can also copy the changes into the other accounts.

    • Specify device type in uploaded conversions: If you upload conversions from DoubleClick Search bulksheets or the DoubleClick Search API, you can now specify the type of device on which the conversion occurred.
    See these updates in action in the new features training video for June:


    The full lis of new feature training videos is available in DoubleClick Search Help.

    Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

    Posted:
    As HTML5 becomes increasingly critical for building effective digital campaigns, we want to make sure that you have the resources you need to successfully make the transition to HTML5. 

    We’re dubbing next week “HTML5 Week,” and we’ll be hosting hangouts and training events and releasing new resources to help you make the switch.

    Monday - July 20th
    • Google Web Designer Fundamentals Certification Exam launches: To go alongside our DoubleClick Studio HTML5 certification exam, we’ll be launching a Google Web Designer certification exam that teaches you the ins and outs of building HTML5 ads with the tool. Block off an hour for Monday to take the exam and develop the expertise you need to use Google Web Designer to the fullest. Check back on our certification page on Monday to take the exam. 
      • [Update 7/17: The Google Web Designer Certification Exam will be launching on Wednesday, 7/22 instead of Monday, 7/20. We apologize for the delay.] 
    Tuesday - July 21st
    • “Making the transition to HTML5” Hangout on Air: Building ads in HTML5 is now more important than ever to ensure your campaigns run effectively across screens and browsers. Join us for a conversation about the state of the industry and ecosystem around HTML5, as we discuss the challenges that people face in making the transition to HTML5 and provide resources and tools for helping you make the transition for your own campaigns. RSVP here. [12pm ET / 9am PT]
      • Panelists
        • David Evans and Michael Watts, Partners of the digital creative agency Hook
        • Brian Hoskins, Senior Manager, Digital Technology Development and Integration at ESPN
        • Jonathan Marino, Creative Specialist, Google
      • Moderator: Jeff Sundheim, Creative Account Executive, Google
    Wednesday - July 22nd
    • How to build HTML5 ads: A step-by-step workshop” Hangout on Air: Many agencies and advertisers are still building campaigns in Flash, but we’re here to help you start building in HTML5 today. Join us for a live Hangout on Air workshop, where we’ll deep dive into the tools and resources available to build rich, impactful, beautiful ads. Bring your own creative assets and follow along as we walk through different creative formats and tackle complex ads with ease. RSVP here. [5pm ET / 2pm PT]
    Thursday - July 23
    • HTML5 Immersion Day NYC: Designers and developers are invited to this half day workshop (12pm-3pm) in the Google NYC office. Bring your laptop and sit with our Creative Specialists to learn how to execute a campaign in HTML5, leveraging Google Web Designer and DoubleClick Studio. Please reach out to your DoubleClick Rep to RSVP if you’re interested. 
      • Can’t make it on the 23rd? There will be two other Immersion Days in NYC: Monday, July 27th (10am-1pm) and Thursday, July 30th (10am-1pm). 
      • Not based in NYC? We’ll also be hosting Immersion Days in LA on July 27th from 1:30-3:30pm and Aug. 10th from 2-4pm; San Francisco on July 28th from 1:00-3:30pm; and Chicago on August 12th from 1-3pm. Please contact your DoubleClick Rep if you’d like to join.
    Friday - July 24th 
    • New Google Web Designer Landing Page: Launching on the Rich Media Gallery, this page will contain instructions for building and using custom components and templates in Google Web Designer. 
    We hope you’ll join us next week to learn more about HTML5 and make sure you’re equipped to make the transition for your own campaigns.

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