Inside AdWords: Enhanced sitelinks rolling out globally

Inside AdWords: Enhanced sitelinks rolling out globally: In February, we announced enhanced sitelinks on desktop search ads. We display enhanced sitelinks by combining multiple sitelinks and closely related search ads into a larger nested format. 

Early testing showed that enhanced sitelinks could make ads that appear above the organic search results even more useful. And they could lead to significantly higher clickthrough rates for an advertiser than regular 2-line and 3-line sitelinks. 

Over the last several months, we’ve continued to improve the ad systems for creating enhanced sitelinks and determining when they’re most useful. Now, we’ve begun to roll them out in all countries where AdWords is available.

Preparing your campaigns
You can follow these tips to prepare your campaign to show enhanced sitelinks.

1. Enhanced sitelinks can only show when your ad is above the organic search results. If a "top vs. other" report shows that your ads have few impressions in a top ad position, you can try increasing your Quality Score, increasing your max CPC bid, or a combination of the two.
2. Add 6-10 sitelinks, each with a unique landing page.
3. Have multiple active ads in your account with the same landing page URLs as your sitelinks. One ad to match each unique sitelink is the bare minimum.

Like other forms of sitelinks, enhanced sitelinks are generated automatically so they might vary in appearance. And you might not see them show 100% of the time even when you’re eligible. 

Inside AdWords: Getting more local in Canada, the US, and 9 other ...

Inside AdWords: Getting more local in Canada, the US, and 9 other ...: Location matters. Whether you’re running a national bank in Montréal, Canada or a contemporary fashion boutique in Brugge, Belgium, being able to target or exclude certain geographic locations with your online advertising can boost your business and save you money. Today, advertisers in Canada, the US and 9 other countries have even better local targeting options with AdWords.

Canadian Postal Code FSAs
Expanding on our launch of ZIP Code targeting in the US, Canadian Postal Code FSAs are now available for targeting. You can now reach over 1,500 Canadian Postal Code FSAs, the first three digits of the Canadian Postal Code. Now you’ll be able to plan, buy and get reporting with AdWords the same way you do with direct mail. Plus, with the “Bulk locations” tab in the AdWords location targeting tool, you’ll be able to easily enter up to 1,000 locations per country at a time.



U.S. metro changes
We've recently changed our U.S. metro targeting areas to Nielsen® DMA® (Designated Market Areas) regions. Now your online campaigns and reporting will more precisely match TV-based audience data and campaigns. If you’ve been using metros, you’ll notice that the new geographic shapes look different on a map. While you might see some increases or decreases in traffic with the new regions, we estimate the impact will be small for most advertisers.



As always, if your business has a fixed service radius and you want to more tightly target a campaign to that area, we recommend using the radius targeting option to identify and select specific cities and postal codes to reach.

Inside AdWords: Simpler, more powerful tools to reconnect with you...

Inside AdWords: Simpler, more powerful tools to reconnect with you...: A few years back, we introduced interest based advertising, including remarketing, as a way to reach the right audience with your message and re-engage with customers who have visited your site. 

Since then, clients have seen great results - more engagement, better ROI and higher sales. At the same time, remarketing is helping our publishers and is funding content online. And with simple tools like Why this Ad?, the Ads Preferences Managerand Mute This Ad, we’re giving users increased control over the ads they see on Google and across the web.

In response to our clients’ feedback, we’ve been working to make these solutions even better: simplifying the process of getting started with remarketing, giving you more flexibility in managing your remarketing lists and adding new ways to connect with your target audience.

Some specific improvements that are starting to roll out: 

• Smarter, more flexible ways to manage remarketing: Managing your remarketing lists (or getting started with remarketing) is easier and more flexible than ever. We’ve upgraded the AdWords remarketing tag so you only need to place it once across your entire site. You can then define as many lists as you like in AdWords—for example, for pages where the URL contains the word “electronics.” For Google Analytics clients, remarketing today involves multiple tags. We are simplifying this, so that a small edit to your Analytics tag will soon enable you to create remarketing lists right from your Analytics interface. Like lists created with the AdWords remarketing tag, these lists can be used to run campaigns on the Google Display Network. For more details on what’s rolling out in the the coming weeks, check herefor the new AdWords remarketing tag and here for Google Analytics.

Inside AdWords: Boost your results with Dynamic Search Ads, now av...

Inside AdWords: Boost your results with Dynamic Search Ads, now av...: Last October we introduced Dynamic Search Ads, an efficient new way to target relevant searches with ads generated directly from your website. Now, after a year of refinements and successful beta testing, we’re making Dynamic Search Ads available to all advertisers in the next few days.

Boosting Results, Efficiently
Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) generate incremental leads and sales by promoting your business on more commercial queries than you’re reaching today. After all, even well-managed AdWords campaigns containing thousands and thousands of keywords can miss relevant searches, experience delays getting ads written for new products, and get out of sync with what's actually available on your website.

If you’re not already familiar with how Dynamic Search Ads work, you may want to read about the targeting controls available,reporting and optimization features, and support for third-party PPC tracking.

Successful Beta Test
Many of our beta testers set up DSA to run alongside their existing large-scale search campaigns. And DSA delivered.

• Incremental and efficient results. On average, Dynamic Search Ads boosted beta testers’ traffic and conversion volume from AdWords by 10% and outperformed their non-exact keywords by 10% on clickthrough rate (CTR), cost per click (CPC) and cost per action (CPA).
• Success. A few examples of successful DSA beta testers include:
• Jonathan Meager, Marketing Manager at Gear4music (.pdf case study)
• Matt Wilkinson, Director of Search and Media at Rosetta and Steve Baruch, VP of eCommerce at MSC Industrial Supply (.pdf case study)
• Larry Cotter, GM at Apartment Home Living (video case study).

Inside AdWords: Helping you be more productive with the AdWords in...

Inside AdWords: Helping you be more productive with the AdWords in...: We know for many of you, the holiday season is the busiest and most important time of the year. So, there's no better time to bring you some improvements in the AdWords interface that save you time and help you manage your campaigns more effectively. 

What’s new

1. Keyword column in search terms report
Have you ever looked at your search terms report and wondered what search term the query was matched out from? Now, we’ve added a "Keyword" column so you can see the precise keyword that matched someone's search term and triggered your ad. Based on the fit you see between the matched keyword and the search term, you might choose to make adjustments to your keyword lists, add negatives to campaigns or ad groups,  adjust your ads or bids, or adjust your landing pages.

To see this new column in AdWords, first open a search terms report. Next, click the “Columns” drop-down button and click "Customize columns." Now, as you see in the image below with red boxes, click “Attributes,” and finally click “Add.”



2. Campaign diagnostics
When you’re busy jumping from task to task, wouldn’t it be nice to know there’s a diagnostic system running in AdWords to alert you of potential errors or conflicts in your campaign? Over the next couple weeks, that’s exactly what we’ll be rolling out. 

Running in the background, our systems will look for potential errors or conflicts in your account. If a potential problem is diagnosed, you’ll see a polite alert so you can address it immediately. For example, if you add a negative keyword that blocks other keywords in your campaign, it could be helpful to know so you don’t inadvertently block yourself from appearing on searches that you value highly. Over time, with your feedback, we’ll refine these diagnostics and add more.

Inside AdWords: The Full Value of Mobile: New calculator and resou...

Inside AdWords: The Full Value of Mobile: New calculator and resou...: We live in a world of constant connectivity, where mobility is bridging the digital and physical worlds. With smartphones in hand, people are taking a variety of online and offline actions, like calling a business, downloading an app, looking for directions to a store, or starting research that leads to a purchase on another device. We’re working hard to account for these new paths to purchase in AdWords, like the recent addition of calls as conversions to AdWords reporting. Still, with more work to be done to improve measurement tools, most marketers still account only for sales happening on a mobile site and aren’t seeing the full picture. Today we’re introducing the Full Value of Mobile initiative to help marketers begin this discussion and better understand mobile’s impact online and offline. 

This new consumer behavior is now the norm, with a recent study showing that nearly three of ten mobile searches result in visiting a store, calling a business, or making a purchase online. Some smart marketers are already investing in understanding how mobile drives sales through these new customer paths. For example, adidas, in partnership with their agency iProspect, felt that mobile was converting in ways beyond their mobile website, so they created a simple yet powerful attribution model to understand how mobile is driving customers into stores. As a result, adidas found that each click on their store locator button was worth $3.20, which has changed the way they view their digital investment. See their full case study here.  

While savvy marketers like adidas are already defining the full value of mobile, most marketers have struggled to get started. To help marketers better understand mobile attribution, we’re launching the Full Value of Mobile initiative, which includes:

• A calculator tool
• Videos that illustrate each mobile conversion path
• Case studies highlighting successful mobile strategies
• Tips for measurement

Inside AdWords: Think Insights: Marketer data, information and ins...

Inside AdWords: Think Insights: Marketer data, information and ins...: Today marks the debut of the new Think Insights, Google’s hub for marketing insights and inspiration for advertisers and agencies. On google.com/think, you can learn about the latest research in digital marketing, be inspired by creative brand campaigns, and find useful products and tools. You’ll also find industry-leading case studies and Google’s latest research, strategic perspectives, interviews with innovators and experts and more—all to help you make the most of the web.

Every week, we’ll feature content that spans industries and interests. Here’s a snapshot of our top stories:

• In Understanding the Full Value of Mobile, learn how sporting goods industry leader adidas worked with digital performance agency iProspect to understand how mobile drives value beyond mobile commerce, particularly in-store sales. The campaign proved that mobile brought a 680% incremental increase in ROI.  
• The Hyundai Elantra: Driveway Decision Maker campaign lets you watch your favorite Hyundai model drive right to your driveway, using a combination of Google Maps Street View, projection mapping and real-time 3D animation.
• YouTube Ads Leaderboard shows which YouTube ads most moved audiences this month, through a winning combination of savvy promotion and smart creative strategy; a new list is featured each month.

Inside AdWords: Enhanced Campaigns for Display: Powerful Bidding T...

Inside AdWords: Enhanced Campaigns for Display: Powerful Bidding T...: Last month we announced enhanced campaigns to help advertisers more simply and scalably reach their customers in a multi-screen world.  Today, we’ll look more closely at how enhanced campaigns work with your display campaigns.

Why Enhanced Campaigns For Display
In this constantly connected world, our customers are accessing information across multiple devices, and might look at 10 different sources - online reviews, newspaper and magazine articles, recommendations from friends and more - before making a purchase. Display advertising captures these signals and is an important part of connecting with consumers in this multi-screen world.  But determining the best way to reach the right person with the right ad is more complex than ever. Enhanced campaigns for display help you reach people with the right ads, based on people’s context like their location, time of day and device type -- all from a single campaign.

Key Features
Search and display use very different signals. In search, we use keywords to capture users’ intent. For instance, a travel booking website knows that a user searching for ‘Rome Vacation Packages’ is looking for a vacation in Rome. In Display campaigns, advertisers use a variety of other signals to reach their target customers with the right ad. In this example, a travel website may use:

• Interest Categories: to reach customers interested in “Rome”
• Demographics: to reach people 35-44, who have historically spent 3x the average
• Topic Targeting: to reach people browsing travel websites
• Remarketing: to reach customers who booked a vacation with them last year

Inside AdWords: Create more Automated Rules and undo changes

Inside AdWords: Create more Automated Rules and undo changes: We heard your feedback that you want Automated Rules to be even more flexible and useful, so we rolled out two improvements - increased rule limit to 100 and the ability to undo changes made by a rule.

1. Increased rule limit to 100

We increased the number of rules you can create from 10 rules per user to 100. This should allow you to easily try out new rules -- have a look at common examples to see how advertisers are using Automated Rules.

 

Inside AdWords: Large-scale keyword changes made easy with keyword...

Inside AdWords: Large-scale keyword changes made easy with keyword...: With our launch of bulk editing back in November, large-scale changes across your entire AdWords account became much easier.  Today, we are launching keyword bulk uploads to help you add, edit and remove keywords at scale. 

Have you ever downloaded a keyword report and wished you could make changes to your account directly, without having to upload the report into another tool or go back into the AdWords UI and search for the same keywords you already have in front of you?  Now you can. Right in your downloaded keyword reports, you can add, delete, edit, pause, and unpause keywords, and then upload these changes directly into your AdWords account.

This feature not only saves you time, but it also provides a new level of flexibility and automation by allowing you to use standard spreadsheet functions and logic to manage your keywords.  Here’s an example.  Imagine you want to create exact match versions of all your broad match keywords, and you want to set their MaxCPC bids to be 20% higher than their broad match counterparts.  You can quickly do this by copying the broad match rows, changing the match type column value, and creating a basic formula to multiply the existing bids by 1.20.  Then, you simply upload the entire sheet and AdWords will apply your changes.

Here’s a quick look at how it works:

Inside AdWords: 4 days left for Google Shopping promotional credit...

Inside AdWords: 4 days left for Google Shopping promotional credit...: In December, we announced a promotional credit for all eligible merchants in Australia, Japan, Brazil, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands, U.K., Germany and Switzerland who create a Product Listing Ad campaign promoting all the products in their Merchant Center account before April 12, 2013. This credit is designed to help international merchants transition to Google Shopping's new commercial model, built on Product Listing Ads. This transition will be complete in June 2013.

With only 4 days left until the April 12th deadline, we encourage merchants in the countries below to learn more about the promotional credit and apply before it’s too late!

$100 AUD Australia	R$120 Brazil	1000 Kč Czech Republic
€ 75 France	€ 75 Germany	€ 75 Italy
7,500 JPY Japan	€ 75 Netherlands	€ 75 Spain
100 CHF Switzerland	￡75 United Kingdom

In addition to the promotional credit above, eligible merchants with a Product Listing Ad campaign promoting all products will receive a monthly credit for 10% of their total Product Listing Ad spend up to to June 30, 2013.

To get help setting up your Product Listing Ads, please visit this quick guide, email us through this form or call one of our specialists at your country’s number below.

Google Shopping global phone support:
Australia - 1800 087 124
Brazil - 0800 727 8947
Czech Republic - 800 500 353
France - 805 540 727
Germany - 0800 5894933
Italy - 800930819
Netherlands - 0800 2500026
Spain - 900 814 539
Switzerland - 0800 002539
United Kingdom - 0800 169 0711

Inside AdWords: AdWords’ new look rolling out globally

Inside AdWords: AdWords’ new look rolling out globally: Since we showed you a preview of AdWords’ new look, we’ve been reviewing feedback and working to make even more improvements. Over the next several days, we’ll begin rolling out the new design to all AdWords accounts.

The new look simplifies the interface with newly designed menus, tabs, navigation, and buttons so that the important things -- such as your data -- stand out. The latest web technologies have been used to make the interface more visually appealing and zippy, while keeping the features where you are accustomed to finding them.

If you’re curious about specific design choices, or how we think about UX (user experience) at Google more generally, please join me for a live discussion and Q&A on Thursday, June 21st at 9:30am PST/12:30pm EST. To tune into this Hangout On Air:

Inside AdWords: A better way to buy display

Inside AdWords: A better way to buy display: Editor's note (Monday, May 7th, 2012, 11:41 am PST): We have updated the date of the Display webinar mentioned below to June 19th.

Display advertising has undergone a bit of a fairytale-like transformation over the past several years, from the medium of “Click Here!” banner ads, to one that can be smart and sexy and help bring big ideas (even those from advertising’s past) to life. Now that display has had its “Cinderella moment,” we figured the “carriage” could use an upgrade as well. So today, we’re unveiling some changes designed to simplify the way you buy and run display through AdWords.

Display’s New Home in AdWords

For nine years, AdWords customers have been buying display campaigns through an interface designed for search. This is like trying to run in glass slippers -- it might work, but it’d be a lot more effective with the right running shoes. So we’re giving display its own tab within AdWords. Rolling out over the next few weeks, the new Display Network Tab is an interface built from the ground up to run display campaigns, and will enable you to bid, target and optimize display campaigns all from a single place. Click the image below to see the different Display Network Tab targeting options.

Inside AdSense: 5 Principles of User Experience, Part 2

Inside AdSense: 5 Principles of User Experience, Part 2: This is the second of a three-part series highlighting five user experience principles to keep in mind when designing your site. Using these principles will help provide a great experience for users on your site. After the next post we’ll host a live Google+ Hangout on October 9th at 10:30am PT with an AdSense publisher. We will be applying these principles to help improve their site! Visit theAdSense Google+ page on the 9th to see it live!

In our last post about user experience, we provided two tips to help you identify some goals for your site and your users.

In this post we’ll share another two tips; you’ll learn how to steer users around your site and how different use cases (desktop or mobile) require different setups. 

3. Ensure that users know what action to take on your site

Users should always know what action to take next on your site. When a user lands on your page it should be very clear what they should pay attention to first, second, and so on. There should also be a clear next action for them to take whether it's clicking “buy” to make a purchase or reading a related article.

Tips:
Consider these points when creating meaningful calls to action:

• Emphasis: Give emphasis to the call to action by its size, color, contrast and/or use of white space.
• Simple: Don’t clutter your page with too many different actions. Really think about what you want your users to do and prioritize those actions in your design.
• Incentive: Give an incentive to take action. This can be seen in discounts, gifts, raffle entry or access to more content
• Proximity: Make sure your call to action is in a logical placement on the page. For example, if the page features an article, you may want to put the call to action below the article.
• Consistency: Have your call to action show throughout the site and keep its appearance 
• More from source

Inside AdWords: ValueTrack parameters for enhanced campaigns are l...

Inside AdWords: ValueTrack parameters for enhanced campaigns are l...: Recently, based largely on your feedback, we announced the launch of new ValueTrack features to help advertisers using keyword level URLs achieve specific conversion and ROI goals. These features are now live and ready for you to apply to your campaigns. To recap:

1. We’re changing the existing parameter {ifmobile:[value]}. Previously, the ifmobile parameter would insert [value] when a user clicked your ad on either a tablet or a mobile device. Now, it will only trigger from an ad click on a mobile device.
2. We’ve added a new parameter, {ifnotmobile:[value]}, where you can replace [value] with text that will then show up in your URL when the user clicks on your ad from a computer or tablet.

Inside AdWords: New matching behavior for phrase and exact match k...

Inside AdWords: New matching behavior for phrase and exact match k...: Consider these three exact and phrase match keywords in AdWords.
 [waterproof sunblock]     "bollard cover"     [single serving coffee maker]

 Now have a look at these two rows of search queries.
1. waterproof sunblock     buy bollard cover     single serving coffee maker
2. waterpoof sunblock      buy bollard covers    single serve coffee maker

Today, only the search queries in the upper row (1) are considered a match and allowed to trigger an ad that can appear in the results. The close variants in the bottom row (2) are not considered a match by AdWords, despite the similarity in user intent.

This will change soon. Starting in mid-May, phrase and exact match keywords will match close variants, including misspellings, singular/plural forms, stemmings, accents and abbreviations. Based on our research and testing, we believe these changes will be broadly beneficial for users and advertisers.

Focusing on user intent 
People aren’t perfect spellers or typists. At least 7% of search queries contain a misspelling, and the longer the query, the higher the rate.

Even with perfect spelling, two people searching for the same thing often use slightly different variations, such as “kid scooters” and “kid’s scooter” or “bamboo floor” and “bamboo flooring.”
More from source

Inside AdWords: Enhanced campaigns: Improving online and offline r...

Inside AdWords: Enhanced campaigns: Improving online and offline r...: April 11 update: Offer extensions are now available and can be shown in the UK. 

With AdWords, you’ve been able to run campaigns in targeted geographic locations and attach your local business address to your search ads using location extensions. Now, new location-oriented features in enhanced campaigns are rolling out globally to help you achieve even better results with AdWords – online and offline. Read on to learn how to:

• Improve campaign results using location bid adjustments, whether your customers buy online or offline.
• More easily reach customers that are near your business locations. 
• Drive more offline purchases and measurable in-store traffic with search ads using offer extensions.

For a guided walkthrough, tips and Q&A on using these new location-based features and offer extensions, please register and join us at this week’s Learn with Google webinar on enhanced campaigns this Thursday, March 7, at 10am PST.

Geotarget broadly with selective bid adjustments for improved results 

Whether your business is online-only, offline-only, or multi-channel, you can improve your overall results by using a broad location target to cover your entire potential market while refining your bids in select areas. With legacy campaigns, you’d need to set up a new campaign for every location you wanted to bid differently on. Now, with enhanced campaigns, it’s simple to increase or lower your bids by a certain percent for any location target in your campaign.
more from source

Inside AdWords: Fueling discoverability and engagement with Google...

Inside AdWords: Fueling discoverability and engagement with Google...: Automotive brands were among the first advertisers to adopt Google+ and they’re making it pay off in big ways. Our research has shown that the path to buying a car is becoming more and more social, with consumers relying on information and advice from their social connections and brands to inform their purchase. Millions of consumers are already engaging with the top global auto companies on Google+, and brands are using this opportunity to connect and engage with customers in unique ways, from connecting with auto enthusiasts through G+ Communities to launching new car models via Hangouts.
More from source

Inside AdWords: Large-scale keyword changes made easy with keyword...

Inside AdWords: Large-scale keyword changes made easy with keyword...: With our launch of bulk editing back in November, large-scale changes across your entire AdWords account became much easier.  Today, we are launching keyword bulk uploads to help you add, edit and remove keywords at scale. 

Have you ever downloaded a keyword report and wished you could make changes to your account directly, without having to upload the report into another tool or go back into the AdWords UI and search for the same keywords you already have in front of you?  Now you can. Right in your downloaded keyword reports, you can add, delete, edit, pause, and unpause keywords, and then upload these changes directly into your AdWords account.

This feature not only saves you time, but it also provides a new level of flexibility and automation by allowing you to use standard spreadsheet functions and logic to manage your keywords.  Here’s an example.  Imagine you want to create exact match versions of all your broad match keywords, and you want to set their MaxCPC bids to be 20% higher than their broad match counterparts.  You can quickly do this by copying the broad match rows, changing the match type column value, and creating a basic formula to multiply the existing bids by 1.20.  Then, you simply upload the entire sheet and AdWords will apply your changes.
more from source

Here’s a quick look at how it works:

Inside AdWords: Succeeding with enhanced campaigns

Inside AdWords: Succeeding with enhanced campaigns: About two months ago, we launched enhanced campaigns to help you more simply and smartly manage your campaigns in today’s multi-device world. Recently we’ve been hearing some great stories about ways that advertisers have improved their performance and saved time with enhanced campaigns. While every advertiser’s business and potential gains may be unique, here are a few examples that highlight actual strategies and results achieved so far with enhanced campaigns. 

e-Travel has improved CTR and conversion rate with context-optimized ads, mobile app downloads, and upgraded sitelinks.

e-Travel is one of the leading online travel agents in Greece, Cyprus and Russia, and has presence in other markets in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. After upgrading to enhanced campaigns, Managing Director Nikos Goulis reported, “We can now show our ads according to people's context like location or time of day [... and] count app downloads as conversions in AdWords reports, which is very important for us because so many of our new customer leads come from our mobile app. These features along with the upgraded sitelinks helped us boost clickthrough rate by 43% and conversion rate by 32%."

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American Apparel has doubled its volume of phone leads with enhanced campaigns, improving return on ad spend.

American Apparel, a multi-channel fashion retailer, upgraded all its campaigns to take advantage of new features like upgraded call extensions and sitelinks. By extending call extensions across all device types, and counting calls over 10 seconds in duration as a conversion, American Apparel has seen their conversion volume from phone calls double. Return on spend has improved significantly. 

         more from source

Inside AdWords: Announcing a new Hangout on Air series: enhanced c...

Inside AdWords: Announcing a new Hangout on Air series: enhanced c...: Enhanced campaigns have arrived, featuring bid adjustments, updates to ad extensions, and more options for location and device targeting. We’re here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to continue your success as you upgrade and migrate your campaigns.

Over the next seven weeks, Google specialists will host live Hangouts on Air to provide insight into the following topics on enhanced campaigns:

March 13th at 11 AM PDT: Overview & Bid Adjustments

March 27th at 11 AM PDT: Campaign Management & Strategies for Upgrading

April 10th at 11 AM PDT: Location Targeting & Ad Extension Updates

April 24th at 11 AM PDT: Smarter Mobile Ads

Inside AdWords: Succeeding with enhanced campaigns

Inside AdWords: Succeeding with enhanced campaigns: About two months ago, we launched enhanced campaigns to help you more simply and smartly manage your campaigns in today’s multi-device world. Recently we’ve been hearing some great stories about ways that advertisers have improved their performance and saved time with enhanced campaigns. While every advertiser’s business and potential gains may be unique, here are a few examples that highlight actual strategies and results achieved so far with enhanced campaigns. 

e-Travel has improved CTR and conversion rate with context-optimized ads, mobile app downloads, and upgraded sitelinks.

e-Travel is one of the leading online travel agents in Greece, Cyprus and Russia, and has presence in other markets in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. After upgrading to enhanced campaigns, Managing Director Nikos Goulis reported, “We can now show our ads according to people's context like location or time of day [... and] count app downloads as conversions in AdWords reports, which is very important for us because so many of our new customer leads come from our mobile app. These features along with the upgraded sitelinks helped us boost clickthrough rate by 43% and conversion rate by 32%."

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American Apparel has doubled its volume of phone leads with enhanced campaigns, improving return on ad spend.

American Apparel, a multi-channel fashion retailer, upgraded all its campaigns to take advantage of new features like upgraded call extensions and sitelinks. By extending call extensions across all device types, and counting calls over 10 seconds in duration as a conversion, American Apparel has seen their conversion volume from phone calls double. Return on spend has improved significantly. 

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A luxury online shopping brand has grown sales by 20% by tapping into secondary markets, thanks to the ease of optimizing bids in multiple locations in a single enhanced campaign.

A luxury online shopping destination had been focusing its search engine marketing efforts on optimizing bids in location-specific campaigns aimed at primary markets like New York City and Los Angeles. Since upgrading to enhanced campaigns, the company started using location bid adjustments to test and expand its AdWords presence in new geographies, including affluent areas of Delaware, South Carolina, and New Mexico. Already, the company has grown total conversion volume by 20% while achieving target return on ad spend. 

Inside AdWords: Art, Copy & Code: a series of experiments to re-im...

Inside AdWords: Art, Copy & Code: a series of experiments to re-im...: Last year, we started a program to partner with advertisers and agencies to re-imagine how brands tell stories in a connected world. Project Re: Brief set out to recreate some of the advertising industry’s most iconic, classic campaigns using the latest technology tools. This year we’re expanding that program to work with some of today’s most iconic brands and innovative marketers, in our new project: Art, Copy & Code.

Art, Copy & Code is a series of projects and experiments to show how creativity and technology can work hand in hand. Some of these will include familiar brands like Volkswagen, Burberry and adidas—projects developed in partnership with their creative teams and agencies. Others will be creative experiments with innovative filmmakers, creative directors and technologists to explore how brands can connect with consumers through a whole range of digital tools—including ads, mobile apps and social experiences. Our first partner project is a new social driving experience—Volkswagen Smileage.

Building off their 2012 campaign, “It’s not the miles, it’s how you live them,” Volkswagen Smileage is a mobile app and web service that aims to add a little bit of fun to every drive, from your daily commutes to holiday road trips. The app measures the fun factor of each trip using a metric called “smileage,” based on signals like weather, traffic, location, time and social interactions (e.g.,  a long drive on a sunny Saturday afternoon might accumulate more smileage than a morning commute in the snow). You can use it with any car, not just Volkswagens.

Powered by the new Google+ sign-in, you can choose to share Smileage experience with friends and family. For example, during a road trip, photos and videos taken by you and your co-passengers can be automatically added to a live interactive map. The inspiration for the service came from a recent study showing that every day, 144 million Americans on average spend 52 minutes in a car—76 percent of them alone. We wanted to make that time a more shareable experience. Volkswagen Smileage will be available soon in beta—you can sign up on this webpage for early access.