Asia-Pacific AdWords Agency Blog

Please follow us on the global Agency Blog

2012-08-25T06:32:00.000+10:00

Thanks to all of you for reading this blog over the past few years. After some consideration, we recognize that we're just not generating enough content here to warrant your time, so we won't be posting here any longer. We encourage you to visit our global Agency blog and regional AdWords blogs (find a list on our Press Center) for ongoing news, tips and tools to help you manage your client accounts.

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog team

Custom Variables: Fairmont and Swissotel use-cases

2011-06-17T11:02:00.001+10:00

The introduction of custom variables to Google Analytics opened up many possibilities in measurement for site owners. It allows you to extend the dimensions tracked by Google Analytics to include facets that are meaningful to your business. For example, wouldn’t you like to know how your logged in members behaved differently to your casual visitors? Or which categories of content your visitors are consuming?

Barbara Pezzi, Director of Analytics and Search Optimisation, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, has been kind enough to share her use-cases for the different types of custom variables. Head on over to the APAC Conversion Room blog to find out more about:

Visitor-level custom variables: Swissotel were able to segment their visitors based on membership levels, understand their preferences, and then target their marketing efforts accordingly.
Session-level custom variables: Fairmont measured which booking method (i.e. single vs multiple) was more popular on their booking engine; and were able to understand which method appealed to which types of customers.
Page-level custom variables: Swissotel used page-level custom variables to group pages according to the language of the content. With these groupings they were able to conveniently analyse the behaviour patterns and preferences of visitors according to the language of content consumed.

We would also love to hear how you use custom variables. If you have any tips or suggestions, please leave them in the comments of Barbara’s articles.

Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia

New resource library in the Google AdWords Certification Program—continuing education and sales collateral right at your fingertips

2011-05-16T07:31:00.005+10:00

We’re pleased to announce the launch of a resource library in the Google AdWords Certification Program portal. We’ve developed this tool based on feedback from agencies and advertisers that they’d like a centralized place to access and download training materials, research, and resources to stay ahead of the digital curve and effectively adopt Google solutions. This new tool is currently available to users with individual certification program accounts who are based in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand (users do not need to be certified to access it). We’ll be rolling out the resource library in the coming months to additional countries.

The library contains product and industry education above and beyond the certification curricula, as well as sales and marketing resources to help agencies and third parties acquire and retain clients. A sample of content includes:

On-demand eLearning modules
Market insights research
Case studies
Product one-sheeters
Relevant videos from the Google Business Channel

The “Recently Added” page will allow you to see the new resources in the library.

To get started:

Log in to your Google AdWords Certification Program account. New users can visithttp://www.google.com/adwords/professionals/ and click “Join the Program.”

Note: While you don't need to complete the certification program to access the resource library, we encourage you to do so. Individual certification requirements are outlined here.

You can get a preview of what’s available in the library from the home page. We’ve identified four key categories of information—industry research, case studies, continuing education, and product one-sheeters—and you can access samples of them by clicking the hyperlinks under the descriptions.

If you have a specific search you wish to conduct, you can enter it into the search box. From there, you’ll see a list of relevant resources, which you can then expand to see a complete description and, if applicable, a download button. For the most accurate results, input detailed queries, and use quotation marks around the keyword phrase. In addition, if you're looking for something from one of the predefined categories, be sure to include this term in your query (e.g., "automotive" + "industry research", "YouTube" + "case study", "Google Analytics" + "course").

If you have feedback on the resources returned for your specific search results or have requests for additional content for the library, please submit your comments here.

Posted by Matthew Davison, Agency Team
This is a cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog

AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE) now available in AdWords reports

2011-03-25T08:46:00.002+11:00

Experiments are only as useful as the results they produce. For those of you who use AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE) to run experiments on your keywords, bids, placements, ad groups, ad creatives, and more, you’ll be happy to know that you can now run an AdWords report to evaluate your experiment performance. You can evaluate data in your report or easily export to a spreadsheet (no more cutting and pasting)!

ACE reports are now one of the many reports you can run from the Campaigns tab (or through the API!). When you run a report segmented by “Experiment,” you’ll see a side-by-side comparison of the performance of your experimental campaign changes (“experiment”) versus your original setup (“control”). You’ll also be able to see the level of statistical significance for your experiment performance, which should help you judge if experiment performance was due to chance or an actual difference in performance. You can learn more about evaluating your results and statistical significance here.

Understanding your experiment's performance can help you determine whether you’re ready to accept your changes fully, remove changes or keep running your experiment. Reports also serve as an important record of experiment outcomes as you won’t see your past experiment data after you’ve accepted or removed your changes.ACE can provide you with invaluable real-time data on how campaign changes affect your account. Whether you find that you have significant improvements to make or your account is running just fine, every experiment is a good experiment! To learn more about ACE, watch our video series on YouTube or visit the AdWords Help Center.

What are you waiting for? Ready, set, test!

Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Contextual targeting just got easier for your display campaigns

2011-01-25T19:33:00.003+11:00

Editor's Note: This is a cross-post from the Inside AdWords Blog. The Contextual Targeting Tool is now available across Asia Pacific.

This week, we’re launching the Contextual Targeting Tool to help you more easily reach customers as they spend time on millions of sites in the Google Display Network.

As you may already know, contextual targeting helps you reach potential customers as they read webpages related to your products or services. Now, with this tool, you can create contextually-targeted campaigns more easily and quickly, while generating more clicks and conversions for your campaigns.
What does the Contextual Targeting Tool do?
This tool automatically builds keyword lists that can be used to show your ads on relevant webpages in the Google Display Network. Tightly-themed keyword lists are the basis of effective contextual targeting, and with the Contextual Targeting Tool, you no longer have to build them manually. In minutes, you can build dozens, even hundreds, of keyword lists, scaling your campaign performance while ensuring accurate targeting for your ads. This means you can get more clicks and conversions for your campaigns and you can do it more quickly.

How do I use it?
Let’s say you sell soccer equipment and gear. Normally, you'd have to build out separate ad groups for each of your product lines, like soccer gear, soccer balls, soccer cleats, etc. With the Contextual Targeting Tool, simply type each product category into the search box, and the tool will automatically generate tightly-themed keyword lists for you. For example, when you enter soccer gear into the tool, you get more specific ad groups, such as youth soccer gear, discount soccer gear, soccer uniforms, soccer bags, etc.

These new ad groups can help you get additional traffic and sales, as you may not think of creating them when manually building out your campaigns. Along with the new ad groups, the tool provides suggested bids and predicted placements to give you an idea of the types of sites in the Display Network where your ads can appear.

The Contextual Targeting Tool has been available to advertisers using AdWords Editor. This week, all advertisers will be able to access it from the Opportunities tab in their AdWords account. You'll still need AdWords Editor to implement the ad groups in your account for now (download AdWords Editor). However, this requirement will be lifted and you’ll be able to implement new ad groups directly from your AdWords account in the coming months.

You can learn more about using the Contextual Targeting Tool by watching this video. We hope this tool will help you more easily and efficiently reach your goals with your Display Network campaigns.

Posted by Matthew Davison, Agency Team

Change to the AdWords advertising policy on alcohol

2010-12-07T18:06:00.005+11:00

This is a partial cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog

We’ve changed our AdWords advertising policy on alcohol in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea to allow ads that promote the sale of hard alcohol and liquor. This is an extension of a policy change that we made in December 2008, which permitted ads that promote the branding of hard alcohol and liquor.

Since then, hard alcohol advertisers have been able to promote websites that offer information about their brand, their products, or drinks that can be made with their products. Now, they can also promote websites that sell hard alcohol online, direct users to retailers where their products are sold, or feature sales promotions.

To comply with the policy, the ad and website must abide by certain advertising restrictions, including (but not limited to) not targeting minors, not implying that drinking alcohol provides certain advantages, and not showing inappropriate content. They are also subject to any further restrictions in the countries that they target. For full details on the policy, please see the alcohol content guidelines.

We’re constantly evaluating our advertising policies to ensure that they continue to be effective, and we made the decision to change our policy on alcohol to help more advertisers use AdWords for the promotion of their products.

Posted by Matthew Davison, Agency Team

Using Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts

2010-11-17T08:32:00.004+11:00

Google Analytics is a tool that helps you understand how visitors interact with your website. The JAPAC Conversion Room Blog recently highlighted how online bespoke shoe retailer Shoes of Prey uses a combination of Google Analytics and Google Alerts to keep tabs on which blogs and websites are writing about them. As a newly-formed startup, they rely heavily on positive buzz about their products, so staying up-to-date on these sites is crucial.

One of the ways Shoes of Prey keeps up with online buzz is by regularly checking their traffic sources and Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts to see which blogs are sending them the most valuable converting traffic. They constantly monitor the Intelligence Alerts reports to look for unusual spikes in overnight traffic from referring sites. Since the web moves at light speed, Shoes of Prey wants to ensure that they are speaking to people writing about them as soon as they publish and not a week or two later.

For the time-poor analyst, Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts are as good as having a personal assistant. Analytics Intelligence constantly monitors your website's traffic. Anytime your traffic patterns change significantly, such as a dip in traffic from a particular country, it adds an automatic alert to your Intelligence reports.

Head on over to the JAPAC Conversion Room Blog to learn more about how Shoes of Prey took advantage of the insights gleaned through Intelligence Alerts to increase traffic to and sales on their site.

Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Google Analytics Team

Help your clients share their stories

2010-11-12T18:00:00.005+11:00

As we announced on the Inside AdWords blog, we’re celebrating AdWords’ 10th birthday this month by asking our advertisers to submit stories of how online advertising has played a role in their businesses -- and then sharing their submissions with the world via a global map of the stories.

Think you can create something special by telling some of your best client stories? Let your clients know that you can help them capture the story of how you’ve partnered to reach their goals with AdWords (of course, you can also submit the story of your own agency business). When you’ve produced the videos, you can submit them on our birthday website.

We can’t wait to see your work -- and share it with the world!

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a cross post from the Agency Ad Solutions Blog

New Resource Launch - Agency Help Centre

2010-11-10T09:29:00.007+11:00

As agencies, you face the unique challenges of mastering the suite of Google media solutions and account management tasks across many accounts. Knowing that you often have questions specific to managing multiple client accounts at scale, we've created an Agency Help Centre to provide you with easy access to answers for your most common questions, as well as useful resources to help you strategically manage your businesses.

We also know that many different sites exist that offer support to agencies for account management, product adoption, media planning, and identifying best-in-class examples. To make life a little easier, we've added links to the Agency Help Centre for the most frequently used resources -- including Google Ad Innovations, the Agency Toolkit and the Google AdWords Certification Program -- so that you only need to go one place to find everything you need.

To date, the Agency Help Centre is available for the US and UK. Over the course of Q4'2010, we'll be localising this resource across multiple languages, as well as continuing to incorporate new agency-centric resources into the site.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a cross post from the Agency Ad Solutions Blog

Update to the Ad Preview Tool

2010-11-02T11:48:00.008+11:00

The Ad Preview tool lets you view your ads as they would appear on a Google search results page without accruing extra impressions for your ad. You can filter your test search by Google domain, language, and location to understand exactly how your ad appears to different users.

In addition to showing a preview, we will also tell you why your ad may not be showing in certain scenarios. By integrating this information directly into the Ad Preview tool, we hope to save you time and several extra steps. Previously you had to visit the Ads Diagnostic tool separately in the "Opportunities" tab of your AdWords account to understand why your ads may not be showing for a particular keyword.

Click on the "new version" link in the current tool to check it out, and stay tuned for increased availability of this tool in the coming weeks!

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team

Place Search: a faster, easier way to find local information

2010-10-30T10:55:00.005+11:00

I love to discover new places, from sandwich shops in my neighborhood to great museums around the globe. When I start looking for something in a new area, like a barbecue restaurant in Sydney, I usually do quite a few searches. I might search for a list of restaurants and then search for details about each place, like which one has the best atmosphere and menu options.

Today we’re introducing Place Search, a new kind of local search result that organises the world’s information around places. We’ve clustered search results around specific locations so you can more easily make comparisons and decide where to go. Say you’re looking for that great barbecue restaurant. With Place Search here’s what you’ll get:

The new results are marked with red pins, and each one is a unique restaurant with relevant information and reviews from across the web. The information is now grouped conveniently to make it easier to digest and compare.

Place Search results will begin appearing automatically on Google when we predict you’re looking for local information. In addition, you’ll find a new link for “Places” in the left-hand panel of the search results page so you can switch to these results whenever you want. For example, when I’m in Melbourne, I love to go out for sushi, but a search for [sushi] doesn’t automatically show me Place Search results. If I click “Places” I get the new view:

We’ve made results like this possible by developing technology to better understand places. With Place Search, we’re dynamically connecting hundreds of millions of websites with more than 50 million real-world locations. We automatically identify when sites are talking about physical places and cluster links even when they don’t provide addresses and use different names.

One of the great things about our approach is that it makes it easier to find a comprehensive view of each place. In our new layout you’ll find many more relevant links on a single results page—often 30 or 40. Instead of doing eight or 10 searches, often you’ll get to the sites you’re looking for with just one search. In our testing, Place Search saves people an average of two seconds on searches for local information.

Place Search is rolling out now and will be available globally in more than 40 languages in the next few days. During the roll-out process you can use this special link to preview the new results. Our goal is to help you feel like a local everywhere you go!

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a cross post from the Official Google Blog

Ad Group-Level Simulations with the Bid Simulator

2010-10-28T14:36:00.006+11:00

The Bid Simulator tool gives you insight into the advertising results you could get if you used a different maximum CPC bid for your keywords. For example, suppose you have a maximum CPC bid of $1.00 for your keyword, and you wonder what results you'd get with a bid of $1.50 or $0.75. The Bid Simulator shows the clicks, cost, and impressions you would have seen with these other bids over the last seven days. Using insights from this tool, you can make informed decisions about raising and lowering your bids.

We recently launched a new Bid Simulator feature: the ability to view bid simulations across keywords in an ad group at once. With this launch, we hope to give you a faster and easier way of making bidding decisions across keywords in an ad group.

The ad group level bid simulator provides simulations for two types of changes:
1. Applying a single bid to all the keywords in an ad group
2. Updating the ad group default bid (this only impacts those keywords that do not have their own keyword-level CPC bid and use the ad group default bid)

If, like many agencies and advertisers, you manage your bids at the keyword-level, it may be worth taking a look at ad group level bid simulations. You may find, in some cases, that you could have achieved better results with a single ad group default max CPC bid.

Let’s take a closer look at an ad group in which this is the case:

The highlighted row shows that over the last seven days, the ad group received 339 clicks, costing a total of $182.37. Beneath this row, you can see simulations for the potential clicks, cost, and impressions that the ad group could have received had the keywords all used a single max CPC bid.

In this case, if all keywords in the ad group had used a max CPC bid of $0.53, the ad group could have received an additional 49 clicks (for a total of 398) for about the same cost ($182). Thus, if clicks from all keywords in the ad group are equally valuable to your client, it would make sense to set a single bid of $0.53 for all the keywords.

If a few keywords in an ad group are especially profitable for your client, you should manage them separately by assigning keyword-level max CPC bids. In this case, the bid simulator will display simulations for the remaining keywords in the ad group that use the ad group default bid. If you select a new ad group default bid, this bid will apply to all keywords in the ad group for which you haven’t specified a keyword-level max CPC.

For more details on the Bid Simulator, watch the video below or visit the AdWords Help Centre.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team

Improve Google Display Performance with New Tools

2010-10-21T13:00:00.006+11:00

One of our goals is to help you get better performance from your display advertising campaigns. Users are increasingly spending time online across a growing number of sites -- last year alone there were 47 million new web sites created. Contextual targeting can help you reach users on these new sites by automatically showing your ad on web pages related to your products on the millions of sites in the Google Display Network. Still, building and managing these campaigns can be time-consuming. That's why we are introducing new tools to help you reach the right audience and meet your business goals.

Display Campaign Optimiser. This tool automatically manages targeting and bidding for your Display Network campaigns with the goal of increasing your conversions while meeting your advertising objectives. It is now available globally for larger campaigns running on the Google Display Network.

Contextual Targeting Tool. The Contextual Targeting Tool helps you more efficiently build your own display campaigns. The Contextual Targeting Tool builds tightly themed keyword lists for your display campaigns, which are used to contextually target your ads. We've begun a phased launch for this tool, and will become available to more advertisers over the coming weeks and months.

Whether you’re looking for an easier way to build your display campaigns or for an automated solution that continually optimises bids and targeting, you can use these tools to achieve performance at scale with your display campaigns.

For more information, please visit the AdWords Help Centre.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a partial cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog

Google Instant: Rolling out to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore & India

2010-10-07T12:27:00.003+11:00

Today we began the launch of Google Instant in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and India. Google Instant is an innovative new Google interface that predicts the user’s query as they type and instantly shows updated results. This new interface applies to both search results and related ads.

Google Instant is an important step in helping users find information quickly and easily -- people can see their search results the instant they type words into the search box. It’s an interactive search experience that helps users build queries that return results more closely tailored to their needs.

It’s possible that you might notice changes in the number of impressions your clients’ ads receive depending on how users search with this new feature. With Google Instant, we expect increased user engagement with our search services, including ads.

We’re launching Google Instant in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and India for users with modern browsers gradually over the next few weeks, so you may not see it immediately.

If you would like more information about Google Instant, please take a look at the video below, or visit the AdWords Help Centre.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team

New Keyword Tool is Now Available

2010-10-05T14:20:00.006+11:00

In August this year, we announced we would discontinue access to the old version of the Keyword Tool in favor of the new Keyword Tool. The goal of this update is to combine all the features you love from both the Keyword Tool and the Search-based Keyword Tool into one comprehensive tool providing increased functionality and a streamlined way to identify new keywords for your account.

The new Keyword Tool is now the default keyword tool in the AdWords interface. You can find the tool from within your client's AdWords accounts by clicking on the "Keyword Tool" link from the Opportunities tab or by accessing the standalone version outside of AdWords.

The updated Keyword Tool has a number of benefits:

* Flexible search options: Search by any combination of keyword, website/URL, and category (where available) and receive a single set of results
* Easy keyword refinement: Filter results by word or keyword match type
* Advanced options: View statistics for mobile search and use data filters based on local searches, search and ad share, and more

Be sure to check out some of the brand new features available in the updated Keyword Tool.:

* Removing Duplicate Keywords: When you access the Keyword Tool from within an ad group, keywords that are already in that ad group will be distinguished by an “Already in ad group” message.

* Adding Negative keywords: You can add keyword ideas as negatives right from your keyword idea list. Just click on a keyword and use the drop down menu to select and save your negative keyword.

For more details, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team

Google Certified Partner Program Training Webinars

2010-09-28T17:44:00.004+10:00

Whether you're an individual or a company, you can demonstrate your proficiency in AdWords by joining the Google AdWords Certification Program. It's a globally-recognised stamp of approval, which showcases your knowledge of the latest AdWords tools and best practices. You can choose from a variety of exams based on what's most relevant to your areas of specialisation. The goal of the exams is to provide you with the knowledge you need to effectively manage Google advertising programs.

Over the last few months we have offered live webinars to help you study for the Google Advertising Fundamentals and Search Advertising Advanced exams. We are pleased to announce that we are now offering live webinars to help you prepare for the Google Certified Partner Reporting and Analysis Advanced Exam. In this three-part webinar series, we will cover the key topics found on the exam and offer a few tips to help you study.

Reporting & Analysis Advanced 1: Advanced Conversion Tracking
Date: October 19th at 12pm Sydney time (9am SG and 2pm NZ)
Description: In this session, we'll review the function and purpose of AdWords Conversion Tracking and explain related terms. We'll also share some best practices for using AdWords Conversion tracking in your AdWords account.

Reporting & Analysis Advanced 2: Google Analytics
Date: October 21st at 12pm Sydney time (9am SG and 2pm NZ)
Description: In this session, we'll discuss which types of data can be found in each section of Google Analytics. We'll show you how you can analyze visitor, traffic sources, content, and goal report data to meet your advertising goals.

Reporting & Analysis Advanced 3: Website Optimiser
Date: October 26th at 12pm Sydney time (9am SG and 2pm NZ)
Description: In this session, we'll discuss how website and landing page testing can help achieve online performance goals. We'll walk you through getting started with Website Optimiser and summarise the differences between A/B and multivariate testing.

Visit the AdWords Webinars for Agencies site to register for these sessions.

In addition to the new webinars above, you can now watch the Google Advertising Fundamentals and Search Advertising Advanced webinars on-demand. The sessions cover the key topics found on each exam and you can access them online whenever it is convenient for you. All you need to get started is an Internet connection and a computer with speakers or headphones.

Google Advertising Fundamentals
- Targeting the Google Network
- Understanding Search Ads Quality
- Optimisation Tools & Strategies
- Selling Google AdWords

Search Advertising Advanced
- Leveraging AdWords Tools
- Performance Monitoring and Conversion Tracking
- Conversion Optimiser Strategies
- Multiple Account Management Tools and Best Practices

View these on-demand webinars in our online classroom.

Please visit the Online Learning Centre for more insight into the topics covered on all exams in the Google Certified Partner Program.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team

Expandable templates now available in Display Ad Builder

2010-09-23T18:30:00.006+10:00

Display Ad Builder is a tool that allows you to create your own display ads quickly and easily from a selection of templates. You can find Display Ad Builder in the "Ads" tab in any ad group page within your account. With the tool, you can customise display ad templates with different background colors, fonts, images, and text and run them across more than one million websites in the Google Display Network.

We recently launched four new expandable templates in Display Ad Builder that allow you and your clients to show off more offers, product information, or whatever you'd like in the expanded space. Here is an example of a design that you can choose from:

For more information and to watch an interactive demo on Display Ad Builder, visit the Google Display Network site.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team

Display Advertising - Watch this Space!

2010-09-21T11:39:00.003+10:00

Advertising with Google used to be all about four lines of text, on Google.com and on our partner sites. No longer. Did you know that, outside of ads alongside search results, more than 40 percent of the ads that we show are now non-text ads? And that doesn’t include the 45 billion ads that our DoubleClick advertising products serve every day across the web.

We get excited by display advertising for a number of reasons. First, we now know that we can use all the technology and expertise that we’ve developed in search and search advertising to improve display advertising for users, advertisers and publishers, right across the web. Second, helping advertisers and publishers to easily deliver the most engaging, relevant, creative and valuable ad contains the sort of huge technical challenge that we love. And third, great display advertising helps to fund great content on the web.

Display advertising has come a long way from the ugly banner ads and pop-ups of the mid 1990s, but there’s still huge improvements to come. Google's efforts are focused on three core areas: simplifying display advertising, delivering better performance and opening the display ecosystem.

Our single message about display advertising can be summed up in three words: “WATCH THIS SPACE.”

Check out our new website and take a look at this video to learn more about what's happening in display advertising at Google and what's to come.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management
This is a partial cross post from the Official Google Blog

AdWords Campaign Experiments rolling out globally

2010-09-17T08:43:00.005+10:00

We're pleased to announce that AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE) will soon be available globally. ACE is a free tool that makes it easier to test and to measure the impact of changes to your keywords, bids, ad groups and placements.

How ACE can help you
ACE reduces the guesswork and potential risk involved with making changes to your campaign. Its scientific split-testing approach gives you valid measurements regardless of changes in demand, competitor movements, or other sales and marketing activity that can complicate traditional before-and-after measurement approaches.

If you can relate to any of the following scenarios, you’ll probably find ACE useful:

* You’re considering adding (or pausing) a bunch of new keywords, but you aren’t sure how it will affect your overall campaign clicks, costs, and conversions.
* You have a few keywords that account for a significant fraction of your total AdWords clicks, conversions and cost. You’d like to know what happens if you raise (or lower) bids by 10%. Do your clicks and conversions also change by 10%? How would your cost per click and cost per conversion change?
* A colleague suggests you might improve your Google Display Network campaign performance by adjusting keywords and adding some placement-specific bids, but you’re concerned you might wind up with fewer conversions and no improvement in cost per conversion.

In each case, you can set up an experiment to measure the impact with just 10-50% of your traffic. ACE runs the experiment side-by-side with your existing account setup. You can then evaluate the performance of your changes with easy-to-read visual indicators.

Where to find ACE and learn more
After signing into AdWords, you can access ACE on the Campaign tab under Settings. If you are not seeing it yet in your Campaign tab under settings, just hold tight, since users outside the US will have this option in a week or so. To learn more about using ACE, check out the Help Center FAQ and these videos, which includes this Introduction to ACE.

Posted by Matthew Davison, Account Strategist
This is a partial cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog

How Do I Access Reports in the Campaigns Tab?

2010-09-10T11:15:00.019+10:00

As mentioned in an earlier post, reporting in AdWords is getting faster and easier! We have added more advanced reporting options to the Campaigns tab to make it easier for you to analyse your account's performance. Reports that were previously only accessible through the Report Center are now available on the same pages you use to manage your campaigns. Easier access to reports helps you find key performance drivers more quickly. And because you're viewing reports on the Campaigns tab, you can now take immediate action on any insights you discover. However, you may need a little guidance to pull the same reports and access certain functions you know from the Report Center directly within the Campaigns tab. Here are a couple of tips:

1) Downloading a report in the Campaigns tab

You can download reports directly in your account online or receive them via email. First, use the navigation tree, date range selector and filters to get the information you would like in your report showing in the Campaigns tab. For example, if you would like to pull a keyword report for the last 7 days for a campaign, you would select that campaign in the tree on the left, click on the Keywords tab, and set the date range to "Last 7 Days".

Step 1: Select the campaign

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Step 2: Click on the Keywords tab

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Step 3: Set the date range to "Last 7 Days"

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From there, you can click on the "Download Report" icon to access this report. You can choose the file format, segments (such as daily stats, day of the week, or conversion data), and also save the report as a template or email the report directly to yourself or other members of your team. The last step is to click the "Create" button to download your report.

(Click the image to view in full size)

2) Account Reports

Account performance reports show you summary statistics for your entire account and can help you get a quick overview of your overall AdWords performance. You can view your account-wide data in various ways within the Campaigns tab.

• With “All online campaigns” selected on the left side of the page, look at the “Total” rows at the bottom of your tables.

(Click the image to view in full size)

• Go to the “Dimensions” tab to organise your account data by the parameter of your choice. To enable the "Dimensions" tab, use the customisation menu that appears next to your existing tabs. Check “Dimensions”.

(Click the image to view in full size)

Once the "Dimensions" tab is activated, you’ll be able to view detailed account-level data right in the UI. You can use the "View" option to further segment the data.

(Click the image to view in full size)

You can also download a report directly from this view, but clicking on the "Download Report" option.

(Click the image to view in full size)

For additional insight into using the reports in the Campaigns tab, please refer to this comprehensive guide.

Posted by Kate Conroy, AdWords Product Specialist

Google Instant: A More Innovative Approach to Search

2010-09-09T10:05:00.008+10:00

Editor's Note: As part of our current rollout, Google Instant will become the core search experience on Google.com for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE 8. We’ll also be offering Google Instant to our users in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the U.K. who are signed in and have Instant-capable browsers. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll work to roll out Google Instant to all geographies and platforms.

Today, we announced the launch of Google Instant, an innovative new Google.com interface that creates an interactive search experience for users by predicting their query as they type and instantly showing updated results. By providing users with this immediate feedback, they’re able to refine their searches more quickly and find the results that more precisely match what they need.

Google Instant is starting to roll-out to users on Google domains in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia who use the latest browsers (Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8). Please note, users on domains other than Google.com can only access Google Instant if they are signed in to a Google Account. We will continue to add new domains and languages over the next several months.

This new interface applies to both search results and related ads. Therefore, we expect increased user engagement with our search services, including ads.

Although Google Instant doesn’t change the way ads are served, ads and search results will now be shown based on the "predicted search." For example, if someone types "flow" into Google.com, our algorithms predict that the user is searching for "flowers" (the predicted search) and therefore display both search results and ads for “flowers”. However, if that user then adds the letter "c" to the query, our algorithms may predict that the user is searching for "flowchart" and show the corresponding natural and paid results for flowchart.

Example 1: User types "flow"

Example 2: User types "flowc"

As a result, Google Instant changes the way we think about impressions. With Google Instant, an impression is counted if a user takes an action to choose a query (for example, presses the Enter key or clicks the Search button), clicks a link on the results page, or stops typing for three or more seconds.

It's possible that this feature may increase or decrease your overall impression levels. However, Google Instant may ultimately improve the quality of your clicks since it helps users type queries that more directly connect them with the answers they need.

Here’s a video that explains Google Instant in greater depth:

For more information on this interactive new feature, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog

AdWords Editor 8.0.1 for Windows and Mac

2010-09-03T13:51:00.005+10:00

In order to make it easier for you to manage your account and take advantage of location extensions, we’re releasing a new version of AdWords Editor, 8.0.1, for Windows and Mac. AdWords Editor 8.0.1 now supports location extensions, our new and improved way to run local ads. To support this change, we've transitioned the local business ads in your AdWords account to ads that are compatible with location extensions, added the Extensions tab in the AdWords Editor interface, and removed the Local Business Ads tab. This new Extensions tab should help make it easy for you to create and manage your location extensions. Learn more.

To help you focus on just what you need when you’re managing your AdWords account, AdWords Editor 8.0.1 also introduces collapsible and expandable panels, progress bars for tasks that can take some time, improved adding of My Client Center accounts, simplified exception requests, and more helpful error messages.

To learn more about all of the new features in version 8.0.1, such as support for campaigns using target CPA and enhanced CPC bidding options, read the release notes.

If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically, as soon as it's available for you. After you install the new version, you’ll need to download your account again. To preserve your comments and unposted changes, select the 'Backup then Upgrade' option in the automatic upgrade prompt, then import the backup file after downloading the account. We’re launching version 8.0.1 to all users over the course of the next few weeks, so don’t worry if you don’t get it right away.

If you’re not using AdWords Editor, you can visit our website to download it. Find more information and answers to your AdWords Editor questions in our Help Centre.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog

Introducing the Japan & Asia-Pacific Conversion Room

2010-09-02T13:05:00.005+10:00

Editors Note: This guest post is from Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar -- a Googler focused on Analytics solutions in Asia Pacific. This new blog aims to share advanced usage tips, and case studies from digital marketers about successfully using Google’s conversion products to increase performance and conversion rates. With specialists sitting in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, India, and Japan, you will be sure to get a variety of perspectives!

Google Analytics, Google Website Optimiser, Search Funnels, AdWords Conversion Tracking - these are some of our favourite tools for measuring and optimising conversions on websites. These tools help you to maximise your returns on investment whether your site exists to share information, generate leads, or make sales.

Today we introduce the Japan and Asia-Pacific (JAPAC) Conversion Room and Blog. Over the last two years we have seen a tremendous uptake of Google’s conversion products in this region, celebrated many success stories with users, and witnessed the development of local expertise. The JAPAC Conversion Room aims to inspire JAPAC (and global) online marketers towards maximising conversions through sharing success stories and expert tips from this region.

If you are drawn to digital marketing, optimising for conversions, and have an interest in the Japan and Asia-Pacific region, then head on over to the site now and subscribe to all the latest articles.

Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Google Analytics Solutions, and James Toepfer, Google Customer Marketing Manager

Update your Google Advertising Professionals Qualification to the Google Certification Program by October 31

2010-08-26T14:46:00.006+10:00

We recently launched the Google Certification Program and we’re glad that thousands of you all over the world have taken the new exams and joined the program. This certification program replaces the Google Advertising Professionals program. To provide you with time to make the transition, we’ve run both programs side by side during a six month grace period which ends in October. To retain certified status and continue using the badge within your marketing collateral, you’ll need to meet the requirements of the new program.

What’s the difference between the two programs? With the Google Certification Program, we’re offering updated learning materials written by Google experts. We’ve developed four in-depth exams on AdWords management called Fundamentals, Advanced Search, Advanced Display and Advanced Reporting & Analysis. The exams are designed to prove proficiency in these areas and are being widely adopted by employees of search marketing agencies. In addition to this, we launched Google Partner Search, a directory to help advertisers find agencies to manage their campaigns. Currently, all Google Advertising Professionals who have opted in are part of Google Partner Search, but this will not be the case by the end of October.

We’re informing all of you who have qualified under the old Google Advertising Professionals program to update to the Google Certification Program. In order to do so, a company must meet a minimum AdWords spend level, and have at least one employee become individually qualified under the Google Certification Program.

If you have an employee that already qualified under the old program, this is a great time for them to update their skills through the Google Certification Program. Upon completion, just update your company profile so that advertisers can find you using Google Partner Search.

To learn more about the Google Certification Program visit our Help Center.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a cross post from the Agency Ad Solutions Blog

Reply to reviews on Google Places

2010-08-24T13:40:00.017+10:00

Whether consumers are looking for a great lounge to hang out with their friends or a trusty shop to repair a bicycle, the web is a great place to discover and learn about local businesses and services. Some of the listings on Google Maps showcase reviews to help prospective customers make informed decisions and find the places that are just right for them. Reviews on Google Maps are assembled from a variety of sources on the web to give you the best possible overview of what people are saying about a specific place. We also encourage users to share their opinions by writing reviews directly on the Place Page of any place they’ve visited, be it a local business, tourist attraction or the like.

If your clients are verified Google Places business owners, they can publicly respond to reviews written by Google Maps users on the Place Page for their business. Engaging with the people who have shared thoughts about their business is a great way to get to know their customers and find out more. Both positive and negative feedback can be good for a business and help it grow (even though it’s sometimes hard to hear). By responding, your clients can build stronger relationships with existing and prospective customers. For example, a thoughtful response acknowledging a problem and offering a solution can often turn a customer who had an initially negative experience into a raving supporter. A simple thank you or a personal message can further reinforce a positive experience. Ultimately, replying to reviews provides business owners the opportunity to learn what they do well, what they can do better, and show their customers they are listening.

Before writing a response, we recommend reading our handy tips on how to respond to reviewers. You can also follow these instructions. If your client has not yet verified ownership for their business on Google, please direct them to Google Places to claim their listing.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team