DoubleClick Search

Announcing the January 26 DS3 release!

2012-01-26T12:05:00.000-08:00

On January 26, DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) added a URL parameter that will allow the engine to set the landing page URL. This is great when you’re using advanced features like Dynamic Search Ads on Google AdWords. When a user clicks an ad, DS3 will redirect him/her to the destination URL parameter that’s determined by the engine, instead of the keyword’s landing page URL. Learn more about adding the ds_dest_url parameter.

We also made an improvement to dynamic URL parameters: you can now add dynamic URL parameters directly in the DS3 UI (previously only available via upload). From a Keywords page, add URL parameters as a selectable column. In the table, you can then click a cell in the URL parameters column and add the parameters in-line. Learn more about adding dynamic URL parameters in DS3.

Read the Help Center release notes for more information on these features, and on issues fixed in this release. To ensure you learn about new features in upcoming DS3 releases, enter your email address in the Follow by Email box to the right of this post.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Report on weighted actions

2012-01-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

The following is part of a series of tips and tricks on using DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) more effectively. Stay tuned for more suggestions on using DS3 in future blog posts!

DS3 can report on all actions equally. However, what if you’re an advertiser whose complex website includes a variety of user interactions, where every interaction is not the same value? For example, a website can have free and premium downloads. While premium downloads are the primary action that you care about, a free download may be worth a fraction of a premium download. How can the advertiser account for these various actions in DS3 reporting?

With the Weighted Actions feature, you can change the importance of certain actions by applying a priority, or weight, to them. A numerical weight can be applied to actions that originate from a specific webpage based on its Floodlight tag. In the example above, if a free download is worth 10% of a premium download, you can set the following weights:
Premium downloads: 1.0

Free downloads: 0.1

The Weighted actions column would then record each free download as 0.1 action. The other weighted columns (such as Clicks/wt action and Wt action conv %) would also treat it as 0.1 action when calculating their values.

Apply weighted actions

First, contact your Technical Account Manager or email ds-support@google.com to set up the Floodlight instructions for the desired weighted actions. Note that you can only set weighted actions on action (counter) tags.

After the Floodlight instructions are configured, you can select any of the following columns to see the weighted performance in DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) reporting:

Weighted actions: The number of actions that are included in the Floodlight instructions for weighting.
Clicks/wt action: The average amount of clicks it takes to result in a weighted action.
Cost/wt action: The average amount you're spending per weighted action that a consumer performs.
Wt action conv %: Weighted actions divided by clicks. This percentage gives you an indication of how frequently customers are completing actions based on the number of clicks. For example, if 10 users click on an ad, four of them sign up for catalog subscriptions, and the weight is 2.0, the Weighted Action Conversion Percentage will be 80%, calculated by (4 x 2) / 10.
Wt actions/cost: The number of weighted actions for each dollar you spend.

A few things to keep in mind:

Weighted actions do not affect automated bid strategies in DS3. It is solely a reporting feature.
Setting up Floodlight instructions for weighted actions does not affect the Actions column and other actions-related columns. If no instructions are set for weighted actions, the Actions and Weighted actions columns will have the same value.
DS3 will calculate weighted actions starting on the day you enter the weights. For example, if you enter weights today, the stats up through yesterday will not be weighted.

For more information on weighted actions and other reporting features in DS3, please visit the Help Center.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Announcing the January 12 DS3 release!

2012-01-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on some exciting new features for 2012. While none are ready for this release, please check the blog and release notes in the next few weeks. One of the many features coming soon is support for Google AdWords Sitelinks!

For this release, we did make an update to the existing Engine Account Management feature. When you add an AdWords engine account under a DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) advertiser, DS3 will send a link request directly to your AdWords account; you no longer need to email customer support. You can then sign in to AdWords, accept the link request, and go back to DS3 and save the account. Learn more. In a future release, the MCC linking will be fully automated.

Read the Help Center release notes for information on issues fixed in this release. To ensure you learn about new features in upcoming DS3 releases, enter your email address in the Follow by Email box to the right of this post.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Customize the day range for a weekly report

2011-12-21T08:27:00.000-08:00

The following is part of a series of tips and tricks on using DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) more effectively. Stay tuned for more suggestions on using DS3 in future blog posts!

When you elect to segment a downloaded DS3 report by week, the weeks will run from Monday to Sunday. However, what if your business week starts on a different day, or you need to change the range to suit your specific reporting needs?

Follow these steps to customize the day range of your weekly reports:

In the date range near the top right of the page, select a range that starts with the desired start day. For example, if you want your weeks to run from Sunday to Saturday, click the date, select Custom from the dropdown, and select a Sunday, such as November 6, 2011.
Click Download in the toolbar above the table to open the panel.
These instructions only apply to the Download now option.
In the download panel, select Custom in the Segment by dropdown, and enter 7 in the days field that appears.
Enter the remaining properties for your report and download it. The weeks in the report will have the desired day range. In this example, they’ll run from Sunday to Saturday.

For information on other powerful reporting features in DS3, please visit the Help Center.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Viewing a keyword's bid history

2011-12-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

Have you ever added keywords to a bid strategy and wondered what’s happening behind the scenes? When is DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) making changes to the keyword’s bids, and by how much? Or perhaps you wanted to go back and look at when you or other users made bid changes to some strategically important keywords.

Now, thanks to the new Keyword Bid History feature released on December 7, you can view historical bid decisions made by DS3 or the user for a keyword. In DS3, the bid optimization system calculates bids for keywords in bid strategies based on user settings (e.g., position, min/max bid limits), the current bids, and real-time data (e.g., average position, average CPA). This bid history feature allows you to see when bids were changed along with additional data to help:

Investigate the cause of performance changes.
Understand who made the bid change, when, and by how much. The keyword bid history will tell you whether the bid optimization system, an inbound sync, or a user (via an upload or UI update) caused the change.
Give you the power to improve keyword performance. For example, if the Bid History file shows that bid changes were constrained by the max strat bid, you may want to increase the max strat bid so the bid optimization system can more freely optimize bids.

Follow these steps to download a keyword's bid history:

In the DS3 UI, navigate to a keyword list page. For example, you could select a campaign in the left nav and then click the Keywords sub-tab. To select from the keywords in a bid strategy, you could click Bid Strategies in the left nav and then click the name of a bid strategy.
In the keywords table that appears, select the check box next to the keywords whose bid history you want to see. You can select up to 30 keywords.
The bid history file will include changes during the date range specified near the top right of the page. Click the date range to change it. You can even create a custom time frame. If you select a date range greater than 90 days, the file will only include the history for the last 90 days.
Click Download in the toolbar above the table of keywords.
On the lefthand side of the download panel, click Bid history report.
Select the file format and click Download. If no bid changes occurred to a keyword during the time span, the file will contain one row for the keyword, with the keyword name followed by (no changes).

For more information about downloading a keyword bid history file, please visit the Help Center. And look for future blog posts on improvements to this report. We plan on adding more information, like average position and average CPA. Columns like these will further help you investigate and understand the motivation behind bid strategy-related bid changes.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search Team

Introducing Engine Account Management in DS3!

2011-12-08T07:10:00.000-08:00

We’re thrilled to announce the release of the Engine Account Management feature in DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3)! With Engine Account Management, you can add and manage engine accounts under existing advertisers, and also edit the names of existing advertisers.

You no longer need to submit a support request to create engine accounts and then wait for support to add them.
Need to make a change to your advertiser name or engine account settings to keep up with changes in marketing strategies? No problem! You can update these in DS3.
Decide you no longer want to actively use an existing engine account for an advertiser? You can easily delete the engine account on the advertiser, and just as easily resume it later.

Want to check out all the great functionality available in Engine Account Management? You need to be an agency manager to have access. If you don’t see the functionality described below, contact your Technical Account Manager or email ds-support@google.com, and we can update your user type. Learn more about agency managers and other user types on the Help Center.

See your advertiser’s settings

Before you can add engine accounts, you need to access the settings page for the advertiser. On this page, you’ll see:

The DS3 advertiser’s name and currency.
The ID, name, and network ID of the DFA advertiser that the DS3 advertiser is mapped to.
The engine accounts that are currently under the DS3 advertiser.

Follow these steps to see the advertiser’s settings:

Sign in to DS3. If you’ve already signed in and selected an advertiser, click the Home icon next to the selected advertiser in the upper lefthand corner.
If you have access to multiple agencies, select one. The list of advertisers for the agency appears.
Select the advertiser from the list. The Campaigns page for that advertiser appears.
Near the bottom of the left nav, click the Advertiser settings tab (circled in the image below). The advertiser’s settings appear, along with a list of its engine accounts.

Add an engine account under the advertiser

Once you’re on the settings page for the advertiser, you can add engine accounts under it. DS3 engine accounts connect DS3 with existing Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter, Yahoo! Search Marketing, or Other engine accounts.

NOTE: Before you can add a Google AdWords account, you first need to contact support with the AdWords customer ID. Our support team will then email you information to link to a My Client Center (MCC) account for DS3. This step will be automated in a future release. Learn more.

Follow these steps to add an engine account:

Click the + New button in the toolbar above the engine accounts table (circled in the image above). The settings panel for the new engine account appears.
Select the type of engine. DS3 will display engine details based on this selection.
Name your DS3 account. If you have a naming convention in other systems (e.g., MCC, billing), using the same convention here would help downstream account matching (for auditing or billing).
Select the date you want the account to be active in the Launch date field.
Enter the engine details. You’ll probably need to access the engine to find these settings. Learn more.
Click Save. The new engine account will appear in the engine account table. Also, it will be available for selection under the advertiser in the left nav.

As mentioned above, you can make changes to advertisers and engine accounts as needed, including:

Editing an advertiser’s name. Learn more.
Editing an engine account’s name and launch date (and username and password for Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing). Learn more.
Deleting or resuming an engine account. Learn more.

Keep an eye on the blog for more exciting features in upcoming releases, including the ability to create advertisers in DS3!

Posted by the DoubleClick Search Team

Announcing the December 7 DS3 release!

2011-12-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

On December 7, DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) released the following new features:

Keyword bid history: View the bid changes for keywords over a period of time. You can see who made each bid change, when, and by how much. Look for an in-depth blog post on this new feature in the coming days.
New algorithm for Floodlight Tag bid strategies: The new algorithm for Floodlight Tag bidding has launched! The new algorithm maximizes your return while hitting your Floodlight tag-level goals more accurately.
Multiple email addresses for reports: Specify more than one email address to send downloaded or scheduled reports.
Download Excel-compatible CSV files: Download reports in CSV files that are in an Excel-compatible (UTF-16) format, and upload files of this type back into DS3.

Read the Help Center release notes for more information on these features, and on issues fixed in this release. To ensure you learn about new features in upcoming DS3 releases, enter your email address in the Follow by Email box to the right of this post.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Introducing a new training registration system

2011-12-06T12:28:00.000-08:00

We have a lot of great updates to the DoubleClick Search (DS) training program. We’re excited to introduce a new training registration system, which makes it easier to register yourself or others for DS trainings. We’ve also revamped our webinar offerings to make it easier to onboard new DS users, and for experienced DS users to have access to more advanced trainings.

DS Training Registration System
Now you can register for DS training directly in the DS3 Help Center. It’s now your one-stop shop for training and support needs. This new, easy-to-use interface includes exciting features like:

The ability to enroll someone even if they don’t have a Google account.
Integration of Google Maps within the registration confirmation email.
Session notifications. If a class is ful,l we can send you a notification when another one opens up.
And much more.

Revamped DS Webinars

Introduction to DoubleClick Search
To help make it easier to onboard new users to DoubleClick Search, we’re offering an Introduction to DoubleClick Search webinar every other week. This will allow new users to attend a live webinar within a short time of starting.

This webinar is intended for brand new DS users. The training will review how DS works with search engines, the DS interface, and the basics of how to traffic campaign changes, pull reports, and create bid strategies.

Advanced Webinars
Once a month, we provide an in-depth training on the three main elements of DoubleClick Search: campaign management, reporting, and bid strategies. Each of these topic-specific webinars is a deep dive into that area and will benefit users with previous DoubleClick Search experience.

Hope to see you at a training soon!

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Announcing several upload improvements

2011-11-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

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

Faster upload processing of large accounts

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

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

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

Downloaded reports now include AdWords broad match modifier (+)

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

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

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

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Introducing your DoubleClick Search V3 2011 Holiday Survival Guide

2011-11-07T11:10:00.000-08:00

Get ready for the holidays with DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3)!

Online marketing has played an increasingly significant role during the holiday season, and industry analysts are predicting another strong retail season for 2011. As the holidays are quickly approaching, we want to be right there with you to ensure that you have a merry one!

With our relaunch of DS3 on the Google infrastructure earlier this year, we brought you a faster, more powerful version of DoubleClick Search -- making it easier than ever to manage your search campaigns across multiple engine accounts. As we head into the holidays, we’re providing you with a few DS3 tips and tricks that will help you effectively manage your accounts during this busy time.

In this Holiday Survival Guide, you’ll understand how to best take advantage of our intuitive workflow and improve your campaign performance with strategic, time-saving features. Please see the following Help Center links to assist in your 2011 holiday planning:

In addition, we’ll be holding a training around DS3 efficiency tricks on Tuesday, November 15, 2011. Click here to register and learn how to make UI and upload changes more efficiently in DS3.

Plan for success this holiday season, at a Google scale!

Happy Holidays from the DoubleClick Search Services team

New features: Inferred match type, upload email confirmations, and report names

2011-10-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

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

Inferred match type

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

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

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

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

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

Upload email confirmations

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

Names for emailed reports

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

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

Posted by the DoubleClick Search Team

Improved workflow and productivity in DS3

2011-10-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

Apply default settings to keywords

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

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

New settings bar for campaigns and ad groups

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

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

Posted by the DoubleClick Search Team

Introducing Floodlight tag segmentation

2011-10-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

DoubleClick Search now allows you to segment conversion data by Floodlight tag. This latest update gives you more insight into which keywords are bringing in which conversions and allows you to make more informed decisions. To help you slice and dice this data as it’s most valuable to you, you’re able to see Floodlight tag breakdown across all levels of your account, from advertisers down to keywords and ads.

“How can I get this great data,” you ask? Easily! From the DS3 UI, select the segment button above the graph. You can choose to segment by Floodlight groups or Floodlight activities. The floodlight data is only broken down for conversion metrics, so make sure you have your transaction, action, or revenue columns activated before you get started. Engine performics statistics will not be broken out by Floodlight tag.

Initially, we’ll break out any Floodlight activities or groups that have triggered a conversion since September 1, 2011. In a future release, you’ll be able to see this data back to March 16, 2011.

“What if I only want to view select Floodlight activities?” You’re in luck. Use filters to choose specific Floodlight activities or groups to view.

“But filters only allow me to filter for one activity or group, right?” Not so anymore. You can filter for multiple values using the (“|”) mark to separate between different entities. This (“|”) mark will allow you to view several entities at a time.

“Wow, I’m really excited to look at all this great data! Is there anything else I should know?” Well, right now, you won’t be able to filter by both Floodlight tags and segment by time periods when downloading a report, but look for that down the road.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about Floodlight reporting in DS3. And check out the release notes to find information about other features in this release, including upload notification emails.

Happy reporting!

Posted by: Tracie, Trevor, Scott, and Dan, Software Engineers

Use filtering to select advertisers in an agency-level report

2011-10-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

As we described in recent blog posts, the latest DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) release included a new CPA bid strategy algorithm and a move of the Uploads link. We’d now like to highlight another powerful new feature: filtering by multiple terms.

You can now use the pipe character (“|”) to filter by multiple terms in one text box. The pipe can be used to mean “OR” in any filter text box with the Contains or Equals option. For example, if you have an attribute of Campaign Contains Car | Truck | Boat, DS3 will return campaigns that have at least one of car, truck, or boat in their name.

The new filtering feature is great for creating streamlined agency-level reports. Before this feature, there wasn’t a good way to restrict an agency report to a few advertisers. Now, you can use the pipe character ("|") to list the advertisers for which you want to filter. For example, if you want a report that includes only the advertisers named Air Travel, Car Travel, Train Travel, and Bus Travel:

Before: You could have filtered the advertiser name by Travel, which would have resulted in a report that also includes other advertisers with Travel in their name.
Now: You can set up a filter of Advertiser Contains Air Travel | Car Travel | Train Travel | Bus Travel, and the report will only include those four advertisers. Get detailed steps on filtering an agency-level report on the Help Center.

To learn more about this release, including fixes to known issues, check out the release notes.

Posted by Austin, Software Engineer, and Berit, Technical Account Manager

New Algorithm for CPA Bid Strategies

2011-09-21T15:57:00.000-07:00

Today, we’re excited to announce a brand new algorithm for Cost Per Action (CPA) bid strategies.

Bid optimization in DoubleClick Search V3

Over the past several months, members of the DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) team have been hard at work on updating our automated bidding tools, which we call Bid Strategies. The Bid Optimization team’s goal is to provide you with powerful, transparent, and flexible bidding tools that help improve the performance of your search campaigns.

The new algorithm delivers more conversions at your Target CPA

94% of the bid strategies tested* saw improved performance with the new algorithm compared to the old. These strategies saw either an increase in conversions paired with a lower CPA, or a decrease in the difference between your goal CPA and actual CPA.

Here’s an example of a few results:

Company 1: Insurance Company
CPA w/ old algorithm= $40.07
CPA w/ new algorithm = $27.83
31% lower with the same number of conversions.

Company 2: Travel Company
Two CPA bid strategies used.
CPA w/ old algorithm= $3.55
CPA w/ new algorithm = $2.66
Conversions increased from 69 to 236
CPA decreased 25% and conversions increased 240%.

* For our tests, we selected CPA bid strategies that receive at least 20 actions per week and that do not have all their keywords sitting at their min or max bid limits.

Starting next week, for most CPA bid strategies you should see similar performance gains, especially if you follow the guidelines in “How to take full advantage of the new CPA algorithm” section below. Please note that factors such as tight bid restrictions and normal week-to-week traffic fluctuations may limit the observable impact of the new algorithm.

What’s different about the new CPA algorithm?

Remove the middle man from the equation
In the previous version of DS, all bid strategies were mapped to target average position goals. The algorithm then increased or decreased keyword bids to hit this position.

Our testing has revealed that by removing the added step of optimizing to a calculated position, our algorithm is able to achieve either more desired actions at a Target CPA or the same number of actions at a lower CPA.

Optimize spend across all keywords in the strategy
Instead of optimizing the bid of each keyword in isolation, we optimize the spend across different keywords in the same bid strategy. More specifically, we favor the low CPA-high conversion ratio keywords, and therefore maximize conversions across all keywords. This is also known as Portfolio Optimization.

Factor in click-to-conversion delay
We measure the average time from clicks to conversions for each bid strategy.

Using this average click-to-conversion delay, we can estimate the total number of conversions that will result from existing clicks.
In other words, we can now base our bid calculations on the total expected conversions, instead of only conversions that already occurred.
This improvement will especially benefit advertisers with long delays between clicks and conversions.

Bid on low-volume keywords as a group
We cluster very low-volume keywords that are in the same bid strategy together. We then aggregate data (e.g., clicks, conversions, and cost) for those keywords and treat the group as one bigger keyword. This allows the algorithm to adjust bids based on group level conversion and cost stats. This helps avoid the very volatile cost/conversion behavior that can be typical for such keywords

How to take full advantage of the new CPA algorithm

We’re very excited about the improved performance results we have seen with our new algorithm and encourage you to set up your CPA strategies to maximize on these improvements.

1) Test out a CPA goal
If you manually manage your bids to a target CPA goal, and you haven’t been using CPA bid strategies, we encourage you to give it a try.

2) Open up your keyword bid limits
If your keywords are constrained by the min or max strategy bids, they won’t be able to get the most out of this improved algorithm. To see if your bid strategies are constrained by bid limits, please add % at max or min bid column in your keyword or bid strategy view:

Read more on % at max bid and other new bid strategy metrics here.

3) Relax or remove the position constraints

If your primary concern is to maximize conversion volume while remaining at or below a CPA target, consider relaxing or removing position constraints to allow the new CPA algorithm to make more optimal choices.

4) Wait for 2 weeks before evaluating the results

Since conversions can spike up or down in a single week for various reasons, we recommend looking at a longer time period when evaluating the success of your bid strategy.

What’s next for the DS3 Bid Optimization team?

We’re currently in the process of updating algorithms for ERS and Floodlight bid strategies! Be on the lookout for more ways to help you get the most from your search campaigns in the next couple of months.

Posted by Xiaodong, Zhen, and Ardan from the DS3 Bid Optimization Team

Uploads link on the move

2011-09-19T15:39:00.000-07:00

Later this week, the link to the Uploads page will move to the bottom of the left nav in the interface. This move allows us to load pages faster, so you can start working on your uploads sooner!

Current location of Uploads link:

Future location of Uploads link:

We recognize that trafficking through uploads is a major part of your workflow and want to ensure that everyone is aware of this move. Be sure to tell your co-workers!

There are several other feature updates on the way, but we’ll tell you more about that later. For now, just remember; if you don’t see the Uploads tab on the top of the page...keep calm and look to the lower left.

Posted by Yu-hong, Software Engineer

DS3: Bid strategy UI improvements

2011-09-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

We’re excited to announce the release of new reporting and Floodlight tag features for bid strategies. We added new reporting columns to help you analyze and optimize your bid strategies, and also added powerful options when creating/updating Floodlight tag bid strategies.

New bid strategy columns

To supply you with more data to help improve bid strategy performance, you can choose to display the following columns in the DS3 UI:

Current keywords: The number of keywords currently in a bid strategy (not the number of keywords during the selected date range). You can click the column header to sort by number of keywords, which allows you to focus on the performance of your most active bid strategies.
% at max bid / % at min bid: The percentage of time that keywords reached their maximum or minimum strategy bids over the selected time range. You may want to take action if the percentage is high, as you might not achieve your goals within the specified bid range. For example, if your keywords reached the max bid a high percentage of time, you may want to raise your max bid.
% without clicks / % without conv / % without impr: The percentage of time that keywords did not have clicks, conversions, or impressions over the selected time range.
- If any of these percentages are high, you may want to take a look at the existing keywords in the bid strategy and add more useful ones.
- If the % without clicks is very high, it might be helpful to raise your max bid. If it’s a position bid strategy, you may also want to increase the range (for example, change a range of 6 : 10 to 1.5 : 10).
- You can also watch the trends of these percentages and adjust bid settings accordingly.

To see these new columns, click the Columns button in the toolbar above the performance summary graph. Click an + Add column button and select the columns from the dropdown that appears.

The columns will appear at the bid strategy and bid strategy keywords levels (Current keywords only appears at the bid strategy level).

Improved Floodlight tag bid strategy management

As we mentioned when we introduced Floodlight tag bidding in DS3, this bid strategy type allows you to optimize your keyword program based on the type of conversion. Now, as part of the UI improvements, you can set the cost per action (CPA) or effective revenue share (ERS) for multiple Floodlight tags and groups at once. Just (1) select the check boxes next to the tags and groups, (2) select CPA or ERS in the dropdown below the Floodlight box, (3) enter the value, and (4) click Set bid.

You can click the Group by bid target button to group the tags that have the same value. This makes it easy to change the CPA/ERS goal for all groups/tags with the same goal in an existing bid strategy. You can also use this feature to initially set all keywords in the bid strategy to the same goal. Just select the check box next to the No bid target group and enter your goal.

Finally, you can now filter the Floodlight tags and groups to see only those that apply to you. The Floodlight box dynamically changes as you type in the Filter Floodlight tags field.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about Floodlight tag bidding and other bid strategy goals.

Posted by Jeff and Steven, Software Engineers

DS3: Two-way sync and bid strategies now available for Yahoo!

2011-08-24T09:22:00.001-07:00

On August 3, we announced that DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) now offers support for Yahoo Search Marketing, allowing many of our customers in Asia and Europe to upgrade to DS3. Today, we’re excited to announce expanded Yahoo! support: you can use two-way sync and create bid strategies for Yahoo Search Marketing accounts!

Two-way sync

As customers with Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter accounts already know, two-way sync allows you to pull changes made directly on the search engine account into your DS3 account. Previously, several steps were required to import those changes into DS3. Syncing is also a great way to import a new account from Yahoo! Search Marketing into DS3. Learn more about the power of two-way sync in the Help Center.

Bid strategies

Bid strategies provide an automated system to manage your keywords’ bids. They reduce the complexity of keyword bidding based on a set of rules you provide. You can choose from an ROI strategy that targets a specific cost per action (CPA) or effective revenue share (ERS), a position strategy that allows you to keep a set of keywords in a range of positions, or a Floodlight tag bidding strategy that optimizes your keyword bids based on the type of conversion. Visit the Help Center to learn more about these bid strategies.

With Yahoo! support for two-way sync and bid strategies, most customers should now be able to upgrade to DS3. Visit the Help Center to learn more about upgrading, and contact your TAM or email us at ds-support@google.com with any questions.

Posted by Arijit and Wei, Software Engineers

DS3 now supports Yahoo! Search Marketing

2011-08-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

You’ve probably heard by now that we’ve been busy working to build the next generation of DoubleClick Search, known as DoubleClick Search V3, or DS3. Over the past several months, we’ve upgraded thousands of accounts to DS3 and added many new features to improve how you manage, report on, and optimize your search campaigns.

Now that DS3 offers support for Yahoo! Search Marketing, we’re pleased to announce that most accounts in Europe and Asia-Pacific will soon be ready to upgrade to DS3!

When will my accounts be upgraded?

Dates and information for upgrades will be noted on the Advertiser Home page.

Where can I learn more?

Sign up for a DS3 upgrade webinar, which will go over the new interface, describe changes to campaign management, uploads, and reporting, and introduce new features.
Read the DS3 Help Center, which describes the new features in DS3 and also details the Yahoo! Search Marketing support.
Keep an eye on the DoubleClick Search blog to stay up-to-date on the latest news.

If you have any questions, please contact your Technical Account Manager or the support team at ds-support@google.com.

Get ready for DS3!

Posted by Umesh, Product Manager

DS3: More features to speed up your day-to-day workflow

2011-07-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

In addition to the reporting updates we announced last week, we'd like to highlight several new campaign management features to help you streamline your day-to-day workflow.

Bulksheet Uploads Across Advertisers: You now have the ability to upload and make changes across different advertisers in a single bulksheet. This new feature helps streamline uploads for agencies that need to make changes to multiple advertisers.

To generate an bulksheet which will allow to upload to multiple advertisers follow these steps:
1. Download an editable agency level report (Scope = Agency, Columns = Editable for re-upload)
2. Make any necessary edits and save the file, ensuring that advertiser and engine account IDs are included
3. From the Uploads tab select Multiple Advertisers and Engine Accounts
4. Upload File

Graph Two Metrics: Easily track and compare high level trends directly in the performance summary graph. Simply choose two metrics from the drop downs on the top right of the graph.

adCenter negative keywords: You’ve only been able manage AdWords negative keywords in DS3 for some time and we’re excited to bring you the same capability for adCenter! Now manage ad group or campaign negative keywords through DS3. With adCenter, if you have negative keywords at both the campaign and ad group levels in DoubleClick Search, Microsoft adCenter will apply only the ad group-level negative keywords and ignore the campaign-level ones.

Before adding new negative keywords in AdCenter through DS interface, please run a sync to ensure the negative keyword list on the engine and DS matches. This will ensure that the full list of AdCenter negatives is kept intact as you add more. You’ll want to run an inbound sync any time negative keywords are created directly on the engine.

Ad Name: We’re also happy to announce the return of the Ad Name field. We heard your requests that this feature from the legacy tool was helpful in managing ads, so you’ll now have the option to add the Ad Name field when creating adCenter or adWords ads. You may have groups of ads you use for promotions and others for certain brands, the Ad Name field can help you organize these different categories of ads.

Be sure to stay tuned to this blog for more updates.

If you like what you see and are ready to chat with a DoubleClick Search sales specialist, contact us. What other features would you like to see in DS3? Tell us.

-posted by Laura, DoubleClick Search Trainer

DS3: New features for faster reporting workflow and customization

2011-07-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

DoubleClick Search is here to help make it easier to manage and analyze your online campaigns. We’re constantly striving to make updates and add features with this goal in mind. Today, we’re excited to announce several updates to reporting that does just that.

Scheduled Reports: Are there reports that you need to run regularly? Scheduled reports now allows you to have report emailed to you, automatically, at specified intervals. You can have reports delivered to you: daily, weekly or monthly, with the ability to select the specific day of the week or month when you’d like the report delivered. For example, if you want a weekly report delivered to you every Monday, select Weekly from the Frequency drop down and then Monday as your day of week.

Read more about scheduled reporting in this Help Center article.

Select Email for Emailing Reports: When downloading and scheduling reports, now write in any email address to send the report to. You’ll also be able to select the specific address for emailed reports.

Select Specific Entities for Report Downloads: Want to run a campaign report, but only for a specific number of campaigns? Now easily select which specific entities(campaigns, groups, keywords) by checking the box next to each object in your table. When you go to download, DS will automatically select ‘Current selection in table’ for the scope. Your report will now only include the objects that you have checked in the table.

With the example in this screen shot, the two campaigns would be included in the report, any unchecked campaigns would not.

For more information on filtering your reports, be sure to read this Help Center article.

If you like what you see and are ready to chat with a DoubleClick Search sales specialist, contact us. What other features would you like to see in DS3? Tell us.

-posted by, Laura - DoubleClick Search Trainer

DS3: Use monthly spend targets in your bid strategies

2011-07-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

With the recent announcements of the new Floodlight tag and CPA and ERS options in DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) bid strategies, we wanted to take a step back and look at a powerful feature in position bid strategies: Monthly spend target.

When you create a bid strategy with a Target average position goal, you have the option of setting a Monthly spend target. This feature is very useful if you want to set a spend target for a set of keywords and are looking to optimize the cost so you get the maximum number of clicks in return. And as the DS3 bid strategy system changes bids multiple times a day, DS3 makes frequent adjustments to ensure optimal use of your spend.

If you set a monthly spend target:

DS3 will attempt to maximize the total clicks for the bid strategy’s keywords while staying within the position range. To maximize overall clicks for keywords in the position range, keywords with a lower average CPC will get higher priority in using the spend. This priority usually results in a better position.
If, as the month goes on, the total spend of keywords is trending to go over or under the spend target, DS3 will adjust the bids within the position range to get closer to the target. However, if DS3 needs to exceed the target to remain at the lowest position in the position range, it will do so. Similarly, DS3 will spend less than the target if needed to not go beyond the top position. The monthly spend target on a bid strategy is not a strict budget. DS3 will not set bids for keywords lower than the minimum strategy bid, nor will it allow keywords to fall below the defined position targets, even if that means exceeding the spend target.

Tip: If you don’t want to exceed the monthly target, set the lowest position in the range to 99.0 (for example, 3.5 : 99.0). A value of 99 indicates an open-ended range. In the example, DS3 will attempt to achieve up to a position of 3.5, but it will drop to the minimum strategy bid in an effort to stay within the budget (even if the keyword has no impressions and, therefore, no position).

If you don’t set a monthly spend target, DS3 will continue to increase bids for the bid strategy’s keywords (while staying within the minimum and maximum strategy bids) until their average position reaches the top of the position range.

Monthly spend target is just one of many bid strategy features that allow you to optimize bids automatically. Learn more in the Help Center.

Posted by Xiaodong of the DS3 Optimization team

DS3: View Display Network Statistics

2011-06-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

As we posted a few weeks ago, Display Network statistics are available in DS3. You can now analyze your Display Network statistics directly in the DS3 interface with even more insight than before! DS3 Display Network reporting now allows you to see what keywords are triggering the site matches resulting in visits and conversions. This greater transparency helps you identify the aspects of your content campaigns that are contributing the most to your success.

View and Read Display Network Stats
To set up your campaigns for display reporting, you'll need to update your network settings on the Campaigns page, and make sure that you have separate campaigns for display and search.

Display Network Stats are reported as a row in the keyword table called Display Network Stats within each ad group (see screenshot below). Engine stats are attributed to the Display Network Stats row, while visits and conversions are attributed to the individual keywords that caused the match.

Placements
DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) provides reporting for campaigns on the Google Display Network. DS3 reporting also includes data for Google AdWords placements, although the placement data will be aggregated with the display data. For example, if there are 50 non-placement display clicks and 50 placement clicks, DS3 will report 100 display clicks.
To set up reporting on placements, you'll need to create placeholder (dummy) keywords on DS3, using the keyword's clickserver URL as the destination URL for the placement on the engine.

See this help center article for more details.

Continue to read through our Help Center or sign up for a DS3 training for opportunities to learn more about all these updates and more! Be sure to stay tuned to this blog for the most up to date information, tips and feature updates.

-posted by Laura, DoubleClick Search Trainer

The future of ROI-focused display advertising

2011-06-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

One thing that sets DoubleClick Search apart from other SEM tools is its tight integration with DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA). From conversations with our clients, we hear that search and display advertising are moving closer together. Both formats are often being used to achieve the same ROI-focused goals. Online marketers need one platform to efficiently manage and optimize them together.

As technology is evolving, tools to manage both display and search will become much better and easier to use. Our goal for DS3 is to reduce “friction” in the online ad management space and make it as easy and efficient as possible to buy search AND display inventory.

Watch this interview with Neal Mohan, Google’s VP of display advertising, He provides an outlook on the future of display, and why we’ll see fewer banners in the coming year:

-Posted by Fredrik, Product Marketing Manager

DS3: Two-way sync now available for adCenter

2011-06-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

On May 11, we released Google AdWords two-way sync for DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) advertisers. We’re excited to announce that the same great sync functionality is now available for Microsoft adCenter®!

You can now pull changes made directly on adCenter into your DS3 account. Previously, there were several steps involved to import that change into DS3. Syncing is also a great way to import a new account from adCenter into DS3.

We recently improved the UI to make it easier to run and track your syncs. Follow these steps to sync an account:

Select the engine account to sync and then click the Sync from engine button in the toolbar above the table.
Select the check box if you want to remove any existing trafficking errors for the campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords in this engine account.
Click the Start sync button to initiate the sync.
Click Last sync details for information on the sync.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about utilizing the power and flexibility of two-way sync.

Posted by Patrick, Technical Writer