By Helen Brown

This week I have watched the “Ways to Boost your AdWords Performance” webinar by Google and I would like to share the information and tips that were discussed -

The Importance of Optimisation

Optimisation is the process of carrying out tests and applying changes within your AdWords account that will improve its quality and performance. Optimisation should help you to achieve your desired results. When optimising an account, it is important to have a clear advertising goal.
These are some mentioned examples of optimisation actions that could increase account performance and result in a higher conversion rate, whether this involves a purchase, a sign-up, a user viewing a page or even a sales lead-

• Setting an effective account and campaign structure
• Revising and improving keyword lists and match types
• Changing specific campaigns settings and bids
• Reviewing and refining ad text and landing pages

A Good Account and Campaign Structure will have a positive impact on your performance, including quality score, click through rates, minimum bids etc. It is important that your account structure ‘mirrors’ your site.  Account/campaign optimisations will help to gain control of your budget and costs whilst still gaining traffic. Ultimately we all want to achieve a good ROI, with a high level of relevant traffic and visibility. For this, optimisation is the key.

Keyword optimisation is important! Think of ways to improve your keyword targeting through use of match types, negative keywords etc. Analyse your list, is it too general, too specific?
You can use the keyword tool to find new keywords or variations of keywords, you can use it to refine your keyword list. Also the advertiser competition as well as global and local monthly search volume.

Google’s top tips for keywords-

• Be sure to add all relevant keyword variations including singular and plural variations, you can try using combinations of keywords and also use synonyms and accent marks as appropriate etc
• You should try to include terms that are specific to your business type/sector so that your ad will appear as a relevant response to a user’s specific query
• Use keyword match types as appropriate
• Beware! depending on your business specifics, using general keywords can result in a low click through rate and quality score
• Don’t use duplicate keywords as this will just cause them to compete with each other, this can cause your bids to increase
• Remember, keywords are not case sensitive
• You cannot use most punctuation symbols with the exception of & and accent marks. There is also a list of invalid symbols that cannot be used too such as ! @ { } ^ < > $ % ( ) etc.
• Try to be as thorough as possible when building a negative keyword list as they do not work the same as broad match, list as many variations as you can think of

Ad text optimisation is essential, as your ad text is what the users will see first. They will use this very important ‘first impression’ to make a decision as to whether they decide to click through to your site, or go elsewhere. The ad must relate to the user’s search query as closely as possible and don’t be afraid to get specific with your information. Try to include the unique benefits and any current offers that users will get as a result of selecting your products or services, as your ad could be one of many; it is important to make yourself ‘stand out from the crowd’. Another best practice mentioned is to include keywords that are performing well as part of your ad text. A strong call to action in ad text is a powerful way to encourage your users to click your ad. Finally, it is also important to have multiple ads in your ad group to test which advertising message works best.

And finally! your landing page must match the content of the ad. Take your users to the most relevant page of your site that is dedicated to the product or service that they became interested in. Don’t make your users navigate your site searching for what they want, this will just decrease the likelihood that they will purchase or complete the action that you desire.

Good luck!

By Helen Brown

With an ever increasing number of people choosing to market their businesses with AdWords, account managers are busier than ever! After watching the MCC and multiple account management presentation from Google, here is some basic information and tips on creating an MCC, linking or unlinking accounts and also account alerts.

With MCC (My Client Centre) you can run and maintain more than one AdWords account for your own separate business purposes or on behalf of others.
MCC is designed to address the following kinds of issues-

• having to remember log in information for multiple accounts
• frequently logging in and out of various accounts
• having to run individual reports for each for each of these accounts/ searching various accounts and then manually combining the statistics
• the need to see an overview of all accounts
• ease of multiple account management

To create an MCC, go to http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwords/myclientcenter/. From here you can create and/or link AdWords accounts. From here you will also-

• have a single login for all of these accounts
• have the ability to set and receive alerts about important account changes and events
• have an overview across multiple accounts and the ability for reporting across these accounts
• with MDS (Manager Defined Spend) you can also have consolidated invoicing for all of the managed accounts too.

To link an existing AdWords account-

1. Click ‘link existing accounts’ button on your MCC dashboard.



2. Enter the customer ID of the account you wish to link in the box and click continue.



3. The account owner will receive an email notifying them of the request and they will need to accept before the accounts can be linked. Once they have accepted, the MCC owner will receive notification and the accounts will link.

To unlink an account from your MCC-

1. On the MCC dashboard, click the account/client that you wish to remove from the list and click the account tab. Click account access on the drop-down.
2. Under client managers, find your email address associated with the account and under ‘actions’, click terminate access.

MCC Alerts - It is useful to create and use alerts on your MCC as these will notify you of certain events taking place in the accounts you manage. You can access alerts from the accounts tab on the MCC dashboard. To take action on a received alert, click the alert and you will be taken to the page in the managed account.

Alerts can be filtered by-

Payments
Keyword and creative
Campaign
Budget
Account

You can filter the time of trigger by-

All time
Since last login
Last 7 days
Last 24 hours

Alerts can be displayed for: All Client accounts, only accounts I manage and also filtered by customer ID. To see the results, click apply.
NOTE: Critical alerts must be resolved on the account before they can be dismissed.

By Helen Brown

This week I have attended the Google Mobile friendly website webinar. It was very informative and I would like to share my findings with you.

With 42% of mobile users in the UK owning a smart phone, it’s important to think about implementing a mobile advertising campaign and site into your marketing strategy.

Here’s why-

• Mobile consumers access online information all the time, whilst commuting, shopping, socializing and for general research, why not be part of that index of information?
• You are increasing your chances of gaining attention and conversions by marketing on a mobile device, due to this extended reach that these devices allow.

A few options to consider when deciding on a mobile site (depending on your business model, budget and over all strategy):

Site type: Landing pages:
A temporary and low investment option that’s relatively fast to market. However this will limit the experience of your users and is suited to conversion types such as click to call or short forms etc. Not the best experience for users as this option can be slow.

Site type: Trans-coded:
Again, this would be a temporary and low investment option and relatively fast to market. With more functionality than the landing pages option this will give a better user experience, but is still considered slow.

Site type: Full mobile site:
A permanent solution that will involve a more high level of investment and not as quick to market, but this will give a great user experience and is fast to load.

Think mobile friendly, if the site is difficult to view or use, would you use it?

There is a narrow window of time (around 30 seconds or less) in which mobile users expect to see a page load or for an action to complete!

Google’s top ten tips for your mobile site-

1. Make the experience quick: Increase your load speeds by making sure images are compressed, implement bullet points etc to cut down large text blocks and make sure that the necessary buttons etc are right there for users to see.
2. For navigation: Use menus and a search box for ease of navigation and make your back and home buttons clear. Avoid large pages of info where scrolling is necessary.
3. Make your site ‘Thumb friendly’: Pad buttons to increase the click able area and make buttons large and centralised to avoid unnecessary accidental clicks.
4. Make sure your design is clear and visible: Size of text and images is important, a user should be able to carry out an action without pinching and zooming the screen. Contrast between background and text is essential.
5. Accessibility: Google recommend using HTML5 for interactivity and animation, and use an alternative to Flash, as it does not work on all mobile devices.
6. Make the conversion path easy: Use the appropriate functions such as click to call, keep any forms short and only ask what is necessary. You can use check boxes and scroll lists to make data entry an easier task.
7. Give users a ‘local’ experience: Use features such as a store locator , use maps and give directions. You can include deals and offers.
8. Make the process seamless from desktop to mobile: Allow users to ‘save favourites’ and give log in access so users can see the same products or services. Key products and services should always be on show.
9. Use mobile site redirects: for ease of use and give users the option to go between desktop and mobile site should they wish.
10. Pay attention to statistics: Use analytics to understand how users are navigating your site and implement changes as necessary. Continuously improve on functionality and usability.

By Helen Brown

If you wish to market your business with ads that use images and/or video, using the Display network is a great way to get your advertising message across and gain users attention. Not all of us however (myself as I prime example!) can be classed as a ‘whizz’ with creative suites or design software, and we don’t all have a graphic designer at our disposal. So! its great that the AdWords interface has the built in functionality of the Display ad builder with customisable templates etc. This allows us all to create visually appealing ads styled with the appropriate fonts and colours, with a variety of sizes to choose from.

Its very easy to start with the Display ad builder, and remember – it is a free tool within your AdWords account, so why not put it to good use. To start using the Display ad builder. Select the campaign for which you are creating the new ad and click the ads tab. After clicking ‘New Ad’, select ‘Display Ad Builder’ from the drop down. After the page loads you will see that you can choose from a variety of themes, whether your business is technology, retail, education………..there is a list of widely adaptable templates to suit your advertising needs. You can upload your logo to feature in the ads too. There are advanced settings for creating ads, with ‘product showcase’ templates where you can add a variety of product images with different destination URL’s, and expandable ads where additional information will be shown to the user when they click a button to expand the ad. You can create different types of video ads, mobile image ads and Image search ads.

Recently launched and added to the AdWords interface is a new feature called ‘Suggested Ads’. To try this feature, you don’t even need to be using the display ad builder (although there is a link within the display ad builder to view ‘suggested ads’). To view the suggested ads, simply mark the check box next to the appropriate ad within your ads tab, and click ‘Generate display ad’ from the more options drop down. This will produce the ad suggestions. It’s that simple.

How this works – Google use the information in your current existing campaigns to generate suggested image ads. There will be a variety of ad suggestions displayed, and you can select or dismiss the suggestions and new suggestions will appear. When you preview these ads, you can customise them with different fonts, change the colours and change and wording should you wish to do so. When you are happy with them you can incorporate them to your ad group (or you can add them without any edits should you be immediately happy with what you see!). Easy!

By Helen Brown

We are all so busy, life can be a never ending list of things to do……… running your own business can be very rewarding but it can also be tough to stay on top of. Keeping your ads current with your website and in stock/out of stock items is no exception. Think about it, how often does the information and products on your site differ due to stock changes, new lines, discontinued lines etc in comparison to your AdWords ads?

Currently in Beta, Google have created Dynamic Search Ads. This is a new way of targeting relevant searches and is designed to run in addition to (not replace) your existing keyword targeted ads and campaigns. The idea behind this is that your ads would be dynamically generated based on a combination of your sites current content and also the users search query, making the resulting ad highly relevant to the user, and giving you the visibility you want with less effort required.

How This Works: Google’s organic web crawling technology is used to keep your site/pages freshly indexed. When a user submits a search query, an ad is automatically generated. The headline of the ad would be based on the search query that the user entered, and the ad text would consist of what is deemed the most appropriate content/information on your landing page.

Dynamically generated ads should not interfere with any pre-existing keyword targeted campaigns and ads that are running in your AdWords account. A dynamic search ad would enter the ad auction as normal and uses the same ranking system as your normal keyword targeted ads. BUT! if Google see that you have a keyword targeted ad that is appropriate to the users search query, they will allow that keyword targeted ad to perform rather than a dynamically generated ad.

Targeting can be aimed at the whole site, specific categories of your products, pages that contain certain words etc. It’s also possible to use the controls for keyword negatives.

As usual with AdWords, there are a variety of reporting metrics that can be viewed and analyzed.

This new feature has been created with advertisers/businesses in mind who are managing large product lines, and websites must have over 50 web pages with unique items or listings to promote. There are also other specific account requirements for joining the test, such as ensuring that your conversion tracking system is compatible with dynamic search ads. Anyone wishing to sign up will need to complete an on line registration form.

Good luck!

By Helen Brown

Anyone working with AdWords will be no stranger to Google reviewing and rolling out changes/improvements to various aspects of AdWords features, and recently they have addressed the issue of usability with mobile ads in mind.

Whether you have a phone number in your ad text or not, this is worth knowing about!
Previous to this update from Google, any advertisers who had a click to call extension set up on their ads would have the ability to present ads to their users with the option of either choosing to click through to their site from the ad or using the click to call link in the ad for directly phoning the advertisers business. Unless this function was set up in an advertisers account as a click to call function, a click to call link would not be featured in the ad. Google have addressed this with the concern that it was not a good experience for mobile users as it could be considered confusing. Think about it……………..a mobile user may see a business telephone number displayed in an ad, but not be able to click it in some circumstances if the advertiser does not have click to call set up, and they may see another ad and be able to click through. Why not have all telephone numbers that appear in ads set up as click to call, it would certainly be less confusing for users, and it would require less work in the AdWords interface for advertisers.
So, this is what has happened.
From now on, anyone who features a telephone number in their ad text will have the feature of click to call automatically active for the ad. BUT! something to consider here………………..if you already use the click to call extension and display a telephone number in your ad, the new feature will only show the telephone number in your ad and not show the click to call extension to prevent confusion over more than one telephone number displaying should the numbers be different. Google advise that if you want your click to call extension to take precedence you will need to delete the telephone number from your ad text to allow the click to call extension to work again.
As for pricing, the advertiser is charged when the user clicks the headline to go through to the site, or when they click the call link. The same rules also apply with regard to AdWords policies, and you are not allowed to feature a telephone number in your ad headline.
You will also be able to view the campaigns tab in your account to see information about how many calls you received per campaign, ad group, keyword and ad by selecting the ‘click type’ option under the ‘segment’ drop down on your reports. If you want to review reporting metrics for the ‘traditional’ click to call extension feature, you can still view these reports via the extensions tab.

Although Google have introduced this new feature, they do still advise that the click to call extension is the best way to feature a telephone number because when you use a click to call extension the number will display as an additional line, this gives more space in your ad text to write additional wording to mention more about a particular promotion etc you may be offering, or give more detail about your products or services. Also,  when you use click to call extensions you can use other features such as vanity numbers, the call only feature and reporting metrics are more detailed.

With more people than ever using mobile Internet, this has to be a good move forward for gaining attention.  This will no doubt make it easier than ever for Internet users to connect with businesses and for advertisers to get more conversions. Good luck!

By Helen Brown

This week I have watched the ‘Getting your business on Google+’ webinar. I know I have already written about Google+, but further to my post “Google+, the grown up social network” and also “the +1 button webinar from Google” I would like to discuss a little of what I have learned today.  Google+ can be beneficial to advertising your business, as well as for the social function previously discussed. The features within Google+ can lend themselves well to a business focus.

First topic of discussion within the webinar: The power of Google+. Within 100 days of Google+ existing, there were over 40 million users! All of these people settled into using the platform very quickly and now, billions of posts and articles etc are shared every single day. Were all human, and we all at some point or another need to connect with one another. Social networking is more popular than ever now, and it’s a perfect opportunity to get yourself and your business or brand noticed. A lot of big top brand companies are now using this and it is working for them, but it can work well for smaller businesses too. Also, there are also now over 1 million sites that have integrated the +1 button, so with all of this endorsement and also the ability to connect, this looks like another great way to put your business out there and gain some attention. Hooray!

So, how do we get started with this? It’s very simple, the first thing that you will need is a Google account log in. It is necessary to create an identity for yourself via a Gmail log in, and once you have logged in you will see +(your name) in the top right corner of the screen. e.g I see +Helen.
Click the +(your name) and you will then have the opportunity to create a page for your business via the ‘create a page button’ found on the right hand side of the page. From here you can choose your categories such as local business or place, product or brand, company/institution/organization, arts/entertainment/sports, other etc.
Next you can fill in all of the information that you want to give about your business, you can link to your website, decide on a best suited category for your business, and select who will be able to see your page. Then click create! You will see a prompt that will encourage you to tell your friends and family about the page. Next, you will see a congratulations page and this is where you can start to give your page its own identity by adding photos and videos. At the top of the profile page, you can add your profile picture and you have the opportunity to add five additional photos that will display in a banner fashion on your page (there’s a great tool for slicing photos and making a real display out of this!) Now you can also add your introduction, contact information and your website details etc. To successfully connect your website and your page to each other, you will need to add code to your site. Click the ‘Get the badge’ button, and then you can use the ‘widget configurator’ to customize the badge and get the code which can be copied and pasted into your site for it to display there.
You can also get the +1 button on your site, widgets can come in many shapes and sizes, there are a variety of buttons and once installed on your site a user can +1 your business directly from your site without having to go to your +page. Another great way of driving traffic.

One thing that should be kept in mind is that the page you have created is a representation of your business identity, it needs to follow your branding, message and style and should be visually appealing for the best results. Also, Google were keen to point out that it is important not only to link your page to your site, but also to your AdWords campaign so you can measure your results.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, there is a great tool for slicing images for your banner photos, go to http://gpluspic.com/banner and you can really give your page some extra appeal with a sliced banner photo of your choosing, which could be much more eye catching than displaying smaller, separate images.

In terms of your business, circles within Google+ can be very powerful. You can begin to segment your audience as when people find you and add you, you can then add these people to your own circles and you can use the circles to ensure that the specific message that you want delivered to the specific group of people is seen by that group e.g messages for a circle of customers, or maybe a supplier or buyers and also your staff! You can also use the circles to deliver specific messages or offers at you mat choose to run at certain times of day. The example used in the webinar was a coffee shop, to further demonstrate how circles can be used you could have a specific circle for early risers offering a free pastry with the coffee before 8 am, and another for study groups offering a meal deal of sandwiches and cookies at a reduced price etc.
You can allow users to opt into their own circles on your page too, by asking them what they want to hear about. Do they want to receive updates? Are they interested in job opportunities? if so, they can join the appropriate circle, this is a great way to split your audience into the appropriate categories and ensure that they receive the most appropriate message.
Now for me, this is the best bit! How about creating a ‘hangout’, where you can add a human element to your message and communicate face to face with your audience? You could use this to teach your viewers more about your products and services, you could give lessons on specific subjects within your business topic, there are so many ways in which this could be beneficial. All you need to do is click to ‘start a hangout’ and your profile picture and business name will appear in the news stream of your followers. They will see a button and clicking this will enable them to join in with your hangout.

When delivering your messages to your different circles, its also important to remember that you have complete control over the level of information that is displayed. You can disable comments and also disable re-sharing before sharing a message or a promotion etc.

Linking your page with your AdWords campaign will give you the ability to measure the performance with statistics such as clicks, impressions, CTR etc. You can use webmaster tools if you wish to know demographic information about the people who are using the +1 button.
And finally, two new features: the first called connect direct is an experiment by Google which allows a user to directly connect with your business page by typing +(business name) into search. The second called ‘Ripples’ has been released and this allows you to see the social ripples from the post you share and thus how it is re shared and its spread pattern. From this you can establish the most effective content for achieving good reach and you can learn about the fans of your brand. Good luck!

By Helen Brown

When setting bids within our AdWords accounts,  we have the option to choose cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) bidding and also cost per acquisition bidding (CPA). Whilst we are all familiar with CPC and CPM bidding, CPA bidding can also be a very useful way to increase profits and get the best from your AdWords account. So here is a little of what is involved and how it is used.

When using CPA bidding, you bid with a maximum cost per acquisition instead of maximum cost per click. Bidding with CPA however will still involve paying per click, and using it will lessen the need to adjust your bids manually. It is easy to activate, and also deactivate should you wish to do so. Upon deactivation, your campaigns will revert back to the old bids before you used conversion optimizer. There are no additional charges for using conversion optimizer, and also you wont need to learn how to navigate a new interface etc to use it. Conversion optimizer will allow you to specify the maximum amount (max CPA) that you are prepared to bid per acquisition, whether the desired conversion is a purchase or sign up for each ad group in your campaign. Google have also advised that a lot of advertisers who have used conversion optimizer have achieved double-digit percentage increases in conversions, whilst paying either the same or less for the conversion. When you use conversion optimizer, the system analyses your historical conversion tracking data in order to make predictions about your conversion rate in the future, this will get your conversions at a lower cost.

Conversion optimizer will give what Google call ‘multi dimensional’ bid management, where bids are varied depending on a number of factors so that the value of the click can be better predicted. This type of bid management is capable of considering a number of factors such as broad match versus exact match and search partner sites for the search targeting. For display targeting, it takes factors such as whether the ad and site content are well suited, and also the sites topics too. It will also consider the users attributes such as location, the browser and operating system they are using, and their language settings. Clever!

You can use conversion optimizer when conversion tracking is enabled on your account, but conversion optimizer can only be used with existing campaigns that have received at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days, as your past conversion data is required in order for the system to be able to place bids appropriately. Also it is important that your campaigns conversions have been occurring at a similar rate for the previous few days before activation.

You can enable conversion optimizer on your selected campaigns from the settings tab of your campaign, go to bidding options and click edit and you can choose ‘focus on conversions’ (conversion optimizer). You will be asked to set your maximum cost per acquisition. After completing this action and when looking at your ad groups tab you can edit the max CPA from there should you wish to do so, as your max CPC column will now show as your max CPA column. It is good practice when using conversion optimizer to compare your CPA and conversions before and after using the conversion optimizer to track your success. An important thing to remember is that your maximum CPA bid is not what you are targeting to spend, but more the maximum that you are prepared to spend to get the conversion, your average CPA should generally speaking always be less than your bid BUT Google do clearly advise that it is possible for your actual CPA to exceed your specified maximum CPA figure as there are factors outside of Google’s control at play. However, you can change your CPA bids as often as you like.

When you start using conversion optimizer, you will see that there is a recommended ad group bid amount suggested. This will help to keep your costs steady and under control whilst changing from your previous bidding method to the new one. When you have been running with conversion optimizer for a little while, you can decide if you want to adjust your bids after analyzing your account statistics.

This bidding option sounds like a great way of taking the stress out of campaign/bid management. I’m sure that it will be beneficial to anyone looking to make it a part of their advertising and account management strategy! Good luck

By Helen Brown

This week I have attended the “YouTube and Video Advertising” webinar. I found this webinar very informative and clear in explaining how it all works and I would like to share my findings with you.

The first topic covered in this webinar – the progression of advertising. How over the years, advertisements have developed from static and black and white images to coloured moving images, analogue has become digital and how online video consumption is on the constant increase. In fact, one third of consumer activity online is video activity. This has been recognised by advertisers and thus online advertising has become very prominent. After all, if you were to see a text ad versus watching a video ad, what would you remember most vividly? I know for me, it would be the video ad! I’m sure we could all agree that a video ad would be far more engaging. Whilst we all know that through TV we have been seeing this for years (nothing new there), but when this happens online it allows advertisers access to other areas that TV does not e.g social networking sites. This is a huge audience and a massive opportunity to air your advertising message.
Advertisements do gain peoples attention, and featured in the webinar were some interesting statistics about how advertising influences the viewer. Around 59% of people have looked for a TV ad or a featured song online after viewing the ad (I have done this myself!) and 22% of viewers have sent a TV ad or a link to an ad to someone else. That’s incredible!
Bringing all of this back to YouTube, it has 17.5 million unique UK visitors per month with more than 3 billion daily video views. YouTube call themselves ‘the home of online video’ and I think this is pretty accurate when you consider that YouTube is the third largest site on the Internet and around 48hours of video is uploaded every minute.
Often people incorporate social media into their advertising plan in the form of Twitter or Facebook, but YouTube is so easily accessible and very powerful that it should really be important to make sure that it gets included too. So many people of all ages these days are searching for the information they want in a video format. YouTube isn’t just for teenagers, it reaches both men and women of a broad age range with 47% of users being aged between 35 – 64.

Thinking of this broad audience in terms of advertising on YouTube, there are a couple of choices.
First of all there is the ‘YouTube channel’. If you have a YouTube account you have a channel. This channel can be used to create a ‘home’ for your videos and thus your company/business. A user can click to watch the video which should contain the necessary call to action. The advertiser will only be charged when the video is watched. Users will know that they can find information on your channel about your business and it is important to keep your content up to date so you can keep your users interested and appropriately informed. In turn this will help to attract more users and keep driving traffic. There are many ways that you can assess the performance of a your channel with metrics such as channel views, giving detail of how many users have watched your content/seen your messaging specifically on your channel. Video views will give you statistics on how many users saw your video whether it was on your channel or whether it was embedded on another site such as Facebook. You can find out how many people have signed up when you view subscriptions, and also comments are a good way of finding out what users think.

The second method of advertising is through banner ads, in video ads and, In stream pre-roll ads.
There are two types of content that YouTube allow ads to be shown against.
The first is called ‘approved partner content’ and an example given of this was the BBC or Warner Brothers. This content is trusted.
The second is ‘content where the copyright has been claimed’. A quick explanation of how this works -
A user uploads content that they do not own the right to (video, music,images etc) and the YouTube system scans it and determines that it is not owned by the user. The owner of the content can then choose to either get the content removed or make money from it by getting ads run on the video. The money made goes to the content owner, not the user.
Videos that support ads will always be vetted first before ads are allowed to run. Any material that is found to be copyright violated and also content generated by users that is not belonging to a partner will not be used for ads.

Advertising on YouTube can be carried out either via AdWords with no fixed contract necessary and no minimum spend requirement, or through a reservation basis via DART (Double clicks platform) although when using this option it is necessary to have a Google account manager to make the advertising reservations for you and there is a minimum spend requirement of around £7000, also a fixed contract is required.
Your choice of ad format will depend on which option you have chosen as some types of ad format cannot be achieved through AdWords but can through DART and vice-versa. There are a vast variety of ad formats available, I am including  links in this blog post that will give further information about ad formats in detail with images, as I think this will be a good way for readers to get understanding of the variety of formats available.

Targeting options include keyword contextual targeting, placement targeting and audience targeting. It’s also possible to combine targeting options to get the best results for your campaigns.

The following ad types and formats below were discussed -

YouTube Home page has massive advertising impact. There are a variety of advertising options available through DART for the homepage from a standard masthead, expandable masthead, tandem masthead, standard click to play ad, expandable click to play, (standard and expandable are available in auto play also).

Standard display ads can run on browse and watch pages, and are available in 300 x 250 format. These can be image ads, flash and also click to play. These ads can be created within your AdWords account by navigating to the ads tab and selecting ‘new ad’ and ‘image ad’. You will be prompted to select the appropriate ad group before creating your ad. You can also use the display ad builder to create image ads with the selection of ready made templates which cover a variety of designs and uses.

Promoted video ads can aid an advertiser in drawing attention to the video they want to promote. This type of ad will be made up of an image thumb nail combined with a standard text ad. The ad must connect with a video on a YouTube channel or watch page (Promoted videos are classed as search ads, so one thing to keep in mind when using this is to make sure you opt your campaign into the Display network as well as search so that your ad will show up on the related videos section on a watch page.) When a user clicks it, it cannot connect to any other URL. For this reason, it should only be used when the goal is to drive traffic to your video. To create a promoted video ad, you will need to use the display ad builder and select the ‘video and audio’ category and then select ‘YouTube promoted video template’. Again you should select the appropriate ad group for the ad and you will need to keep in mind that the guidelines for promoted video ads are the same as for search ads e.g character rules, keyword insertion etc. After selecting a video from YouTube (the video must already be uploaded to YouTube) the system will generate a choice of 4 thumbnails and you can select the best thumbnail image. From there you can choose to send users to a watch page or channel page. You will need to save all of your selections. You can choose to add a call to action overlay after your uploaded video has a promoted video ad only, and this can link though to your website when a user clicks the call to action. Call to action overlays are created from the advertisers YouTube account and not the AdWords account.

In-video ad format contains a few different elements. This ad format comprises of an overlay banner, with an optional companion banner and also an optional in stream video. These are image only ads, these ads can only appear on YouTube watch pages. To create these ads, again you will need to go to the ads tab and select display ad builder. Next, you will need to select ‘video and audio’ and then select the ‘in video static image’ template. From there you can upload your banner, add your destination URL and you will need to click save.

In-stream ads are available in pre-roll, mid-roll and post roll format (but for the purposes of AdWords they are available in pre-roll only if you are based in Europe, the middle East or Africa!). These ads run pre-roll as in, when a user starts to watch a video the ad will play before the video starts. They can run on watch pages are available on all videos over 15 minutes in length and most videos under 15 minutes in length (or as YouTube calls it ‘long form’ and ‘short form’ content. If using a pre-roll ad through AdWords, the ad can be up to 15 seconds long and the format can also include a 300 x 60 companion banner too. To create these ads, again you will need to go to the ads tab and select display ad builder. Next, you will need to select ‘video and audio’ and then select the ‘in stream video ad’ template. From there you can upload a video or choose to add a video from YouTube, upload your companion banner, add your display and destination URL’s and you will need to click to save your information.

True view in-stream ads are only available from AdWords and ads are charged on a cost per view basis, people can choose whether they want to watch the ad or not, as the video ad can be skipped after 5 seconds. Advertisers only pay if people watch the ad for over 30 seconds, or until the ad finishes if the ad is less than 30 seconds. There is not a time limit for these type of ads although it is recommended that they are around 15-30 seconds long.

Finally, replacing YouTube insights is YouTube analytics, and this can be viewed by visiting youtube.com/analytics. From here, any one who has a YouTube account can find out statistics about their uploaded videos. It gives lots of information about who is watching the video, where in the world they are based and how these people are finding your videos etc.

I know that this is a lot of information to take in! but I hope that it is useful to anyone seeking to better understand how advertising on YouTube through AdWords can be quite easily achievable.
Good luck!

By Helen Brown

An essential part of the learning process when studying for your exam is application of the learning material. As discussed in previous posts, it is the true way of comprehending how it all works, from budgets to campaign settings……….and reporting.
I know that I am not going to be on my own when I confess that I initially found reporting tough to understand, I felt so confused by all of the different report types and completely overwhelmed just by looking at the reporting section of my account. I didn’t know where to start, but after thoroughly reading the learning material and taking all that I had learned back to my account for practical application, I began to understand how these valuable account functions worked. Anyone who is studying to sit the Fundamentals exam for the first time should be prepared to answer questions on AdWords reporting functions (as well as many other account topics) but the purpose of this post today is to discuss basic reporting, including running, downloading and analysing reports. I hope you find it useful!

Why use reporting?

Quite simply, it is a full and comprehensive way of understanding your performance. From maintaining a cost effective ad spend to gauging how successful your advertising message is, reporting will give full and detailed information. It is flexible and can be taken to the level you need from account, campaign, ad group, ad and keyword level. Upon viewing this information, you can make better informed decisions about how you can improve and further refine your advertising.
There are various report types, lets take a look at a few -

Campaign report: Use this report to monitor the performance of your account.
In order to create a campaign report, you will need to be within the campaigns tab of your account and select the appropriate campaign (or you can view statistics for all of the campaigns in your account if you don’t select a specific campaign). Just above the graph section of the page, you will see that you have the options to customize the level of information that appears on your table by using the columns (click to customize your columns, you can add columns to your table giving detailed information on performance, conversions, and attribute information etc), filters (helping you to filter information by click, Impression, cost etc) and segments (helping you to break down the information by network, device, top v’s other, daily, weekly and monthly performance etc).

Keyword report: Use this report to view statistics on how your keywords are performing for all of your online campaigns and ad groups or for a specific campaign.To create this report, you need to click the keywords tab within the campaigns tab of your account. As above, you can use filters and segments to include the necessary level of information in your report and schedule, email and generate the report. After customizing to your liking, you can view information such as if a particular keyword is converting well for you, also you can see if you have a good CTR and your average position per keyword. It is recommended to leave your keywords run for at least 10 days to 2 weeks before deciding to pause or delete them so you can make a well informed decision based on a reasonable amount of data that has been gathered in your account. If you see a large number of CTR of under 1% then you may wish to consider pausing or deleting the keyword, as this would not be classed as a well performing keyword. Another statistic to analyze in this report is seeing high impressions but low CTR, this is another indication of poor keyword performance that you may want to consider pausing.

Ad Performance report: Use this report to see how the variations of ads you have created are performing. To create this report, you will need to click the ads tab within the campaigns tab of your account. Again, use the filters and segments to customize to your liking. Google recommend having at least 3 ads in an ad group when using this report. Look at your CTR and you will see which of your ads are the best performers with the most enticing text. You can consider pausing or deleting poor performers from viewing this information too. You can also see your ads approval status.

See search terms report: Use this report to see the real actual search terms that have been used to trigger your ads on the search network. This is incredibly useful! To create this report, you will need to click the keywords tab within the campaigns tab of your account, and then ‘see search terms’ and select all. You will be presented with a list of keywords that users have searched on. Don’t worry about trying to remember if you are already using these keywords within your campaigns, as a green ‘added’ note will be with the keyword if it is already present in your account so you will know not to re add it. After studying the statistics you will be able to see new keywords with high performance rates and you can add these to your campaigns by marking the appropriate check boxes by the side of the desired keywords and selecting ‘add as keyword’. Also, you can choose to apply negatives if you find search terms that are irrelevant by the same method, again by marking the check boxes and then clicking ‘add as negative keyword’.

Geographic report: Use this report to view statistics for your ads which will be organized by the users location. To create this report, you will need to click the dimensions tab within the campaigns tab of your account (if you cannot see this tab, click the drop down arrow next to the last tab and check the box next to dimensions). Then, click the view menu in the tool bar and select geographic. You will see statistics listed based on your country targeting, and if you are targeting in the UK you will see regions and cities too. You can customize your columns, and you will be able to see in which countries your ads are best performing.

After generating and studying these reports you can choose to select a format from the drop down, select to email recipients, and finally you will need to click to download the report.
To open the download panel, click the download icon. At this point you can choose to email and schedule the report. It is important to remember to set your appropriate date range at the top right of the page before generating your report. A few things to keep in mind when thinking about downloading and emailing reports………………. You can select the format of the report from the drop down, but if you want to download and print the report, a PDF format is the best format to choose. Also, in the interest of account security, you can only email a report to someone if they have account access. The best way to give access to a person is to add them as an email only user from ‘My account’ > ‘Access’.

I hope this helps to give a clear understanding of some of the reporting features. Good luck!