Google has long made it possible for users of YouTube to skip ads. Now, it’s adding that capability to the Display Network, letting people hit an “X” to dismiss, or mute, the currently-displaying ad. Google says it will use the signal as a way to deliver more relevant ads to consumers. Once a person mutes […]
AdWords advertisers on Google’s Display Network can now use multiple targeting methods at the ad group level, rather than the campaign level, via a new feature called “Flexible Reach.” The option was first reported by Philly Marketing Labs on its blog, but it is already appearing in accounts and in AdWords Help. With Flexible Reach, […]
The paid search part of the Search Alliance has conquered three more countries. Both Bing- and Yahoo-owned and operated properties, as well as publisher networks, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are now powered by Microsoft Advertising’s adCenter, the company announced today. Now both the algorithmic and the paid search portions of the Alliance have been […]
Financial services, hotels, flights, products… what’s next for Google’s paid inclusion vertical search engine plans? It appears to be new cars, if a Bay Area test is any indication. The test was first spotted by auto industry publication DealerELITE. If a person has indicated he is in the San Francisco Bay Area, searching on specific […]
Google has revamped its format for AdWords that display within Maps for Mobile, in an effort to make them work more efficiently for smartphone users and advertisers. As a part of the new format, which will be made available to newer versions of Android phones today, calls to action like “get directions” and “click to call” […]
The “simpler and more beautiful” AdWords version previewed a couple of weeks ago is rolling out to all accounts globally in the next few days, Google has announced. The most significant change is the addition of “campaign types,” which allows advertisers to use an interface customized based on the type of campaign they are creating. […]
The “simpler and more beautiful” Google makeover is coming to AdWords. The company is previewing the new look to users and asking for feedback before implementing it. The most significant change to functionality is the introduction of “campaign types” — depending on the type of campaign it is, you will see different options. The idea […]
Google has been testing its Trusted Stores seal program since October of 2011, and now the program is opening up to all U.S. merchants with a self-service sign-up interface. Merchants who participate will have a “Trusted Stores” badge — which opens to provide information about the company’s shipping and customer service record — appear beside their […]
Google is testing a new ad format on its Hotel Finder product that lets marketers bid to appear at the top of search results. Promoted Hotels ads are ranked based on a combination of bid and quality score, and are sold on a CPC basis. News of the experiment was first reported on Tnooz. The […]
In an effort to expand the kind of information available to online shoppers via its Trusted Stores program, Google has acquired the technology and certain assets of KikScore, a trust seal company serving mostly small businesses. The cost of the intellectual property acquisition wasn’t disclosed. According to a post on KikScore’s site, the standalone service […]
A few days after Google upended the ecommerce marketing world with the announcement of upcoming changes to what will now be called Google Shopping, many retailers and marketers we spoke with are positive about the switch, though there are definitely some serious concerns. You’d think taking a product from free to paid would cause an […]
It looks like the powers-that-be at Google are listening to thoughtful feedback like Matt Van Wagner presented just a few days ago in these pages. The company is making changes to recently-implemented AdWords rotation settings, and also allowing advertisers to opt-out of the auto-optimization altogether. As a reminder, in late April, Google said that a […]
Like fighting spam and click fraud, finding and nixing bad ads on AdWords is a continually escalating battle. One telling stat the company revealed in a blog post today: 134 million. That’s how many ads Google axed in 2011, a 136% rise from the year before. Back in 2008, the company only disapproved 25 million […]
AdWords marketers’ days of regularly refreshing on all their keywords may be over — or at least that activity may not be quite so necessary. Google is releasing a new report — Auction Insights — that helps marketers understand how their ads stand, compared to others in the same auctions. “For a given keyword, the […]
The Search Alliance between Yahoo and Microsoft had some unintended beneficiaries (now casualties). Yahoo’s former senior director of business management, Robert Kwok, has pled guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, after being accused that he told a mutual fund manager in July 2009 that the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft was imminent. Among its […]
We’ve seen “Ads related to…” followed by the search query before, but now it’s at the top of the top ad block and it’s rolled out officially for most — if not all — search terms on Google AdWords. The new text appears at the top of the yellow AdWords box on search engine results […]
Google has introduced several new reporting improvements for AdSense publishers, and it has released new research that shows publishers make more money with “smart pricing” — even though their revenue-per-click is discounted as compared with search ads — than they would without it. One reporting improvement is that AdSense publishers can now view “all time” […]
Advertisers have long been able to simulate the results of bid changes at the keyword and ad group level, and, now, they can do so at the campaign level, as well, Google has announced. The change will allow advertisers to model changes even when there’s not enough data to do so at the keyword or […]
Microsoft and Yahoo — the Search Alliance — have announced the completion of the migration of advertisers to the adCenter platform, from Yahoo Search Marketing, in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. Since they previously migrated all Yahoo algorithmic search results to Bing, the transition is now complete in these countries. The migration has been […]
New York-based iCrossing, a division of Hearst Corporation, tops the latest Ad Age list of top 25 search marketing agencies by revenue released today. (Link is available to subscribers only.) The agency brought in $105 million in search-related revenues in 2011, up 13.6% from the previous year. Rounding out the top five were Dentsu’s 360i, […]
There’s Microsoft, there’s Bing, there’s Yahoo, and there’s the Search Alliance. How can any small business search advertiser figure out what’s what? That’s the thinking behind the rebranding of Microsoft Advertising to Bing, announced this week. Besides the name change, marketing collateral and web sites will incorporate the large beautiful images that the Bing consumer […]
Those marketing mobile applications via Google AdWords are getting some new weapons in their arsenal this week. Google has announced four new tools: a new Mobile App extension for AdWords, additional information to the click-to-download format, the ability to see Google Play stats in AdWords, and Custom Search Ads for mobile apps. The Mobile App […]
Quality Score display and the addition of labels aren’t the only AdWords changes this week. Google has also updated the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator, eliminating the standalone Traffic Estimator that could be used without logging into an AdWords account. With the Keyword Tool changes, advertisers will be able to see keyword ideas grouped by […]
You know that rumor about Microsoft shopping Bing to Facebook? It sparked lots of speculation about whether that would be a good move for both companies. Turns out it did happen, according to a report in the New York Times citing executives who made overtures to Facebook on behalf of Microsoft — but without the […]
Google today unveiled two changes to the AdWords interface that will likely be useful to marketers — three additional components to the Quality Score, along with account labels to allow the easier grouping of keywords, ads, ad groups and campaigns. Quality Score, one of the most important metrics for marketers, will be displayed with the […]
Display URLs on AdWords search ads are getting another element — breadcrumb trails, a set of links next to the URL that lets users navigate directly to relevant sections of a site. An example of a breadcrumb trail would be “Apparel > Women’s Clothing > Tops > Sweaters.” As with organic breadcrumbs, the breadcrumbs displayed […]
Google is testing the effect of adding “Trusted Stores” badges to qualifying advertisers’ search ads, as it considers deploying the badges more widely. The experiment was first reported by Internet Retailer. A Google spokesperson, asked to comment on the test, sent a statement that said: “As part of the Google Trusted Stores program, we’re currently […]
When new employees join the Google ad quality team that manually reviews suspect ads, they start by studying internal documentation of policies that outline examples of ads that would be approved, and those that would be rejected. Then the employees’ skills are tested on ads that don’t run, they graduate to ads that get little […]
Through online advertising’s ups and downs, search — because of its orientation toward performance — has always been a stalwart category. Despite much talk about branding, social and immersive advertising lately, search still commanded the lion’s share of online advertising revenues (46.5%) in 2011 and its share grew from 2010 numbers (44.8%), when it experienced […]
Most experienced AdWords advertisers have developed keyword lists that include things like misspellings, plurals, and other variations on a keyword or phrase. Now, Google will do all this automatically — as it does with organic results — with exact and phrase matching, though advertisers will be able to opt out. The new behavior will take […]
Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (MAI), the Excel add-on for keyword research and optimization, is getting an upgrade — jumping all the way from version 5.6 to version 8. The company says the new version brings in more finely-tuned data from the Yahoo-Bing network on a wider range of keywords and competitive bids. Additionally, information on traffic, […]
Google’s revenues rose to $10.65 billion in the first quarter of 2012, resulting in net income of $2.89 billion, or $8.75 per share, the company announced after market close today. The revenue number represents a 24% increase over the year-ago period. Additionally, the board of directors proposed the creation of a new class of non-voting […]
By all accounts, paid search spending rose in Q1 2012 as compared to the previous year, but by how much depends on the source, and the sector. Covario, which serves mostly high-tech clients, says paid search in the Americas grew 15% in the first quarter, while Adobe’s Efficient Frontier, which serves clients in a variety […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit today revived part of Rosetta Stone’s trademark lawsuit against Google, meaning the search giant’s permitting the use of trademarked terms in AdWords is still legally questionable in the United States. It’s the first time an appellate court has ruled in a case of this kind. Previously, a […]
Google this week introduced the ability to target more than 30,000 ZIP codes in AdWords, giving advertisers the ability to find potential customers in a familiar, granular way. Another new feature, Location Insertion, is aimed at letting advertisers with multiple locations create one ad, and have information dynamically inserted depending on the user’s query or […]
Google says it’s spending “millions of dollars” to police AdWords ads to ensure they’re not contributing to human trafficking, but the head of a victim’s rights group seems to believe that’s not enough. Asked what he thinks Google should do, Philip J. Cenedella of the National Association of Human Trafficking Victim Advocates (NAHTVA) says they […]
Lawmakers Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) are concerned that Google is profiting from advertisements placed by sex traffickers, expressing these fears in a joint letter to CEO Larry Page. The missive seeks reassurances of the company’s commitment to ferreting out ads that contribute to the activity. “Whatever Google is doing or not doing […]
A Federal Appeals Court in Australia has found Google responsible for misleading ads that displayed when users searched for certain terms and received ads from competitors who had bid on those terms. The ruling, though it only applies in Australia, is important because one of Google’s most central beliefs — which has come up in […]
The Federal Government has approved a plan to distribute the $500 million Google paid for illegally accepting advertisements from Canadian pharmacies targeting U.S. consumers. Under the plan, $230 million will be divided amongst the Rhode Island law enforcement agencies that participated in the investigation of Google. Another $100 million will go to Federal agencies, and […]
In a bid to grow ranks of professionals accredited by Microsoft Advertising and educate them about its platform, the company has launched the free adCenter Training Hub. The hub is essentially a location where advertisers and agency folks can watch training videos and get up to speed on adCenter. The site keeps track of folks’ […]