Posted:
(cross-posted on the Inside AdWords Blog)


Get organized this spring with new location features in AdWords and share your stories

Over the past 30 years, California Closet Company has grown from the brainchild of a college student organizing his dorm room closet to a successful business with more than 77 franchise locations. To reach customers across the U.S. and internationally, the company centered their digital marketing strategy on creating locally relevant campaigns.

It’s no surprise that local campaigns are a focus for many businesses--from finding directions to looking up a phone number, more people are going online to find local information. In fact, more than 20% of searches on Google are related to location, and people often act quickly on local searches. Research shows that using smartphones, 88% of people who search for local information take action within a day.

To help you organize your local ad campaigns this spring, we’re introducing three new features in AdWords to help you create ads that are more relevant to local customers.

Target customers by zip code
If you customize your direct mail, outdoor ads, or newspaper ads at a postal code level, you now can easily do the same in AdWords in the US. We are introducing the ability to target more than 30,000 US ZIP Codes with your AdWords campaigns.

You will be able to add up to 1,000 postal codes at a time to your search ad campaigns with AdWords Location Targeting. Plus, you can get feedback on the performance of your local campaigns by viewing campaign performance statistics at the postal code level.

"Location targeting within AdWords helped us double lead volume and cut the cost to acquire new customers in half,” said Lois Erbay, Director of Marketing, California Closet Company. “We plan on building on that success by using ZIP Code targeting to create even more locally relevant campaigns for our customers.”


More locally relevant ads in less time
To help you easily create a custom ad title, text, display URL, and/or destination URL for all of your locations at scale, we’ve developed location insertion for location extensions. You’ll no longer need to create multiple ads for multiple locations--this new feature automatically inserts the city, phone number, or zip code of your local business into your ad text.

For example, if your ad text says: “Find a {lb.city:Local} Store or Shop Online,” a user viewing your ad in Chicago would see: “Find a Chicago Store or Shop Online.” This new feature cuts out all the work to building out ad text featuring local information for all your locations.

Ad with location insertion in the text and display URL

“We’ve had amazing success manually customizing our creative with local information for our top markets, which shows us that customers want locally-relevant results when it comes to a service like storage,” said Chris Laczi, Advertising Director, Uncle Bob's Self Storage. “That’s why we’re very excited about location insertion. It will simplify the task of creating locally customized ads for our 400+ locations, and we expect it will greatly enhance conversion rate of our ads.”

You must have location extensions set up and running in order to enable location insertion. Location insertion will work even if your location extensions don’t show because of other extensions. We detect location based on where your customer is physically located or by the geographic locations she may have shown interest in.


Better clarity and control
When we launched advanced location targeting in March 2011, we provided you with more control over how you geographically target your ads. Based on advertiser feedback, we’re implementing four additional enhancements that will make location targeting options clearer and more powerful. Read more about these enhancements in the Help Center and in this blog post.

There is significant opportunity for businesses to reach local customers online and win moments that matter by delivering the right ad in the right context. Stay tuned for more information on how ZIP Code targeting can help you grow your business.

We want to hear from you about your success in getting local with AdWords--share your story here and we might reach out to you to participate in our upcoming blog posts.

Posted by Richard Holden, Product Management Director
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Posted:
As the internet comes of age, technology is catching up with our wildest imaginations. We can realize ideas that simply weren’t possible a mere five years ago. And you don’t need to be a technologist or have “Creative” in your title; millions of people around the world are making, remixing, and sharing everyday.

Case in point: There are over 800 exabytes of digital information in the world – words, videos, photos, music. To put that in context, a volume of the complete works of Shakespeare is about five megabytes. It would take one billion book-filled pickup trucks to make just //one// exabyte. This is our creative output; the sheer volume is equally inspiring and overwhelming.

Where to begin? Right here. The Creativity issue of Think Quarterly, launching today, documents this far-reaching transformation, cutting through the noise to focus on what it all means.

In “The Curious Case of Creativity,” Google VP of Global Marketing Lorraine Twohill sees creativity through an engineer’s eyes — as a way to solve problems, big and small. Interviews with the founders of two award-winning global agencies, Sir John Hegarty of BBH and Ajaz Ahmed of AKQA, discuss what creativity means in a digital context and how you can encourage it, even at a big company. Creative minds from Mullen, Wieden and Kennedy, Barbarian Group, AKQA, and Anomaly pick their most envy-inducing digital campaigns. And “Lean Communications” looks at how technology is forcing the traditional creative process to get faster, smarter, and more efficient.

We also explore how the web is inspiring entirely new forms of creativity — YouTube remixes, 3D models, data art and infographics — that are reshaping how we see the world. (And if you want to see how the web shapes your brand in particular, try our new “Brand Impressions” tool.)

Take some time to check it out and let us know what you think on +Think With Google.

Posted by Allison Mooney, Think Quarterly Editor
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Posted:
(cross-posted on the Inside AdWords Blog)

When we launched Google+ Pages last November, we aimed to provide you with a way to post updates and news about your business, have engaging conversations with customers, and send tailored messages to specific groups of people.

We’re now excited to share that Google Ads will be joining Google+ Pages to provide you, our advertising partners, with the latest Google advertising product news, training, tips and Hangouts that can help make the web work for you. We hope it will become a useful resource for growing your business, reaching customers in the moments that matter, and making smarter decisions.

Click to view page

Here’s a quick peek at what you can expect from the Google Ads page on Google+:

Stay ahead of the curve with the latest launches and updates for Google's advertising solutions, including search, display, mobile, social, YouTube and Google Analytics
Receive how-to information, best practices, and recommendations
Learn about upcoming trainings and events
Attend Hangouts with product experts

Add Google Ads to your circles here. We look forward to connecting with you on Google+.

Posted by Christina Park and Katie Miller, Ads Product Marketing
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Posted:
(cross-posted on the Google Commerce Blog)

People love saving money. According to eMarketer, almost 88.2 million people--or half of all U.S. adults who use the Internet--redeemed an online coupon in 2011, and this number should increase to 96.8 million by 2013. So it’s no wonder why so many companies, big and small, are using discounts, in the form of daily deals, to drive increases in sales.

In November 2011 Google Offers partnered with REI, the nationally loved outdoor retailer, to run REI’s first-ever daily deal and Google’s first-ever national offer: $15 for $25 worth of outdoor gear from REI.

Co-branded landing page used with marketing campaign to increase awareness of the offer
“REI was looking for ways to learn how we can use daily deals to drive the business during a non-promotional period, both within our stores and online, and a partnership with Google was a great fit,” said Teresa Harting, REI’s Marketing Manager. “We wanted to partner with a company that understood our brand and could manage it appropriately in the midst of a large-scale promotional announcement.”

In the weeks leading up to the offer, REI and Google worked closely to develop an offer that accurately reflected the REI brand. The companies also worked hand in hand to craft a well-executed pre-offer campaign that would drive interest and awareness among REI customers. The campaign, which ended on the date the offer ran, included the following tactics:

      • A 10 day teaser campaign on Google’s GDN, which drove people to a co-branded landing page for the offer. 
      • An email campaign sent to REI’s opted-in subscriber base and to Google Offers opted-in subscribers on the day of the offer. 
      • REI Facebook and Twitter posts were published the day before the offer and the day of the offer.
      • Facebook promotion on the REI brand page, including real-time interaction with customers to answer any questions about the offer.

REI.com site promotion on the day of the offer
Beginning on November 3rd, the REI Google Offer ran for 24 hours and was purchased by nearly 90,000 people across the U.S. The one-day deal has driven a significant amount of sales, both online and offline, and the average order value exceeded REI’s already high expectations. Further analysis will continue through the end of the redemption period to understand the total business impact, but it’s clear that REI will continue to see a benefit from their Google Offer.

“Our objective in running a Google Offer was to understand if we could attract new REI customers and increase traffic to our stores and to our website. Additionally, we wanted to gain a better understanding around how daily deals work for REI and if it would yield similar or higher average order values across both new and loyal customers. We have seen strong redemption and are continuing to track the results through the end of the redemption period. Overall, we are happy with the results of our very first daily deal with Google Offers,” said Harting.

If you’re a merchant and are interested in running a Google Offer, please visit: google.com/offers/business. 

Posted by Robin Lien, Google U.S. Retail Team
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Posted:
(cross-posted on the Google Commerce Blog)

SXSW Interactive 2012 starts tomorrow and we’re excited to be a part of this year’s festivities in Austin! As we announced last week, we’re transforming Rainey St. into the “Google Village” on March 10-11. Only a few steps away from the Austin Convention Center, the “Google Village” will consist of four houses packed full of demos and fun, drinks and music. The Commerce team will be at the Google Village too, and here’s what we got going on:

Google Offers
Google Offers will be set up throughout Google Village and our goal is to connect you to our product by allowing you to experience great Austin businesses that we’ve partnered with to run Google Offers.

Your journey begins at the Maps House, where you can pick up a Google Offers passport. This passport gets you access to all the Google Offers carts outside every house in the village:
  • Developer House: Get a taste of local favorite Frank’s unique artisan hot dogs
  • Discovery House: Play our record toss game for a chance to win swag from Waterloo Records
  • Android House: Whip up a refreshing drink while burning some calories by testing out blender bikes courtesy of Jack and Adam’s Bicycles
Like what you see? Then sign up for Google Offers at www.google.com/offers or download our mobile app to purchase offers from our featured businesses in your city.

Google Wallet
As you walk through the Google Village, stop by the Android House to try out Google Wallet. You can play the Google Wallet-enabled claw and pinball games to win prizes, and Google Wallet team members will be on hand to demo the app and answer any questions you might have.

If you’re not able to stop by, find out how you can get Google Wallet here: http://www.google.com/wallet/get.html

Commerce Developer Hangouts
Have technical questions around In-App Payments or other Commerce APIs? Sign up for 15 minutes of one-on-one time with a member of the Google Developer Relations team on March 11th at the Developer House. Get answers and insights from Googlers who are experts on these products.

Posted by Artem Chetverykov and Teresa Jung, Commerce Marketing Team
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Posted:
(cross-posted on the Inside AdWords Blog)

At Google, one of our goals is to help make the web work for your business. Today we’re introducing the Learn with Google webinar program that does just that, by sharing best practices and tips across a variety of products, including search ads, mobile ads, display ads, YouTube and Google Analytics.

We’re kicking off the program with eight live webinars in March:
  • March 13 at 10am PDT: 5 Tips to Start Marketing your Business with Video
  • March 14 at 10am PDT: Introduction to the Google Display Network
  • March 15 at 10am PDT: GoMo: Mobilize your Site and Maximize your Advertising
  • March 20 at 10am PDT: Understanding Mobile Ads Across Marketing Objectives
  • March 21 at 10am PDT: Reaching Your Goals with Google Analytics
  • March 22 at 10am PDT: GoMo for Publishers
  • March 27 at 10am PDT: Manage Large AdWords Campaigns with Less Effort
  • March 28 at 10am PDT: 3 Tips to Get More out of your Video Advertising Campaigns
Check out our new webinar page to register for any of the sessions or to access on-demand webinars. We’ll be adding new webinars as they’re scheduled, so check back regularly for updates. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by downloading our Learn with Google Webinar calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars in your Google Calendar.

Whether your goal is to engage the right customers at the right time, make better decisions faster, or get the most from your marketing dollars, we hope that you’ll use these tips and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to having you join us!

Posted by Erica Tsai, Product Marketing Manager
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Posted:
(cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

Retailers are largely focused on how consumers are shopping across channels and devices. We know consumers love their mobile and tablet devices, but we are just beginning to develop a strong understanding of how they engage with these devices as they make their purchase decisions. To gain greater insight into this key behavior, we partnered with Ipsos during the 2011 holiday shopping season to study online shoppers. We uncovered a number of interesting consumer behaviors across desktop computers, smartphones and tablets. The powerful data we uncovered can drive best practices for advertisers at every holiday and year round.

The first key mobile insight every advertiser should know is that consumers use their smartphones at many different points in their purchase path. 41% of those who used their mobile phones to help with shopping said they made a purchase directly on their smartphone. 46% said they researched an item on their smartphone then went to a store to make their purchase. 37% said they researched an item on their smartphone then made their purchase online.


Another key mobile insight that emerged is that consumers used all three devices throughout the research process, but some activities were more popular on specific devices. Consumers who owned tablets read product reviews and looked for product information more from their tablet devices than from their desktop computer or smartphone. This is likely due to the combination of the large screen and portability of the device that enables consumers to use it more often and in more places. Consumers are carrying tablets with them to the couch, while in the kitchen, and even to bed.

Not surprisingly, more consumers used their smartphones to contact a retailer. With the natural calling ability of phones and many click-to-call phone numbers on websites and in ads, smartphones make it easy to contact retailers, whether to see if the store has the product in stock, get directions or find store hours.


While the 2011 holiday season is now firmly behind us, it’s clear that smartphones and tablets are only going to become a bigger part of the consumer shopping experience. Among consumers that used their devices to shop last year, 80% of smartphone shoppers and 70% of tablet users said they used their device more frequently this year.

To stay ahead of this shift in consumer behavior, advertisers need to make sure they have a mobile optimized site, make it easy for customers to reach them with click-to-call and deliver a seamless experience between online and offline in-store. It’s the advertisers who engage with their customers across all three devices that will have a distinct advantage in 2012.

To learn more about consumer shopping behavior across the desktop computer, smartphone and tablet and view a full report on Post Holiday Learnings for 2012.

Posted by: Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing
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