Tag: lorem

Google Offers Native Gmail Ads To All AdWords Advertisers

Google announced that native Gmail ads are now available to all advertisers in AdWords. Advertisers can manage the ads by setting up a Display Network campaign and creating a Gmail format in the Ad Gallery.

The ads have two main parts – collapsed and expanded. The collapsed unit is what users see at first. It looks basically like a message they’d see in their inbox, but is clearly labeled as an ad. When the user clicks, it expands for more details. The expanded unit is a full-page native ad that “recreates the informational and visual richness of a landing page,” as Google puts it. After the user clicks to expand, any additional clicks are free. These include clicks that let the user save the ad or forward it to other people.

“Advertisers can choose from several customizable Gmail ads templates for the expanded ad unit,” Google says. “They can feature a single image, highlight a promotion that combines an image with a description and call-to-action button, or showcase multiple products at once. The custom HTML format offers the greatest amount of flexibility in how you configure your assets and allows you to create an even richer ad experience by including videos, forms, phone numbers, and multiple links and calls-to-action.”

“You can use most of the display targeting options you’re already familiar with likekeywords, affinity audiences, demographics, and topics,” the company adds. “For example, a sports apparel advertiser could select relevant topics like ‘Fitness’ and ‘Sporting Goods’ or reach people in the ‘Health & Fitness Buffs’ or ‘Running Enthusiasts’ affinity audiences.”

Gmail users can manage ad settings (which applies to all of Google) to remove unwanted ads from specific advertisers or opt out of interest-based advertising.

Image via Google

September 2, 2015
Kim Kardashian Forced to Post a ‘Corrective Ad’ After FDA Called Previous One Misleading

Future first lady and Instagram queen Kim Kardashian has been forced to post a #CorrectiveAd on Instagram after she and a drugmaker ran afoul of the Food and Drug Administration over a deceptive ad.

In now-deleted Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook posts, Kardashian touted the amazing benefits of a morning sickness drug called Diclegis, made by a drug company called Duchesnay.

But according to the FDA, the post was “false and misleading.”

“The Office of Prescription Drug Promotion of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reviewed the Kim Kardashian Social Media Post for DICLEGIS (doxylamine succinate and pyridoxine hydrochloride) delayed-release tablets, for oral use submitted by Duchesnay, Inc. under cover of Form FDA 2253. The social media post was also submitted as a complaint to the OPDP Bad Ad Program. The social media post is false or misleading in that it presents efficacy claims for DICLEGIS, but fails to communicate any risk information associated with its use and it omits material facts,” says the FDA in a letter addressed to Eric Gervais, Executive Vice President of Duchesnay, Inc., dated August 7th.

“OMG. Have you heard about this? As you guys know my #morningsickness has been pretty bad. I tried changing things about my lifestyle, like my diet, but nothing helped, so I talked to my doctor. He prescribed me #Diclegis, and I felt a lot better and most importantly, it’s been studied and there was no increased risk to the baby,” wrote Kardashian in her original Instagram post.

Now, Kardashian has been forced to post a follow up ad – this time including the appropriate risk information.

“#CorrectiveAd. I guess you saw the attention my last #morningsickness post received. The FDA has told Duchesnay, Inc., that my last post about Diclegis (doxylamine succinate and pyridoxine HCl) was incomplete because it did not include any risk information or important limitations of use for Diclegis. A link to this information accompanied the post, but this didn’t meet FDA requirements. So, I’m re-posting and sharing this important information about Diclegis,” she writes.

The rest reads like any drug ad – a long list of warnings and possible side effects.

#CorrectiveAd I guess you saw the attention my last #morningsickness post received. The FDA has told Duchesnay, Inc., that my last post about Diclegis (doxylamine succinate and pyridoxine HCl) was incomplete because it did not include any risk information or important limitations of use for Diclegis. A link to this information accompanied the post, but this didn’t meet FDA requirements. So, I’m re-posting and sharing this important information about Diclegis. For US Residents Only. Diclegis is a prescription medicine used to treat nausea and vomiting of pregnancy in women who have not improved with change in diet or other non-medicine treatments. Limitation of Use: Diclegis has not been studied in women with hyperemesis gravidarum. Important Safety Information Do not take Diclegis if you are allergic to doxylamine succinate, other ethanolamine derivative antihistamines, pyridoxine hydrochloride or any of the ingredients in Diclegis. You should also not take Diclegis in combination with medicines called monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), as these medicines can intensify and prolong the adverse CNS effects of Diclegis. The most common side effect of Diclegis is drowsiness. Do not drive, operate heavy machinery, or other activities that need your full attention unless your healthcare provider says that you may do so. Do not drink alcohol, or take other central nervous system depressants such as cough and cold medicines, certain pain medicines, and medicines that help you sleep while you take Diclegis. Severe drowsiness can happen or become worse causing falls or accidents. Tell your healthcare provider about all of your medical conditions, including if you are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Diclegis can pass into your breast milk and may harm your baby. You should not breastfeed while using Diclegis. Additional safety information can be found at www.DiclegisImportantSafetyinfo.com or www.Diclegis.com. Duchesnay USA encourages you to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Aug 30, 2015 at 6:01pm PDT

#CorrectiveAd I guess you saw the attention my last #morningsickness post received. The FDA has told… https://t.co/DrAtpXVZ6v

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) August 31, 2015

Of course, #CorrectiveAd or not, it’s still an ad. Probably a win for Diclegis.

Image via Kim Kardashian, Instagram

August 31, 2015
Google Is Implementing A Major Change On Tuesday

Google is continuing its efforts of driving nails into Flash’s coffin. In June, the company announced it would start automatically pausing Flash in Chrome in an effort to save the battery life of users’ computers and improve performance. The company announced this week that this functionality will begin rolling out on Tuesday, September 1. With this in mind, there are some things that advertisers need to be aware of.

Are you happy to see Flash on the way out or is Google going overboard? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Over the course of the past few years, Google has been giving advertisers tools and encouraging them to use HTML5 for their ads so they can reach more audiences across devices. There are several ways that advertisers who use Flash can transition to HTML5.

For one, Google announced back in February that AdWords would begin automatically converting Flash to HTML5, but this only works with eligible campaigns. Google talks all about eligibility guidelines in a help document here. They actually have a tool called Swiffy, which helps you test whether your ads can be automatically converted.

Advertisers can also create HTML5 ads with Google itself. It has an AdWords Ad gallery that lets you create a Lightbox ad from existing HTML5 templates and get custom ad ideas on your site’s content and style. You can also download Google’s Web Designer, which is a free HTML5 authoring tool for building ads for uploading to your Google Display Network campaigns.

Additionally, Google’s DoubleClick Studio lets you browse HTML5 templates and build your own ads using the company’s richmediagallery.com template database.

Finally, you can simply upload your own HTML5 ads.

“Whichever tool you choose, we recommend you take advantage of our best practices for building compelling display ads so you can reach prospective customers across all the browsers and devices they use,” Google says.

You can find those here.

As September 1 approaches, Google is urging advertisers to identify any Flash ads in their account that aren’t eligible for automatic conversion and to convert them to HTML5. The deadline is approaching.

Advertisers can see in their AdWords reports whether or not ads were converted. Just segment the ad table by devices. If you see mobile or tablet impressions for a Flash ad, it was converted. Google noted when it first announced automatic conversion it would begin providing a notification on all converted Flash ads in late 2015.

Google doesn’t allow Flash ads that don’t support the clickTAG variable, which is the tracking code Google assigns an individual ad and allows it to register where the ad was displayed when it was clicked. It says that on any click, the ads should redirect to the URL specified in the clickTAG argument, and there should be any other redirection in between. Note that the variable name has to be spelled exactly like “clickTAG” with the upper-case TAG and no space.

Google has been doing everything it can to help phase out Flash for years. As mentioned, this is only the latest nail in its coffin. Early this year, the company announced that it is now defaulting to the HTML5 player on the web for YouTube embeds, moving to iframes. Additionally, it announced the deprecation of the old style of Flash <object> embeds and Flash API.

Additionally, on the organic SEO side of things, as a result of Google’s mobile-friendly update in April, Flash content can now cost in you in search rankings.

As the company tells webmasters in its mobile SEO guide, “Avoid common mistakes that frustrate mobile visitors, such as featuring unplayable videos (e.g., Flash video as the page’s significant content). Mobile pages that provide a poor searcher experience can be demoted in rankings or displayed with a warning in mobile search results.”

Google has of course been warning against this for years.

All the way back in 2013, the company said this in a Webmaster Central blog post: “Many websites embed videos in a way that works well on desktops but is unplayable on smartphone devices. For example, if content requires Adobe Flash, it won’t be playable on an iPhone or on Android versions 4.1 and higher.”

“Instead of using a proprietary video player or putting content in unsupported formats, we recommend using HTML5 standard tags to include videos or animations,” Google says. “For animated content rendered using Flash or other multimedia players, consider using HTML5 animations that work across all web browsers. Google Web Designer makes it easy to create these animations in HTML5.”

Of course, Google isn’t the only one encouraging people to move away from Flash. Bing is also moving to a more mobile-friendly search environment. Facebook’s security head recently called for the death of Flash after recent vulnerabilities came to light, and last week, Amazon announced that it is no longer accepting Flash ads (also as of September 1).

Last month, we looked at a report from Sizmek, which found that advertisers are still running a ridiculous amount of Flash ads despite the fact that they default to static displays on mobile devices, which likely means fewer clicks. You can read about that here.

Are you still using Flash in any way? For web content? Ads? If so, what is keeping you from moving on? Let us know in the comments.

Image via Google

August 28, 2015
Here’s Your Guide To Getting More Out Of LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn’s Sponsored Updates have been available to all advertisers for two years now. As more and more online marketers look to the professional social network to expand their reach, these are likely to become a bigger part of the marketing mix.

LinkedIn now has an ebook out looking at “10 Ways to Drive Killer Results with Sponsored Update,” which you can download for free.

It goes well beyond a list of ten tips to include plenty of data, charts and additional advice. Here’s an example of the kind of stuff you’ll find:

In announcing the ebook, LinkedIn’s Selin Tyler says:

Content marketing is simple in theory: Professionals love reading good content. Why not create branded content to help them in their buyer’s journey while effectively introducing them to your brand and offerings?

Because it is such a simple and attractive concept, 98% of B2B marketers say it is core to their marketing strategy. Yet only four in ten think that their efforts are effective. So while the concept is so simple, execution is everything.

The guide gets into how to tailor your content to your audience, create effective campaigns for conversions, and extend the shelf-life of the content you have.

Image via LinkedIn

August 26, 2015
Instagram Releases Mini-Documentary About Its Carousel Ads

There are a lot of people taking a look at advertising on Instagram now that the company announced its expansion to businesses of all sizes.

The company launched the carousel ad unit earlier this year enabling users to swipe through up to four images and press a call-to-action button.

Instagram followed three brands and their agencies (Toyota with Saatchi & Saatchi, Capital One with T3 and HP with Collectively) as they utilized the format, and came up with the following mini-documentary:

Instagram Carousel Ad Documentary from Instagram on Vimeo.

“From initial concepting sessions to well-crafted stories, these brands had two weeks to explore the new format and execute their campaigns,” Instagram said in a blog post. “Each brand embraced the ad’s unique format and pushed the envelope on what they could create.”

Last week, Salesforce released some data looking at early performance and cost numbers related to Instagram ads over the past month. More on that here.

Image via Instagram

August 26, 2015
Flipboard Gets New Video Ads

Flipboard is reportedly expanding its advertising offerings with new video ads. These include short (3 to 8 second) segments aimed at getting users to watch the rest of the video. The segments are referred to as “Cinema Loops”.

The news comes from VentureBeat, which spoke with Dave Huynh, Flipboard’s head of advertising product. Ken Yeung reports:

Participating brands will submit their creative files to Flipboard and specify the intervals that they want in the preview clip. Flipboard will handle the processing and everything else. Brands won’t be limited to just one preview clip. As a matter of fact, Huynh said that more is actually better.

These video ads also include a title and a quick description of what’s going on. Unlike stories, where the description is a snippet from the article, Cinema Loops really features brief descriptions. A call-to-action can be included in the description, but not in the full-length video itself.

The ads are reportedly charged for per mer impression or per engagement.

As the company expands its advertising efforts, it’s also doing more to improve the user experience, which should in turn help advertisers.

We caught up with Flipboard earlier this month as they told us about new algorithmic changes including filtering based on other people’s reading behavior and a new voting system for content. They also have new analytics offerings. More on all of that here.

Image via Flipboard

August 25, 2015
Amazon Puts An End To Flash Ads

Flash-related news isn’t usually good news for Flash these days. The most recent bit comes from Amazon, which announced that it is about to stop accepting Flash ads.

The company had this to say on its Technical Guidelines page for Amazon Advertising (via Digiday):

Beginning September 1, 2015, Amazon no longer accepts Flash ads on Amazon.com, AAP, and various IAB standard placements across owned and operated domains.

This is driven by recent browser setting updates from Google Chrome, and existing browser settings from Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari, that limits Flash content displayed on web pages. This change ensures customers continue to have a positive, consistent experience across Amazon and its affiliates, and that ads displayed across the site function properly for optimal performance.

Flash was in the spotlight last month when Facebook’s Chief Security Officer called for its demise.

“It is time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the browsers to set killbits on the same day,” he said. “Even if 18 months from now, one set date is the only way to disentangle the dependencies and upgrade the whole ecosystem at once.”

Then, Mozilla blocked all versions of Flash in Firefox after security researchers discovered vulnerabilities that affect various operating systems, that hadn’t been patched.

From there, various media outlets called for Flash to be put out of its misery. The reality is, however, that many advertisers are still using it.

We recently looked at a study from Sizmek, which called this a “major issue”.

What’s happening is that Flash ads that would otherwise be dynamic are appearing as static images on mobile device, and this can ultimately cost the advertiser clicks and conversions.

“This raises questions as to whether or not marketers are aware of how many of their ads are not being seen properly and how much ad spend they are wasting,” a spokesperson for the firm told WebProNews.

As for Amazon, you can see what it wants from advertisers here.

August 20, 2015
Looks Like Instagram Is Going to Be A Pretty Good Advertising Option

Salesforce is sharing data around early performance and cost numbers related to Instagram advertising campaigns over the past month. The companies partner via Salesforce Marketing Cloud products like social,com, Active Audiences, and Social Studio.

Do you expect Instagram to be a major part of your advertising efforts as time goes on? Let us know in the comments.

“Instagram is a relatively new platform for digital advertising, but initial results show it has the potential to be a powerful one,” says Salesforce Marketing Cloud CEO Scott McCorkle. “Our results show that engagement on ads is high. We are excited to be working with great brands and agencies around the world to kickstart advertising to more than 300 million Instagram users.”

According to the data, the overall click-through rate (CTR) is 1.50%, compared to a CTR of 0.84% in Q1 2015 on Facebook. Instagram has a global CPM of $6.29, Salesforce says, adding that this is an “early indicator” and about 90% higher than Facebook’s overall global CPM in Q1. The CPC for the ads is $0.42, which is two cents higher than Facebook ads.

“The high engagement rate can likely be attributed to Instagram’s premium, large-format ad type,” a spokesperson for Salesforce tells WebProNews. “According to a recent report from eMarketer, Instagram is expected to represent over 10% of Facebook’s global revenues by 2017.”

Instagram said last month it would make ads available to businesses of all sizes in the fall. The company’s director of marketing operations told eMarkter:

We’ve spent the last 18 months establishing the platform for large brands. The next logical step is to empower businesses of all sizes. Being able to target narrower segments and achieve different types of objectives is essential. We want to offer a complete solution that allows businesses to purchase through self-serve interfaces and achieve the objectives they want to achieve.

We’re testing the action-oriented formats and buying through the API now, and we will be doing that through the summer with select partners and clients. Then we’ll be opening up globally and to all advertisers in the early fall timeframe.

Earlier this month, Instagram’s API Partner Program launched, opening the gates for much more advertising on the service. Third-party API partners include Salesforce, Hootsuite, Kenshoo, Ampush, Nanigans, SocialCode, Brand Networks, Unified, and 4C.

A Salesforce spokesperson told us about its integration at the time, “The integration allows marketers to use Social.com for managing advertising campaigns at scale, Active Audiences to unlock and sync CRM data in Salesforce to optimize advertising and Social Studio for publishing, engagement, customer service, and analytics.”

“Instagram is the mobile marketer’s platform of choice for a highly engaged and growing audience,” says Jesse Pujji, CEO and co-founder of Ampush. “It presents a great opportunity to deliver in-feed, mobile advertising at true scale with its user base of over 300 million monthly active users. AMP’s integration with Instagram will allow our customers to advertise across a visually dynamic environment for consumers with a highly active community. Our strategic and in-house creative expertise, paired with our marketing solutions, delivers a unique ability to bridge audience engagement with revenue.”

Pew has new research out showing significant growth in user engagement on Instagram. Last September, 49% of Instagram users were using it every day. The number is now up to 59%.

If you’re looking to improve your Instagram marketing efforts, check out this infographic from “social media scientist” Dan Zarrella on the “science” of Instagram:

More on Salesforce’s findings here.

Are you excited about the potential of Instagram ads? Let us know in the comments.

Image via Instagram

August 20, 2015
Twitter Publisher Network Becomes Twitter Audience Platform

Twitter announced on Thursday that it is changing the name of the Twitter Publisher Network to the Twitter Audience Platform. It was launched last year to help advertisers reach users outside of Twitter on thousands of mobile apps while utilizing Twitter’s measurement, targeting, and creative tools.

In addition to the new name, it’s getting some new features, including new marketing objectives and creative formats. New objectives include tweet engagements and video views, which join mobile app installs and re-engagements, which were already available. The new ones are in beta.

“You can now easily extend your Promoted Video and Tweet engagement campaigns to the Twitter Audience Platform with a single click,” says product marketing manager Eric Farkas. “Many of the targeting signals used on Twitter such as interest, username, and keyword can be applied to your campaigns across mobile apps. As on Twitter, Promoted Videos on the Twitter Audience Platform can play automatically on a device with all video being 100% in-view.”

“On the Twitter Audience Platform, we transform your Promoted Tweets into one of our immersive ad formats including video, native ads, banners, and interstitials,” says Farkas. “For example: Tweet engagement campaigns on Twitter become interstitial and native ads; Promoted Video campaigns are turned into in-app video ads; App install or re-engagement campaigns become interstitial or banner ads. We’ve also added creative features to interstitials to help you extend your best content beyond Twitter. First, Twitter users can now Retweet and favorite directly from your Twitter Audience Platform ad. We’ve also added customizable call to action buttons to help you more efficiently drive your desired user action.”

According to Twitter, the Twitter Audience Platform has already been getting great feedback from advertisers for the mobile app installs and re-engagement objectives. It says it saw brand advertisers who ran campaigns across Twitter and the Twitter Audience Platform were able to double reach and lower CPEs by as much as 30%.

The Platform in its new incarnation is now available to all managed clients driving tweet engagements and video views. It’s being tested by select clients driving mobile app installs and re-engagements. It will all be expanded to clicks and conversions in the coming months.

Images via Garrett Heath, Flickr Creative Commons, Twitter

August 20, 2015
Google Launches Automated Extension For Shopping Ads

Google announced the launch of new automated extensions for shopping ads (PLAs). This is in reaction to advertisers promoting text to highlight special offers and free shipping.

The extensions automatically show up with the ads without any extra cost to the advertiser, using existing info provided in the Merchant Center settings and data feeds. They show free shipping and price drop info as shoppers come across the ads.

“Based on initial results, we’re seeing shoppers prefer these new automated extensions over promotional text and advertisers are getting better click through rates with it too,” says product manager Tom Beyer. “Thus, we’ll be retiring promotional text at the end of September 2015 and start surfacing automated extensions more frequently instead.”

“For those who use promotional text, no additional action is needed,” he adds. “Your ads won’t be otherwise affected and will continue to reach shoppers searching on Google. If you want to highlight other offers aside from free shipping and sale prices, we strongly encourage you to take advantage of our other shopping extensions.”

These include Merchant promotions for sharing discounts/promo codes, product ratings for displaying aggregated star ratings/links to customer reviews, and Trusted Stores certification.

The extension’s availability varies by country.

Image via AdWords

August 19, 2015
Google Shopping Gets New Bidding Solutions

Google announced that its giving advertisers new bidding strategies for Shopping Campaigns, which will help them “go go beyond manual max CPC bidding to deliver specific bids for each auction, tailored to people’s context.”

Under Bid Strategies, you’ll now find Maximize Clicks, Enhanced CPC, and Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

Maximize Clicks is for those looking to get as much traffic as possible within their budget, as it automatically adjusts bids. The company says it’s a great way to promote doorbusters on your website or in-store with loal inventory ads.

“If you want to manage your own bids or use a third-party bidding platform, enhanced CPC is your best bet,” says Google Shopping product management Dimitris Meretakis. “It dynamically optimizes on top of your bid in real-time so you get more conversions or sales at a similar cost. We’re seeing advertisers get as many as 7% more conversions at the same cost with eCPC!”

“If you don’t have time to manage your bids manually and are revenue-driven, let target return on ad spend (ROAS) do the heavy bidding lifting,” Meretakis adds. “With target ROAS, you choose your desired ROAS and it’ll dynamically bid so products that’ll drive more revenue will get higher bids.”

That option is actually in beta, and is only available to a small group of retailers, but those interested in using it can apply to be an early adopter. There’s a form here.

Google says it will be looking for and investing in more ways to make campaign management and bidding more effective, so look out for more on that front.

Images via Google

August 13, 2015
Bing Ads Gets Accounts & Billing Improvements

Microsoft announced that it’s making some changes to accounts and billing for Bing Ads. It’s all in direct response to advertiser feedback.

“From insertion order edits to bulk management, from one-stop-shop billing to consolidated invoices – all designed to help you do more, work less,” says Bing’s Vaishali De. “Whether you’re already using Bing Ads Accounts and Billing, or you’re transitioning over from Yahoo, we think you’ll like what you see. We’re partners in this, so please keep the feedback coming – we’re just getting started!”

With each Accounts & Billing tab, you can get a quick view across all of your accounts or dive into specific ones. You can switch between pre-pay and post-pay payment options without being locked into one.

There are also new IO management features.

“There is no better time to start creating and managing your insertion orders online,” says De. “This fast, simple process now sports the convenience of creating and managing IOs in bulk across your accounts, getting instant approvals, the ability to edit existing IOs, and track your IO change history. For those of you who like the paper trail, you can also easily print the IO details.”

With the billing tab, you can see a summary of your charges as well as more granular data. You can also opt into consolidated billing to get one bill for all accounts (if they use the same currency and language).

They’ve also made invoices easier to read with the option to have campaign-level charges included. You can also now sign up to get them through email as soon as they’re generated.

Image via Bing

August 12, 2015
Bing Merchant Center Is Getting Some Changes

Microsoft announced some coming improvements to Bing Merchant Center, which merchants use for creating stores and catalog feeds for Shopping Campaigns and Product Ads on Bing.

There are changes to feed structure, which the company says it made so advertisers can manage all their feed programs across platforms more seamlessly. It explains in a blog post:

Delimiter rules on product_category and product_type columns are changing. Soon we will only be accepting “ > ” (with a trailing and leading space) as a valid delimiter. Any other value will be treated as invalid and we won’t split the terms .

Accept Unicode characters in the ID (merchant product ID) field. Previously the ID column would only accept alphanumeric characters, now we are starting to accept all valid Unicode characters in that.

Updating Taxonomy for product_category . We are revising our taxonomy to be in line with your other feed programs. Please take a look at the below links as some of the categories have changed quite a bit. With this revision we will also be supporting IDs instead of string values. For example: The use of “305” will be supported instead of “Electronics > Video > Computer Monitors”.

There’s a new graph that lets you view the status of all your items within a store. It shows colors for active, rejected, expiring, and awaiting review. You’ll be able to see the status for all ads within a store for the past 30 days. There will also be graphs for the total number of impressions received and the total number of clicks received by all your ads within a store in the past 30 days.

They’re also expanding historical data to show the past five catalog feeds and corresponding reports.

Finally, they’re adding dual upload support using the Content API. In the past, you’ve been able to either provide product data with the API or via TP upload/Manual Upload/Automatic Download methods. Going forward, you’ll be able to do both.

Microsoft talks more about all the new features here.

In semi-related news, Amazon is suddenly retiring its Product Ads. It sent an email informing advertisers that the’ll be retired on October 31.

Images via Bing

August 12, 2015
Facebook Dynamic Product Ads Get Some Big Improvements

In February, Facebook announced dynamic Product Ads aimed at helping marketers increase conversions and lower cost per acquisition across devices. As reported earlier, these ads are now available in the Audience Network, Facebook’s mobile ad network, which lets mobile apps monetize through Facebook’s advertisers.

That’s not the only thing new for the ads. The company also announced cross-selling functionality and conversion optimization features to come in the next few weeks.

“Advertisers have always been able to use dynamic product ads to show related products to people who have viewed an item or added it to their cart, and soon advertisers will be able to use dynamic product ads to show related products to people who have purchased an item too,” Facebook says. “So if someone purchases a bike on your website, you can start showing them product ads featuring complementary items, like bike helmets and baskets, since they may be interested in those products too.”

“Additionally, advertisers will have more flexibility in defining related items,” it adds. “Let’s say someone added a pair of designer shoes to their cart in your mobile app. You may choose to show them ads featuring products from your designer shoe category, plus items from the designer handbag category. It’s up to you how you define your product categories, and this update gives you more control.”

Advertisers will also be able to optimize the ads for conversions in that Facebook’s ad delivery system will find those most likely to purchase. The company says in early testing conversion optimization for the ads delivered more efficient spend than CPC.

On top of all of this, advertisers will be able to reach shoppers off of Facebook through the Audience Network, which will show ads in third-party mobile apps.

You can read this for comments from eBay and JUNIQE about the success they’ve had.

Image via Facebook

August 11, 2015
Facebook Gets Retailers Prepared For The Holidays

Facebook is advising retail marketers about how to prepare for the holiday season. Yes, it’s August, but according to the company, that means it’s time to start doing some serious planning.

The company laid out eight tips for holiday advertising prep. In a nutshell, these include: refresh your audience profile; identify your key audience segments; add the Facebook pixel and SDK to your site and app; find your customer conversion path; optimize your mobile experience; divide your budget strategically; test creative and ad types; and prepare your catalog.

Of course they elaborate on all of these in the post, saying that these things will help you maximize your advertising efforts on Facebook throughout throughout the holidays.

“People may not be in holiday mode yet, but retail marketers should be,” Facebook says. “Why? Because successful holiday marketing starts with preparation in August and September. As you begin thinking about holiday advertising, keep in mind that this year people are expected to do more holiday shopping on mobile than ever. In fact, sixty-eight percent of UK shoppers use their mobile phone in store.1 People are also spending more time on Facebook and Instagram than any other digital media, and more than half of people in the US say Facebook is somewhat or very influential on their holiday shopping.”

Facebook is offering retail marketers a free holiday guide here. It’s 18 pages, and is almost certainly worth a read in your near future.

According to the National Retail Federation, retail holiday sales increased 4% last year.

Image via Facebook

August 7, 2015
Google Analytics Gets Some New Features

Google announced the addition of a new publisher reporting section to Google Analytics. This replaces AdSense Reports, and is actually called “Publisher Reporting”.

“Users with existing AdSense reports will see them move into this new section, and be joined by an integration with Ad Exchange, for those publishers that don’t currently serve Ad Exchange as backfill through DFP,” Google says in a Google+ update.

Google is also adding a new Ad Exchange linking option in the Product Linking option list in the Admin tab.

“We hope that by consolidating these reports in the new Publisher Reporting section, it will help you better benefit from the intersection of ad serving, monetization and analytics data,” Google says.

You probably won’t see the new Publisher Reporting in your account right away as Google is rolling it out over the next several weeks. Same with Ad Exchange Linking.

Image via Google

August 7, 2015
AdWords App Adds Billing, Column, Performance Table Updates

This past March, Google finally launched an AdWords app for Android, offering advertisers the ability to manage campaigns on the go. They can use the app to view and manage ad performance, view campaign stats, update bids and budgets, get real-time alerts and notifications, act on suggestions to improve campaigns, and call a Google expert when needed.

On Thursday, Google announced an update for the app, which it says has been installed hundreds of thousands of times in 195 countries.

The update includes a new billing summary, additional columns, and updates to performance tables.

“We created the new billing summary to help you manage payment options, and provide you with an easy-to-see dashboard of your billing and payment information,” says AdWords product manager Cameron McKnight. “For example, you can now view payment history, add and update your payment method (add a new card, set up a backup card, or edit an expiration date), and edit your billing profile – all from your Android smartphone.”

“The app now also has additional columns — for conversions, impression share and campaigns — that can be added to your performance tables so you can view and make quick optimizations on the go,” McKnight added. “For example, if a campaign is limited by budget, you can quickly adjust it. Or, you can monitor your keywords’ conversion metrics and adjust bids in a few taps to help you meet your performance goals.”

Finally, performance tables for campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and ads let you horizontally scroll through more columns to see more about your performance.

No word on when exactly the iOS app is coming, but Google does insist that it’s on the way.

Images via Google

August 6, 2015
Google Announces Report Editor For AdWords

Google announced on Wednesday that it will roll out Report Editor in AdWords over the next few months. This is a new tool that lets advertisers build custom tables and charts that can be segmented, sorted, and filtered as they like.

There are drag and drop actions that let you sort, filter, and “pivot” data to help you focus on the right information. You can also visualize data in pie, bar, or line charts, and apply segmentations to analyze data with “finer granularity,” as Google puts it.

“Getting started with the Report Editor is easy,” says Jon Diorio, Group Product Manager for Google AdWords. “For example, to examine performance across devices, simply drag and drop the metrics and dimensions you like into your table or chart. You can look at metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions, and then add dimensions like device, campaign, or ad group to segment your data further.”

“Visualizing data in a chart can make your data more actionable,” Diorio adds. “Charts can quickly unveil performance trends that may be missed when looking at numbers alone. Now, you can instantly create a line, pie, or bar chart to surface your key insights. Want to try a different visualization? It just takes a click to instantly switch between different charts and tables. Just like tables, you can save and share your charts with others or set them to run regularly.”

As mentioned, this is all rolling out over the coming months, so you’re probably not going to get access to it right away. Google says you’ll know you can use it when you see the new Reports tab in your account.

Image via Google

August 6, 2015
Google Makes It Easier To Run Display Campaigns Based On Objective

Google announced the launch of a new way to create Display ad campaigns based on marketing objective. It’s essentially just a new setup flow, but could be a better way for marketers to approach their display campaigns. You can see this pictured above.

Objectives include: Build awareness, Influence consideration, and Drive action. The examples Google gives for when you might want to use each are as follows. For building awareness, an auto manufacturer might want to promote a new model. For influencing consideration, a home electronics brand might want to encourage customers to research its new washer and dryers. A hotel wanting to get customers to book rooms would want to use the drive action option, as would a developer looking for app installs or a dentist wanting new patients.

“After you select your marketing objective, AdWords guides you to the most relevant targeting and bid settings to meet it,” explains Jens Skakkebaek, Group Product Manager for the Google Display Network. “For example, if your goal is to ‘Build awareness’ and get consumers to see your ad, AdWords will show bidding on viewable impressions, which is designed to optimize the reach of your campaign. If you want to ‘Drive action’ by encouraging customers to visit your business, then AdWords will show CPC bidding so you pay only when a user is interested enough to click your ad and learn more.”

“We’ve also made it easier to build keyword lists for your Display campaigns when you use the new setup flow,” adds Skakkabaek. “Simply provide your landing page and AdWords will generate keyword ideas tailored to your page content. For instance, if you have a coffee shop, AdWords might suggest ‘best coffee,’ ‘best coffee maker,’ and ‘how to flavor coffee beans’ based on the content of your landing page.”

Google will show advertisers customized in-market and affinity audience ideas based on landing page content.

You can always view or change bidding and targeting settings regardless of which path you take. Likewise, you can switch marketing objectives at any time or choose to create campaigns without an objective.

Image via Google

August 5, 2015
Marketing Tools Get Instagram Ads API Integration

In June, Instagram announced it would make advertising available through an Ads API and Facebook ad buying interfaces in the ensuing months, in an effort to open up ads to businesses of all sizes. It said it would open API access to a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies first, and would expand it globally throughout the year.

On Tuesday, the API Partner program launched. Whereas in the past, advertisers would have to work directly with Instagram sales people. Now, they don’t. They can start advertising on Instagram as they’ve been able to do on Facebook and Twitter.

Make no mistake. This is big. In fact, it’s even been referred to as “one of the most anticipated moments in the evolution of advertising.”

Business Insider shares a statement from Instagram: “”The Instagram Ads API will help us make ads more relevant to the community, serve more diverse business objectives, and make buying on the platform easier for advertisers. We started working with a group of Facebook Marketing Partners a few weeks ago and they’ve brought great experience and technological savvy onto the platform. We’ll continue to build upon the Instagram Ads API in the coming weeks and months.”

Third-party API partners already on board include Salesforce, Hootsuite, Kenshoo, Ampush, Nanigans, SocialCode, Brand Networks, Unified, and 4C.

“The integration allows marketers to use Social.com for managing advertising campaigns at scale, Active Audiences to unlock and sync CRM data in Salesforce to optimize advertising and Social Studio for publishing, engagement, customer service, and analytics,” a spokesperson for Salesforce tells us about its us of the API.

“Instagram is the mobile marketer’s platform of choice for a highly engaged and growing audience,” says Jesse Pujji, CEO and co-founder of Ampush. “It presents a great opportunity to deliver in-feed, mobile advertising at true scale with its user base of over 300 million monthly active users. AMP’s integration with Instagram will allow our customers to advertise across a visually dynamic environment for consumers with a highly active community. Our strategic and in-house creative expertise, paired with our marketing solutions, delivers a unique ability to bridge audience engagement with revenue.”

Instagram has over 300 million monthly active users. Beyond the API, Instagram has been doing more to improve its ad offerings including direct response that enable users to buy products or download apps, and expanding targeting options. More on all of that here.

Image via Instagram

August 4, 2015
Google Adds Bulk Uploads To Shopping Campaigns

Google announced a new bulk uploads feature for Shopping Campaigns in AdWords. These enable advertisers to add new product groups, change or delete existing groups, and change bids with a single bulk action.

“Since the introduction of Shopping campaigns, we’ve been working hard to introduce new features enabling you to scale your campaigns in an easy-to-use way,” Google said in an AdWords Google+ update. “For example, we announced a flattened view of product groups last year, allowing you to sort and analyze your inventory performance.”

“Today, we’re excited to introduce a new feature that’ll make campaign management easier and faster for you: ability to restructure product groups with bulk uploads,” it added.

In addition to product groups and bids, bulk uploads can be used for tracking templates and custom parameters. You can download an editable report, make changes in the document, and then upload the updated version back into your account, and then your changes can be previewed and automatically applied.

As Google notes in a help center article, for tracking templates and custom parameters, you can make changes to all product groups that are not subdivided, excluding the ones marked “Excluded.”

Last month, Google announced a slew of shopping-related advertising features. More on these here.

Images via Google

August 3, 2015