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Google Launches New Ad Creation Solution ‘Ready Creatives’

Google announced the launch of a new display ad creation solution called Ready Creatives, which is made up of two tools called Ready Image Ads and Ready Ad Gallery.

With Ready Image Ads, advertisers can add their URLs, and it will automatically construct display ads based on the images from the website. The creative can then be customized by adjusting text, font, color, images, headlines, URL, etc.

You can use the Ready Ad Gallery to choose formats from pre-built templates (Dynamic, Engagement, Video, General Purpose).

“Our friendly user-interface and streamlined process enables you to build display ads in minutes, automatically creating IAB standard ads in HTML5 formats using your existing elements from your website or your own uploaded images,” says Google Display Network product manager Ashley Jiang. “And these HTML5 ads can be viewed across mobile devices as well as desktops!”

“Building display ads has never been simpler, and we’re making this capability accessible to all advertisers at no additional cost, and as part of the AdWords campaign workflow,” says Jiang. “No matter what type of ad you choose, you can be sure you will not only have saved time and money but also have created an ad your customers and prospects are sure to love.”

To use Ready Creatives, simply log in to your AdWords account and go to the Ads tab.

September 25, 2013
Mobile Ads Are Getting Better At Fueling Consumer Purchase Intent

The effectiveness of mobile ads has long been debated, but data compiled by comScore appears to suggest that they’re only getting more effective as time goes on.

Perhaps better for marketers yet is that mobile ads are getting better where it really counts: the point at which consumers prepare to actually buy a product or service.

The data comes from “hundreds” of Mobile Brand Survey Lift studies, comScore explains. These have taken place over the past two years, and the research firm has used them to establish industry benchmarks.

“The research shows statistically significant lifts for the test group vs. the control group in aided awareness (+20%), favorability (+4%), likelihood to recommend (+22%), and purchase intent (+28%),” says comScore’s Stephanie Adamo. “The observed lifts appear to be the strongest near the bottom of the marketing funnel, with the most notable impact being on ‘purchase intent’, a metric that correlates with in-store sales.”

Adamo adds, “”These results of course beg the question: why do mobile ads appear to be working particularly well at the bottom of the funnel? Perhaps it’s because mobile devices are inherently personal devices and the ads may resonate on a more individual level. Another possible explanation is that mobile ads often appear when people are out and about, and either closer to the point of purchase or in a social context where they might recommend a brand.”

As smartphone sales continue to rise, it stands to reason that the effectiveness of targeted mobile advertising will only increase. Apple has already sold nine million of its new iPhones, which were just released on Friday.

September 23, 2013
Exclusive: StumbleUpon CEO Gives Us A Big Update About What We Can Soon Expect

StumbleUpon has been around since 2001, providing a unique way for Internet users to find websites and pages related to topics they’re interested in. The company has long provided a method of content discovery that has for one, gone virtually unparalleled by competitors, and for two, been lauded for years by marketers and webmasters who have have seen tremendous amounts of traffic to their own sites.

Are you seeing significant results from StumbleUpon these days? Let us know in the comments.

While the company has seen ups, downs and a lot of changes over the years (like being bought and eventually spun off by eBay), the company is still going strong despite laying off 30% of its staff in January, and having an otherwise quiet year with few announcements.

Rest assured, StumbleUpon is doing just fine. As a spokesperson for the company recently told us, they’ve been keeping their “heads down, working on product,” in 2013. And that’s paying off. The company has been hiring again, and this week, revealed that it has achieved profitability, and for the first time, shared some revenue numbers.

We had a conversation with CEO Mark Bartels, who took over the role after founder Garrett Camp stepped down last year, but has been with the company since 2008 (he was previously CFO) about StumbleUpon’s growth and strategy moving forward. Don’t expect things to be as quiet as they’ve been so far this year.

StumbleUpon expects to grow revenue to $35 – 40 million this year, and a significant portion of its revenue is already coming from mobile. In fact, nearly 40% of all stumbles are coming from mobile (up from 20% in 2012). Last year, the company launched some major updates to its mobile apps, which drastically improved the StumbleUpon experience. Expect even more expansion into mobile and other devices, opening up a lot more potential for stumbling (and ultimately opportunities for advertisers and web traffic).

“We continue to invest in moving beyond desktop – and our mobile-first approach is focused on smartphones and tablets, but also interactive TVs and gaming consoles,” Bartels tells WebProNews. “As we invest in these platforms our revenue continues to increase and this year our mobile share of revenue is 20%, and we expect that number to climb.”

The new mobile apps included a lot of new features. One of them lets users stumble through content much more quickly, by showing quick previews before the pages finish loading.

When asked if he attributes the growth in mobile stumbles to any specific feature, and whether the preview feature has affected sponsored content, Bartels tells us, “We have enhanced our overall mobile experience for both iOS and Android operating systems so that the recommendations and textual input we serve up to users is a better experience on small screens, wearable devices or set-top box.”

“Around one out of every twenty stumbles is sponsored content. Since our over 30 million users interact with paid and unpaid content the same way, we have seen an increase in engagement across the board.”

The company has over 100,000 advertisers that have created native ads. These include Comedy Central, Relativity Media, Levi’s, Elle and Harper’s Bazaar. Advertisers are going to be seeing some new opportunities.

“StumbleUpon is rolling out new publisher and partner tools that allow advertising on our platforms to be simple and seamless,” Bartels says.

“Recently we worked with Elle and Harpaar’s Bazaar around New York Fashion Week to engage StumbleUpon users and expand fashion coverage beyond their traditional audiences,” he notes.

When asked about the layoffs and how that has affected StumbleUpon’s growth, Bartels says, “The vision remains the same which is to help users discover and explore the best content on the web. We streamlined the company to focus more resources on engineering and product development in order to prioritize internationalization, moving beyond the desktop experience and our advertising platform. We are growing; we are hiring and have expanded to open up a second office in New York.”

On how the company’s strategy has changed since he took over as CEO, he says, “StumbleUpon’s goal has always been to be the number one discovery tool, and since I have become CEO I have been working on a vision to bring this mission to life across multiple platforms. We are building the next generation of mobile-first products, maximizing personalization technologies and expanding internationally.”

“In the near future, we will be expanding our mobile reach by releasing our Android app in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Chinese,” he adds. “iOS is next.”

Bartels says the company also intends to “continue the migration beyond the website and onto multiple platforms including interactive TVs, gaming devices, publisher sites and APIs.”

“We predict that online video traffic will be the majority of all consumption by 2016 and mobile will be the driving platform. StumbleUpon will be taking advantage of this trend with new products and ways to discover video content.”

Like I said, things aren’t going to be quiet at StumbleUpon for much longer.

While StumbleUpon has continued to drive traffic huge traffic to websites, it sounds like those who are able to capitalize on it might be able to see even greater amounts. Stay tuned.

Are you still seeing significant traffic from StumbleUpon? Success from its ad platform? Let us know in the comments

Image: StumbleUpon

September 21, 2013
Yahoo: Maybe Yahoo Bing Network Isn’t Doing Too Bad After All

Earlier this year things weren’t looking incredibly great for the Yahoo Microsoft search deal. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made comments at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, expressing disappointment with the results.

If a blog post from Yahoo today regarding the Yahoo Bing Network are any indication, however, things are looking more promising.

The post shares some stats from Yahoo Bing Preferred Partner Program member Marin Software, which manages $5 billion a year in digital ad spend for global advertisers. Marin analyzed its clients search ad performance from Q2 2012 to Q2 2013.

They found that impression volume and click volume each grew 33%. Click-through rates remained consistent, and cost per click increased by $0.03.

“Several verticals showed significantly better performance and efficiency year over year, including retail, finance, and technology,” Yahoo says in the post. “The automotive vertical showed the most dramatic growth, according to Marin.”

For the vertical, impression volume grew 13%, click volume grew 77%, click-through rate grew 56%, and cost per click decreased by $0.10.

“We’re excited to see that advertisers using Marin Software saw significant improvements in both volume and performance on the Yahoo Bing Network,” says Gagan Kanwar, Marin’s Director of Partnerships & Research, as quoted in the post. “Yahoo and Microsoft are doing a terrific job adding volume and gaining user adoption, while maintaining or improving advertiser KPIs.”

Microsoft said in July that the Yahoo Bing Network had 159 million unique searchers, and that 51 million of them don’t use Google.

Image: Bing

September 19, 2013
Pinterest Ads Are Coming, CEO Promises They Will Be Tasteful and Useful

Pinterest is finally going to start experimenting with ads.

CEO and co-founder Ben Silbermann made the announcement today on the Pinterest blog, promising that the new promoted content with be both tasteful and useful.

“Pinterest is where you keep your wishlists, vacation plans, dream home ideas, and other things you want to do soon and in the future,” he said. “That’s why for us, it’s so important that Pinterest is a service that will be here to stay. To help make sure it does, we’re going to start experimenting with promoting certain pins from a select group of businesses. I know some of you may be thinking, ‘Oh great…here come the banner ads.’ But we’re determined to not let that happen.”

No, you won’t be seeing any flashy banner ads on your Pinterest homepage – but eventually you will be seeing some promoted pins. Just like any sort of promoted posts on any other social site like Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest’s promoted pins will allow companies to pay to push a suggested pin (yes, an ad) to your feed.

Silbermann says that all of these promoted pins will be transparent, in that you’ll know when they’ve been paid for.

They will also be relevant to your tastes.

“These pins should be about stuff you’re actually interested in, like a delicious recipe, or a jacket that’s your style,” he says.

The first batch of promoted content will come in the form of paid pins in search results and category feeds. He calls this a “test,” and you know that it’ll likely expand if things go smoothly.

Pinterest laid the groundwork for an ad network this summer when they started tracking users’ movements across the web and recommending certain pins based on those movements. It’s an opt-out feature that Pinterest said would give users a more “personalized experience.”

September 19, 2013
Danica Patrick Better For Go Daddy’s Brand Than Van Damme?

Earlier this month, we reported that Go Daddy has dropped the GoDaddy girls in favor of a new “ass-kicking” small business message in its advertisements. They kicked this new strategy off during the NFL season opener with an ad featuring screen legend Jean-Claude Van Damme.

According to data from the YouGov BrandIndex, “He’s no Danica.”

“Go Daddy may have to bring sexy back,” a YouGov spokesperson tells WebProNews. “Trading in provocative auto racer Danica Patrick in a bikini for action star Jean-Claude Van Damme playing musical instruments in a bakery has not given Go Daddy’s new ad campaign a promising start with consumers.”

Since the ad spot premiered, they say, ad awareness has increased nearly 50%, and the brand’s perception has shown improvement, but in the past five days, consumer perception of the company has fallen to just below where it was before the ad launched, with equal positive and negative feedback from consumers.

“Since premiering its new TV ad spot on Thursday, September 5th, ad awareness for Go Daddy has increased nearly 50% from 13% to 18% of the U.S. population. The brand’s perception also had a modest improvement over the first week since the campaign began.”

“On September 5th, the day the Jean-Claude Van Damme campaign launched, Go Daddy had a Buzz score of one, meaning slightly more positive feedback vs. negative feedback. By September 12th, the score moved up to 4, but then dropped just below zero by September 15th.”

Here’s a new Van Damme ad they put out a few days ago:

I don’t know. That one’s pretty sexy.

Image via YouTube

September 18, 2013
W3C Appoints Two New Co-Chairs To Do Not Track Working Group

The Do Not Track negotiations that have been taking place between advertisers and privacy advocates took a heavy blow yesterday when the Digital Advertising Alliance announced that it would be leaving the talks. Their departure caused some to wonder if the negotiations could continue without one of its major players, but the W3C has already put those fears to rest.

The Hill reports that the W3C has named two new co-chairs to the Do Not Track working group. The first is Carl Cargill, Adobe’s Standards Principal, and the other is Justin Brookman, director of the Consumer Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology. The two will join existing chair Matthias Schunter, Chief Technologist at Intel.

Now, the first question is whether or not these two new appointees are in any way related to the DAA walking out yesterday. The answer to that would be probably not as the W3C seems to have already selected these new co-chairs in response to former co-chair Peter Swire leaving the group to join President Obama’s NSA review panel.

While the DAA’s departure may have not informed these decisions, the announcement was made official on Tuesday evening in response to their departure. On the official W3C blog, CEO Jeff Jaffe says that these new co-chairs will lead them forward with “renewed momentum.” He also hopes that the DAA will continue to watch the negotiations and rejoin once it sees that progress is being made.

With its new co-chairs, the W3C had better hope that it’s able to make steady progress on reaching some kind of consensus in regards to Do Not Track standards. The DAA’s departure threatens the stability of the talks, and Washington is waiting with federal regulation in case the negotiations permanently break down.

[Image: Center For Democracy & Technology]

September 18, 2013
Google Will Now Let You Use AdSense Ads On HTTPS Pages

Google announced on Monday that AdSense publishers can start putting ads on HTTPS pages as more sites move to this more secure protocol.

“Many websites, like e-commerce sites and social networking sites, use the HTTPS protocol to protect their users’ sensitive data,” says Google software engineer Sandor Sas. “If you have a HTTPS website you’ll be pleased with how easy it is to monetize using AdSense.”

To take advantage, just create an ad unit in AdSense, and paste the ad code into the HTML code of your page. The old version of the ad code won’t work for sites using HTTPs, but the new will.

“HTTPS-enabled sites require that all content on the page, including the ads, be SSL-compliant,” says Sas. “As a result, our systems will remove all non-SSL compliant ads from competing in the auction on these pages. This means that if you convert your HTTP site to HTTPS, ads on your HTTPS pages might earn less than those on your HTTP pages.”

Users appear to be welcoming the change. There are a lot of “thank you”s on Google’s Google+ post announcing the news.

Image: Google AdSense (YouTube)

September 17, 2013
Should The Government Regulate Paid Content?

Online advertising has changed. It used to be that Web sites would have a few banner ads or side bar ads to bring in revenue. Then consumers started to use adblockers and other methods to ignore these ads. That’s when sites turned to native advertising, and it’s caught the FTC’s attention.

The Federal Trade Commission announced on Monday that it would be hosting a “native ad” workshop later this year. The Commission says that the workshop will serve to continue its quest of helping consumers “identify advertisements as advertising wherever they appear.”

Should the FTC regulate native advertising on the Web? Do sites already do a good enough job of labeling sponsored content? Let us know in the comments.

So, what’s the big deal with native advertising? Well, as you may know, another name for native advertising is sponsored content. These are the ads that parade around as regular content. A good example would be BuzzFeed as a lot of its famous lists are sponsored content.

Here’s what the FTC has to say on the matter:

Increasingly, advertisements that more closely resemble the content in which they are embedded are replacing banner advertisements – graphical images that typically are rectangular in shape – on publishers’ websites and mobile applications.

The big question now then is whether or not this is a problem. That’s actually what the FTC wants to figure out in its workshop. The Commission wants to educate consumers on the difference between regular content and native ads, but it wants to first figure out the best way to do so. That’s why the Commission is hosting a workshop that “will bring together publishing and advertising industry representatives, consumer advocates, academics, and government regulators to explore changes in how paid messages are presented to consumers and consumers’ recognition and understanding of these messages.”

Now advertisers who are increasingly relying on native advertising and sponsored content shouldn’t be getting scared just yet. The workshop is merely an opportunity for the FTC to collaborate with advertisers and publishers to inform its own decisions on the matter. That’s why it’s inviting everybody to take part in said workshop so it can best address the needs of both advertisers, publishers and consumers in any potential future regulation.

In fact, the FTC published a list of topics that it will be examining at the workshop so that advertisers can prepare themselves for the kinds of questions the Commission will be asking:
What is the origin and purpose of the wall between regular content and advertising, and what challenges do publishers face in maintaining that wall in digital media, including in the mobile environment?
In what ways are paid messages integrated into, or presented as, regular content and in what contexts does this integration occur? How does it differ when paid messages are displayed within mobile apps and on smart phones and other mobile devices?
What business models support and facilitate the monetization and display of native or integrated advertisements? What entities control how these advertisements are presented to consumers?
How can ads effectively be differentiated from regular content, such as through the use of labels and visual cues? How can methods used to differentiate content as advertising be retained when paid messages are aggregated (for example, in search results) or re-transmitted through social media?
What does research show about how consumers notice and understand paid messages that are integrated into, or presented as, news, entertainment, or regular content? What does research show about whether the ways that consumers seek out, receive, and view content online influences their capacity to notice and understand these messages as paid content?

Do you think the FTC will welcome a healthy debate on the issue of native advertising? Or does the Commission’s questions worry you that it will unfairly target advertisers? Let us know in the comments.

Of course, it should be noted that the FTC isn’t the only entity that’s concerned about native advertising. For years now, Google has penalized sites that use paid links, and it just recently started setting its sights on sponsored content that’s not been fully disclosed.

Back in May, Matt Cutts said that Google would be “looking at some efforts to be a bit stronger on our enforcement” of native advertising. He later clarified this by saying that native advertising falls within its longstanding rules regarding paid content:

“We’ve seen a little bit of problems where there’s been advertorial or native advertising content or paid content, that hasn’t really been disclosed adequately, so that people realize that what they’re looking at was paid. So that’s a problem. We’ve had longstanding guidance since at least 2005 I think that says, ‘Look, if you pay for links, those links should not pass PageRank,’ and the reason is that Google, for a very long time, in fact, everywhere on the web, people have mostly treated links as editorial votes.”

Cutts also provided a real world example of how native advertising that’s not been fully disclosed can impact consumers:

“So we’ve seen, for example, in the United Kingdom, a few sites that have been taking money, and writing articles that were paid, and including keyword-rich anchor text in those articles that flowed PageRank, and then not telling anybody that those were paid articles. And that’s the sort of thing where if a regular user happened to be reading your website, and didn’t know that it was paid, they’d really be pretty frustrated and pretty angry when they found out that it was paid.”

The FTC may not be regulating native advertising just yet, but Google is clearly on the warpath. The Commission’s desire to better identify and possibly regulate sponsored content will probably net Google a pretty influential role in the FTC’s workshop and future decision making down the road.

That being said, it’s not sounding like the FTC wants to outright ban sponsored content. Doing so would be an absolutely asinine response to something that hasn’t even presented itself as a wide spread problem just yet. Most sites that utilize sponsored content mark it as such already. Instead, it will probably just expand upon its current report on native advertising – Dotcom Disclosures.

Even then, publishers and advertisers wanting to stay on the good side of Google are probably already following any potential new regulations that may come out of this.

Do you think Google’s rules on native advertising should influence the FTC’s decision making? Let us know in the comments.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]

September 17, 2013

If you haven’t seen it yet, GoDaddy has a new ad out, and it stars Jean-Claude Van Damme. Yes, that Jean-Claude Van Damme. Why are we telling you about this? Well, it’s not just a commercial. It’s significant because it’s the first step in a big shift in branding strategy from the company that has generated a great deal of controversy over the years, including from its ads themselves. Earlier this year, they were dubbed “tasteless” by Forbes.

GoDaddy is the top domain registrar in the world by far, according to ICANN, so the company obviously has a direct link with a whole lot of businesses. Abandoning the scantily clad women strategy, GoDaddy is turning things around and focusing on businesses. Small businesses.

What do you think of GoDaddy’s ads? Do you prefer the old strategy or the new one? Like both strategies? Neither? Let us know in the comments.

Here’s a look at the top ICANN registrars worldwide (via webhosting.info):

Top ICANN Registrars

How much of that do you think is a result of the company’s marketing efforts? How often do you see television commercials for any of these other registrars? GoDaddy, regardless of what you think of its past commercials, has clearly been quite effective in its marketing endeavors. If nothing else, the Super Bowl ad spots always got people talking (even if perhaps more so in earlier years).

Well, GoDaddy wants to keep people talking about its ads, even if it’s trying a different strategy. Here’s the latest spot in case you haven’t seen it (it ran multiple times during Thursday night’s NFL season opener).

While it does feature an abundance of Van Damme spreading his legs in classic Van Damme fashion, there is a clear business focus here. The commercial is about a baker, and it ends on the message: “More Business. More Ready. It’s go time.”

The company tells us this is the beginning of a major launch in new brand strategy targeting small businesses.

The “It’s go time” line Van Damme says at the end of the ad is a new company-wide “messaging transformation,” GoDaddy says.

“This is the radical shift we knew we had to make and it’s more than just marketing,” said GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. “A brand is a promise to our customers and a commitment to understand their needs. Our mission is to ‘fight the good fight for the go getter’ … the small business owner … or anyone who labors for the love of it and wants the benefits of the latest technology without having to be an expert.”

Irving took over as CEO of GoDaddy in January, and according to the company, there has been “an intense focus on products and personnel” since he did. The company has acquired talent and executives from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay and Intuit. It also recently acquired M.dot and Locu, both for its website creation tool efforts.

Along with the new marketing strategy, GoDaddy has unveiled a new site design and interface with a streamlined checkout process, and has re-built its Website Builder product. They’ve also put out this video of people talking about the tool:

Notice that none of the women are taking their clothes off.

On the shift in advertising approach, GoDaddy says Van Damme represents the “ass-kicker inside every small business owner,” and the ad is one of two that people will see on TV (it will debut during the NFL season-opener on NBC tonight).

“This is definitely different for us, but you’ll see we still have a sense of humor,” said GoDaddy Chief Marketing Officer Barb Rechterman. “We think Jean-Claude is hilarious. ‘The muscles from Brussels’ certainly helps make the commercial memorable, but the story also illustrates the struggles and time constraints many small business owners face every day. Our job is ‘to be there’ for these small business owners who want to attract more customers with beautiful websites that are easy to create and affordable to maintain.”

GoDaddy has also released a “Manifesto of Kick Ass” for small businesses: