Google Ad Innovations: where ads are going next

In the past year, Google's advertising tools have moved in some exciting directions. We've introduced more data-driven and efficient campaign management with the new AdWords interface, easier account optimization with the Opportunities tab, and new ad formats like Ad Sitelinks and Product Extensions that provide more context and value to those who see them, to name a few.

But where is advertising with Google headed next? Which new tools, formats and features will make it possible for you to communicate with your customers in more meaningful, creative ways?

We've started a new project, Google Ad Innovations, to answer that very question. Google Ad Innovations is a website where you can explore Google's latest advertising technologies, watch short video demos, and try out select new tools.

The technologies we'll highlight on Google Ad Innovations are at various stages of development, from early tests to fully released features. Here are a few of the new releases you'll find on Ad Innovations right now:

• Remarketing -- a way to show your ads to users who’ve previously visited your website as they browse sites across the Google Content Network
• AdWords Search Funnels -- a set of reports that help you understand the Google.com search ad click and impression behavior leading up to a conversion
• Location Extensions with Multiple Addresses -- an ad format that displays a list of nearby store locations when your customers are performing local searches
• Click-to-Call Extensions -- an ad format that lets mobile phone users call you directly from your ads
• Analytics Intelligence -- a Google Analytics feature that automatically identifies significant changes in your site traffic

There's a lot to see on Ad Innovations, but we want it to be more than a show and tell site. Every Ad Innovations page will have a feedback link, so if you see a feature that can be improved or think we've hit on a valuable new idea, let us know! The comments and suggestions you leave while using Google Ad Innovations will go directly to the Google team working on the feature.

If you want to stay on the cutting edge of Google advertising products, visit Google Ad Innovations. We’ll regularly add new tools and features to the site, and would love to hear your thoughts.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

Aluminio reciclado | superficies resistentes

El aluminio es uno de los materiales más reciclados en los Estados Unidos, con un promedio de 80.000 millones de toneladas de latas cada año. Reciclar este material insume un 95% menos de energía que la utilizada al crear un un producto con materiales vírgenes; y eso sin contar el alto de nivel de contaminación que ello produce.

Alkemi es una compañía con certificación LEED que se dedica a el reciclaje de estos materiales sacados de residuos industriales. De su producción salen unas finas láminas de aluminio que de otra forma terminarían en un horno para su quemado, con el consecuente humo pesado que iría hacia la atmósfera.

Sus láminas son durables y con un estilo poco común a la vista, y resulta ser una alternativa totalmente “verde” a los laminados plásticos, piedra o vidrio. Cuentan con una tres tipos de colores y acabados; brillante, clásico y con textura, que recuerdan al mármol veteado, bien al estilo del siglo 21.

Moquetas para suelos de Tandus

Tandus es una compañía que fabrica moquetas que ha recibido varios premios por sus diseños innovadores desde el 2008. Ofrece una línea denominada “Powerbond“, con seis texturas diferentes, que combinados pueden formar un estilo único en tus suelos. Además tienen la durabilidad de una superficie dura pero con la comodidad que ofrece la apariencia y el estilo de una superficie blanda.


Si tienes dudas de su durabilidad, quizá te interese saber que el 80% del Instituto Westminster, en Colorado-EEUU, cuentan con estas moquetas desde hace 35 años. Y estamos hablando de más de 34 kilómetros cuadrados. Por otra parte, vale mencionar que Tandus recibió por quinta vez consecutiva el premio Antron, como mejor suelo sostenible del año (2009).

Sus diseños únicos pueden perfectamente adaptarse a tus necesidades, con modelos tanto sobrios como divertidos, ideal para decorar el entorno de cualquier integrante de la familia.

Google Ad Innovations: Where ads are going next

If you're a regular reader of the blog, in the last year you've seen Google's advertising tools move in some exciting directions. We've introduced more data-driven and efficient campaign management with the new AdWords interface, easier account optimization with the Opportunities tab, and new ad formats like Ad Sitelinks and Product Extensions, to name a few.

But where is advertising with Google headed next? Which new tools, formats and features will make it possible for you to communicate with your customers in more meaningful, creative ways?

We've started a new project, Google Ad Innovations, to answer that very question. Google Ad Innovations is a website where you can explore Google's latest advertising technologies, watch short video demos to learn more, and try out select new tools.

The technologies we'll highlight on Google Ad Innovations are at various stages of development, from early tests to fully released features. Here are a few of the new releases you'll find on Ad Innovations right now:

• Remarketing -- a way to show your ads to users who have previously visited your website as they browse sites across the Google Content Network
• AdWords Search Funnels -- a set of reports that help you understand the Google.com search ad click and impression behavior leading up to a conversion
• Location Extensions with multiple addresses -- an ad format which displays a list of nearby store locations when your customers are performing local searches
• Click-to-Call Extensions -- an ad format that let mobile phone users call you directly from your ads
• Analytics Intelligence -- a Google Analytics feature that automatically identifies significant changes in your site traffic

Although there's a lot to look at on Ad Innovations, we want it to be more than a show and tell site. Every Ad Innovations page will have a feedback link: if you see a feature that can be improved, or if you think we've hit on a valuable new idea, let us know! The comments and suggestions you leave while using Google Ad Innovations will go directly to the Google team working on the feature.

So, if you want to stay on the cutting edge of advertising products, visit Google Ad Innovations — we’ll regularly add new tools and features to the site, and we can't wait to hear what you think!

Posted by Devin Sandoz, Product Marketing Manager

Introducing Google Ad Innovations

The principle behind the advertising products we build at Google is simple: ads are information. But the type of information that ads provide is getting more varied and inventive all the time, and as a result ads are getting more interesting, social and useful.

As advertising evolves, we want to build the tools that make it possible for marketers to connect with customers in meaningful, creative ways. We’ve found that the best way to do that is to focus on the user, test new approaches regularly and listen closely to the feedback of the advertisers using our products. To work closely with advertisers on what comes next, today we’ve launched Google Ad Innovations, where we’ll show you some of our latest ideas around advertising technologies and get your feedback.

One of the new features we’re showcasing is a set of AdWords reports, launched last week, called Search Funnels. These reports can help an advertiser understand whether there are keywords in her account that are helping to drive sales at a later date. At Google Ad Innovations, you can read more about this feature, watch a video walking you through how it works and send us your ideas on how to improve it.

If you’re interested in the future of advertising with Google, pay Ad Innovations a visit — we’ll regularly add tools and features to the site, and we hope you’ll check them out!

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, Vice President, Product Management

Entertaining Tips: Vegetarian Options

New Rule

For your next party, don't forget to always include a vegetarian option.  Make it something super yummy that everyone will enjoy, like stuffed mushrooms or a baked brie.  So delicious, you won't even miss the meat!

Links: {mushrooms}{brie}

New best practices to find more customers on the Content Network

Our previous post in the Content Network Optimization University series covered the basics of setting up and launching a good campaign on the Google Content Network for your clients.

Today we will cover more advanced optimization strategies. We've compiled these by observing best practices from the most successful advertisers on the network. Whether you're new to the Content Network or have been using it for a while, you can get better results from your campaigns.

The best practices are structured along 3 key phases of a campaign -

• Build Effective campaigns
• Optimize for better results
• Expand your campaign for more traffic

Build Effective campaigns

Taking time up front to set up your clients' campaigns correctly goes a long way in getting higher quality traffic to their sites. Let’s recap the top strategies.

1. Separate search and content network campaigns: Setting up a separate campaign just for the Content Network will will give you more control over daily budgets, ad groups, keywords and bids. Watch this demo on campaign setup.
2. Create many, tightly themed ad group: AdWords can target your ads more precisely by building multiple ad groups, each with a small tightly-themed set of 5 to 20 keywords. Watch this demo on ad group setup and this demo on keyword selection.
3. Copy your best performing text ads from search campaigns: For initial setup, it is best to use the text ads with the highest click-through rates from the clients' search campaigns. Watch this demo on ad text best practices.
4. Setup same starting CPC bid as search campaigns: We recommend starting with the same maximum CPC bid as the search campaign ad groups you set up for your clients. Once AdWords has collected enough data, our smart pricing technology will automatically optimize bids on Content Network to give your clients more profitable clicks. Watch this demo on bidding tactics.
5. Set up AdWords Conversion Tracking on your clients' sites: Install Conversion Tracking on clients' websites to measure sales and leads (conversions) they get from each ad group and placement. Watch this demo to learn how conversion tracking works on the Content Nework.

Optimize for better results

It is important to monitor clients' campaigns' performance and consistently optimize individual elements. Before making significant changes (e.g. changing bids, excluding high volume sites, pausing ad groups), wait until enough click or conversion data has accrued; we recommend 5+ conversions or 100+ clicks per site

1. Exclude poor-performing sites: Get more qualified traffic and boost conversions by excluding sites that perform poorly for a campaign, based on number of clicks, average CPC and particularly conversions.
2. Focus keywords and exclude less relevant keywords: Add more keywords that describe the clients' products and ad group themes in greater detail. Also, add negative keywords to fix cases of incorrect targeting caused by synonyms and similar, but less relevant keywords. Watch this demo on refining campaigns.
3. Adjust bids to manage costs: Change bids for ad groups or individual sites based on conversion rate, average CPC and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) to meet clients' performance goals. Bid higher for better performing sites to get more traffic, and lower bids for lower performers.
4. Use Conversion Optimizer to manage CPA: Google Conversion Optimizer is a fee tool that automatically manages bids at the site level to reach a maximum CPA bid, which is the amount a client is willing to pay for a conversion (such as a purchase or signup). Watch this video on how to use Conversion Optimizer.

Expand campaign for more traffic

To get additional traffic and boost sales from your campaign, we recommend using a Content keyword expansion strategy.

1. Use the Wonder Wheel tool for ad group ideas: You can use Wonder Wheel on Google Search to brainstorm new ad group themes and keyword ideas. When you search for any topic on Google.com, Wonder Wheel will generate up to eight related topics for you to consider.
2. Create new ad groups to reach additional parts of the network: Each topic in Wonder Wheel represents a possible ad group theme for a campaign. Simply click on any of the topics to see other searches and themes related to it. Also, any closely related topics that are less relevant to your product, are great candidates for a negative keyword lists. Watch this demo to learn how to use this strategy.
3. Expand your keywords set to get more traffic: Once you have finalized ad group themes, use the AdWords Keyword Tool to get keyword ideas. Enter an ad group theme description or keyword under the "Descriptive words or phrases " tab. Select the 5 to 10 most frequently searched keywords and save them to your client's ad group. This will help to ensure that the list stays highly relevant to the ad group theme.

You can find all the latest videos and updates on our YouTube channel.

Posted by Aman Govil, Product Marketing Manager

Our stand for digital due process

The year was 1986. A gallon of gas cost 89 cents, Paul Simon’s Graceland won the Grammy for album of the year, and the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which governs how law enforcement can access electronic data, was signed into law.

A lot has changed since 1986. Gas is now measured in dollars and Taylor Swift (born 1989) won album of the year. All the while, technology has moved at record pace. But ECPA has stayed the same. Originally designed to protect us from unwarranted government intrusion while ensuring that law enforcement had the tools necessary to protect public safety, it was written long before most people had heard of email, cell phones or the “cloud” — the term used for programs helping people store personal data like photos and documents online. As a result, ECPA has become outdated.

This is why we’re proud to help establish Digital Due Process, a coalition of technology companies, civil rights organizations and academics seeking to update ECPA to provide privacy protections to new and emerging technologies.

Specifically, we want to modernize ECPA in four ways:

• Better protect your data stored online: The government must first get a search warrant before obtaining any private communications or documents stored online;
• Better protect your location privacy: The government must first get a search warrant before it can track the location of your cell phone or other mobile communications device;
• Better protect against monitoring of when and with whom you communicate: The government must demonstrate to a court that the data it seeks is relevant and material to a criminal investigation before monitoring when and with whom you communicate using email, instant messaging, text messaging, the telephone, etc.; and
• Better protect against bulk data requests: The government must demonstrate to a court that the information it seeks is needed for a criminal investigation before it can obtain data about an entire class of users.

We also created this video to help explain ECPA and why it needs updating:



You can read more about our proposal at our coalition website. In the coming months, we’ll meet with lawmakers, law enforcement officials and others to help build support for modernizing the law.

1986 was a good year, but it’s time our laws catch up with how we live our lives today.

Posted by Richard Salgado, Senior Counsel, Law Enforcement and Information Security

AdWords for mobile: check in quickly, anywhere

Did your smartphone suddenly start blinking and buzzing like crazy? No need to worry– it’s probably just getting excited about AdWords for mobile, our new mobile interface for Android, iPhone, and Palm Pre devices.

We’ve heard that your smartphone and AdWords account have been pining for each other. Over the past few months, many of you have let us know how much you’d like to have fast and easy mobile access to AdWords, which is why we’re now testing a streamlined mobile experience. AdWords for mobile gives you easy access to your key alerts and statistics, enabling you to make quick changes even when you’re out and about.

click for full-size image

AdWords for mobile works best when you customize your experience. Before using the mobile website, you should log in from your desktop computer and choose the parts of your account that you want to monitor closely. Set up custom alerts for key account events (like when your campaign reaches 90% of your daily budget, or when your traffic drops substantially compared to the previous week), and saved filters to flag your most important keywords and campaigns. You’ll then see these filters and alerts on your AdWords for mobile home screen.

We built AdWords for mobile to help you quickly access the essentials in your account, so we’ve focused on letting you view and make basic edits to campaigns and keywords through the mobile application. If you need access to the other parts of your account, like ads or campaign settings, you can switch to the desktop version of AdWords through a link at the bottom of the screen.

Today, AdWords for mobile will be used as the default mobile interface for a small percentage of English language advertisers, and we look forward to enabling the feature for additional advertisers and languages in the coming weeks. However, if you’d like to try AdWords for mobile immediately, simply direct your Android, iPhone, or Palm Pre to http://adwords.google.com/dashboard/Dashboard

Hope you (and your lovestruck smartphone) enjoy having easy access to AdWords wherever you go!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

Jennifer Hawkins — Unseen Photoshoot

Jennifer Hawkins unseen photoshoot, more images after the break...

Ragini Photoshoot

South side new face Ragini, more images after the break...

18 Images

Continue Reading...

BPhone — Netbook

ChinaGrabber began selling phone BPhone - hybrid solutions that united netbook and smartphone. BPhone pyatidyuymovym equipped with touch screen and runs on a processor Marvell CPU with a clock speed of 624 MHz. Features BPhone as follows: Operating system Linux 2.6, 256 megabytes of flash memory, built-in Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS, GSM-module, QWERTY-keyboard, the ability to support Java-applications. Despite the rather large (by the standards of the phone, of course) display device does not prove too cumbersome, as a smartphone it can be used in the closed position. The display device allows you to view video in full screen mode. The cost of such a hybrid is $ 570. More images after the break...

11 Images

Continue Reading...

Around the world in 25 iGoogle themes...

One way we love to help you make iGoogle your own is with our artist and designer themes — ranging from food and fashion to games and comics. Today, we’re excited to announce a set of new themes, tailored to the world traveler in all of us. These new themes, focused on destinations all over the globe, allow you to experience beautiful landscapes, historic monuments, stunning beaches, iconic cities and other picturesque sites — right from your homepage.

To bring you this imagery, we've partnered with a few leading organizations including National Geographic Society and LIFE, who photograph some of the most breathtaking destinations on earth. Lonely Planet, UNESCO and visiteurope.com have also shared a selection of incredible images.

Here’s a quick preview of some of what you’ll find:

• The World Passport Sampler theme, which brings together many of the great destinations.
• India, Greece and Egypt, all captured spectacularly by National Geographic.
• Classic beach destinations from LIFE.com, including Monte Carlo, Waikiki Beach, and the French Riviera.
• Incredible vistas from Spain, Italy, Thailand and Japan, captured by Lonely Planet.
• The opportunity to view World Heritage sites, such as the Sydney Opera House and the Old City of Dubrovnik in Croatia, provided by UNESCO.

Hopefully, you’re as eager to try out these new themes as we are. Whether these themes remind you of one of your favorite places or allow you to experience a global destination on your homepage, we hope you enjoy them. Bon voyage!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

Frozen Money

In Sydney, was a promotional campaign to mark the opening of a new label clothing. On the square "Martin Place" put 400-pound block of ice, which were concluded in 1000 Australian dollars. To get them, we had to work hard. more images after the break...

Lavender Wedding Bouquet

We had a client that wanted something whimsical and beautiful for her bridesmaids bouquets. So we came up with Lavender... so pretty and smelled just lovely!



Lavender is not just for  your underwear drawer anymore!



Photo was taken by me...that's why it sort of stinks.

Karina Jelinek (Galeria 1)

Fotos:
Revista Maxim, Notiblog, Revista Hombre (H)

Otras fotos:
Karina Jelinek (Galeria 2)
Karina Jelinek (Galeria 3)

Improved chat for iGoogle and orkut

Have you ever wanted to quickly send a file to a friend who's online? Now you can share pictures, documents and other files directly with your friends while chatting in iGoogle and orkut, without having to switch to email to send the file as an attachment. File transfer works directly in the browser so you don't need to install anything. Just start a conversation with a friend and click “Send a file...” in the “Actions” menu. After you select a file, your friend will be asked if they want to accept the transfer. You can learn more on the Google Talkabout Blog.


You might have noticed that we recently gave iGoogle and orkut chat a face lift. Several tools now have a new home at the top of the chat window. From the new toolbar, you can click the blue camera and phone icons to start video and voice chats with your friends or the group chat icon to add additional friends to a text chat. If you've never used video or voice chat before, all you need is a webcam and microphone attached to your computer and a small plugin application available for free at www.google.com/chat/video.

We're working to bring file transfer and the new toolbar to Gmail too. In the meantime, you can continue to access voice, video and group chat in Gmail from the “Video and More” menu in a chat window.

Posted by Bruce Leban, software engineer

New best practices to find more customers on the Google Content Network

Our previous post in the Content Network Optimization University series covered the basics of setting up and launching a good campaign on the Content Network.

Today, we'll cover more advanced optimization strategies. We've compiled these by observing best practices from the most successful advertisers on the network. Whether you're new to the Content Network or have been using it for a while, you can get better results from your campaigns by employing some of these strategies.

Build effective campaigns

Taking time up front to set up your campaign correctly goes a long way in getting higher quality traffic to your site. Let’s recap the top strategies:

• Separate Search and Content Network campaigns: Setting up a separate campaign just for the Content Network will give you more control over daily budgets, ad groups, keywords and bids. Watch this demo on campaign setup.
• Create many, tightly themed ad groups: AdWords can target your ads more precisely if you build multiple ad groups, each with a small tightly-themed set of 5 to 20 keywords. Watch this demo on ad group setup and this demo on keyword selection.
• Copy your best performing text ads from Search campaigns: For initial setup, it's best to use the text ads with the highest click-through rates from your search campaigns. Watch this demo on ad text best practices.
• Setup the same starting CPC bid as your Search campaigns: We recommend starting with the same maximum CPC bid as your Search campaign ad groups. Once AdWords has collected enough data, our smart pricing technology will automatically optimize your bids on the Content Network to give you more profitable clicks. Watch this demo on bidding tactics.
• Set up AdWords Conversion Tracking on your website: Install Conversion Tracking on your website to measure the sales and leads (conversions) you get from each ad group and placement. Watch this demo to learn how conversion tracking works on the Content Network.

Optimize for better results

It's important to monitor your campaign’s performance and consistently optimize individual elements. Before making significant changes (e.g. changing bids, excluding high volume sites, pausing ad groups), wait until enough click or conversion data has accrued. We recommend having at least 5 conversions or 100 clicks per site.

• Exclude poor-performing sites: Get more qualified traffic and boost conversions by excluding sites that perform poorly for your campaign, based on the number of clicks, the average CPC and the number of conversions.
• Focus your keywords and exclude less relevant keywords: Add more keywords that describe your product and ad group theme in greater detail. Also, add negative keywords to refine your targeting and prevent impressions on irrelevant sites. Watch this demo on refining your campaigns.
• Adjust your bids to manage your costs: Change your bids for ad groups or individual sites based on conversion rate, average CPC and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) to meet your performance goals. You should bid higher for better performing sites to get more traffic, and lower for poorly performing sites.
• Use Conversion Optimizer to manage your CPA: Google Conversion Optimizer is a free tool that automatically manages bids at the site level to reach a maximum CPA bid, which is the amount you're willing to pay for a conversion (such as a purchase or sign-up). Watch this video on how to use Conversion Optimizer.

Expand your campaign for more traffic

To get additional traffic and boost sales from your campaign, we recommend creating a keyword expansion strategy for the Content Network.

• Use the Wonder Wheel tool for ad group ideas: You can use Wonder Wheel on Google Search to brainstorm new ad group themes and keyword ideas. When you search for any topic on Google.com, Wonder Wheel will generate up to eight related topics for you to consider.
• Create new ad groups to reach additional parts of the network: Each topic in Wonder Wheel represents a possible ad group theme for your campaign. Simply click on any of the topics to see other searches and themes related to it. Any closely related topics that are less relevant to your product are great candidates for your negative keyword list. Watch this demo to learn how to use this strategy.
• Expand your keyword list to get more traffic: Once you have finalized your ad group themes, use the AdWords Keyword Tool to get keyword ideas. Enter ad group theme descriptions or keywords under the 'Descriptive words or phrases' tab. Select the 5 to 10 most frequently searched keywords and save them to your ad group This will help to ensure that your list stays highly relevant to your ad group theme.

You can find all the latest videos and updates on our YouTube channel. We hope these tips help you get even better results from your Content network campaigns!

Posted by Katrina Kurnit, Inside AdWords crew

Plan B

There has been so much talk around the interweb about Jason and Molly's TV wedding, and how the rain really affected their day.



There should have been a Plan B - a rain plan.



Really.



How do you plan for a Plan B... well first there needs to be a drop dead time to implement the Plan B... so let's say, by noon. So by noon you'll need to decide inside or outside. Even if the weather looks iffy... go for the Plan B. You never know.



And have a Plan B... know that you'll need to have your reception under a tent, or in the banquet hall, or in the house... where ever it is.. go over with your Wedding Planner, the in's and out's of what you thinking. You don't want to be surprised or disappointed.



And plus, it makes for some pretty amazing pictures!



Photo: Luster Studios

Zareen Khan latest Images

Zarine Khan latest pics, more images after the break...

12 Images

Continue Reading...

Jennifer Lopez Unseen Photoshoot

 

Jennifer Lopez unseen photoshoot, more images after the break...