Would you like to see a graph of the number of clicks you received over the past month? Or how about a report the number of conversions you received during that Mother's Day promotion? The 'custom report' feature allows you to generate reports that track the parameters and date ranges you specify. You can even save these reports or have them emailed to you on a regular basis. Read more about it here.
Getting the Reports You Want
Today's tip comes from Tolu T., an AdWords specialist:
Tell Us What You Think
It's been two weeks since our first blog post, and during this time, we've been trying to answer some of the common advertiser questions that we hear. Hopefully, we've provided some tips that you've found useful. Now that we're warmed up, we want to broaden the scope a bit and dive into more advanced topics and issues such as the AdWords API, how to get the most out of conversion tracking, and tools that will help you make changes across all your campaigns.
Before we get too carried away with our own ideas, we'd like to pause for a moment to ask for your feedback. Tell us what you like or don't like about the blog, as well as any suggestions for what you would like to see here in the future. (We promise we won't get mad if you don't like something you've seen, so be honest!) We may not get to respond to each of you personally, but we'll definitely take all your feedback to heart.
Thanks for visiting! And for our readers in the US, have a great long weekend!
Before we get too carried away with our own ideas, we'd like to pause for a moment to ask for your feedback. Tell us what you like or don't like about the blog, as well as any suggestions for what you would like to see here in the future. (We promise we won't get mad if you don't like something you've seen, so be honest!) We may not get to respond to each of you personally, but we'll definitely take all your feedback to heart.
Thanks for visiting! And for our readers in the US, have a great long weekend!
Give Better Direction
Here's a tip from Matthew H., an AdWords specialist:
Sometimes it's better not to send customers to your home page, but instead to a more specific page based on their search term. You can do this by specifying different destination URLs for individual keywords. When customers search for "blue suede shoes" and click on your ad, you can then send them directly to a page containing your entire inventory of blue suede shoes. This practice can lead to higher conversion rates, and could allow you to get more value from your clicks. Read more about it here.
You’ll never have to come here again…
Now you can get all Inside AdWords posts in your email inbox as soon as they appear online.
What in the World is an Impr?
As I've worked with advertisers over the years, I've found that I especially enjoy helping new advertisers get up-to-speed with AdWords. Quite a few turn out to be not only new to AdWords, but new to online advertising in general, and they're often unfamiliar with the lingo. Here are some resources I often recommend:
* First, we have the essentials for those wondering "What basic terminology should I know?"
* Of course, there's the ever-popular AdWords Glossary
* And lastly, I find myself frequently directing advertisers to the searchable Help Center, where they can get answers to questions such as "What is an Impr?"
If you're new to AdWords, I hope this helps you - and I wish you every success!
* First, we have the essentials for those wondering "What basic terminology should I know?"
* Of course, there's the ever-popular AdWords Glossary
* And lastly, I find myself frequently directing advertisers to the searchable Help Center, where they can get answers to questions such as "What is an Impr?"
If you're new to AdWords, I hope this helps you - and I wish you every success!
Speaking of search
Do you manage to lose track of files, emails and websites in languages other than English? If so, you’ll be glad to know that Google Desktop Search is now available in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Japanese and Korean.
Reviewed and Approved!
Recently we've seen quite a few emails from advertisers wondering how and why their ads were disapproved - and even more importantly - how this can be avoided in the future. Good questions!
The short story is that new and edited ads are reviewed after you submit them in order to ensure that they comply with the AdWords Editorial Guidelines.
It probably goes without saying that it's a good thing to have your ads approved the very first time you submit them; it saves you time and energy, and puts your ads in front of your potential customers without interruption.
Perhaps the best way to ensure that your ads will be approved the first time is to simply be familiar with the Editorial Guidelines before writing your ads. After all, these are the standards that your ads must meet, so it just makes sense!
You'll be happy you spent the time familiarizing yourself with these guidelines when your ads sail right through review!
And by the way, if any of your ads are disapproved, you can always use the Disapproved Ads Tool to find out when and why they were disapproved and edit them for re-review.
The short story is that new and edited ads are reviewed after you submit them in order to ensure that they comply with the AdWords Editorial Guidelines.
It probably goes without saying that it's a good thing to have your ads approved the very first time you submit them; it saves you time and energy, and puts your ads in front of your potential customers without interruption.
Perhaps the best way to ensure that your ads will be approved the first time is to simply be familiar with the Editorial Guidelines before writing your ads. After all, these are the standards that your ads must meet, so it just makes sense!
You'll be happy you spent the time familiarizing yourself with these guidelines when your ads sail right through review!
And by the way, if any of your ads are disapproved, you can always use the Disapproved Ads Tool to find out when and why they were disapproved and edit them for re-review.
Give them a hand
The product marketing team is currently experimenting with some new ideas for Google Local, and I just went to Kansas City to beta-test some of them with my colleagues Resmi and Samantha. Our first order of business was to visit mall kiosks. Since my poor sense of direction has inspired my family to invoke “The Debbie Rule” (the listener travels in the opposite direction from what Debbie says), before arriving in Kansas City I used Google Maps to print out driving directions from Rafael Hotel to Town Center Plaza, and from there to the Oak Park Mall.
Aside from Arthur Bryant’s barbeque, a highlight of the trip was a ball game between those major rivals, the Kansas City Royals vs. the St. Louis Cardinals. Not only did the Royals rally in the 8th inning to come within one run of the Cards, but it was pretty cool to see fans wave big foam hands from Google.
(If it's too hard to read, one side says “Know your city like the back of your hand. In this case, a big foam hand. Google Local.” The other side says “Go Royals.”)
Some Cardinals fans also enjoyed the hands - but none of those photos are suitable for posting (the hands we provided all started out with five fingers, I swear).
AdWords Update - 5/20/05
Another regular feature of this blog is, of course, keeping you up to date with all the changes being made to AdWords. Here are a couple of features we launched this week:
My Client Center dashboard enhancements
We've made some updates to the My Client Center dashboard so you can now easily sort accounts by start or end date, view daily budgets for online accounts, view yesterday's account spend (in addition to this month, or the last 7, 30, or 90 days), and find out when client accounts were linked to My Client Center.
Account Performance Suggestions email preferences
You can now change your preference for receiving account performance suggestions emails in the User Preferences section of the "My Account" tab.
No scraping necessary
My friends have been asking me for something that could add Gmail and news headlines to the Google homepage. I saw a Slashdot post requesting the same thing, and someone wrote back: if you want that feature, do it yourself and whip up some code or scrape the data. Of course, why would my friends spend any time hacking this together when they could just get me to do it for them?
So I got involved with the 'fusion' initiative by joining the team working on a personalized homepage. We launched today, so now I can return the Python books I bought my lazy friends. Check it out and tell us what else you want to see. We just might code it up.
A method to our madness
Does Google have a strategy, or are we just a bunch of mad computer scientists running around building whatever we want? Today this question gets an answer: we've launched our personalized homepage via Google Labs. It's part of a strategic initiative we refer to as 'fusion' to bring together Google functionality, and content from across the web, in useful ways.
The personalized homepage is a complement to the existing Google homepage - not a replacement. Keep using the original Google homepage if you want to. (We expect many people will.) But if you're keen to organize and customize your information, take a stab at designing your own homepage. You can add Gmail, news, stocks, weather and more. Plus you can add great content from websites like the BBC and Wired. We're incorporating feeds from just a few other sites today, but we envision being able to accept any standardized feed very soon.
Enjoy, and let us know what you think!
Well, the "send us an email" link seems to be working!
We've gotten a few emails asking for a clarification of our previous post, and we're happy to oblige:
Please rest assured that your account will continue to run as normal during the short downtime. Your ads will continue to appear, and statistics will be compiled as normal. It's business as usual, except that you won't be able to access your account for that short period of time.
If you're completely at a loss for things to do during that time, may we suggest a new movie? We've been hearing a lot about the latest Star Wars!
Please rest assured that your account will continue to run as normal during the short downtime. Your ads will continue to appear, and statistics will be compiled as normal. It's business as usual, except that you won't be able to access your account for that short period of time.
If you're completely at a loss for things to do during that time, may we suggest a new movie? We've been hearing a lot about the latest Star Wars!
Tomorrow, work that bike
So many Googlers commute by bike every day that you can't easily look down a hallway and not see a bicycle or two leaning against the wall. Some people bike in from just a few miles away while others combine their commute with other training. I ride 40 miles from San Francisco to Mountain View (and back!) twice a week. Somehow, I'm much more awake and refreshed than I would have been if I sat in my car on 101 for an hour. Or more...
Google is a huge supporter of bike commuting, and Bike to Work Day is a real party in Mountain View. Cyclists can get Google-branded bike goodies, monthly onsite bicycle tune-ups, and classes on basic commuter skills, bike maintenance, touring - even how to ride your first century. But it doesn't matter what or how far you ride. Biking to work is a great way to get some exercise, save some gas, improve the environment, and most importantly of all, have fun!
this just in from Aparna Brown, Commuting Coordinator:
Since he was just named San Francisco County's Bike Commuter of the Year by the Bay Area Bicycle Coalition, Joe is the perfect Googler to write about bike commuting. As someone who only bikes 2.5 miles to work, I'm pretty darn impressed with his dedication to regular rides to work. To encourage others to bike to work, Joe and others will be leading rides to Mountain View from all over the Bay Area on Thursday. Watch for bikers with Google shirts and give them a friendly wave (from your bike, natch).
Plan Ahead
Straight from our tech team:
On May 20, 2005, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 9 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. PDT (US) due to system maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Search for the enterprise
Looking for a crucial file you lost somewhere on your computer? At home you’d use Google Desktop Search - and at work, you’d start updating your resume. Not anymore. Check out Google Desktop Search for the Enterprise: fast, secure (and free!) desktop search that you can actually use from 9 to 5.
A Video Uploader for the rest of us
As a Mac user, my heart sank a little when I first saw the post about the Google Video Upload Program. Clearly, the concept is cool. It was just that all-too-ubiquitous .exe file you must run to upload your videos. Of course I know that something like 90% of the desktop/notebook computers sold today run Windows. But in my circle of friends (admittedly a small one -- I blame the caffeine), almost everyone uses a Mac, and the rest use Linux or some other UNIX-like substance. Anyhow, this Video announcement inevitably led to a lot of flak (again) from my friends about how Google was shipping yet another Windows-only application. "I thought Google has lots of smart developers." "Doesn't Google know how to write platform independent software?" Blah, blah, blah.
But this time, I took it as a personal challenge. I shoot a lot of video, and I edit it on my Mac. How hard could it be to write a compatible video uploader that would run everywhere? As I soon discovered, not very hard at all. After all, I have access to the C++ source code for the existing Windows-specific uploader, and I can spend my 20% time working on whatever I want. And I have plenty of experience writing portable code, given that I program in Java.
Java comes pre-installed on the vast majority of operating systems in use today, or it's available as a free download from Sun. And software written in Java really, really does work across all those platforms, as a decade of work by software developers can attest. The Java mantra "Write once, run anywhere" is a reality -- it just works. Java programs also tend to be less buggy than their C/C++ counterparts, and programmers working in Java are a lot more productive - but these are topics for another post.
Anyway, now you can sign up for the Google Video Uploader for Macintosh, and ditto for Linux (and UNIX and Solaris and HP-UX and AIX and lots of other platforms). The same sign-up page goes to to the Windows version too. So now I can ponder a different problem - namely, which of my videos I want to share with the world.
A *Bold* New World
On this blog, we'll be showcasing tips from the AdWords team. Our first one is from Emel, an AdWords Specialist:
If your ad text includes a term from your keyword list, that term will appear in bold text when that word is in a user's search. This can help improve the clickthrough rate of your ad, as its relevance is highlighted to the user. So the next time you're writing a new ad, boldly experiment with using a keyword in the copy or title. Want more details? Take a look here.
Feed me
If you're like many savvy web users, you may be reading this via a feed reader, along with all the other blogs, newspapers, and other content that interests you. Whether a feed is Atom-enabled or RSS, it offers great flexibility for users and additional distribution for publishers. As with many promising technologies feeds haven't quite hit the mainstream yet, nor are the business models entirely sorted out.
Enter AdSense for feeds, launching today in beta. The idea is simple: advertisers have their ads placed in the most appropriate feed articles; publishers are paid for their original content; readers see relevant advertising - and in the long run, more quality feeds to choose from. Given the great flexibility that feeds can offer, it's essential to get the model right, especially so that readers are satisfied. Towards this end we have outlined what we believe are some best practices for advertising in feeds. Publishers who want to participate in the public beta can apply here.
So we heard this blogging thing is going to be huge...
Recently, we were putting the finishing touches on some really cool new features for AdWords, and our conversation turned to a common theme: We’re really proud of AdWords because we know it can help people worldwide advertise successfully, but we wish we had a better place to tell you about it. Lucky for us, the Blogger team works down the hall.
So, with that… Welcome to Inside AdWords!
Here’s what you’ll find when you visit adwords.blogspot.com…
- Updates on enhancements we've made to the system
- Thoughts on things that advertisers have been asking about
- Tips on getting the most from AdWords
- Details on tools we think you'll find useful
- Links to articles you might find interesting
That’s it. We’ll try and post every few days, and hope that you'll come back often.
And if you have suggestions for this site, send them to inside-adwords@google.com.
So, with that… Welcome to Inside AdWords!
Here’s what you’ll find when you visit adwords.blogspot.com…
- Updates on enhancements we've made to the system
- Thoughts on things that advertisers have been asking about
- Tips on getting the most from AdWords
- Details on tools we think you'll find useful
- Links to articles you might find interesting
That’s it. We’ll try and post every few days, and hope that you'll come back often.
And if you have suggestions for this site, send them to inside-adwords@google.com.
A Bay to Breakers break
The Bay to Breakers 12k run is a hallowed (if irreverent) Bay Area tradition that starts at San Francisco's Embarcadero (the Bay), and ends in Golden Gate Park (sort of close to the breakers of the Pacific - ok, it's a bit of poetic license). Though serious runners compete, the streets are clogged with up to 70,000 hardy souls —
— a mix of halfway decent and annual runners, often in costume (or not; there's a band of nude runners too).
Today's 94th race included more than 40 Googlers running as the "We're Feeling Lucky" team. We ran for fun and to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Our "Lucky" Team "donned special T-shirts emblazoned with the hurdles doodle from the 2004 Summer Olympics on the front, and individual letters that collectively spell GOOOOOOOGLE on the back. Faster runners got the G-O tees, and well, the rest of us got O-O-G-L-E.
Of course, we did a little advertising. This was a good crowd to inform that as always, we're hiring.
Q&A: the world tour
When we launched Google Q&A, we told you it was just the beginning. Today marks the start of the Google Q&A world tour -- we're kicking off with the UK (who's the prime minister again?), Ireland (what's the population of Dublin?), Canada (how many people live there?), Australia (what's the capital?), and New Zealand (how big is it, anyway?). So now I can't say it's still just the beginning, but it's still very early. We're putting together a lot of new information like this to help you get the quickest possible answers to all your questions, so keep checking back for more.
(updated with a new link)
Mini goes Euro
Turns out that businesses in London, Madrid and Dusseldorf have the same headaches as those in Chicago or Vancouver: they can't find that sales presentation on the company intranet. Or customers fill up the support line with calls for info that's actually on the website. Google Mini to the rescue. So now it's for sale in the UK and throughout the EU.
Library access
As a graduate student at Virginia Tech, I spent many an hour reading volumes of Machine Learning Journal on the fourth floor of Newman Library. Libraries are known for their vast print collections, but that's not the end of the story. I often found interesting citations on the web and wished I could read the articles right then on my computer screen, saving a trip to the library.
My wish is now becoming a reality: most academic libraries these days subscribe to electronic versions of journals that authorized patrons can read on their own computers. And today we're launching a feature in Google Scholar that lets people read their academic library's subscriptions directly from their Google Scholar search results. Students at more than 100 participating universities will see links to such library resources as electronic delivery, print catalogs, and interlibrary loan.
We are deeply grateful to libraries and library software vendors who worked with us to define and implement library access in Google Scholar. Thirty organizations have participated in the pilot project that led to this launch, and many more have offered their help. We hope that library access in Google Scholar will help researchers like myself discover relevant information so they can build on the work of others and 'stand on the shoulders of giants.'
One more way to access Local UK
We were on a roll after we launched Google Local UK last month, and went on to build a mobile web browser version of Google Local for our UK users. Users can now access Local on their mobile by going straight to the Local home page (that's http://mobile.google.co.uk/local) or the Google UK home page (a.k.a. http://www.google.co.uk/xhtml). So we say: step away from that computer. Click a few buttons on your keypad and head to that new Thai restaurant near Piccadilly Circus. If you're slightly disoriented once away from the screen, Local gives you Google Maps and driving directions too.
Updated with visible URLs.
They are among us
There's no cause for alarm, but we wish to note that millions of people walking around *right now* are carrying little blogging devices. That's what we on the Blogger team call them, anyway. Others might refer to them as "mobile phones." It's all semantics.
The point is, we've launched Blogger Mobile. It's nothing fancy, really. All you need to do to use it is send an email or MMS from your phone to go@blogger.com - and that's it. We automatically create your blog, and whatever text or photos (or both) you send in the message becomes your post. Continue posting by sending more messages to go@blogger.com and congratulations: you are a blogger.
There's also this part we call "claiming your blog." That means you visit go.blogger.com and enter the token we send to your phone. When you sign in with this token, you get full Blogger access to all of your various settings, plus the ability to switch your posts to an existing blog if you already have one.
You may now use a mobile device to create and update your blog while you're on-the-go. See? Little blogging appliances — they are among us.
Switch!
To make the Google Blog a bit easier to manage behind the scenes, we're now publishing it to its new home at Blogspot: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
Newsreader users shouldn't have to re-subscribe; the Atom feed is being redirected to its new URL. We've also updated the design a bit, and added a blogroll. Let us know what you think.
Time waits for no one
My dentist told me I needed to floss more.
That's a big demand for a Googler's busy lifestyle. Where do you find the time to floss - less foosball, shorter lunches, skip out on ultimate frisbee? Hardly!
This calls out loud and clear for a way to optimize time. One mundane time-waster we all contend with, for example, is waiting for web pages to load. The tantalizing promise of a web page is only seconds away. But even on broadband, the wait's too short to do something else - and just long enough to be irritating. Let's face it, those seconds add up.
As you may have noticed, we're slightly obsessed with speed around here. When you search on Google.com, your results are returned to you within fractions of a second. And now comes Google Web Accelerator. After you download it, we hope you'll enjoy that same Google-fast experience across the rest of the web. After all, seconds add up to minutes.
Dentists everywhere will be smiling.
TV treasure hunt
Before a recent trip to Hong Kong and Taipei, I'd heard that a major Taipei attraction is the food at night markets. So I did a search on Google Video for Taipei night markets, and was pleasantly surprised to see that there's a PBS show called "Burt Wolf: Travels & Traditions." And before my trip it aired an episode on Taiwan. The first segment of the show focused on, yes, night markets. Perfect. After watching it, I knew enough to jostle among the locals and eat incredible treats like dou hua, dumplings, squid stew and oyster omelets.
We've been working to bring more video content online since we launched Google Video in late January, and have just added 12 new channels - among them CNN and the Discovery Channel - giving me way more TV info to unearth.
It's an honor
Dear Sergey and Larry, I want to extend my personal congratulations to you both on your election to the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It is a most well-deserved honor that recognizes your accomplishments and vision both technological and societal. I am proud to have you join us in the AAAS, which has among its members the most accomplished individuals since the Academy was formed in 1780 by some of our nation's founding fathers. Welcome, and congratulations again.
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