Forrrrre Your Rehearsal
Local flavor for Google Suggest
Today we're happy to announce the international launch of Google Suggest. We've localized our suggestions to account for various cultural and local factors to offer suggestions that look familiar to our users. For example, English users in different countries will get suggestions that feel natural:
- If you type [liver] in the U.K., you're probably a Liverpool fan (but in the U.S. you'll get more suggestions about liver diseases):
- In Australia, typing [kan] will offer suggestions about Australia's most famous animal:
- In India, where the mobile phone market is exploding, it's no wonder that typing [no] leads to:
- In Ireland, there are [pubs] everywhere:
- While in the Maldives, typing [ato] leads to:
So go ahead and start using Google Suggest wherever you are, and enjoy the special flavor of local suggestions.
Posted by David Kadouch, Product Manager
Analytics in Latin America
In Latin America, online advertising is growing as more and more small businesses initiate an online presence and publicize their efforts through search and display advertising. But less than 5% of web properties throughout Latin America rely on analysis tools to improve their website's performance. Last week, our offices throughout the region hosted several Analytics-themed events to give agencies and other clients a better look at several Google measurement tools that provide people with the means to analyze their site's flow of data, interest and readership in order to build a better advertising campaign.
In Mexico City, advertisers got together to learn about Insights for Search, Ad Planner, YouTube Insights, Analytics, Sitemaps and Website Optimizer, as well as DoubleClick tools. Presentations were designed to give companies an in-depth look at the Google tools that can be helpful for planning their marketing budgets during an economic downturn. Being able to measure data on what content interests people and where consumers are searching for information can help advertisers be more selective about how they invest ad budget. Since the great majority of consumers go online for information before making a purchase, the goal of the seminar was to familiarize advertisers with tools that can increase the reach of their campaigns, while giving them a better idea of what works and what people are searching for.
Meanwhile, our Analytics guru Avinash Kaushik visited São Paulo and Buenos Aires to speak to clients about web analytics and how to make the most of online marketing through analyzing metrics (check out his recent post on bounce rate for related information). Avinash made web analytics fun and accessible with colloquial comparisons (referring sites as 'BFFs'), and demonstrated how to optimize a website's performance with changes in color and layout, among other things. He was accompanied by Google's Latin America managing director Alexandre Hohagen, Brazil's country manager Alex Dias, and Argentina's country manager Adriana Noreña at a succession of events revolving around web metrics and website optimization.
The response and interest from customers and agencies to all of these events was indicative of the huge need for metrics and the ability to track ROI for their marketing investments, especially during these difficult times. For more information on Google Analytics tools, check out the Google Analytics Blog, the Website Optimizer Blog and the Conversion Room blog.
Posted by Alfonso Luna, Marketing Director, Latin America
Bowling Rehearsal Dinner!
Google's newest venture
At its core, Google Ventures is charged with finding and helping to develop exceptional start-ups. We'll be focusing on early stage investments across a diverse range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care and, no doubt, other areas we haven't thought of yet. Central to our effort will be our fellow Googlers, whom we view as a critically important resource to help educate us about potential investments areas and evaluate specific companies.
Economically, times are tough, but great ideas come when they will. If anything, we think the current downturn is an ideal time to invest in nascent companies that have the chance to be the "next big thing," and we'll be working hard to find them. If you think you have the next big idea, or if you just want to to learn more, please see our website at www.google.com/ventures.
Posted by Rich Miner and Bill Maris, Managing Partners, Google Ventures
Email in Indian languages
When you compose a new mail in Gmail, you should now see an icon with an Indian character, as the screenshot below shows. This feature is enabled by default for Gmail users in India. If you do not see this function enabled by default, you will need to go the "Settings" page and enable this option in the "Language" section.
When you click the Indian languages icon, you can type words the way they sound in English and Gmail will automatically convert the word to its Indian local language equivalent. For example, if a Hindi speaker types "namaste" we will transliterate this to "नमस्ते." Similarly, "vanakkam" in Tamil will become "வணக்கம்." We currently support five Indian languages -- Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam -- and you can select the language of your choice from the drop-down list next to the icon.
We built this new feature using Google's transliteration technology, which is also available on Google India Labs, Orkut, Blogger and iGoogle. I hope you find this feature useful to communicate with those of your friends and family who prefer to write in their native language, and it will be available soon to businesses and schools using Google Apps. Now back to replying to all those Hindi emails I got from my family and friends today!
Posted by Chandramouli Mahadevan, Software Engineer
Update: ad:tech San Francisco discount
Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team
Rich Media and Video templates in display ad builder
- Show off multiple products and services: If you're providing many products and services, the new templates allow you to display multiple products within your ad. This feature can also benefit advertisers looking to brand by allowing them to tell a sequential story within the ad, such as "Explore, Buy, Save," where you could have an image representing each concept.
- Use multiple destination URLs: If you're displaying multiple products within your ad, the new templates allow you to assign a different destination URL to each featured product, rather than directing users who click to a single, generic page that may be less targeted. This can help improve conversion rates, making your marketing more cost-efficient. Note that all the top-level domains of each destination URL within an ad must match.
- Track interactions: Like with all our display ad templates, you'll automatically see a reporting column,"Mouseover rate," which shows the percentage of impressions where a user moused over your ad for one or more consecutive seconds. In addition, some rich media and video templates will track unique interactions, like the play rate for video ads; these will be displayed in a new "Interaction Rate" column. The actual interaction being tracked will vary based on the template you've chosen.
- Use video: If you have video ad files, you can upload them to our new Click to Play video template, which allows you to choose starting and ending images, pick a display URL color, and run your ads across the Google Content Network.
- Get creative: Last week, we announced new coupon templates, which allow you to set discounts and change prices within your ad. You can use these templates in the same way, offering multiple discounted products and allowing users to choose those that most interest them. Along with each image in your ad, you can include an accompanying description line that you can use to provide coupon codes, prices, and product information. This is just one of many ways to think and market "outside the box" with these rich media and video templates.
Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew
Getting your Medicare records in Google Health
The pilot is one of several CMS programs to test out how the government can give beneficiaries secure access to their medical data online. Before I came to Google, I worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which houses CMS. At the time, the idea of giving beneficiaries access to their own Medicare claims data in electronic format was just that — an idea. Today, it's becoming a reality. And given the more than $19 billion investment the government is making in Health IT as part of the stimulus package, now is the perfect time.
As a part-time caregiver to my mother who has a serious chronic illness and someone who just lost both elderly grandparents in the past four months to illness, I can see the benefit of having all of my family’s medical information organized in one place. When Google Health launched last year, I promptly set up accounts for my mother and both grandparents. But at the time, I found it frustrating that I was not able to access electronic copies of my grandparents' Medicare claims — where most of their medical data resided.
The Medicare Arizona and Utah pilot is designed to give beneficiaries choice in the tools they use to manage their medical records online. Google Health is one of four personal health records (PHR) that beneficiaries can choose from. While only traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries with a primary residence in Arizona and Utah are eligible to participate, this includes nearly 1.1 million beneficiaries living in those regions.
For beneficiaries who choose to participate, it's important to know that Medicare does not have access to information in your Google Health Account — Medicare will only be sending data to your Account. Beneficiaries who participate in the pilot will still have access to data imported into their Google Health Accounts after the pilot concludes at the end of 2009. And with the recently launched Google Health sharing feature, any beneficiary enrolled in this pilot can now share this data with family members and doctors in their care network.
If I had this type of electronic access to my grandparents' medical records during my family's medical crisis, it would have been a huge help to me. I applaud CMS for taking this big step towards empowering consumers with access to their own health records.
If you're a Medicare beneficiary living in Arizona or Utah and are interested in participating in the pilot, you can get started here.
Posted by Missy Krasner, Product Marketing Manager, Google Health
Rockin' Rehearsal Dinner!
Question: Who says your rehearsal dinner has to be a stuffy event, with pomp and circumstance?
Answer: No one!
Why not have a HUGE Rock Band Rehearsal, cater in some BBQ, or your favorite foods - have two Rock Band set ups, and you are good to go! I have to tell you from experience, Rock Band is so much fun! And really, anyone can do it! Because, frankly, if I can, you can!
Here are some pictures from our Rock Band Party...
The 2009 Spelman College CS Olympiad
One of the five events was the programming challenge, which for the second time was a Google Gadgets competition. Their task? To build an interactive, useful, and creative Google Gadget. Teams worked on their gadget concept and design prior to the Olympiad, and then brought their gadgets to a Friday night hack session, where Googlers and students worked together to debug the gadgets and make last-minute adjustments. At the conclusion of the workshop, teams presented their gadgets to a panel of three Googler judges, demonstrating gadget functionalities, discussing design challenges, and providing suggestions for how they would further refine their gadgets. Our judges were then faced with the tough task of deciding upon the winners:
- First Place: Hampton University "2011"
- Second Place: University of the District of Columbia "Firebirds"
- Third Place: Norfolk State University "Green"
Congratulations to all 22 teams!
Posted by Anna Davda, University Programs Specialist
An hour for the Earth
Cities around the world will participate in Earth Hour on Saturday, turning off their lights to raise awareness for energy conservation.
You might remember that last year we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage during Earth Hour to symbolize our own commitment to sustainability. We won’t be turning out the lights on our homepage again this year. Our users come first, and while we received lots of enthusiastic feedback last year, some found an all-black Google.com to be a little confusing. (Also, darkened screens don’t actually save energy — modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display.) We are actively supporting this year's Vote Earth, an Earth Hour 2009 initiative to gather one billion words to present at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December of this year. Participants can share their opinions about climate change through the Earth Connect social platform which incorporates Google tools including Google Maps, App Engine, Friend Connect, Google Translate, Blogger and Feedburner.
After all, Earth Hour is about more than dimming lights; it’s about making a commitment to reduce energy consumption throughout the year. At Google, we take this commitment seriously and over the past twelve months we’ve worked hard to reduce Google’s own power use and to help others reduce theirs:
- We remodeled our San Francisco office to achieve a Gold rating by the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Green Building Rating System
- Our engineers are working on a tool called Google PowerMeter that will show consumers home energy information almost in real time, right on their computer
- We’ve designed the most efficient data centers possible and are sharing some of our best practices with industry peers
- In the fall we compiled tips and tricks to help our users save energy (and money)
- Our summit on plug-in vehicles in Washington was standing room only, with policy, technology, and energy experts all discussing an electric vehicle future
Posted by Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar
Friday Fun Pic!
Beta expansion: Try the new AdWords interface
- Performance graphs: Spot trends over time with custom graphs on every campaign management page.
- Insight across ad groups: Focus on the high-impact areas of your account with new roll-up tabs on every page. You can see and edit keywords, placements or ads from all ad groups on a single tab.
- In-line editing: Want to change a keyword or bid? Click on it and make changes in-line instead of loading a separate page.
- Easier content network management: Improve content network performance through a new Networks tab. Look at statistics for the placements where your ads have appeared, and then take action by setting unique bids or excluding placements directly from the report.
Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew
Changes to our sales and marketing organizations
So today we have informed Googlers that we plan to reduce the number of roles within our sales and marketing organizations by just under 200 globally. Making changes of this kind is never easy—and we recognize that the recession makes the timing even more difficult for the Googlers concerned. We did look at a number of different options but ultimately concluded that we had to restructure our organizations in order to improve our effectiveness and efficiency as a business. We will give each person time to try and find another position at Google, as well as outplacement support, and provide severance packages for those who leave the company. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone affected for all they have contributed to Google.
Posted by Omid Kordestani, Senior VP, Global Sales and Business Development
Digital Marketing Lessons from the President
The 2008 election ushered in a new era of political campaigns, with digital media playing an unprecedented role in helping elect President Barack Obama. Campaign New Media Director Joe Rospars called Google the "backbone of the campaign's online advertising outreach".1 Using a combination of search and contextual advertising, a YouTube Brand Channel, Google Analytics, Google Checkout, and Google Docs, President Obama's new media team was able to effectively fundraise, communicate, mobilize, and measure2. The results? Email team head Stephen Geer says search advertising led to a "ridiculously" high return on investment of fifteen to one.3
As agencies on the forefront of digital marketing, what of our president’s online strategies can you replicate to help your clients meet their ROI goals? Here are some vital questions to ask and best practices:
1. Is your client's primary goal a purchase or donation? Make it easy for supporters to donate by featuring shopping cart buttons front and center on the landing page. Take it one step further and promote integration with Google Checkout, as the Obama campaign did on its YouTube channel.
2. Has your client received publicity (either good or bad)? Use search ads to maximize the impact of positive publicity and to help with issue management when negative news emerges. The Obama team did this throughout the campaign, effectively updating search ad text to capitalize on the stories that were leading the news.
3. Is your client looking for new ways to reach potential customers? Expand the user base and support consumer engagement through social media and YouTube. The Obama campaign leveraged YouTube by regularly posting fresh video content and allowing viewers to comment on and share results. See for yourself, here:
4. Does your client need to drive local offline action? The Obama campaign effectively pushed supporters to attend rallies and get out the vote, with geo-targeted search and display ads that provided localized information.4 If your client has localized or offline objectives, you can support them by promoting business locations through search ads, Local Business Ads, and listing in the Local Business Center.
5. Are your client's campaigns running successfully? Always be sure to measure success with tools such as Google Analytics, and use the data to make improvements.
Sources:
[1] and [3] “The 2008 Google Docs Campaign,” Eric Kuhn, The Huffington Post, February 1, 2009 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kuhn/the-2008-google-docs-camp_b_162958.html
[2] "Obama Saw Ridiculously High ROI from Google Ads", Colin Delaney, TechPresident, February 2, 2009 http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/33718/obama_campaign_saw_ridiculously_high_roi_from_google_ads
[4] The New York Times, A1, Sunday, March 2, 2008; "Spending Heavily, Obama Attempts Knockout Blow"
Posted by Peter Greenberger, Elections & Issue Advocacy Team