Google creates lightning, shoots spud!

by Marketing ON 6 May 2010

Google’s latest Chrome ad is near a dead certain viral.

The search company has released a new video spruiking its internet browser, Chrome. The ad looks at the browser’s search speed – pitting it against a variation on the spud gun, the speed of sound and… lightning. It plays on an element of weird science in the tradition of Myth Busters and was produced in house.

Chrome has just released a new beta version. The brand claims the browser’s performance has improved by as much as 213% and 305% since its first iteration depending on the benchmark.

Google compares ads

by Marketing ON 2 November 2009

Google has announced it will trial Comparison Ads, displaying multiple offers to users for certain search terms.

The new service caters to more ambiguous search queries where precise targeting is difficult. Google gives the example of users searching ‘mortgage’ – instead of offering traditional single offer advertising, the search engine will offer a cross-section of options hoping to deepen user engagement with advertising.

“If they click the promotion, users are taken to a page with more detailed sponsored results. They can choose directly from the offers listed on that page, or they can further refine their search by providing additional information like income and home value. By giving users the ability to refine their search on a number of relevant attributes, we are able to show more targeted ads and provide you with more valuable leads,” said Dan Friedman on Google’s Adwords blog.

During the beta trial the service is available only to residents of certain US states and advertisers in the mortgage/refinancing space, though Google intends to opens this up over the course of the trial.

The Good, the Bad and the new Facebook Ads Manager

by David Iwanow ON 27 October 2009

Facebook is continuing to improve solutions for advertisers with a recent upgrade to its Ads Manager. While still in beta I have been testing it for a few weeks with my own client campaigns and it will be rolled out across all accounts in the next few months.

The new Ads Manager interface seeks to assist larger advertisers and agencies with a range of new features allowing users to quickly check the real time performance of ads. It now also follows AdWords’ hierarchical structure with a top level overview of all campaigns for quick review and changes. In a similar vein, Reports, Billing, Settings and Pages navigation has been given greater prominence on the left hand menu.

Similar to Google AdWords’ new interface, users now have improved navigation between sections and inline ad editing. This new structure seeks to increase ease-of-use in making rapid optimisation to multiple creative executions, targeting, bids and campaign budgets. The bulk upload feature is also due out soon which will make it possible to run very large campaigns: currently large campaigns can be very time consuming because of the interface.

The new campaign page shows an overview of all high level statistics advertisers need. A redesigned interface enables easy editing of multiple campaigns at once. It also makes tracking campaigns easier, with all campaign information and messages displayed at the top of the interface, in addition to customisable graphs at the bottom of each page.

The billing section has been improved but still only allows for one credit card to be used for payments. The ability to run multiple client projects remains difficult without an admin feature similar to My Client Center available in Google AdWords.

Reporting functionality still has a lot of catch-up to play in order to match other advertising or affiliate networks in ease of use and ability to automate campaign reporting. This can make the tracking of campaigns more time consuming as you are locked into the Facebook interface.

The most requested feature currently is the ability to integrate conversion/goal tracking within Facebook, which could mitigate client complaints over lower CTR for campaign ads. Speaking widely, Facebook campaigns can benefit clients in providing demographic guidance.

One strange feature is the ability to set start and end times for a campaign, but there is still no option for dayparting and the daily budget is still set to reset at 12am PST (6pm GMT+10).

Facebook offers business and marketers a whole new channel, but it does require more care and planning initially. Under the new interface, this is getting easier.

David Iwanow is in no way affiliated with Facebook and has yet to be lucky enough to receive any large baskets of cash for comment.

Google AdWords out of beta

by Marketing ON 3 August 2009

Google has removed AdWords’ beta tag.

The move comes with a new interface for the flagship advertising program. The new interface began testing in March within Australia and New Zealand.

Through implementing user feedback, the updated interface makes account management more intuitive, campaign navigation simpler, data more accessible and sees the addition of new features, according to the company.

Improved and new features include:

Performance graphs: Quickly recognise trends in your account performance via custom graphs on every page
Roll-up tabs: Identify top priorities by viewing and editing all keywords, placements or ads in an account on a single tab
Networks tab: Improve performance on the content network by looking at site-level statistics and making changes directly from your reports
Spreadsheet editing: Make efficient bulk edits to keyword lists by using spreadsheets directly in your account
In-line editing: Make faster adjustments with single-click editing that doesn’t require loading a separate page
Filters: View only the keywords, ads or other parts of your account that meet or miss the performance thresholds you specify, and
In-context help articles: Get answers in the right place at the right time.