Making the operations match the strategy with DFP Mobile

Yesterday, we announced DFP Mobile, our new mobile module for the DFP ad serving platform. DFP Mobile gives publishers access to an expanded set of mobile features including extended mobile rich media capabilities, advanced targeting options, better support for feature phones, and tighter integrations with Google AdSense, AdMob, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and mobile ad networks.

To learn more about DFP Mobile, join us at OPS Mobile, AdMonsters' mobile advertising conference, which will be held December 7, 2011 in New York. Register today to hear Marcel Gordon, DFP Mobile Product Manager, and Chris LaSala, Director of Mobile Partnerships, speak about how you can capture opportunities beyond the desktop with DFP Mobile.

You can also view Marcel’s recent Q&A with AdMonsters about DFP Mobile here.

Posted by Stephen Kliff, Product Marketing Manager

Capture the mobile opportunity with DFP Mobile

Mobile devices offer many new and exciting opportunities for businesses. But mobile devices are not simply smaller versions of the desktop - these devices, and the mobile ecosystem as a whole, are unique. In order to succeed in this ecosystem, businesses must build specifically for mobile. Our recent 'GoMo' campaign has helped businesses develop websites that are optimized for mobile.

Similarly, there are mobile-specific challenges for publishers who want to serve ads on smartphones and tablets. There are thousands of different mobile devices running on multiple platforms on the market today, and a lack of technical standards as to how to serve ads across all these different phones and tablets. Publishers need technology that helps them navigate the complexities of the mobile ads marketplace, but that also connects to the rest of their ad operations, so that they can operate as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.

To help our publisher partners solve these challenges, we have rolled out an extended set of mobile features with the new DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Mobile, designed to complement the core mobile ad serving functionality released this summer.

DFP Mobile gives publishers access to an expanded set of mobile features. This includes extended mobile rich media capabilities, with built-in support for rich HTML5 ads such as video interstitials and templates for you to include your own more complex ad formats in a scalable way. DFP Mobile also offers advanced targeting options, better support for feature phones, and tighter integrations with Google AdSense, AdMob, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and mobile ad networks.

We've heard from our publisher partners that they want to be able to manage their mobile campaigns using the same tools that they use for the rest of their ad serving. For example, Billy Shipp, Director of Ad Operations at Flixster said “Not having to go to a separate interface to manage inventory, to set up campaigns, to pull reports, to optimize campaigns - having all of that in a single workflow makes it so much easier for ad operations folks to be effective because it gives them that global view of how a campaign is performing. The fact that we can use a single ad server and have all that information available in one place is a big win for us.” DFP Mobile is fully integrated with the DFP ad serving platform to help publishers streamline operations, create sales efficiencies, and leverage the power of DFP for their mobile business. 

Publishers will also have more options when working with third parties. DFP Mobile can fetch mobile rich media ads directly from integrated rich media partners, decreasing latency and reducing discrepancies. Leading mobile rich media vendors such as Celtra have already integrated with DFP Mobile to help streamline operations for their partners. “The combination of DFP with Celtra’s innovative ad formats and analytics gives our premium publisher and ad network partners more rich media options to maximize mobile revenues and user engagement” said Grant Stratemeyer, VP of Business Development at Celtra.

Plus, later this week, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange will be rolling out the ability for publishers to opt-in mobile web inventory using the newly supported 320x50 banner size. With this functionality, publishers will have a range of options for monetizing their inventory, and can reach new pools of demand, potentially improving their returns.

This DFP Mobile release complements last month’s launch of DFP Video, to give publishers a truly unified experience for all screens, formats, and devices. With DFP, we’re committed to building best-in-class ad serving products for all channels within a single platform that works seamlessly across desktop, video and mobile.

To learn how you can begin selling across all screens with DFP Mobile, please contact us.

Posted by Marcel Gordon, Product Manager

Enhanced advertiser-level controls and insights in DoubleClick Ad Exchange

Today, we’re happy to announce the roll-out of a new advertiser classification system that automatically scans and classifies each creative using sophisticated machine learning technologies to determine the associated advertiser or advertisers. This means that publishers can more easily and reliably block specific advertisers across all campaigns and buyers.

We focused on an algorithmic solution to this complex challenge, versus a more manual “self-declared” approach for buyers, which can often lead to inaccuracies such as misspellings or misclassifications. This quarter we are introducing this feature with coverage for the top 50 advertisers with a large expansion in advertiser coverage planned soon.

Further taking advantage of this new advertiser-level data, we’re now also able to give our publishers better insights into individual advertiser spending, CPMs and performance to help inform their overall sales efforts. Ad Exchange’s existing multi-dimensional reporting tool now includes an “advertiser” field dimension. This new field will allow publishers to slice and dice their data and see which advertisers are driving the most revenue by geography, domain, channel and a variety of other criteria.

Current Ad Exchange publishers can learn more about this new feature in the help center. If you’re not using Ad Exchange, you can contact your DoubleClick account representative to learn more about all of the ways we’re helping publishers profit from non-guaranteed sales on their terms.

Posted by Drew Bradstock, Product Manager

Grow your audience with Google+

(Originally posted on the Inside AdSense blog)

At Google, we help grow your audience by connecting you with new users. We introduced the +1 button so your site would stand out on search and your users could easily share your content on Google+. But, sometimes you want to join the conversation and post content directly to where people are sharing.

Today we’re introducing Google+ for Business, a collection of tools and products that help you grow your audience. At the core of this is Google+ Pages, your site’s identity on Google+.

Google+ Pages: Have real conversations with the right people
To get your site on Google+, you first need to create a Google+ Page. On your page, you can engage in conversations with your visitors, direct readers back to your site for the latest updates, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1’s you have across the web. Google+ Pages will help you build relationships with your users, encouraging them to spend more time engaging with your content.

Google+ Pages are at the heart of Google+ for Business

Hangouts

Sometimes you might want to chat with your users face-to-face.  For example, if you run a food blog, you may want to invite a chef to talk about her favorite recipe, or if you manage a fashion review site, beauty specialists might want to hold how-to sessions with makeup tips. Hangouts make this easy, by letting you have high-quality video chats with nine people with a single click. You can use Hangouts to hold live forums, break news or simply get to know people better, all in real time.

Hangouts let you meet your customers, face-to-face

Circles

Circles allow you to group followers of your Page into smaller audiences. You can then share specific messages with specific groups. For example, you could create a Circle containing your most loyal readers and offer them exclusive content. 

The Google+ badge: Grow your audience on Google+
To help your users find your page and start sharing, there are two buttons you can add to your site by visiting our Google+ badge configuration tool:

The Google+ icon, a small icon that directly links to your Page.

The Google+ badge, which we’re introducing in the coming days. This badge lets people add your page to their circles without leaving your site, and allows them to get updates from your site via Google+.

Extend the power of +1, stand out in Google search
You can also link your site to your Google+ page so that all your +1s -- from your Page, your website, and search results -- will get tallied together and appear as a single total. Potential visitors will be more likely to see the recommendations your site has received, whether they’re looking at a search result, your website, or your Page, meaning your +1’s will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day. You can link your site to your Page either using the Google+ badge or with a  piece of code. To set this up, visit our Google+ badge configuration tool.

Bringing Google+ to the rest of Google 

Our ultimate vision for Google+ is to transform the overall Google experience -- weaving identity and sharing into all of our products. Beginning today, we’re rolling out a new experimental feature to a small group of eligible publishers,Google+ Direct Connect -- an easy way for your audience to find your Google+ Page on Google search.  If you’ve linked your Page to your site and you qualify, when someone searches for your website’s name with the ‘+’ sign before it Direct Connect will send them directly to your Page. For example, try searching for ‘+YouTube’ on Google. Users will also be prompted to automatically add Pages they find through Direct Connect to their circles. 

Direct Connect suggestions start populating as you type on Google.com

Just the beginning
We want to help you get your site on Google+ as soon as possible, so we’re opening the field trial for Google+ Pages to everyone today. Creating a Google+ Page only takes a few minutes. To get started, you’ll need a personal Google+ profile. If you don’t have a Google account, it’s very quick and easy to join. And if you’re looking for inspiration, check out some of the sites that are already starting to set up their Pages:

To learn more about how Google+ works for your site, check out the Google+ Your Business site. We’re just getting started, and have many more features planned for the coming weeks and months. To keep up to date on the latest news and tips, add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. If you have ideas on how we can improve Google+ for your site, we’d love to hear them.

Posted by Dennis Troper, Product Management Director, Google+ Pages

Bringing AdMob Mobile Inventory to the DoubleClick Ad Exchange

(Cross posted from the DoubleClick Advertiser Blog)

In 2009, we launched the DoubleClick Ad Exchange as a way to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, drive performance for our advertiser and publisher partners, and open up the display marketplace. In the two years since, exchange-based trading has taken off -- we’ve seen the volume of trades on our own exchange grow by more than 150% in the past year. At the same time, display, as a medium, has evolved.

Display started as just banner ads on websites, but has grown to include a range of formats as diverse as the web itself -- rich media ads that bring a page to life, in-stream ads that play before your favorite online video, and ads that run in the mobile version of your daily newspaper. To reflect this growing diversity, we have been expanding the types of formats in the Exchange. We support the most popular types of rich media ads, including units that run in-page with video, or expand when you click or mouse over them. It’s also possible to buy ads across the mobile web. Earlier this year, we announced that in-stream video formats were coming to the Exchange, and we’ve seen huge demand since launch: the number of buyers for in-stream video has tripled over the past quarter.

Today, we are announcing another step forward -- in the coming weeks, AdMob developers will be able to make their in-app inventory available on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Initially, a small number of pre-qualified buyers will be able to compete for this inventory. Over time, we'll be rolling it out more broadly. Ultimately, this will give app developers and publishers access to a wider pool of buyers like demand-side platforms and agency trading desks, improving their potential returns, and helping grow the overall mobile web economy. And marketers on our Exchange will be able to buy, in real time, ads that run inside people’s favorite mobile games, news apps and more. With this important addition, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange will be truly cross-format...and will become the first exchange to support this full range of ad formats.

VivaKi, one of our key partners on the Exchange, is gearing up to start buying in-app ads on the Exchange. “We are delighted to be working with Google as they open up the DoubleClick Ad Exchange to include AdMob in-app inventory, and to deliver this opportunity to our clients,” says Kurt Unkel, Senior Vice President, VivaKi Nerve Center. “We anticipate this experience will help us bring mobile to scale to our partners, and will provide insight into the operational elements and the creative assets that work best in this environment.”

A cross-format exchange is just one of the ways we’re looking to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, but one we think will create tremendous value for advertisers and publishers. We will continue to work with our partners to help them get the most out of what the evolving display market has to offer -- today, tomorrow, and in the years ahead.

Posted by Chip Hall, Director, DoubleClick Ad Exchange

GoMo: Helping businesses create a mobile friendly website

(Originally posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

On a crisp fall day, a young person uses his smartphone to find a store that sells scarves. He searches, finds your site, and clicks-thru, prepared to browse your inventory of scarves, or find your store nearby and buy one. But, after he clicks to your site he runs into trouble - it doesn't load fully, and he spends more time zooming-in and squinting than he does looking at scarves! Frustrated, he gives up and looks for another scarf store. You lose a potential customer.
This happens hundreds, even thousands of times every day because most businesses’ websites don’t work well on smartphones. The most important thing you can do to grow your business using the mobile web is to create a mobile-friendly website.  So today we’re launching an initiative called GoMo that helps businesses “Go Mobile”.

What’s a mobile-friendly site?  It’s a website designed specifically for mobile users and mobile devices.  It’s fast to load and easy to use—no pinching and zooming required.  Some great examples are right here.

Every day more and more of your customers are looking for you…on mobile devices.  If you don’t have a site that works for mobile, you’re missing out.  61% of users are unlikely to return to a site that’s not mobile-friendly.1  On the other hand, customers embrace sites that are built for mobile--consumer engagement increases by 85% with a website designed for mobile devices.2

So, are you ready to Go Mo?  Visit howtogomo.com where you’ll find the resources you need to learn about what makes a good mobile site and to start building one.

 See how your site performs on mobile phones with the GoMoMeter.

Here’s what you’ll find at howtogomo.com:

• See what your customers see.  Enter a website address into the GoMoMeter and see what your site looks like on a mobile phone.  The GoMoMeter will analyze your site and give you customized recommendations on how to make your site more mobile friendly.  You can even download a free customized report!
• Learn about why mobile matters:  Cool infographics and the latest data will help you learn more about mobile trends and why mobile-friendly sites really matter.
• Get inspired by great examples: Look at the mobile sites of businesses who are doing it right and learn how to make your site better with our ten mobile site best practices.
• Find a mobile site builder who can help: Check out our list of mobile site developers who can help you build your mobile website.

Check out this video to learn more about howtogomo.com and how it can help your business.

You can register for our webinar “Making Mobile-Friendly Websites: Best Practices in Action,” which will take place on November 10 at 11 am PST/ 2 pm EST.  And check this blog all week; we’ll be featuring lots of great mobile site tips and new case studies.

Mobile is critical to your business, and now GoMo makes it easy for you to make your mobile-friendly site.  So, no more excuses!  Check out howtogomo.com and Go Mobile!
1,2Compuware and Brand Anywhere and Luth Research

Posted by Jesse Haines, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

Introducing Minimum CPM Recommendations on DoubleClick Ad Exchange

With the growth of exchange-based buying and real-time bidding, media buyers are becoming increasingly sophisticated at optimizing their bids. In tandem, we’ve heard from our publisher partners that they would like to better manage their minimum CPM, sometimes called the reserve or floor price, which dictates the minimum price at which buyers can purchase their inventory.

But setting the best minimum price can be tricky. Setting it too high can price publishers out of transactions, while setting it too low can sometimes leave money on the table. Many publishers optimize their minimum CPM using a trial and error approach, which can be time consuming and potentially costly.

Today, we’re happy to announce the launch of Minimum CPM Recommendations for DoubleClick Ad Exchange publishers. This feature automatically recommends an optimal minimum cpm for each eligible ad slot in the Ad Exchange auction. It also automatically generates a graph that provides better visibility into how different floor prices might affect a publisher's bottom line.

To deliver these recommendations, we created an algorithm that analyzes all historical transactions for each publisher's ad slots, also taking into account factors like traffic patterns, to better understand and predict supply and demand trends. As always, we are also careful to ensure that individual advertiser bids are not exposed and that the integrity of the Ad Exchange auction is protected. Initial results with early beta testers indicate an average 20% revenue lift for adopted recommendations.

Ad Exchange publishers can take advantage of these insights today directly from the My Ads tab. If you’re not already using Ad Exchange, contact your publisher sales representative to learn more about all of the ways that DoubleClick Ad Exchange can help you profit on your terms.

Posted by Nemo Semret, Software Engineer