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Jordan Brand, a division of Nike, has one of the most recognizable logos in the sporting goods industry. A silhouette of Michael Jordan mid-jump graces the footwear, apparel, and equipment that make Jordan one of the most coveted basketball brands in the US. Building energy Although his likeness still appears on merchandise, Michael Jordan retired from his legendary role in the game in 1999, posing a challenge for Jordan Brand-- keeping Michael Jordan top of mind for younger consumers. Looking for new ways to excite and engage youth within basketball culture, Jordan Brand turned to its agency partner, Wieden+Kennedy , New York (W+K, NY). Together, they hatched an idea for a campaign that veered from the TV campaigns they traditionally ran. As expected, they built an inventive, unique campaign around a basketball player. But the player was neither Michael Jordan nor another NBA star. It was Leroy Smith. The man, the campaign “Sophomore year of high school, Leroy Smith took Michael’s spot on the junior varsity team,” explains Jason Clement, Director of Findability and Search for W+K NY, of the true story that inspired the campaign. “Michael points to that as the moment when he realized he needed to work and train harder to become really good.” With the campaign’s central character chosen (and the real Leroy Smith on board), the Jordan and Wieden+Kennedy teams crafted a narrative that would pull in their audience. Played by actor Charlie Murphy, the campaign’s Leroy sells motivational DVDs, promising to teach viewers the same skills he used to dominate Michael Jordan. The DVDs, along with posters, an iPhone app, and music videos can be found on his site, www.getyourbasketballon.com . And of course the campaign’s Leroy also has a YouTube Channel, a Facebook profile, and a Twitter feed to communicate with his fans. But to create buzz and hype, Wieden and Kennedy and Jordan chose not to brand the campaign. Leroy Smith Banner ad that ran on the Google Content Network The ultimate forum And it was the discovery of this content that was key to the campaign’s success. The campaign’s six-week run opened with “Leroy” himself pitching his motivational DVDs in infomercial-style television ads during the NBA playoffs. Google AdWords search ads sent interested users to Leroy’s site. To reach additional basketball fans where they were actively spending their time, the Jordan and W+K NY teams used the Google Content Network to place a wide array of display and text ads on blogs and fan sites. By using keyword targeting to automatically place their ads on relevant sites on the Google Content Network, the team was able to find the right locations for their creative more efficiently. The strategy proved effective. They found a lot of niche basketball blogs where he could reach their target with very, very little waste and get them excited about the campaign. Once their ads were running, the reporting and optimization controls within the Content Network enabled the W+K NY team to see which sites were working best and adjust their targeting appropriately. As excitement over the Leroy Smith campaign grew, it was clear that it was striking a chord with its audience. A number of blogs had double-digit click through rates. People were taking screenshots of the ad on their blogs and then writing posts about how much they liked having the ad on their site. When all that enthusiasm was translated into numbers, the Leroy Smith campaign had generated 188 million impressions and 296,000 clicks over the six weeks it ran. And users were highly engaged with the content, showing very low abandonment rates once on site. Video proved compelling as well, with 27,000 YouTube channel views and 229,000 views for Leroy Smith’s “Get Your Basketball On” infomercial video . Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

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Jordan's Get Your Basketball On campaign on the Google Content Network

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CHART OF THE DAY: Here's How Much Tech Companies Spend On Advertising (YHOO ... - San Francisco Chronicle

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. 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. 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 . 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. 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 . 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 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. 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 . 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. 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. 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 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 . 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

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New best practices to find more customers on the Content Network