(cross-posted from the DoubleClick Advertiser Blog ) We published the DoubleClick Benchmarks Report in 2009 to give advertisers and agencies a resource to measure their display campaigns’ performance against industry norms. As a result of feedback and interest from our clients and others in the industry, we’re pleased to offer this year’s edition with a couple of updates: Data on impressions served through DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) by creative type. Simple flash is the dominant ad format accounting for close to 70% in the U.S. and 85% in the EMEA region. Static image ads was the next most common format representing 20% of the volume through DFA in the U.S. and 10% in the EMEA region. The availability of a benchmarks report with detailed EMEA region metrics. Last year we included worldwide overall click-through rates and rich media metrics in the report. Now we are pleased to introduce a separate EMEA Benchmarks Report which covers in-depth display benchmarks across a subset of countries in the EMEA region. Comparison between overall 2008 and 2009 benchmarks. You will also find in this latest report, a month-by-month comparison of benchmark data for click-through rates, interaction rates, expansion rates and interaction time for the years 2008 and 2009. When reviewing the data we noticed some interesting trends: In 2009, the overall click-through rate for the U.S. did not change from 2008 (0.10%) and what’s more is in a month by month comparison of click-through rates (CTRs) from 2008 to 2009 we saw that CTRs were very consistent throughout the year with a minor spike in January -- possibly a result of the post-holiday sale season. When it comes to CTR, interaction rate, average interaction time and average display time, we did not observe a great difference between U.S. (see page 2) and EMEA (see page 2) benchmarks. Consistent with last year’s report, we continued to find a correlation between ad size and clicks and interaction rates -- that is, the larger the ad size, the higher the rate. This finding holds true for both U.S. and the EMEA region. As with last year’s report, the data for these benchmarks are derived from a robust data set across DoubleClick for Advertisers , based on rigorous methodology with input from the Advertising Research Foundation . The report covers benchmarks for the entirety of 2009 by ad format, ad size and industry vertical. The benchmarks are normalized across hundreds of advertisers, thousands of campaigns, and tens of billions of ad impressions. For greater detail on the benchmark data, download the U.S. report here and the EMEA region report here . Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager
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DoubleClick Benchmarks Report 2009 Year-in-Review
(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and the Inside AdWords Blog ) As the advertising industry has grown and evolved, so too has our relationship with advertising agencies. These companies, from SEMs to the largest traditional agencies, play a critical role in the continued success of Google, our advertisers and our industry — so we spend a lot of time talking to agencies about how we can make it easier for them to work with us and our advertisers. We’ve had a lot of great feedback from agencies and today we’re announcing changes designed to offer them better training and more rigorous certification in AdWords proficiency, and to lower costs for those who help advertisers get the most out of AdWords. We’re also making it easier for advertisers to find certified agency partners to work with them on digital advertising. Here’s an overview of what’s changing today. Raising the bar for Google AdWords Certification We're retiring our long-standing Google Advertising Professionals (GAP) program and replacing it with a new Google AdWords Certification program for those managing AdWords accounts on behalf of advertisers. The new program provides agencies and their employees with more up-to-date, comprehensive, strategy-focused training and certification on the latest tools and best practices for managing AdWords accounts, including: New training materials to help agencies better understand recent changes in search marketing and AdWords functionality, available via webinar series, learning center, or on-site training at Google More challenging certification exams to test practical application of knowledge and best practices (rather than simple recall of knowledge) Advanced-level exams to highlight competency in search, display, reporting and analysis A redesigned Certified Partner badge, which includes a “Click to Verify” element so advertisers can view the partner’s profile page for additional information. For more information on the AdWords Certification Program or to create an account, visit the Google Certification program site and help center . Helping advertisers find Google Certified Partners Google Certified Partners can opt in to Google Partner Search , an online, searchable directory that helps advertisers identify Certified Partners that meet their criteria. Small and medium-sized advertisers who haven’t previously used an agency have told us that evaluating potential partners can be a daunting task, so we think Google Partner Search will be especially valuable for them. To show up in advertiser searches through Google Partner Search, agencies must opt in and fill in details about their core attributes and capabilities. Searches can be filtered by location, agency experience within a particular budget range, the types of services provided and the industry verticals an agency serves. Advertisers can then evaluate the list of Certified Partners that meet their criteria and contact the partners who seem best suited to their needs. To learn more about Google Partner Search, visit the Help center . Introducing preferred AdWords API pricing The Google AdWords API allows developers to build applications that interact directly with the AdWords platform. Agencies and developers of search engine marketing tools use these applications to manage large AdWords campaigns more efficiently and creatively. Today, we’re announcing preferred AdWords API pricing. This gives qualified Google AdWords Certified Partners who manage client AdWords accounts free use of the AdWords API based on managed client spend . To apply, agencies must have an active agency profile page and remain compliant with the AdWords API terms and conditions. We’ll evaluate applications for preferred AdWords API pricing based on the criteria listed here . We hope preferred AdWords API pricing will encourage agencies and developers to experiment with new strategies, expand the functionality of their tools, and build more comprehensive client campaigns without worrying about increased costs. You can learn more about preferred pricing and how to apply at the preferred AdWords API pricing site . We’re looking forward to receiving feedback on all of these initiatives and to continuing to improve our partnership with agencies. Posted by, Penry Price, Vice President, Global Agency Development
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A new approach to how we work with advertising agencies
Art Directors Club President Doug Jaeger introduces YouTube Show & Tell , a new program and partnership with the ADC to showcase the best examples of marketing on YouTube. As president of the Art Directors Club , an organization for creatives and designers in integrated media and the first international creative collective of its kind, it’s my job to continually look for new opportunities to translate the club’s mission -- to connect, provoke, and elevate advertising initiatives into action. That’s why I’m honored, and totally psyched, that ADC is part of an amazing new initiative launching today, YouTube Show & Tell . Show & Tell is a new gallery-style brand channel showcasing the best marketing and advertising campaigns on YouTube. YouTube developed the concept and serves as the platform; ADC’s ongoing role is to curate content, drawing on 89 years experience in identifying the most creative marketing ideas and recognizing the work that exhibits exceptional excellence and craft. Each quarter, ADC will curate a lively and interesting new body of work in four categories -- brand channel, home page, viral video and interactive. We will promote the entry process, assemble creative experts to review campaigns that have run on YouTube, and elevate the best work to the forefront. All advertising and marketing work appearing on YouTube is eligible. Our team of creative reviewers will change each quarter and will be selected based on their ideas, body of work and contributions to the industry to sound off on their favorite examples. These world-renowned creative directors, designers, art directors, digital creatives and copywriters will represent a range of creative thinking and execution, ensuring that the visual voice on YouTube Show & Tell represents a broad cross-section of leading-edge perspectives. See what Steve Simpson of Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners, has to say about YouTube For the first curation, we’ve worked together with YouTube to feature some of the most creative campaigns we’ve seen so far, but this is by no means an exhaustive list of great campaigns we’ve seen on the site. So check out the site and check back often. And kudos to the great creative minds behind the examples that are currently on the site. Posted by Doug Jaeger, president, Art Directors Club, who recently watched Augustin Hadelich - DAWN on YouTube [This post has been reprinted from the YouTube Blog ]
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Introducing YouTube Show & Tell
The mission of DoubleClick Ad Planner, Google's free research and media planning tool formerly named Google Ad Planner , is to provide the deepest, most accurate insight into online audiences possible. This insight helps display advertisers select the best sites for their media plans and drive results for their campaigns. One of the many data points that DoubleClick Ad Planner provides is site traffic data. In line with Ad Planner's mission, we've improved how we estimate and share this data in order to provide media planners, buyers and researchers with improved data quality and more data visualization options. This builds upon the traffic improvements we made in January of 2009 and is part of our continuous effort to provide trusted insights into online audiences. This release includes the following two significant improvements: Traffic estimates across a number of metrics are now more accurate (Unique user and reach estimates remain the same) Direct measured traffic is now included for publishers who opt-ed in their Google Analytics data Upgrading Site Traffic Estimates To improve the quality of our site traffic estimates, we have upgraded our traffic estimation model. Our model uses a hybrid methodology that combines sample user data, from various Google products and services, with direct measured site-centric data. The model's direct measured signal is pulled from Google Analytics customer accounts that have chosen to opt-in to sharing their data with Ad Planner. This hybrid approach allows us to use direct measured data to train our traffic estimation models and produce the best estimate for any given site. For more information about how we use opt-in Google Analytics data check out our past blog posts on how Google Analytics data is used in Ad Planner and on replacing traffic estimates with direct measured Google Analytics data . This latest upgrade improves the accuracy of our estimates by over 10%. We look at a large amount of data and metrics to evaluate our estimates and are continuously working on improving them. We believe our model to be among the more accurate sources of traffic estimation in the industry. Publishers who would like to complement their site listing with direct measured data are welcome to do so by opt-ing in their Google Analytics data in DoubleClick Ad Planner Publisher Center . We invite publishers who are new to Ad Planner to learn more about using Publisher Center to manage their site profile . Providing Direct Measured Site Traffic Data In May 2009, we announced Ad Planner Publisher Center, which made it possible for publishers to opt-in their Google Analytics data to Ad Planner. We've now upgraded site profiles in Ad Planner to display this data in the worldwide charts for Daily Unique Visitors on site profile pages. For publishers who opted-in, their direct measured data is displayed as a solid line in their chart. For example, Gamezhero, a website offering free online games, opted-in their Google Analytics data in June. Here's what their worldwide chart for Daily Unique Visitors looks like now: (click here to view image) In the coming months, we plan to bring direct measured site traffic data to country-level profile views in addition to the worldwide profile views that are currently supported. Understanding the Data in Ad Planner To offer additional transparency into how Ad Planner generates its data, we've published a new help document about our methodology . The document provides more details behind how Ad Planner generates site traffic data, in addition to other data, such as demographics, ad information, categories and descriptions. Getting Started Give DoubleClick Ad Planner a try at www.google.com/adplanner . We think you'll find it to be a powerful research and media planning tool that makes it easy to find audiences and create well-informed media plans. Posted by Wayne Lin, Product Manager, DoubleClick Ad Planner [note: this post has been reprinted from the DoubleClick Blog ]
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Better Site Traffic Data in DoubleClick Ad Planner