A few weeks ago, we announced a new tool designed to bring the power, speed, and relevancy of Google search to retail websites. With Black Friday (and Cyber Monday !) right around the corner we wanted to use this Holiday Campaign Countdown post to arm you with information for retail clients who may be shopping around for a new website search solution (pun intended). As a hosted product, Google Commerce Search (GCS) installs quickly, scales effortlessly, and provides sub-second response times, even during seasonal traffic spikes. With advanced search features like spelling correction, automatic stemming, and custom synonyms, users will find what they’re looking for without unnecessary clicks. Finally, Google Commerce Search is powered by the retailer’s Google Merchant Center feed, streamlining implementation. Check out the full list of features in this overview video: ( click to watch video ) GCS provides visitors with an improved shopping experience, which can drive higher visitor-to-buyer conversion rates. While the conversion rates of most retailers is around 3% 1 , the best-performing sites have been able to achieve much higher conversion rates – even reaching double digits. Google Commerce Search can help bridge the gap between user expectation and on-site technology, while freeing retailers to do what they do best, creating and selling products. To learn more, be sure to sign up for an upcoming webinar on December 3rd. If you’re unable to make it, you can learn more at google.com/commercesearch . [1] Trends 2009: US Online Retail , Forrester Research, Inc., April 2009 Posted by Anna Bishop, Enterprise search team
Leave no website un-searched!
Most of us can’t imagine the web without search, yet when it comes to on-site search, the majority of websites are lagging behind. According to industry research, 85% of site searches don’t return what the user sought 1 , and 22% of site searches return no results at all 2 . For clients who may have site search quality issues, leading to site abandonment, we have a cost-effective solution for you to share with them. Google Site Search is a quick and easy way to add or improve website search capability. Hosted in Google’s network of data centers, Google Site Search brings the speed, quality, and relevancy of Google search to sites with no on-premise hardware or software. Administrators can control the look and feel of the search engine, including optional Google branding and an XML API that allows for complete customization. New features like rich snippets , metadata refinements , top result and date biasing , and on-demand indexing make for a powerful search experience. Starting at $100 per year, it’s easy and affordable for clients to add Google Site Search to a blog or website of any size. To learn more and sign up, visit google.com/sitesearch today. (1) “Enriching Search: Efficiency Without Additional Spending,” Jupiter Research (2) “Unpuzzling Search: Best Practices from Mondosoft Study,” IDC Posted by Anna Bishop, Enterprise Search Team
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Leave no website un-searched!
AdWords API v2009 updates – released, future and deprecated features
We’re happy to announce the newest version of AdWords API v2009 beta — v200909. If you’re a current API user, check out the updates below. If you’re not yet using the API, please visit the Google AdWords API homepage for information on getting started. New Features Asynchronous calls – Asynchronous calls allow you to work with large sets of data faster and more easily. Instead of having to wait for our system to fully complete your request before you can make another one, you’re now able to make another call as soon as the API service confirms that it has received your previous call. No more waiting for the server to complete large requests. v2000909 will also continue to support synchronous methods. Keyword and placement ideas – With the new TargetingIdeaService, you’ll be able to get keyword and placement ideas through the API, using the functionality of the Search-based Keyword Tool . Location Extensions preview – Limited location extensions functionality is now available as a preview of the full functionality in development. For a complete list of the changes in v200909, please see our release notes . Coming Soon Over the next few months, we’ll continue to introduce new features and additional AdWords functionality. Feature updates include ReportService and the ability to pre-check for errors. Deprecated Services With the release of equivalent functionality in v200909, the following v13 services are now deprecated: CampaignService , AdGroupService , CriterionService , AdService , InfoService , KeywordToolService , SiteSuggestionService . As v2009 introduces some new concepts and features, we have extended the sunset period for deprecated services to 6 months. Accordingly, the deprecated v13 services will be turned off on April 22, 2010. If you haven’t already begun migrating your systems to the v2009 API, we strongly encourage you to start right away. The deprecation of remaining v13 services ( AccountService , TrafficEstimatorService , and ReportService ) and accompanying sunset dates will be announced in the future. As with every new version of the AdWords API, we strongly encourage you to review the resources in the Developer’s Guide to learn more. Additionally, if you aren’t using the AdWords API client libraries yet, this is a good time to check them out as they are designed to work with both v2009 and v13. Posted by Shreyas Doshi, Product Manager and Adam Wooley, Product Marketing Manager
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AdWords API v2009 updates – released, future and deprecated features
Google Campaign Insights: Better measurement for display advertising
As we’ve previously said , one of our aims is to improve display advertising on the web and, as a result, grow the display advertising pie for everyone. Three simple principles guide our approach: simplify the system for buying and selling display ads; deliver better performance that advertisers and agencies can measure; open up the ecosystem by making it accessible to more participants. One question on the mind of every advertiser and agency is: how can I better measure the impact of my display ad campaign? We hear you. A growing number of advertisers and agencies are running display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network, so we’re investing substantially in creating better measurement tools for our clients. At the moment, an advertiser can measure how many clicks its display ads achieve, measure conversions that result from those clicks, compare results with industry benchmark data , and use View-through conversion reporting to measure visits to its website from users who saw its display ad in the past. Today, we’re pleased to announce the launch of a brand new tool to measure the impact of your display ads – Google Campaign Insights. As of today, Google Campaign Insights is available for larger display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network in the US and UK. Over time, we hope to roll it out more widely to assist even more advertisers and agencies in different parts of the world. Google Campaign Insights is a unique measurement tool that can give reliable data about how a campaign has raised brand awareness, or active user interest, in a particular product or service. It looks beyond the traditional measures of clicks and conversions to calculate the incremental lift in both online search activity and website visits that result from a display ad campaign. How does this all work? In short, we use the same expertise we use to improve our own services — our ability to analyze large quantities of data. Google Campaign Insights compares two anonymized and aggregated data sets: a large group of users (many thousands, minimum) who saw a particular ad, with an equivalent, large group that did not see the ad. It then measures whether there is any significant difference in searches and visits to the advertiser’s website between the two groups. Doing this, Google Campaign Insights can determine the incremental change that is directly attributable to the display ad campaign. With this insight, advertisers can establish how well their display ad campaign is working. ( Click for full size image ) ( Click for full size image ) Google Campaign Insights provides highly reliable results to marketers because of the statistical methodology our computer algorithms use to combine and analyze large volumes of data from several sources — the advertiser’s own campaign information, ad serving logs and sampled data from Google Toolbar installs that have opted in to enhanced features. All of the results reported to advertisers are anonymized and aggregated over thousands of users. Advertisers or agencies who run wide-scale display ad campaigns on the Google Content Network and who want to take Google Campaign Insights for a spin should check with their Google representative. We’re excited about the contribution that Google Campaign Insights can make to our clients’ campaigns on the Google Content Network and to display advertising generally. Posted by Paul Todd, Product Management Director [Note: This post has been reprinted from the Inside AdWords Blog ]
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Google Campaign Insights: Better measurement for display advertising