Announcing New DoubleClick Ad Exchange Features: Improved Ad Review Center and Publisher Toolbar

We have been listening to your feedback on Ad Exchange ad controls and we’re excited to announce some new enhancements to save you time and give you even more control to manage which ads run on your site.



New controls in the Ad Review Center

The new Ad Review Center gives you complete transparency into the ads showing on your site. Ad Review Center now shows you ads of all targeting types that have appeared on your pages including real time bidding ads (RTB) and enables you to review and take action on them.



New features and benefits of Ad Review Center include:

• More ad targeting types: You can now easily review and take action on ads of all targeting types -- contextually-targeted, placement-targeted, interest-based, and Real Time Bidded ads.


• Ads ranked by impressions: To ensure that you’re always reviewing the most important ads first, we now show ads ranked by the number of impressions that they’ve received. With ads that you’re holding for review, we show the ads according to the number of impressions that we project they will receive.


• Take action on individual or bulk ads: You can now easily block ads individually or in bulk by simply clicking on an ad or highlighting multiple ads at once.


• Pre-approve and block AdWords accounts: For clarity, we've changed the term "advertiser" to "AdWords account." You’ll find your lists of pre-approved and blocked AdWords accounts on the Settings tab.


• Renamed tabs: We’ve updated the names of the tabs to more clearly explain their purpose.

This version of the Ad Review Center uses graphic technology that is too intensive for older browsers. If you use IE7 and are unable to upgrade, consider installing Chrome Frame, an open source plug-in that enables older versions of IE to correctly render all the newest features in Ad Exchange.

If you’ve used the Ad Review Center in the past, the new version is live in your account now. If you haven’t yet enabled this feature, visit the Allow & Block ads tab to get started.



New Publisher Toolbar

The new Google Publisher Toolbar, a Chrome extension, makes it easy to manage your ads without visiting the Ad Review Center. It displays a variety of information about your Ad Exchange and Google AdSense ads, including alert bar notifications, details about current impressions, revenue stats, ad slots, buyers, and creatives on any site where your ad tags are running when you use a Chrome browser. Publishers can also easily block ads in real-time and report any issues to Google right from within the toolbar.



To learn more about Ad Review Center and Google Toolbar, register for one of the webinars on June 14th or contact your Ad Exchange account representative.



Ad Review Center & Google Toolbar US Webinar

Thursday, June 14th at 11am PDT (1pm CST, 2pm EDT)

Register HERE



Ad Review Center & Google Toolbar EMEA Webinar

Thursday, June 14th at 3pm GMT (7am PST, 10am EDT)

Register HERE



Posted by Dan Stokeley, AdSense Product Manager and Drew Bradstock, Ad Exchange Publisher Product Manager

A new (and improved) look for the DoubleClick site

Last week, you heard from Neal Mohan at DoubleClick Insights talk about how the digital ad ecosystem is rapidly evolving.




To help digital marketers keep up with the latest insights and updates from DoubleClick, we've given the DoubleClick website a refresh. We've reorganized the site to do a better job of surfacing the latest DoubleClick news and added a dash of visual style in the process.

What else changed with the new design?




Improved discoverability: 

In addition to becoming a destination to discover the latest news and insights from DoubleClick, the site is gateway for you to explore and learn about DoubleClick’s digital technology solutions. We’ve reorganized the site to make it easier for you to discover and learn about the solutions that best meet your business objectives.




Cleaner design: 

As part of a Google-wide effort to bring you an experience that’s more focused, elastic, and effortless across all of our products and websites, the new site underwent a thorough usability review to help strip out unnecessary clutter in order to make finding the information you’re looking for as easy as possible.




Multi-screen site for a multi-screen world:

We know first hand that users browse the web across multiple-screens and devices. The new site offers a consistent and seamless experience whether you’re visiting from your desktop, mobile, or tablet device.




We hope you like the new site and find it useful, and invite you to have a look around.




Posted by Stephen Kliff, Product Marketing Manager and Manoja Wijewardene, Webmaster

Answering to Our Users - Delivering on Commitments

Last year at IAB’s Innovation Days, I made a number of predictions, all focused on answering one central question: how can we put the user at the center of all that we do? One year later, I think it’s time for a progress report - to hold ourselves accountable and see how far we’ve come. I presented an update on some of my predictions earlier today at Digital Media Summit, hosted by Luma Partners:

Prediction: People will have a direct say in 25% of the ads they see
Update: We’ve seen choice friendly formats take off across the industry. In our own network, engaged views of TrueView skippable ads grew 4x last year. Going beyond ads, we rolled out paywall alternative Google Consumer Surveys, which has already shown more than 300 million surveys, with an average publisher RPM of $12. Given all the innovation, I actually think we aimed too low and that consumers will have a say in well over half of the ads they see.

Prediction: Engagement rates across all display ads will increase 50%
Update: This increase in engagement will be driven by two factors: relevance and creativity. While technological innovations continue to improve relevance, we believe rich media will be the key to unlocking the creative potential of digital advertising. According to Nielsen AdRelevance, rich media impressions almost doubled in 2011. We’re committed to helping creative agencies scale and optimize rich media ads with templatized ad units in the latest version of DoubleClick Studio.

Prediction: 35% of campaigns will use metrics beyond clicks and conversions
Update: As we move to a model that seeks to drive engagement versus just clicks, we need new measures of success. We’re working with the industry-wide “Making Measurement Make Sense” (3MS) initiative to establish new standards for brand advertisers to measure reach and engagement. And just last month, we launched the Brand Activate Initiative with several pilots for new metrics--Active View, which shows brands whether their ad has been seen; and Active GRP, the digital counterpart to the gross rating point. We’ve already received interest from dozens of major brands.

As an industry, we’ve made plenty of progress over the last year. With all the innovations to do right by our user, I actually have two new predictions I’d like to add to the list.

New Prediction: 25% of brands will favor digital ads over all other media
This is a pretty bold prediction, considering today this number is probably close to none. So why are we so bullish? First, audiences continue to move online: in 2011, households with broadband but with no cable TV, increased 23% (Nielsen Cross-Platform Report Q3’11). Second, so is content: the newly launched YouTube Original Channels alone will introduce 25 new hours of original programming a day. Third, technology is offering new levels of control and measurement: technologies like real-time bidding will allow for improved targeting while initiatives like 3MS and Brand Activate will demonstrate effectiveness. With reach, control, quality content and measurement, I think the real question will become, why wouldn’t a brand name digital their favorite medium?

New Prediction: 100% of campaigns will be integrated everywhere
All signs indicate that campaigns that reach across screens - TV, desktops, smartphones and tablets -- are more effective. For example, in a study conducted by Google and Nielsen Multi-Media Labs in September 2011, users who saw a multi-screen Volvo campaign had a 24% higher brand recall than those that viewed their ads on TV alone. We’re increasingly seeing increased interest in buying across screens on our own platforms, like DoubleClick for Publishers Mobile, where we’ve seen the number of impressions delivered double every quarter.

The online advertising ecosystem is complex, and in order for digital advertising to be a medium that provides a great experience for consumers, marketers and publishers alike, we all need to work together. For our part, we’ve invested in hundreds of partnerships to better support publishers, and advertisers, ultimately serve our users. Happier consumers will drive better performing ads, more money for publishers and increased ad spend (including marketing budget) for agencies. I look forward to seeing the continued innovation that this “user revolution” inspires and working with all of you to move towards the bright future I hope we all envision for this industry.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising

Answering to our users - delivering on commitments

Last year at IAB’s Innovation Days, I made a number of predictions, all focused on answering one central question: how can we put the user at the center of all that we do? One year later, I think it’s time for a progress report - to hold ourselves accountable and see how far we’ve come. I presented an update on some of my predictions earlier today at Digital Media Summit, hosted by Luma Partners:



Prediction: People will have a direct say in 25% of the ads they see:

Update: We’ve seen choice friendly formats take off across the industry. In our own network, engaged views of TrueView skippable ads grew 4x last year. Going beyond ads, we rolled out paywall alternative Google Consumer Surveys, which has already shown more than 300 million surveys, with an average publisher RPM of $12. Given all the innovation, I actually think we aimed too low and that consumers will have a say in well over half of the ads they see.



Prediction: Engagement rates across all display ads will increase 50%

Update: This increase in engagement will be driven by two factors: relevance and creativity. While technological innovations continue to improve relevance, we believe rich media will be the key to unlocking the creative potential of digital advertising. According to Nielsen AdRelevance, rich media impressions almost doubled in 2011. We’re committed to helping creative agencies scale and optimize rich media ads with templatized ad units in the latest version of DoubleClick Studio.



Prediction: 35% of campaigns will use metrics beyond clicks and conversions

Update: As we move to a model that seeks to drive engagement versus just clicks, we need new measures of success. We’re working with the industry-wide “Making Measurement Make Sense” (3MS) initiative to establish new standards for brand advertisers to measure reach and engagement. And just last month, we launched the Brand Activate Initiative with several pilots for new metrics — Active View, which shows brands whether their ad has been seen; and Active GRP, the digital counterpart to the gross rating point. We’ve already received interest from dozens of major brands.



As an industry, we’ve made plenty of progress over the last year. With all the innovations to do right by our user, I actually have two new predictions I’d like to add to the list.



New Prediction: 25% of brands will favor digital ads over all other media

This is a pretty bold prediction, considering today this number is probably close to none. So why are we so bullish? First, audiences continue to move online: in 2011, households with broadband internet but with no cable TV, increased 23% (Nielsen Cross-Platform Report Q3’11). Second, so is content: the newly launched YouTube Original Channels alone will introduce 25 new hours of original programming a day. Third, technology is offering new levels of control and measurement: technologies like real-time bidding will allow for improved targeting while initiatives like 3MS and Brand Activate will demonstrate effectiveness. With reach, control, quality content and measurement, I think the real question will become, why wouldn’t a brand name digital their favorite medium?



New Prediction: 100% of campaigns will be integrated everywhere

All signs indicate that campaigns that reach across screens - TV, desktops, smartphones and tablets -- are more effective. For example, in a study conducted by Google and Nielsen Multi-Media Labs in September 2011, users who saw a multi-screen Volvo campaign had a 24% higher brand recall than those that viewed their ads on TV alone. We’re increasingly seeing increased interest in buying across screens on our own platforms, like DoubleClick for Publishers Mobile, where we’ve seen the number of impressions delivered double every quarter.



The online advertising ecosystem is complex, and in order for digital advertising to be a medium that provides a great experience for consumers, marketers and publishers alike, we all need to work together. For our part, we’ve invested in hundreds of partnerships to better support publishers, and advertisers, ultimately serve our users. Happier consumers will drive better performing ads, more money for publishers and increased ad spend (including marketing budget) for agencies. I look forward to seeing the continued innovation that this “user revolution” inspires and working with all of you to move towards the bright future I hope we all envision for this industry.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display Advertising