Announcing the April 24 DS3 release!

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on some exciting new features that will change the way you use DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3). While none are ready to be fully released, some of these features are currently in limited release to a few customers and include:

1. Search Query reporting: As described in this blog post, Search Query reporting will provide you with insight into the search queries, or terms, that are driving visits for your ads and the revenue you derive from these queries.


2. Floodlight column reporting: Will give you more power to select the level of Floodlight reporting you want to see, in an easy-to-read column format. You’ll be able to create the equivalent of a column (such, as Actions, Cost/action, etc.) that’s filtered to the selected Floodlight activities.


3. Change history: Will provide you with details on all changes made to your account, including user changes, inbound sync updates, and automated changes from the DS3 bid strategy system.


4. Reporting stats for labels: Labels are a great way to manage and report on keywords outside the traditional campaign structure. With this new feature, you’ll be able to see stats for these labels.

If you’d like to get a sneak preview of any of these features, and help us to test and improve them before they’re fully released, please contact your Technical Account Manager or email ds-support@google.com.



For this release, we did make an improvement to the bidding process for bid strategies: The bid strategy system now breaks up large bid changes. When the system determines that a large bid change is needed to optimize against the specified goal, it will now break up that change into increments. Previously, the system would change the bid all at once. This new bid smoothing feature helps to alleviate customer concerns over drastic bid changes. For example:

1. In a bid strategy, the DS3 system determines that the ideal bid for its keywords is $9.


2. The max strat bid is $2, so DS3 is constrained from applying the ideal bid. DS3 sets the bid at $2.  


3. The user changes the max strat bid from $2 to $10.


4. Before this release: The system would change the bid from $2 to $9 all at once.
   With this release: The system will make a series of bid changes. For example, it may change the bid from $2 to $4, then to $6,  and $8. As the system recalculates bids over time, at this point the system determines that the ideal bid is now $8.56. So the next bid change will be to $8.56.

Read the Help Center release notes for information on issues fixed in this release.



Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Mobile click-to-call in DFA

The mobile features in DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) make it easy to traffic mobile ads alongside the rest of your online ads. Our mobile tags help you track mobile metrics and reach a wide range of phones. To make DFA even more useful to mobile advertising, we’ve added click-to-call support. You can now use the click-to-call option for:

• Standard ads


• Mobile display ads


• Click tracker ads (static and dynamic) on standard placements


• Click tracker ads (static and dynamic) on mobile placements

What are click-to-call ads?

Click-to-call ads redirect users to a telephone number instead of a landing page. When users click the ad, their mobile devices load the number.

Calling your number should be as easy visiting your landing page. That’s why click-to-call takes dialing out of the equation: it means one less step between seeing your ad and making the call.

To learn more about using the click-to-call option, see Serve mobile ads and creatives to mobile inventory in the DFA mobile guide (sign-in required).

Jeremy Axelrod, DFA Tech Writer

Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

Just like the Loch Ness Monster, you may have heard the rumors about Google Drive. It turns out, one of the two actually does exist.



Today, we’re introducing Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.

With Google Drive, you can:

• Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items. 

• Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just... there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader. 

• Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.

We know you rely on your files to get work done every day. Drive uses the same infrastructure as other Google Apps services, meaning it also has the same admin tools, security and reliability, including: 

• Centralized management: New tools available in the Apps control panel for administrators to add or remove storage for individuals or teams of users. 


• Security: Encryption on data transfer between your browser and our servers, and optional 2-step verification that prevents unauthorized account access by having users sign in with a secure code from their mobile phone. 


• Data Replication: Simultaneous data replication in multiple data centers, so that in the unlikely event that one data center is unavailable, your files will still be safe and accessible. 


• Uptime: 99.9% uptime guarantee so you can be confident that your files will be available whenever you need them. 


• Support: 24/7 support for assistance when you need it. 

By the way, the Google Engineering teams in Bangalore and Hyderabad conceptualized and built these centralized management tools, security features and billing systems, so the India team in particular is excited about this launch.

You can get started with 5GB of storage for free—that’s enough to store the high-res photos of your trip to the Mt. Everest, scanned copies of your grandparents’ love letters or a career’s worth of business proposals, and still have space for the novel you’re working on. You can choose to upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. When you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB.











Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups directly from Drive. To install these apps, visit the Chrome Web Store—and look out for even more useful apps in the future.



Google Drive is rolling out globally over the next several weeks. If you’re interested in being one of the first people to try Google Drive, visit drive.google.com/start.



This is just the beginning for Google Drive; there’s a lot more to come.




Posted by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome & Apps

App Engine 1.6.5 Released

April showers -- and a bit more than showers -- have kept us happily inside working away on our fourth release of this year (we are really looking forward to those flowers). Today’s release includes some updates to the Datastore and the runtimes, new features for the Images API, and more!

Datastore

We’ve introduced an experimental type of query, projection queries, in the Datastore. For the SQL fans amongst us, this is similar to queries of the form:

SELECT Property1, Property2 FROM MyEntity ORDER BY Property3

Projection queries have the same cost and performance characteristics as keys-only queries but return entity objects populated only with the requested properties.

We are also adding several other Datastore features in this release:

• Each entity group now has a numeric version property that strictly increases on every entity group change. You can use this counter, for example, to easily and consistently cache the results of an ancestor query, such as the count of all entities in an entity group (Java®, Python examples).


• The Datastore Admin now allows you to restore individual Kinds from an existing backup, abort in-progress backups, and view more detailed backup and restore information.


• For Python users, the @db.transactional decorator now supports concurrent transactions. We’ve also expanded the options available for the db.run_in_transtion_options() function.

Images API

• The Images API can now access image objects stored in Google Cloud Storage.


• The URLs generated by get_serving_url()/getServingUrl() that make use of our high-speed image serving infrastructure can now be generated to serve over HTTPS.

Task Queue

We are looking for Trusted Testers for Task Queue Statistics. Task Queue Statistics allows you to fetch statistics and information about your task queue from within your application. Apply now to be a Trusted Tester.

Request Headers

In this release, we are including additional request headers to provide more detailed information about the origin of a request. We’ve added Region, City and LatLng headers to each request where this information can be inferred from the IP address.

Java

Finally, an important piece of news for our Java developers: the <threadsafe> element is now required in appengine-web.xml file; omitting it will cause an error in the dev appserver.

As always, send us feedback in our Google Group, send us technical questions on Stack Overflow, and read the complete release notes for all the new features and fixes in this release for Java, Python, and Go.

Posted by the App Engine Team

Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

New AdWords labels: unrelated to DS3 labels

As you may have heard, Google AdWords recently launched a new labels feature. We just wanted to let you know that this is separate functionality from DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) labels. DS3 labels are set at the advertiser level and can span several engine accounts. AdWords labels are not currently supported in DS3, and they will not be imported into DS3 when you run a sync.


As a reminder, DS3 labels are a great way to categorize and report on keywords. Because multiple labels can be applied to a keyword, you can track many different attributes, such as whether it’s a brand keyword or if it’s in a particular category. You can also note keywords where your site doesn’t feature well in the organic search results.


To create a DS3 label:

1. Click the Labels tab in the left nav, click the New button above the table, and name your label. 


2. Navigate to a list of keywords and select some of them.


3. Click the Labels button above the table to apply labels to those keywords.

Coming soon, you’ll also be able to see reporting stats for DS3 labels.





As an example of the power of DS3 labels combined with reporting, an advertiser may manage brand and generic keywords separately. Using keyword labels, the advertiser will be able to easily compare the performance of these sets of keywords and take action accordingly, such as raising/lowering bids.


Learn more about creating and applying DS3 labels on the Help Center. And keep an eye on the blog for news of the release of reporting stats for labels.


Posted by DoubleClick Search team

PubTalk: PCH’s Denise Leggio on winning big with DoubleClick Ad Exchange

You probably think of Publisher’s Clearing House (PCH) as a mail-order sweepstakes company that surprised winners with big, over-sized checks. However, PCH has evolved its traditional magazine and merchandise direct marketing business to include several “play and win” properties such as pchlotto.com, pchgames.com and pchsearchandwin.com.

Delivering over 300 million ad impressions per month across these sites, PCH tested multiple strategies for monetizing remnant inventory before turning to DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) in early 2010. Today, AdX’s share of revenue has grown 5X and it now monetizes up to 70% of all remnant inventory. We caught up with Denise Leggio, Director of Ad Operations at PCH, to learn more about what worked for them with AdX.



Won over by strong controls

“With a brand like ours, ad quality is just as important as the RPM. But Ad Exchange is easy to use and allows us a broad range of controls, like blocking competitive or undesirable ads from bidding. It lets us maximize revenue without giving up control of the ads or compromising our brand,” says Denise.



Higher yields with Dynamic Allocation

“One of the biggest benefits of Ad Exchange is Dynamic Allocation with DFP. Ad Exchange will only serve if it can beat the highest-paying ad at that exact time, ensuring optimal revenue.” For PCH, Dynamic Allocation has also informed pricing decisions on direct inventory.



Multiple tools and levers for deeper insights and higher revenue

From reporting features at the individual ad unit level, to the Minimum CPM Recommendation tool to set the minimum auction price, AdX has provided Denise’s team many tools to optimize revenue. “The optimization options have been extremely valuable for our online business. The tools, reports and data provided give us insight into our inventory and buyer habits,” she says. “With those insights, we’re able to make changes extremely quickly.”



Operational efficiencies allow deeper focus on direct sales

The time savings from being on AdX has allowed Denise and her team to better support PCH’s direct sales team, testing and building creative packages involving rich media, takeover ads and site skins. “The operations team can now be a strategic partner on that end, instead of just being on the back end doing yield optimization and trafficking.”



“You have to work with a solution that you trust, and I think that’s why we like Ad Exchange,” Denise says. “For PCH, Ad Exchange is the solution of choice because of its robust technology, insights, control, and ability to offer the highest yield and inventory fill in a highly competitive market.”



Read the full case study here.



This blog post was part of “PubTalk”, a series of conversations with publishers.




Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Manager

ShopWiki.com grows 65% in Google Affiliate Network and expands internationally

Over the past few years, Google Affiliate Network has helped advertisers and publishers grow their businesses with the right mix of technology, service, and data insights. We’re pleased to share these stories with you on the blog every few weeks. 

When ShopWiki.com entered the online shopping space in 2005, they started with a simple idea: “make shopping better.” As a shopping search engine, they hoped to index everything that can be bought online and help consumers make the best purchase. With over 200,000 featured stores and domains in the US, UK, France, and Germany, ShopWiki has become a popular destination for online consumers. Their technology now crawls partner sites and organizes a wide selection of their products in one centralized place.


With global interests and ever-changing consumer needs, ShopWiki General Manager James Keating and his team search for efficient ways to scale their site and grow revenue. Since partnering with Google Affiliate Network in 2007, Keating has relied on detailed reporting and analytics to make informed decisions and drive strategy. As he explains, “Google Affiliate Network gives us rich insights into the best-converting products. We combine these insights with our own site data to automatically optimize yield for every page of our site.”

As ShopWiki has grown, they have also added new advertisers and focused on strategic partnerships. Keating has kept an eye on new advertisers in Google Affiliate Network and joined their programs upon launch, building links and using the new content to better serve his site visitors. Through Google Affiliate Network’s user interface, Keating has found new relationships and tools to streamline these processes. He explains, “whenever a new advertiser joins, we are able to create and implement links right away and begin optimization from day one.”

Guided by data insight and focused on new partnerships, ShopWiki has continued to grow as a publisher in Google Affiliate Network and a shopping destination on the web. In 2011, they grew their network revenue by 65% YoY, helping to spur international expansion outside of their home US market.

To learn more about how James Keating and ShopWiki have established their affiliate business, check out their full case study.

Posted by Will Heidrich, Account Manager