5 New Year’s Resolutions for Display Advertisers

(Cross posted from the AdWords Agency Blog)

Google’s Dan Taylor presents at Digiday Agency event Dec. 12, 2011

It’s that time of year again, the time to reflect on 2011 and think about resolutions for the new year. We may not be able to help you lose those extra 5 lbs., but we can inform some New Year’s resolutions for your business.

Last week, Google’s Dan Taylor presented at the Digiday Agency event on the 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Display Advertisers. See video and summary below.

Resolution # 1: I will be strategic in how I use remarketing

Remarketing is like plugging a leaky bucket, where the leak is website visitors leaving your site, and the plug is display ads that bring past visitors back to your site.

There are many ways to ‘plug’ the leak, but we offer up the follow strategies to be the most effective in doing so.

• Target based on audience: Layering demographic targeting on top of remarketing campaigns can help you tailor the message even more. For example, have one message for men, and a different one for women.
  
• Target based on intent: You can send a general message to homepage visitors and product-oriented reminders to visitors that browsed product pages but didn’t make a purchase. Using a creative with dynamically related products is a great way to do this.
  
• Expand your list sources: Some of our most effective remarketing customers use several sources to get their lists, such as YouTube mastheads and channels, their main website and campaign landing pages. Expanding the lists enables you to reach more potential customers.

Resolution # 2: I will use video to its full potential

Video is a great way to reach customers, yet it is often underutilized. Here are the best ways to use video to its fullest potential.

• With the latest changes to the YouTube homepage, we’ve pivoted the YouTube site experience to focus on channels and a socially-driven feed, the contents of which are controlled by the left hand sidebar. This gives marketers a powerful opportunity to enhance their brand exposure.
  
• Through the new AdWords for video front end, we’ve drastically reduced the time it takes to create a video. Easily run click-to-play or TrueView in-display formats across Google Display Network.
  
• We’ve also found that rich media, in tandem with video, is more effective than simple Flash. When you’re running rich media campaigns, think about including video to increase purchase intent.

Resolution # 3: I will fuse social media with display

Making display ads social increases the conversation with your customers. Here are some ways that this can be accomplished:

• Make social media a primary destination: Try linking Trueview ads back to a similarly branded channel for a great social experience.
  
• Social interactions within the banner: Actually having users interact with the banner (by playing a game, watching videos, etc.) and then having them share their experiences through social media continues the conversation.
  
• Bring social media endorsements in the banner: This is becoming more popular, and is a great way for friends to share recommendations.

Resolution # 4: I will go mobile with my display campaigns

Just as users are now moving more and more to a multi-screen experience via desktop, mobile, and display, so must marketers think about a display strategy that isn’t siloed.

• Tablet targeting: Users expect more from tablet ads and are increasingly using these for online shopping. We support tablet targeting including zeroing in on tablet audiences by device, location, time of day and contextually.
  
• Get smarter with smartphone targeting: Finding what’s right for your business is key here. With so many format options to choose from that are specific to mobile devices (click to video, click to map, click to call) it’s worth it to think what could be the most effective for your business.

Resolution #5: There’s a perfect ad for everyone.

It’s really the biggest resolution we’re focused on at Google that encompasses all the other ones and it’s adopting the philosophy that 'There’s a perfect ad for everyone.'

Our recipe for the perfect ad for everyone is driven by simplicity and also by the technology that’s enabling us to customize the advertising experience for everyone at scale.

There’s a simple recipe to the perfect ad: The right person + the right message + the right time + the right context = the perfect ad.

What are your new year’s resolutions for your business? Let us know by tweeting @GoogleDisplay.

Mary Shirley, Product Marketing

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Putting Faces to Names in a Google +1 Custom Creative in DFA

Last month we introduced the ability to add a +1 button to ads trafficked in DFA. Now we’ve added a couple of features to the +1 creative template in DFA to make it even more effective as a recommendation engine for your brand.

Viewers of your ad can now see the faces of friends who have +1’d the ad. Putting a face to the name makes for more powerful impact as it makes the ad more personal and relevant. The result, we believe, are that people who see your ad will be more likely to click and respond to your call to action. In fact, 71% of shoppers say that recommendations from friends and family impact their purchasing decisions (Harris Interactive, June 2010).

Also, you now have full control over the placement of a +1 button in your display ad. For instance, you can set the size and annotation style of the button so aligns well with your creative concept.

Please note that if your account had previously been enabled for the +1 creative template functionality, you will now have access to the updated version. For more information on the +1 button and on the incorporating the +1 button in DFA reference this article in the Help Center (DFA sign-in required).

Posted by Gabe Stein, DFA Technical Specialist

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End the year on a bright note: Attend a DFA Webinar in December

As the year is winding down and another is just about to begin, why not get a head start on one of your new resolutions and do something to help you become an expert at your job? We know the holiday season is a very busy time but that’s why we’re offering you an array of webinars for you to attend at your convenience.

This month we have a webinar dedicated to all of the exciting DFA product enhancements that took place during Q4 2011. Visit the DFA Help Center (sign-in required) to register for these or either of our Fundamentals webinars.

Q4 2011 DFA Product Releases - December 13
This webinar will focus on the recent DFA product releases and will cover DFA Trafficking enhancements and the new DFA Reporting suite, including Report Builder and Multi-Channel Funnels. Two identical sessions will be held to accommodate both Eastern and Western time zones.

DFA for New Users - December 14
This webinar is intended for new users to DFA. It will provide an introduction to the fundamentals of DFA Trafficking and demonstrate best practices for beginners.

MediaVisor Fundamentals - December 20
An introduction to the fundamentals of MediaVisor.

To sign up for any upcoming webinars and view recordings of past webinars, please visit the DFA Help Center (sign-in required). And be sure to check back with us here on the DFA blog for regular updates to our training schedule.

The training team would like to thank you for the last year’s worth of feedback and attendance - we really do value your feedback and develop our curriculum with you in mind. We wish you a happy holiday season and look forward to seeing and hearing from you in the new year!

Posted by Amanda Gangl, DFA Product Trainer

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Bringing more mobile inventory to the DoubleClick Ad Exchange

(Originally posted on 11/29/11, updated 12/5/11)

It’s no secret that the mobile web is exploding. According to IDC, more people in the US are projected to access the web via a mobile device than on a computer by 2015. This makes mobile a very attractive opportunity for advertisers, and is creating a wave of new revenue opportunities for publishers.

In order to bring more mobile inventory to buyers on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, we’ve launched two important initiatives for the mobile-specific 320x50 ad size.

First, buyers will be able to access AdMob in-app mobile inventory from AdMob publishers and application developers. Last week, we opened access to this inventory to a preselected set of Ad Exchange buyers. Second, as of today, we are beginning to test the ability for Ad Exchange publishers to opt in their 320x50 size mobile web inventory into the Ad Exchange. This will open up new mobile web inventory for Ad Exchange buyers. As publisher participation in these initiatives grows, we expect the inventory pool for in-app and mobile web inventory that’s specific to the 320x50 ad size to expand as well.

With the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, this new mobile inventory can be purchased via RTB or the UI. Ad Exchange buyers who are interested in the new 320x50 ad size should be sure to share their interest with their account manager.

Posted by Atul Bhandari, Product Manager, DoubleClick Ad Exchange

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Bringing Reach and Media Cost Data into Report Builder

As a follow up to the September launch of Report Builder in DoubleClick for Advertisers, we’re pleased to announce several new features that will make the tool even more useful.

Incorporating Reach and Media Cost
New reach reports in Report Builder show an estimate of how many unique users have interacted with your ads. With the flexibility of Report Builder, you can choose specific advertisers, campaigns, ads, and placements, and gain insight into how many people they reached during a selected timeframe.

Media cost is now an available metric in Report Builder and you can add it to your reports as you would any metric. Media cost represents the cost of all impressions, clicks and activities during the specified date range, based on the schedule and pricing information you input into DFA for each placement.

Saved and Deferred Reports
A major benefit of Report Builder is the ability to create detailed reports with exactly the dimensions and metrics you need. Now you can save report reports, which act as templates so you can quickly re-run or reconfigure frequently-run reports.

You also now have the option to defer report generation, which saves the file so you can come back and download it later. This is especially helpful when running a big report, because you can keep working without having to wait for the report to finish generating.

To learn more about these latest features available in Report Builder reference this article in the Help Center (DFA sign-in required).

Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager

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New Classroom and Webinar Training Registration System

Now you can register for DFA and MediaVisor training directly in the DFA Help Center. Going forward it will be your one-stop shop for training and support needs. This new, easy to use interface includes exciting features like:

• Ability to enroll someone regardless if they have a DFA log-in.
• Integration of Google Maps within the registration confirmation email.
• Session notifications. If a class is full we can send you a notification when another one opens up.
• And much more.

Register now for an upcoming training!

DFA Fundamentals: This all day course (10am-5pm) is for new DFA users looking to understand the fundamentals of third-party ad serving including best practices for campaign trafficking, serving your ads and pulling reports.

• Los Angeles - December 13
• Chicago - December 14
• San Francisco - December 15

DFA Trafficking Lab: Get more practice running campaigns. These sessions cover the basics such as assigning landing pages to creatives, updating campaigns, setting up geo-targeting and using creative rotation.

Class Prerequisite:Attendees should have taken the DFA Fundamentals class in the previous two months or have less than two months trafficking experience.

• Los Angeles - December 14
• Chicago - December 15
• San Francisco - December 16

MediaVisor Fundamentals: Learn more about planning and creating campaigns, advertisers, site placements and IOs as well as how to send RFPs.

• Los Angeles - December 14

We look forward to seeing you in class!

Posted by Amanda Gangl, DFA Product Trainer

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DoubleClick Ad Exchange: First Truly Cross-Format Exchange

Our product teams have been rapidly innovating to bring more format support to DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Recent format innovations include:

• Mobile web inventory. According to internal data from October, mobile web inventory on DoubleClick Ad Exchange from high-end phones and tablets already makes up around 9% of global inventory and 15% of U.S. inventory.
• Mobile in-app inventory. In the coming weeks, AdMob publishers and application developers will be able to make their in-app mobile inventory available on DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Read the full announcement here.
• In-stream video. Q3 was our first full quarter of making in-stream video inventory available to buyers. Between the beginning of Q3 to now, we’ve tripled the number of buyers accessing this inventory.
• Rollover to expand. We’ve added the rollover to expand rich media format to our existing click-to-expand and in-page formats.

Recently at OMMA Display, Chip Hall, Director, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, spoke about these innovations in a presentation titled, “Unlocking Opportunities With the First Truly Cross-format Exchange.” In case you missed it live, you can watch it here:

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

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DS3: Announcing Several Upload Improvements

(cross posted from the DoubleClick Search blog. To learn more about DoubleClick Search, contact your Account Manager or request a call from a DoubleClick Search specialist.)

We heard from several of you about the importance of improving the process of downloading reports and uploading files in DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3). You offered comments and suggestions for making the functionality better. As a result, the DoubleClick Search team spent the past few weeks prioritizing and focusing on the changes that would provide the biggest impact. We hope that the improvements described below will make a major difference in your use of DS3.

Faster upload processing of large accounts

Our Engineering team made several changes behind the scenes to improve the upload processing times of large engine accounts (engine accounts with over 100,000 keywords). In the past, uploads of large accounts took a much longer time to process. Now, these previously delayed uploads will process at least 20 times faster per row.

Uploaded keywords now include dashes (-) and periods (.)

Before this release, DS3 would remove all dashes (-) and periods (.) from uploaded keywords. You can now upload keywords with the confidence that they will remain intact.

Downloaded reports now include AdWords broad match modifier (+)

Before this release, DS3 would remove the Google AdWords broad match modifier (+) from downloaded reports. The downloads now include the modifier, and it will also remain if you need to make changes to the report and upload it back into DS3.

We’ll continue to look for new ways to make the download and upload processes better in the future. Please contact your Technical Account Manager or email ds-support@google.com with any suggestions.

For more information about other new features in this DS3 release, including new bid strategy reporting columns, check out the release notes. And keep an eye on the blog for more exciting features in upcoming releases.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

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+1 Button in DFA: Leveraging Social Recommendations in Your Display Ads

Last March, Google introduced the +1 button on search results to make it easier for people to get recommendations from the people they trust right when they’re searching. And then in October, the +1 button was made available on display ads running across the Google Display Network.

For our part, we have been working on some new developments to let advertisers easily incorporate the +1 button with DoubleClick products. You can already make your rich media ads more social by adding the +1 to any DoubleClick Rich Media creative.

And now we’re pleased to announce that you can add the +1 icon to ads you traffic in DFA. Using the Google +1 custom in-page creative template in DFA, you can add the Google +1 icon to your ads so that people can recommend and share your ad and website with others across the web.

For more information on how to incorporate the +1 button into your ad, check out the DFA Help Center (DFA sign-in required). If the custom template is not already available for your DFA account, reach out to the DoubleClick Support Team to have it enabled.

Posted by Jessica Doolittle, Product Manager

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Streamlined Workflow for AdMob Rich Media in DoubleClick Studio and DFA

Since the launch of DoubleClick Studio in April 2009, we’ve streamlined the workflow for thousands upon thousands of rich media creatives for advertiser’s online campaigns. In May 2011, DoubleClick Rich Media creatives were certified to run in AdMob inventory. Now, we’re building on these two innovations to improve the efficiency of mobile display campaigns, too.

This Saturday we added support to DoubleClick Studio and DoubleClick for Advertisers for “Mobile In-App” AdMob rich media formats. With this addition, it’s much easier for creative agencies and media agencies to work together to build, preview, manage and serve mobile display campaigns across AdMob inventory. AdMob’s mobile display ad network is comprised of 89,000+ mobile sites and apps across 230 countries. Mobile advertisers will benefit by combining the efficiency of DoubleClick tools with the scale of AdMob inventory.

Here’s what the creation of a new “Mobile In-App” creative looks like in the DoubleClick Studio interface:

You can preview what your “Mobile In-App” creative will look like on a tablet or phone. The preview tool in DoubleClick Studio includes options to view the ad in landscape and portrait mode and the ability to zoom to 100% or 50% resolutions. Here’s what a tablet preview of a “Mobile In-App” creative looks like:

Just as you can with other rich media formats in DoubleClick Studio, you can now push a “Mobile In-App” creative directly to DFA. The ad will show up to traffickers when they import advertiser-level creatives, as in the screenshot here:

Once the “Mobile In-App” creative is in DFA, traffickers can change properties of the creative, such as its landing page, much like they do for other rich media formats. Here’s how a “Mobile In-App” creative looks in DFA:

Initially, all campaigns and creatives using this new workflow will run through our full-service team. Please contact your DoubleClick Rich Media representative if you're interested in running Mobile In-App creatives or campaigns.

Research shows that rich media campaigns across multiple screens work better than those targeting just one screen. By making the mobile rich media workflow easier, we hope this helps you include captivating mobile display ads in your next campaign and drive campaign performance across screens.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

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Making It Easier to Comply with the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Ads

We know that maintaining consumer trust is an important priority for our clients. To help support that priority, DFA is providing six custom creative templates for implementing the Advertising Option Icon in your ads, in compliance with the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA)'s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising.

These custom templates in DFA work with the three approved providers to provide compliance services: DoubleVerify, Evidon, and TRUSTe. If you partner with one of these providers, you can save time by using these custom creative templates to implement the Advertising Option Icon on your ads. We have provided a template in DFA for Flash and a template for images for each of these providers. We have worked with these vendors to ensure support of OBA functionality but did not validate that any other components of these solutions worked with DFA.

DFA is an open platform allowing our advertisers to take advantage of 3rd party or native solutions for a variety of problems, and compliance with OBA standards is just one example of these problems.

To learn more about how to add the Advertising Option Icon templates to your DFA account and also to add a creative with the Advertising Option Icon within DFA, reference this article in the Help Center (DFA sign-in required).

Posted by Jessica Doolittle, Product Manager

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Attend a DFA Webinar in November

Attend a DFA Webinar in November and learn more about the newest Reporting options available through DFA. Visit the DoubleClick Learn Center to register for these or any of our Fundamentals webinars (sign-in required).

Navigating the DFA Reporting Options. What to Use, When, and How? - November 15
We've rolled out some exciting new features in recent months. Sign up for this Webinar to make sense of them all. We'll cover questions like, "When should you use each tool?" "What advantages do some tools present over others?" And "What features will make your reporting workflow easier and more efficient?"

Working with Data and Troubleshooting in a Land of Multiple Reporting Options. - November 29
You now have multiple sources of data to pull from. We'll cover questions like "What happens when two sets of numbers do not match?" and "What is an acceptable difference when looking at reports from two different sources?"

DFA for New Users - November 16 and November 30
An introduction to the fundamentals of DFA.

MediaVisor Fundamentals - November 29
An introduction to the fundamentals of MediaVisor.

To sign up for all upcoming webinars and view recordings of past webinars, visit the DoubleClick Learn Center (sign-in required). And be sure to check back with us on this blog for regular updates to our training schedule.

Posted by Amanda Gangl, DFA Product Trainer

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Bringing AdMob Mobile Inventory to the DoubleClick Ad Exchange

In 2009, we launched the DoubleClick Ad Exchange as a way to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, drive performance for our advertiser and publisher partners, and open up the display marketplace. In the two years since, exchange-based trading has taken off -- we’ve seen the volume of trades on our own exchange grow by more than 150% in the past year. At the same time, display, as a medium, has evolved.

Display started as just banner ads on websites, but has grown to include a range of formats as diverse as the web itself -- rich media ads that bring a page to life, in-stream ads that play before your favorite online video, and ads that run in the mobile version of your daily newspaper. To reflect this growing diversity, we have been expanding the types of formats in the Exchange. We support the most popular types of rich media ads, including units that run in-page with video, or expand when you click or mouse over them. It’s also possible to buy ads across the mobile web. Earlier this year, we announced that in-stream video formats were coming to the Exchange, and we’ve seen huge demand since launch: the number of buyers for in-stream video has tripled over the past quarter.

Today, we are announcing another step forward -- in the coming weeks, AdMob developers will be able to make their in-app inventory available on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Initially, a small number of pre-qualified buyers will be able to compete for this inventory. Over time, we'll be rolling it out more broadly. Ultimately, this will give app developers and publishers access to a wider pool of buyers like demand-side platforms and agency trading desks, improving their potential returns, and helping grow the overall mobile web economy. And marketers on our Exchange will be able to buy, in real time, ads that run inside people’s favorite mobile games, news apps and more. With this important addition, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange will be truly cross-format...and will become the first exchange to support this full range of ad formats.

VivaKi, one of our key partners on the Exchange, is gearing up to start buying in-app ads on the Exchange. “We are delighted to be working with Google as they open up the DoubleClick Ad Exchange to include AdMob in-app inventory, and to deliver this opportunity to our clients,” says Kurt Unkel, Senior Vice President, VivaKi Nerve Center. “We anticipate this experience will help us bring mobile to scale to our partners, and will provide insight into the operational elements and the creative assets that work best in this environment.”

A cross-format exchange is just one of the ways we’re looking to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, but one we think will create tremendous value for advertisers and publishers. We will continue to work with our partners to help them get the most out of what the evolving display market has to offer -- today, tomorrow, and in the years ahead.

Posted by Chip Hall, Director, DoubleClick Ad Exchange

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Webinar Recap: Introducing the New DFA Reporting

On Tuesday, October 18, we held a webinar introducing the new DFA Reporting suite covering:

• The vision for how we’re building the next generation of reporting tools
• Details of the new reporting query tool, Report Builder
• Scenarios of how to best use the new Multi-Channel Funnel reports in DFA

For those of you who missed the webinar, a recorded version is now available, which you can watch below. You can also download the materials we covered here.

During the presentation we fielded some great questions from participants; you’ll find responses to the top questions below.

Q. We’ve always been told that since DFA Analytics was in beta, data was not guaranteed and so we were directed to Report Central. Is Report Builder now as trusted and accurate as Report Central?
A. Yes, getting data as accurate as possible between the two systems is a number one priority so yes, you can trust the accuracy of data available in Report Builder. The user interface in Report Builder is in beta so keep in mind that we will be continuously tweaking and improving the user experience of the tool but consider the data as accurate as in ReportCentral.

Q. How far back can you pull data in Report Builder?
A. With Report Builder, we will store data for 24 months - an improvement over the legacy system, ReportCentral, where you can pull the last 16 months of data.

Q. Is ReportCentral being discontinued?
A. Yes but as of now there is no set date as to when that will happen. Of course, we will give clients plenty of lead time to prepare for this. But the end goal is to have DFA Reporting completely replace ReportCentral.

Q. Is there a plan to roll out real-time reporting?
We’re always striving to update DFA data more frequently and will continue to do so. For example, in the old Report Central, we updated data once per day, whereas in the new Report Builder we update data several times a day.

Q. Regarding geo-reporting, can I visualize reports on a map with performance broken down by DMA? Currently, when we pulled maps it only shows statewide delivery and ideally we would like to see multiple DMAs overlayed in the same map.
A. In Report Builder you can pull results by geo dimensions including DMA, country, state, city, but we don’t have that feature available in the map visualizations yet. But it’s a good suggestion to add that feature.

Q. When will geo-reporting be available for Europe?
A. Geo data is currently available for Europe but only down to the country and city level at this point. We will be expanding into more granular geo-data in the future for Europe.

Q. I still don’t understand the attribution report. Where can I see how many (last-click) conversions a publisher generated versus how many assisted conversions generated (not last-click conversions). I can see that in Google Analytics, but I am not seeing the same here.
A. In Google Analytic’s Multi-Channel Funnel Report, they have an Assisted Channel Conversion report which explicitly calls this out.

In DFA, the Attributed Channel report shows you the total number of conversions and if you apply the Assisted Channel filter you’ll see the number of conversions that have an assisting interaction in the path. You can get this information plus if needed, greater detail from the Exposure to Conversion report.

So in DFA we don’t provide you with the total number of assists, but rather the number of conversions that were assisted.

Q: Will the Exposure to Conversion report continue to only be offered as an additional paid service in the system?
A. Yes. The E2C report along with the Cross-Site Duplication and Time Lag will remain premium reports in the new system.

For more information on all your questions, please check out the video to hear the Q&A in its entirety and also check our help center (DFA sign-in required). Thanks to all who attended the webinar, we look forward to hosting additional webinars to update you on the latest in DFA developments.

Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager

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Introducing Search for Placements in Ad Planner

This week we are launching a group of new changes in DoubleClick Ad Planner. The existing Search by Audience tab is being replaced with a Search for Placements tab. This new tab has all the functionality of the existing interface but also brings many new features into the application.

The new Search For Placements Tab in Ad Planner

Here are some of the great new capabilities we’ve added:

Site Language: In addition to being able to restrict on a language for your Audience you will be able to restrict your search to pages where the content is predominantly in a specific language.
Site Content: Find sites similar to other URLs or a set of keywords.
Topic Exclusion: Find sites that do not belong to the categories you choose.
Advanced Ad Formats: We now support filtering on advanced Video Ad options such as TrueView and Duration.
Attributes: Additional placement level properties for selection.
Browser Class: In an increasingly smartphone and tablet centric world you can now restrict results to those sites that support these types of browsing.

Besides these great features we’ve also brought YouTube content into Ad Planner. You can now search for the best YouTube categories and channels that meet your advertising needs.

A search for YouTube content on Ad Planner

With these changes we are putting more display ad inventory at your fingertips than ever before. By providing the ability to plan Video side by side with your traditional display purchases you can build comprehensive media plans that offer you better reach and engagement. For additional details on the new release check out the Ad Planner help articles.

Roshan Khan, Product Manager

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Seven Rich Media Innovations for Your Next Campaign

Today, technical experts from our rich media team will present seven rich media innovations to a room full of developers, programmers and technologists within creative agencies at Creative Sandbox | Behind the Screens. This is part of our ongoing effort to help foster more relevant, more real-time and more interactive display ads across screens. Below you can play a video about each of the seven innovations being covered. We look forward to seeing these ideas come to life in live campaigns.

Dynamic Creative with DoubleClick Rich Media
Use multiple headlines, offers, calls-to-action, product images, landing pages -- even videos -- all within a single creative.

QR Code in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
Provide a bridge from online display ads to consumers’ smartphones with QR codes.

Augmented Reality in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
With augmented reality in an ad, all people need is a webcam and a simple printout or camera phone to experience immersive games or stunning 3D product demonstrations.


Credits: Carmichael Lynch for the Living Sasquatch example (www.livingsasquatch.com); Euro RSCG, Media Contacts and Volvo for the Volvo S60 augmented reality ad

+1 Button in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
The +1 button in an ad allows consumers to recommend advertised products or services to contacts and connections across the Internet.


Credits: AKQA for Gears of War 3

Twitter in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
Combine social media with the reach of paid advertising by including Twitter in a DoubleClick Rich Media ad.


Credits: Media Contacts for Volvo XC60 and Tribal DDB for VW Passat

Social Toolbar in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
Bring sharing to the forefront of any ad with a social toolbar.

Interactive Page Takeover with DoubleClick Rich Media
Use an interactive page takeover to transform a user's favorite web page into a full-screen ad that surprises and delights.


Credits: Discovery Communications for River Monsters; OMD, Tag Worldwide and Intel for Intel Core i5

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

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Case Study: DoubleClick Ad Exchange Helps Advertisers Find Quantcast Lookalikes at Scale

One benefit of DoubleClick Ad Exchange is that buyers can bring their own data, optimization and bidding strategies to the exchange in order to meet their own goals. In a new case study with Quantcast, we look at how they do exactly these things in real-time and at scale through their product, Quantcast Lookalikes.

Data and scale are two things Quantcast embraces. For example, across DoubleClick Ad Exchange, Quantcast achieves an amazing callout rate close to 100%, which means they can respond to almost all of the impressions DoubleClick announces to them. This matters in RTB because the best impressions for a campaign become easier to pick when the buying system sees them all. And since the start of 2011, Quantcast has doubled the number of impressions it handles from DoubleClick Ad Exchange and its overall data processing capability grows rapidly. Quantcast’s system currently generates a live feed of 400,000+ events a second, adding up to over five petabytes (five million gigabytes) of data processed a day with an incredibly high frequency of data points.

Quantcast especially appreciates DoubleClick Ad Exchange as a source of real-time inventory.

As Crispin Flowerday, Real-time Platform Manager at Quantcast says, "Quantcast helps advertisers and publishers get the right impression to the right person at the right time, so we seized on DoubleClick Ad Exchange's real-time bidding API as soon as it was available to us in 2009. RTB is a key pillar of our efforts to make advertising relevant and audiences valuable and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange is helping us make that dream a reality."

For more details on how Quantcast Lookalikes are used on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, download the full case study here.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

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New features in DS3: Inferred match type, upload email confirmations, and report names

(cross posted from the DoubleClick Search blog. To learn more about DoubleClick Search, contact your Account Manager or request a call from a DoubleClick Search specialist.)

We recently described some new DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3) features designed to improve your workflow and productivity. Now, we have even more improvements to enhance your reporting and upload capabilities.

Inferred match type

When we launched DS3, we provided the ability to set a bid for each match type on a Microsoft adCenter keyword. As each keyword could correspond to three match types and we couldn’t determine with certainty which match type caused the conversion, we were unable to populate the Match type column in reporting. However, many of you duplicated keywords to have a 1-to-1 match type relationship and asked us to display match type. As a result, the new Inferred match type column allows you to see a match type attributed to your adCenter keywords and makes it easier to compare keywords across engines.

DS3 infers the match type from the bids you have set for adCenter keywords:

• - If a broad match bid is set (in other words, greater than 0), DS3 assumes it’s a broad match keyword.
• - If a phrase match bid is set but not broad, DS3 assumes it's a phrase match keyword.
• - If an exact match bid is set but not phrase or broad, DS3 assumes it's an exact match keyword.
• - If a content match bid is the only bid set, DS3 will leave the Inferred match typecolumn blank.

After you select the Inferred match type column, you'll be able to see it in DS3 reporting on the UI and on downloaded reports. A few other things to keep in mind:

• - To make it easier to compare keywords across engines, DS3 will copy the Match type column value into the Inferred match type column for Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing keywords.
• - This is a read-only column: You won’t be able to update match type by changing the value in the Inferred match type column and uploading.
• - This column does not appear in DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) reporting. You won’t be able to see a match type for adCenter keywords in DFA.

Upload email confirmations

Tired of constantly checking the Uploads list to see if the spinny has stopped and your important upload processed? You can now opt to receive emails when an upload is complete. The email will contain a link to the upload page; if there are errors, you can download the error sheet from the uploads list, make corrections, and attempt the upload again.

Names for emailed reports

When you set up a report to be emailed from DS3, you can now customize the name that will appear in the email subject line. This is useful if the default name isn’t descriptive enough to differentiate between reports. For example, you could email two reports for the same campaign, but set up different date ranges, and include the date ranges in the report names.

To make sure you learn about new DS3 features as they’re released, enter your email address in the Follow by Email field in the upper righthand corner of the blog and click Submit. You’ll receive an email every time we add a post to the blog.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search Team

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Attend a DFA Classroom Training

Attend a DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) classroom training and learn the fundamentals of DFA and become familiar with the ad trafficking process. Class details and upcoming dates are listed below.

Visit the DoubleClick Learn Center to register (sign-in required).

DFA Fundamentals: This all day course (10am-5pm) is useful for new DFA users who are looking to understand the fundamentals of third-party ad serving including best practices for campaign trafficking, serving your ads and pulling reports.

• Chicago - November 16
  
• San Francisco - November 30
  
• New York - December 7
  

DFA Trafficking Lab: This lab provides users with practice at running campaigns. It covers basic DFA functionality including assigning landing pages to creatives, updating campaigns, setting up geo-targeting and using creative rotation. As a prerequisite, attendees should have taken the DFA Fundamentals class in the previous two months or have less than two months trafficking experience.

• Chicago - November 17
• San Francisco - December 1
• New York - December 8

MediaVisor: Learn more about MediaVisor in this course that covers how to plan and create campaigns, advertisers, site placements and IOs as well as how to send RFPs.

• Chicago - November 17

To sign up for any upcoming classroom training, visit the DoubleClick Learn Center (sign-in required). And be sure to check back with us on this blog for regular updates to our training schedule.

Posted by Amanda Gangl, DFA Product Trainer

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Improved workflow and productivity in DS

(cross posted from the DoubleClick Search blog. To learn more about DoubleClick Search, contact your Account Manager or request a call from a DoubleClick Search specialist.)

In addition to Floodlight segmentation, we’ve made some exciting enhancements to the DS3 UI over the past few weeks, including new filter options, keyword defaults, and a settings bar for campaigns and ad groups. Read on to learn how these new features can help you work faster and better in DS3.

New filter options: ‘Does not contain’ and ‘Starts with’

When you set up a filter that has the options Contains, Equals, and Does not equal, there are now two additional options: Does not contain and Starts with. When combined with the recently released ability to filter by multiple terms, you have an even more powerful set of filtering options.

Apply default settings to keywords

When creating keywords in the DS3 UI, you can now apply default values to keywords as you enter them in the text box. This makes it easy to apply the same values to several keywords, while also customizing the settings for some keywords when needed.

For example, if one keyword in an ad group is performing well, you can set a specific max CPC bid of $10, while keeping all other keywords at the default bid of $5. To apply a default, exclude the field from the row in the text box. Learn more about the proper formatting of default keyword settings in the Help Center.

New settings bar for campaigns and ad groups

When you select a campaign or ad group in DS3, you’ll now see a settings bar near the top of the page. This bar gives you a quick overview of campaign/ad group settings. If you need to make a change, you can simply click the Campaign settings or Ad group settings button and edit the settings in the inline panel that appears. Look for even more useful information in this bar in the future.

For more information about the latest DS3 release, including fixes to known issues, check out the release notes. And keep an eye on the blog for information about improvements to uploads, downloads, and reporting!

Posted by the DoubleClick Search Team

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Counting All the Cookies in Ad Planner

We’re always looking at ways to improve data in DoubleClick Ad Planner. For example, back in April we changed the algorithm for calculating unique visitors (users). Now we are also updating the way we estimate unique visitors (cookies). Generally you should see this value go up across the board which will more accurately represent the relationship between real people and cookies.

Previously we looked at a sample of cookies for a site and built a model to extrapolate overall statistics for that site. Now we have a much smarter process where we look at the overall number of cookies on a site and use that to estimate overall traffic, resulting in bigger, more accurate, values. As before, we look only at the aggregate number of cookies, not the cookies themselves.

The Ad Planner product team is continually striving to bring the most accurate and comprehensive view of sites on the internet to our users. The end result of this latest effort is that now you’ll see more accurate cookie values represented in Ad Planner.

Roshan Khan, Product Manager

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Ushering in a New Era for DFA Reporting

You might notice a small change when you sign in to DoubleClick for Advertisers today -- the link to DFA Analytics at the top of the page now reads “DFA Reporting.” Although this is a small change to the interface, it represents a big step towards an entirely new reporting system in DFA -- one that is fast and flexible, fully integrated with other DoubleClick advertiser products and that can deliver key insights in this world of advertising to the multi-device, always-on consumer.

The rubber met the road with last month’s reporting launch of Report Builder and Multi-Channel Funnels in DFA, representing the first of many exciting new developments for reporting in the coming year.

Please join the DoubleClick product management team for an upcoming webinar, Introducing the New DFA Reporting, to learn more about these major enhancements to DFA’s reporting system.

Date
October 18, 2011

Time
12:30pm EST / 9:30am PST

Register
To register for this webinar please visit http://tinyurl.com/dfareporting

We look forward to hearing your feedback and questions during the webinar!

Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager

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Attend a DFA Training in October

Whether you're looking to brush up on certain features of DoubleClick for Advertisers or are entirely new to using the product, the DFA training team offers a variety of training experiences that best suit your needs. In addition to in-person classroom training for a deep dive on the product, we also offer a regular rotation of webinars focused on a particular hot topic.

Visit the DoubleClick Learn Center to register (sign-in required).

Classroom Training

DFA Fundamentals: This all day course (10am-5pm) is useful for new DFA users who are looking to understand the fundamentals of third-party ad serving including best practices for campaign trafficking, serving your ads and pulling reports.

• Chicago - October 19
  
• Minneapolis - October 24
  
• Santa Monica - October 24
  
• San Francisco - October 26
  
• New York - November 2

DFA Trafficking Lab: This lab provides users with practice at running campaigns. It covers basic DFA functionality including assigning landing pages to creatives, updating campaigns, setting up geo-targeting and using creative rotation. As a prerequisite, attendees should have taken the DFA Fundamentals class in the previous two months or have less than two months trafficking experience.

• Chicago - October 20
• Minneapolis - October 25
• Santa Monica - October 25
• San Francisco - October 27
• New York - November 3

MediaVisor: Learn more about MediaVisor in this course that covers how to plan and create campaigns, advertisers, site placements and IOs as well as how to send RFPs.

• New York - November 3

Webinar Training This month join us for webinars focusing on how to work with Ads in DFA. For those not able to attend the classroom training sessions, we also offer monthly webinars for both DFA and MediaVisor Fundamentals.

DFA Ads - Making Them Work for You - October 11 This webinar will teach you the fundamentals of setting up ads in DFA while thinking strategically about campaigns. We'll tackle questions such as "how can you set up ads as efficiently as possible?" and "how do you manage start and end dates so that the right things run at the right time?" and "how do you avoid serving too many defaults?"

Priority, Frequency Capping, Targeting and Other Ad Level Capabilities - October 18 DFA gives you the flexibility to do a lot with your ads, you just have to discover the possibilities. This webinar will teach you how to leverage things like priority, frequency capping, and targeting in order to enhance your campaigns.

Click Trackers and 1x1's - Getting it Right - October 25 Did you know that you can track site-served creatives using DFA? Do you know how to best work with sites to ensure that click trackers get implemented correctly? Well, we can teach you. Trafficking these types of ads can get tricky and we're here to show you how to get it right.

DFA for New Users - October 12 and October 26 An introduction to the fundamentals of DFA.

MediaVisor Fundamentals - October 18 An introduction to the fundamentals of MediaVisor.

To sign up for all upcoming webinars and view recordings of past webinars, visit the DoubleClick Learn Center (sign-in required). And be sure to check back with us on this blog for regular updates to our training schedule.

Posted by Amanda Gangl, DFA Product Trainer

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Introducing new DFA Reporting

We know that as online marketers your goals are to drive greater value from your advertising and to optimize future results based on the learnings from current campaigns. Campaign reporting is central to that effort, and so with this in mind, the DoubleClick for Advertisers product team has been working hard on developing some innovations to the reporting system that will impart greater insight into your role as a marketer.

Today we’re launching the new DFA Reporting system with the introduction of two features -- Report Builder and Multi-Channel Funnels -- that offer the power, flexibility and access to near real-time data required to keep up with today’s always connected, multi-device consumer.

Report Builder: In-Depth, Powerful Campaign Reporting
Report Builder, a new query-based reporting tool, allows you to build campaign reports to the exact specifications that you require. Report Builder is the gateway to reporting for all integrated products from across key DoubleClick products including DoubleClick Search and DoubleClick Rich Media.

Multi-Channel Funnels: At-a-Glance Insights on Conversions
Similar to the feature available in Google Analytics, Multi-Channel Funnels in DFA allow you to chart out greater insight into the paths your customers took from the initial interaction to the final conversion.

A collection of three reports are available to help marketers better understand what channels or mix of channels are helping to drive conversions from campaigns tracked in DFA.

• Attributed Channels outlines which channels are contributing to and resulting in conversions.
  
• Path Length reveals the number of interactions a customer had with your ads before converting.
  
• Time Lag tells you the length of time it took between the first interaction with your campaign and the last before conversion.

We’re getting great feedback from clients currently piloting the tool and will be incorporating their feedback into developing additional funnel reports. Make sure to follow the blog for latest developments on new reporting features available in DFA.

In the next couple of weeks we will be offering a free webinar to cover in greater detail the latest developments in DFA reporting. Look out for an announcement here on the blog or sign up here to be notified by email. We’ll be walking through the reports and common use cases and you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions. We hope you’ll be able to make it!

Aaron Nelson, Product Manager

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+1 Button in DoubleClick Rich Media: Attract and Showcase Social Recommendations

Last March, Google introduced the +1 button on search results and ads to make it easier for people to get recommendations from the people they trust right when they’re searching. With just a single click, the +1 button lets signed-in Google users publicly recommend content to friends and contacts. Since then, webmasters have been installing the +1 button on their pages. The button has already been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily. These +1 recommendations tell others, “This is something to check out!”

Starting now, advertisers have the option to include the +1 button in any DoubleClick Rich Media ad. This provides advertisers with the ability to include the +1 button in our third-party rich media creatives and to control the inclusion of the +1 button at the creative level. This new option provides rich media advertisers with a simple and scalable way to increase positive and public advocacy of their brand online.

Xbox and AKQA London have worked with DoubleClick to include the +1 button in their upcoming rich media ads for the Gears of War 3 release.

Beginning in October, the +1 button will also appear across display ads served directly through Google Display Network (GDN) and in select mobile inventory. Wherever a +1 action originates, be it from Google’s search engine, in a display or mobile ad on GDN, in a DoubleClick Rich Media ad or from a web page, the +1 endorsement applies universally to a single page. Each +1 action adds to the overall +1 count for a page.

We look forward to helping advertisers accelerate social recommendations of their content by adding the +1 button to DoubleClick Rich Media ad units. For more details and best practices on including the +1 button in DoubleClick Rich Media ad units, please download our overview here. To get started with +1 in your next campaign, contact your DoubleClick Rich Media account representative.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

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Introducing Ad Exchange Direct Deals

The rise of Ad Exchanges has made it easier for buyers and sellers to connect, using technologies such as real-time bidding (RTB) to help unlock more value for every impression. Exchanges have also provided a number of efficiency benefits such as the elimination of paperwork (known as “insertion orders”) and trafficking for every transaction. Increasingly, deal types have been evolving on this platform as publishers have been making exclusive tiers of inventory available to select buyers via exchanges, a model typically known as a “private exchange”. Private exchanges can provide buyers with enhanced access to premium inventory.

While buyers and sellers have been transacting with anonymous inventory in the DoubleClick Ad Exchange auction for more than a year, it was clear that the industry was also ready for yet another evolutionary step in exchange buying. Both buyers and sellers wanted even more flexibility, control and pricing certainty for some transactions. In tandem, we’ve continued to evolve the Ad Exchange to meet these needs by rolling-out a new solution called Ad Exchange Direct Deals.

This new type of exchange deal allows buyers to access inventory from publishers at a fixed price through DoubleClick Ad Exchange. This differs from typical deals where the price is set through the auction. With Direct Deals, buyers get access to inventory on a pre-auction basis, thus getting “first look” access.

For buyers, this creates a bridge between the spot and reserve markets for display inventory. It helps buyers benefit from the high quality publisher inventory that the reserve market is known for while preserving the audience targeting power that the data-driven spot market is known for. With Direct Deals, buyers keep the efficiency of the exchange transaction, such as “insertion-orderless” buying and an ability to buy on an impression-by-impression basis, all while enjoying the pricing certainty of the directly negotiated deal. Accessing inventory through Direct Deals in combination with using brand-friendly formats like in-stream video and rich media will help advertisers execute brand campaigns against specific audiences and further unlock the branding potential of exchange-based buying.

Premium publishers, such as Washington Post and About.com, have been early testers of this feature working with leading exchange buyers such as re-targeting network, Criteo. For Criteo, this feature has meant new opportunities to connect with publishers. Jonathan Wolf, Chief Buying Officer at Criteo says, “Working directly with publishers has always been critical for Criteo, as a way to access the best inventory and deliver the highest CPMs to publishers. We are delighted to be using Direct Deals as a new way to achieve this, with all the advantages of a real-time mechanism.”

Here at Google, we are excited to introduce this new level of flexibility to Ad Exchange to help buyers improve the effectiveness of their campaigns and sellers profit from real-time display buying on their terms. DoubleClick Ad Exchange advertisers and publishers can contact their account manager to join the Direct Deals beta program.

Posted by Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management

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Attend a DFA Training in September

Whether you're looking to brush up on certain features of DoubleClick for Advertisers or are entirely new to using the product, the DFA training team offers a variety of training experiences that best suit your needs. In addition to in-person classroom training for a deep dive on the product, we also offer a regular rotation of webinars focused on a particular hot topic.

Visit the DoubleClick Learn Center to register (sign-in required).

Classroom Training

DFA Fundamentals: This all day course (10am-5pm) is useful for new DFA users who are looking to understand the fundamentals of third-party ad serving including best practices for campaign trafficking, serving your ads and pulling reports.

• New York - September 7
• Chicago - September 14
• Toronto - September 15
• Boston - September 22
• Santa Monica - September 26
• San Francisco - September 28

DFA Trafficking Lab: This lab provides users with practice at running campaigns. It covers basic DFA functionality including assigning landing pages to creatives, updating campaigns, setting up geo-targeting and using creative rotation. As a prerequisite, attendees should have taken the DFA Fundamentals class in the previous two months or have less than two months trafficking experience.

• New York - September 8
• Chicago - September 15
• Toronto - September 16
• Boston - September 23
• Santa Monica - September 27
• San Francisco - September 29

MediaVisor: Learn more about MediaVisor in this course that covers how to plan and create campaigns, advertisers, site placements and IOs as well as how to send RFPs.

• New York - September 8
• Chicago - September 15
• Toronto - September 16
• Boston - September 23
• Santa Monica - September 27
• San Francisco - September 29

Webinar Training
This month join us for webinars focusing on the basics of Rich Media. For those not able to attend the classroom training sessions, we offer monthly webinars for both DFA and MediaVisor Fundamentals.

Basics of Rich Media and DFA - September 20
This webinar will cover the benefits of Rich Media, the campaign life cycle, and the basics of trafficking Rich Media creatives.

Reporting on Rich Media in DFA - September 27
Learn about the the standard and custom metrics available in Rich Media reporting, how to pull the reports, and tips on how to analyze the data.

DFA for New Users - September 14 and September 28
An introduction to the fundamentals of DFA.

MediaVisor Fundamentals - September 15
An introduction to the fundamentals of MediaVisor.

To sign up for all upcoming webinars and view recordings of past webinars, visit the DoubleClick Learn Center (sign-in required). And be sure to check back with us on this blog for regular updates to our training schedule.

Posted by Amanda Gangl, DFA Product Trainer

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Latest Display Benchmarks Now Available

Evaluating the success of display campaigns can be an exercise in relativity. You gauge current campaigns against past performance or compare across multiple campaigns and advertisers within your roster of brands or clients.

But in seeking more comprehensive benchmarks that reflect trends going on in the display industry, you might find yourself falling short. Advertisers and agencies alike are looking for more data to answer the basic questions of "How do I know if my display ad campaigns are doing well?" and "Are there credible benchmarks I can use to compare the results on my current campaign?"

It’s no surprise then that our display benchmarks have met with much enthusiasm since we first started publishing the data in 2009. We’re pleased to introduce a dedicated space for display benchmarks data on the Watch This Space website. The first set of metrics you’ll see available are the latest display benchmarks which cover the breadth of data from CTR metrics to engagement metrics for rich media ads such as interaction and expansion rate, video complete rates and average interaction times -- all across a broad range of ad sizes, creative types and industry verticals.

Some interesting observations from these latest benchmarks:

• Use of rich media ad formats have doubled. We saw a two-fold increase in the proportion of impressions going to Rich Media ads. In 2010, simple flash ads accounted for 54% of all global formats served via the DoubleClick for Advertisers platform, down from 74% in 2009. Image ads, in comparison, experienced an uptick with 28% of formats served in 2010 up from 17% in 2009. That leaves rich media ad formats growing to 18% of all the impressions served in 2010 up from 9% globally in 2009.
  
  
• Response and engagement rates have been holding steady since 2009. In the past two years, the overall click-through rate has remained steady at around 0.09%.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Interaction rates trended slightly lower when comparing Q4 2010 to Q4 2009 but in general this measure of engagement has remained relatively steady over the course of 2010 after coming down from its peak in early 2009. (Note: Due to a change in the DFA methodology for interaction rates back in April 2008, we only reflect benchmarking data for interaction rates from then onward.)
  
  
• Expansion rates have fallen considerably since early 2009 but now we are seeing rates leveling off with a slight uptick towards the end of 2010.
  
  
• Video completion rates on rich media ads have generally remained consistent except for a several month peak towards the later half of 2008.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Larger ad sizes tend to generate greater response. Size does matter apparently. As we have seen in years past, bigger ads perform better. We observed this with the latest set of metrics in which the half-page ad unit (300x600) which had the highest CTR, interaction rate (for both in-page and expandable formats) and expansion rates of all the available creative sizes we tracked for the benchmarks.
  
  
• Although the U.S. had one of the lowest expansion rates, this market showed the highest expansion time. So Americans seem to expand ads less but when they do spend more time engaging with the ads themselves.
  
  
• In terms of industry verticals, auto advertisers performed the best in terms of CTR (0.13% for flash ads) but conversely had the lowest interaction (1.9%) and expansion rates (0.2%). For interaction rate, telecom (9.4%) and B2B (9.2%) advertisers were the highest while B2B stood out in terms of expansion rate (7.5%) benchmarks.

A couple of notes about this latest set of online advertising benchmarks. 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 charts cover global benchmark figures for the entirety of 2010 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 additional insights and access to the full set of available benchmarks, visit the benchmarks section on the Watch This Space website. More in-depth benchmarks by industry are available exclusively to DoubleClick clients so contact your account manager to discuss further.

Posted by Pamela Eng, Product Marketing Manager

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Make DFA Even Better, Participate in Our Usability Studies

Building a great ad serving system is dependant on you, our users, giving us feedback on what would best suit your needs in DoubleClick for Advertisers. We listen and learn from our customers every day and are always looking to learn even more from you.

So DFA users, please participate in our usability studies and see your efforts result in product enhancements designed to better meet your needs.

It’s simple to participate. Just fill out this form and whenever we have a study coming up and you fit the profile we are looking for, one of our User Experience Researchers will be reaching out to you. You must be a current user of DFA to participate.

The DFA User Experience team will spend some time with you reviewing new ideas for product enhancements and gather your thoughts, ideas and opinions. Your commitment is just 1-2 hours at a place most convenient for you - whether over the phone, at your office or in our usability lab located in New York City. Mostly we’re interested in observing first hand the ways in which you use DFA so we can come up with new ideas and novel solutions for your most common workflow issues.

What’s in it for me, you might ask? Well, as a DFA usability participant you will get a sneak preview of the latest DFA features before they hit the wider market. You’ll be able to have a direct impact on the way new DFA features are rolled out and ultimately make your day-to-day lives in the system that much easier.

Posted by Anastassia Drofa, User Experience Researcher

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Tips & Tricks: Simple Steps to Ensure Proper Conversion Tracking in DFA

Being able to track campaign performance starts with proper tagging of the relevant conversion points on your advertiser’s website. If your tags are not set up properly to begin with, then you could lose precious information on how your campaign is performing.

In DoubleClick for Advertisers, conversion tags are referred to as Floodlight activities. To save yourself the headache of Floodlight tag errors that could result in campaign conversions not tracking and reporting correctly, here are three easy QA steps you can take to determine whether a Floodlight tag has been implemented correctly.

Step 1: Compare DFA code and site code
Confirm that the Floodlight tag implemented on webpage matches the tag code in the DFA user interface (UI), and that there are no red flags such as line breaks.

Click into the Floodlight tag in question in the DFA UI. Copy and paste the tag code found in the “Floodlight Tag Preview” section into a simple text document.

Load the webpage where this same tag has been implemented. View the source code of the page by selecting View -> Page Source from your browser menu. Do a quick search for “doubleclick” within the source code. Unless the Floodlight tag has been coded on a hidden layer of the website, you should be able to find the tag somewhere within the page source code.

Once located, copy the Floodlight tag code and paste it into the same text document where you pasted the tag code from the DFA UI.

Compare the two tags. The syntax should match.

Step 2: Break down the syntax of the tag
Confirm that each “key=[value]” pair of the Floodlight tag that you just located within the source code of the webpage is correct. These key-values should exactly match those of the Floodlight tag you copied from the DFA UI.

Here's an example:

<iframe src="http: net="" src="1234567;type=abc123;cat=fghij456;ord=[Random" width="1" height="1" frameborder="0" style="display:none">

src=1234567: Identifies the advertiser that is the source of the Floodlight activity. The value of the src= key is the advertiser ID.
type=abc123: The group tag string, which identifies the activity group with which the Floodlight activity is associated in DFA.
cat=fghij456: The activity tag string, which identifies the Floodlight activity.

Step 3: Use a proxy sniffer
Use a proxy-sniffing tool to confirm that the tag is successfully firing every time the webpage loads. A proxy-sniffing tool is a browser plugin such as Tamper Data, HttpWatch or Charles.

Turn on your proxy sniffer, load the webpage, and filter by tags containing “doubleclick.” You should see your tag fire accordingly.

Refresh the page several times to make sure that the ord= key-value is correctly populated with a random number that is at least 8 digits long.

For a more complete guide to Floodlight conversion tracking and tag QA, make sure to visit the Floodlight module of the DFA Help Center (DFA sign-in required).

Posted by Kasey Spickard, DFA Technical Services Associate

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Attend a DFA Training in August

Whether you're looking to brush up on certain features of DoubleClick for Advertisers or are entirely new to using the product, the DFA training team offers a variety of training experiences that best suit your needs. In addition to in-person classroom training for a deep dive on the product, we also offer a regular rotation of webinars focused on a particular hot topic.

Visit the DoubleClick Learn Center to register (sign-in required).

Classroom Training



DFA Fundamentals: This all day course (10am-5pm) is useful for new DFA users who are looking to understand the fundamentals of third party ad serving including best practices for campaign trafficking, serving your ads and pulling reports.

• New York - August 15
• Toronto - August 22
• Santa Monica - August 29
• San Francisco - August 31

DFA Trafficking Lab: This lab provides users with practice campaigns that cover basic DFA functionality including assigning landing pages to creatives, updating campaigns, setting up geo-targeting and using creative rotation. As a prerequisite, attendees should have taken the DFA Fundamentals class in the previous two months or have less than two months trafficking experience.

• New York - August 16
• Toronto - August 23
• Santa Monica - August 30
• San Francisco - September 1

MediaVisor: Learn more about MediaVisor in this course that covers how to plan and create campaigns, advertisers, site placements and IOs as well as how to send RFPs.

• Toronto - August 23
  
  
• Santa Monica - August 30

Webinar Training

Join us for webinars covering traffic sheets, mobile and advanced ad serving topics. For those not able to attend the classroom training sessions, we offer monthly webinars for both DFA and MediaVisor Fundamentals.

How to Use a Traffic Sheet: August 16

Learn about best practices as well as some helpful tips and tricks for using the Excel traffic sheet to make modifications to your campaigns.

DFA For New Users: August 17 and August 31

An introduction to the fundamentals of DFA.

DFA Mobile: August 23

Tap into the fundamentals of DFA for mobile, including how to traffic a mobile campaign, tracking mobile conversions and mobile reporting.

MediaVisor Fundamentals: August 24

An introduction to the fundamentals of MediaVisor.

Advanced Ad Serving: August 30

Learn about advanced topics such as audience segmentation, creative groups and targeting.

To sign up for all upcoming webinars and view recordings of past webinars, visit the DoubleClick Learn Center (sign-in required). And be sure to check back with us on this blog for regular updates to our training schedule.

Posted by Amanda Gangl, DFA Product Trainer

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