It was a great year for digital advertising. New technologies took off, helping brands, agencies and publishers reach today’s constantly connected consumers more easily and effectively than ever before. With budgets no longer being siloed, 20% of organizations incorporated digital into each marketing function, per a study by Adobe.

We compiled a few of the bigger changes in marketing and digital advertising in 2013, to see how far the industry has come along. View the full infographic here or see a brief summary below.

Redefining “creative”
New creative formats took center stage in 2013. Marketers invested more in social media and TrueView skippable video ad formats continued to grow on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

Redefining “integrated”
The new 360 media plan cannot overlook digital and the sheer number of screens people interact with. In 2012, Google released some research indicating that people use 3 screen combinations a day. In 2013, this manifested itself in the form of increased investments in multi-screen campaigns.

Redefining “buying”
New(Up)fronts. Programmatic. 2013 changed the way digital media spend is committed.18 digital media companies presented at the Digital Content NewFronts. And programmatic buying gained significant traction with an expected ~74% growth, according to eMarketer. As brands took to programmatic and with the growth of programmatic video, CPMs on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange increased, and Preferred Deal impressions grew 250%. DoubleClick Bid Manager powered social media ads, joined FBX.

Redefining “success”
Earlier this year, AdAge released some research indicating that 50% of display ads are not viewed, making advertising viewability a hot industry topic. Google’s viewability measurement solution, ActiveView, got MRC-accredited. Last week, Google announced that it would enable viewability-based buys on the Google Display Network. Engagement Rate was another hot metric in 2013, with Cost per Engagement pay models enabled for ad formats like Engagement Ads on the Google Display Network.

View the full infographic here.

Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Team

By now, it’s evident that multi-screen consumption is the way of the future; mobile and tablet devices are becoming consumers’ first screens, so the content that is developed needs to work seamlessly across these screens. There are already more end-users in HTML5-compatible environments than there are in Flash-compatible environments, and HTML5 ad spend is expected to overtake Flash spend within the next two years (1). But until recently, advertisers and publishers didn't have the tools they needed to easily develop content fit for today's cross-screen experiences.

Build once, run anywhere 
We’re working hard to solve this development challenge by offering powerful yet easy-to-use tools for HTML5 production. In this vein, we announced DoubleClick Studio Layouts for HTML5 back in August (also available to DFP Premium publishers using DoubleClick Studio), which lets you create HTML5 ads in minutes, and last week we announced Ready Creatives in AdWords, which creates HTML5 ads for you in seconds.

Today, we’re excited to announce the public beta of Google Web Designer, a new professional-quality design tool that makes HTML5 creative accessible to everyone from the designer to the dabbler.

Google Web Designer enables you to:

1. Create animated HTML5 creative, with a robust, yet intuitive set of design tools. 
2. View and edit the code behind your designs and see your edits reflected back on the stage automatically. 
3. Build ad creatives seamlessly for DoubleClick and AdMob, or publish them to any generic environment you choose. 
4. Receive updates to the product automatically, without having to re-download the application.
5. Access all of this entirely for free.

Watch the Demo: A quick glimpse of Google Web Designer

Ready to give it a spin? 

• Download Google Web Designer. 
• Read through our getting started guide. 
• Send us feedback! We need your input to make this tool even better, so share your ideas with us in our user forum or on our Google+ page. We’re working hard over the next couple quarters to add new features and improvements to make the product an even more robust offering. 

HTML5 is a universal language for building beautiful, engaging content that can run across desktops, smartphones, and tablets. We think that Google Web Designer will be the key to making HTML5 accessible to people throughout the industry, getting us closer to the goal of “build once, run anywhere.”

NOTE: Publishers using DFP or DFP Small business, see our Help Center articles to learn more about trafficking creatives. DFP Help Center. DFP Small Business Help Center.


Posted by Sean Kranzberg, Lead Engineer, Google Web Designer 
(1) StatCounter, Top 12 Browser Versions in North America, February 2012 to August 2013 

A few months ago, we kicked off the Video in the Future content series featuring speakers like AOL’s Ran Harnevo, Meredith’s Liz Schimel, NewsCorp’s Rahul Chopra and AMC’s Kirk Linden, among others.

The next edition in this series will be from Australia, as we’ll speak with Adam Good, Director of Digital Media & Content, at Telstra.

From Telstra’s long history as a telco to now, a media empire - how is the company creating, promoting and monetizing digital video content to engage its audience? Adam will speak about Telstra’s digital video strategy in a conversation with Jason Pellegrino, Sales Director for Google Australia and New Zealand.

Join us live on September 24, 10:30AM Sydney time. RSVP here.

Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Team

DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) launched the first Preferred Deal in 2012 and the first Private Auction in 2013 to help publishers and advertisers create greater opportunities with programmatic buying. Since the beginning of this year we’ve seen the number of Preferred Deals double, the number of Preferred Deals impressions grow by 2.5X, and Private Auction impressions explode from nothing to millions per day. As these programmatic deal types become more important for our partners, they started asking for the ability to negotiate deals on the go. So today, we’re excited to launch a Mobile version of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange Deals interface.

Negotiate on the go
The new DoubleClick Ad Exchange Deals interface for mobile allows buyers and sellers to check the status of a Preferred Deal or Private Auction on any device. When you sign into the Deals interface on your phone or tablet, the mobile site will load automatically. From there, buyers and sellers can view, edit, accept, or stop existing deals.

If at any time you need to access other features, you can switch to the classic version of the Deals UI by clicking on the Desktop link at the bottom of the screen.

We built this mobile interface to help DoubleClick Ad Exchange partners continue their deal negotiations while away from their desks and it’s available now for all users. To access it, just visit www.google.com/adxbuyer/uploader from your mobile browser and visit our Help Center for buyers or Help Center for sellers to learn more.

Posted by Michael Smith, Product Manager 

Built by Brandon Krieger, Software Engineering Intern

Recently there has been a great deal of discussion about applications that inject or overlay ads on sites without the express approval of users and those sites, and then monetize the inventory as their own. We believe that this kind of activity is bad for end users and damages the integrity of the advertising industry. In order for the programmatic marketplace to achieve its full potential and help as many marketers and publishers as we think it can, there needs to be trust between advertisers, publishers, and users.

We’ve invested, since the beginning, in strong policies and a system of checks and filters to ensure that the inventory on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange is the highest quality in the industry. Here’s a quick summary of what we do to stop invalid injected inventory from entering our exchange.

We don’t support spammy applications. Period.

Both the Google Platforms program policies and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) Seller Program Guidelines strictly prohibit the use of systems, including toolbars, that overlay ad space on a given site without express permission of the site owner. In addition, we have numerous processes and technologies in place to review publishers’ inventory as well as advertisers’ ads to maintain a high standard of quality for how advertising is transacted on our platforms. 

In light of the increased concerns on this subject, many publishers have asked us for guidance on what to ask the exchanges or networks they work with. Here are three suggested questions any publisher partner should be able to answer in regards to protecting against injected inventory:

• Does your platform work with or supply advertising for clients who inject display ads in browsers?
• Do your program policies prohibit the use of systems to inject display ads in browsers, without first having obtained user consent or consent from the site affected?
• Please provide me a report of all the inventory partners on your platform serving my domain?

We do, and will always, support our publisher partners. 

Finally, I’d like to thank the millions of publishers who use the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, large and small, that day in and day out, provide amazing value both to their users and their advertisers. We welcome a broader discussion with our partners and with the industry about how to collectively solve this issue and others. Together, we can all ask the tough questions, hold each other accountable, and ultimately create the web we all want, where publishers, users and advertisers all thrive.

Posted by Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management

With every new plot planted and zombie zapped to bits, the online games industry is changing the way we interact with entertainment. Online games publishers work with us to grow their gaming empires across all screens, from distribution and downloads through to in-game advertising. We’ve also recognized a growing advertiser demand to reach highly engaged games audiences. So we were especially excited to announce two launches at Europe’s Game Developer Conference: we’re launching the TrueView video ad format across our games monetization platforms, and opening up the DoubleClick Ad Exchange to monetize desktop games.

TrueView creates a better ad experience for gamers, and higher monetization for publishers

We all know how important it is to create a gamer-friendly ad experience, which is why we’re bringing one of our most successful ad formats to games: the skippable video ad. TrueView Instream skippable video ads drive a lot of advertiser demand on YouTube, the Ad Exchange, and AdSense for video. Following on Susan Wojcicki’s beta announcement earlier this year, we’re now making TrueView video ads available to all games publishers on AdX, AdSense for games, and select mobile publishers on AdMob. During the beta, we found that TrueView video ads contributed to lower abandonment rates and greater monetization compared to normal instream video ads.

The Ad Exchange posts a new high score with desktop in-game ads

Programmatic channels have revolutionized the way we buy and sell online advertising - and now the launch of in-game ads on the Ad Exchange gives developers the same sophisticated platform to accelerate their monetization efforts. Publishers who have desktop Flash and HTML5 games can now access the global advertiser demand, top-performing ad formats, and finely-tuned controls offered by the Ad Exchange. Advertisers can now specifically target online games’ highly engaged audiences with wide range of gamer-friendly ad formats. These include image and text overlays and interstitials, right through to standard video ads and the skippable TrueView video ad format.

We think that opening the programmatic channel and the rise of gamer-friendly ad formats like TrueView will drive even better monetization for games - which is great news for game publishers, but perhaps not for the zombies.

Posted by

Rebecca Illowsky and Allen Huang

Product Managers, Games Monetization

Automated buying. Machine-based buying. RTB. Call it what you may, there's no doubt that programmatic buying is changing (read: simplifying) the way media is bought and sold, in real-time. No wonder then, we’ve seen more daily transactions on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange than on the NYSE and NASDAQ combined, and a tripling of instream video ad impressions as brands adopt the technology. And eMarketer predicts that 1/3rd of all display advertising is going to be bought programmatically by 2017.

But what's the real opportunity here for advertisers and publishers? How is programmatic going to safely grow their businesses and deliver ROI? In our new collection of insights, ‘The Programmatic Opportunity’, hear how this technology is transforming the industry, what’s going to make it work and why it’s the way of the future, from senior advertising and media executives like The Weather Company’s Curt Hecht, CBS Interactive’s David Chiang, Digitas’ Joel Aranson and Xaxis’ Mike Finnegan. Get some tips from Washington Post Digital on leveraging programmatic to tap into new buyer segments, and to realize CPMs at par with direct rates.

In coming weeks, stay tuned for us to add new research, best practices and perspectives to the collection. In the meantime, catch up with Google executives across the globe to hear about the evolution of online advertising and the programmatic opportunity:

• Digiday Programmatic Advertising Breakfast, August 15, New York
  Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management, talks about new programmatic trends
• Yoyi & iResearch’s China Ad Technology Conference, August 15, Beijing
  Robbie Hills, Head of Display Advertising - APAC, and Elliott Ng, Director of Product Management, talk about the region’s challenges and opportunities in programmatic
• The Next Web LatAm Conference, August 29, Sao Paolo
  Daniel Alegre, President - Global Partner Business Solutions, reflects on the evolution of online advertising and the role of programmatic in the future

Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Team

Today, we’re thrilled to announce the launch of DoubleClick Studio Layouts, a rich media production tool that makes it easier to build and publish rich media and HTML5 ads.

Rich media formats are becoming a mainstay for brand advertisers, who are expected to increase their rich media spend by ~150% over the next four years.* Rich media’s continued growth is due in large part to it’s ability to help brands bring their stories to life online. (Check out our recent iMedia article for examples of great digital storytelling.) But although rich media ads are recognized as a critical vehicle for digital advertising, the tools to produce these ads are still too complex and time-consuming. The insurgence of mobile advertising and HTML5 has only made the process even more complicated. In fact, ad production can consume up to 80% of a creative agency’s time, leaving only 20% for the strategic, innovative thinking.

We want to invert that statistic.

With today’s launch, you no longer have to toil through the hand-coding of a long tear sheet, or undergo multiple creative revisions for a simple ad. Studio Layouts provides a pre-built rich media ad shell, so you can simply select a layout, upload your existing assets and publish. You can even build HTML5 ads using the same basic assets. Because the structure of the ad is already created for you, there are fewer places for the creative to break, meaning your ads can get through QA with few to zero revisions. With Studio Layouts, you can build rich media and HTML5 ads much faster, reach more people with your existing assets and upgrade your basic image ads to rich media. Let’s see how these benefits came to life with Samsung Turkey for their recent Galaxy S4 campaign. (Full case study here.)

Efficiency: Build rich media and HTML5 ads faster
Samsung Turkey launched a rich media campaign in 90% less time than they could have before Layouts. They built a three-video GDN lightbox ad in 15 minutes and completed quality assurance in three hours with no revisions. Not only was the turn-around time greatly reduced, but the campaign was also successful in driving consumer engagement. In one month, 20 million impressions were served to 2.4 million unique users, with an engagement rate of 2.73%. More than 60,000 viewers watched the videos through to the end, and the cost per engagement was low, at less than 10 cents US.


Samsung’s GDN lightbox unit begins as a 300x250, and expands when a user hovers over the ad for two seconds. The expanded state can accommodate three YouTube videos.

Reach: Get more mileage out of existing assets
Samsung was able to take their YouTube videos and quickly turn them into a rich media ad, syndicating their existing content across the internet. They could also take those same assets, plug them into an HTML5 layout and reach people on mobile and tablet devices as well, without having to code a thing.

Performance: Upgrade standard flash and image ads to rich media
Finally, by using rich media to distribute their videos, Samsung gained access to rich media metrics, such as interaction and video completion rates. “The campaign data showed that we were reaching the right customer at the right place and at the right time,” says Seda Gumustas, digital marketing manager for Samsung Turkey. This data gives advertisers the ability to understand how users are engaging with their brands and gauge success of their campaigns in ways not possible before.

What’s Launching today?
Today, we’re launching Studio Layouts to the public, and we’ll continue to roll out new Layouts formats and features over the next six months. In the coming weeks, we’ll be launching Layouts for the IAB Rising Star formats Cascade, Billboard, and Sidekick, as well as an HTML5 GDN Lightbox format.

If you are already a DoubleClick Studio user, you’ll notice the new Layouts tab in the top green navigation bar of the UI. There you’ll find the Layouts Gallery with descriptions for how to begin using the tool.


To learn more about Studio Layouts, visit our landing page on the Rich Media Gallery.

Posted by Tal Snir, Product Manager, DoubleClick Rich Media and Video

*eMarketer, “US Ad Spending: Mid-2013 Forecast and Comparative Estimates”, July 31, 2013

By all measures, this year has been an incredible one for DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) and its partners. From NYC to London to Tokyo (and everywhere in between), more buyers and sellers are using AdX than ever before, and they’re doing it across a broader range of use cases – including direct programmatic deals, tag-based ad network optimization, and of course, RTB.

From Q1 to Q2, AdX saw a 33% increase in RTB spend in the US and a 24% increase globally. But it’s not just about quantity: as marketers continue to embrace the programmatic opportunity, publishers such as Gannett, British Telecom, and The Weather Company are using the platform to identify and capture this spend. 

Part of what’s driving this shift for publishers is the availability of more powerful tools to specify the exact terms of each transaction and understand how buyers are buying. In the past, doing this required some publishers to stitch together many technologies at once. Although we’ve been working on unifying Admeld and AdX for more than a year, in March we unveiled a key milestone on that road with a major series of updates. In addition to its advanced programmatic tools like Preferred Deals and Private Auctions, AdX now includes the best features of Admeld such as ad network optimization and increased transparency and control. The response has been amazing: To date more than 50% of Admeld publishers by volume have migrated their inventory onto AdX. Hundreds of publishers – including CBSi, Jagex, and Stardoll – have already made the switch, and everyone else is scheduled to transition shortly. 

Though the legacy of Admeld continues to inspire our design decisions, we believe strongly that consolidating our efforts behind a single platform is more effective for our clients and more conducive to providing them with the best possible service. For that reason, we’ve notified all our clients in recent weeks that we’ll be sunsetting the Admeld platform and brand on September 30, before the holiday ad spend begins to ramp up.

We've done a lot of preparation to make the migration process as smooth as possible for you. Your account manager should already be in touch with you about what the migration will mean for you.

Posted by Scott Spencer, Director, Product Management

Since we launched DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Small Business, we’ve been constantly innovating to meet the evolving needs of growing publishers.

From introducing free mobile and video ad serving functionality, to streamlining the tagging process, we’ve been committed to building a complete and easy-to-use platform that helps publishers grow their digital advertising business.

To help publishers continue to grow with the platform, we’re making available a set of features, such as creative templates, competitive exclusion, and configureable roles, that had previously only been available to our largest publishers. These features will help DFP Small Business publishers unlock new revenue opportunities and have even greater flexibility and control over their ad operations.

A full list of features now available to DFP Small Business publishers can be viewed here. If you don’t have a DFP Small Business account, sign up for free today.

Posted by Chealsea Conroy, Product Manager

In a few minutes, we'll be going live at AdMonsters OPS TV with AMC's Vice President of Digital Partnerships & Operations, Kirk Linden, and News Corp's Vice President & Head of Video, Rahul Chopra to talk about their approaches to digital video.

You can watch the conversation here, if you're not at the event:

Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Team

Over the past few years we’ve witnessed a massive shift in how users consume digital content, using multiple devices interchangeably depending on context. We are now in a multi-device, multi-screen world, which presents great advertising opportunities (and potential challenges) to publishers and advertisers.

A multi-screen world doesn’t have to mean complexity with numerous ad technologies for each screen-type. We believe a multi-screen world presents publishers and advertisers with an opportunity to provide an even better experience for their audience and customers.

This is why in February we released Adwords enhanced campaigns to make it easier for advertisers to reach their audience across all devices with smarter ads that are relevant to their customers’ intent and context, without having to set up and manage several separate campaigns.

For publishers we’ve worked hard over the past year evolving DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) for the multi-screen world to reduce complexity and help publishers save time so they can focus on what they do best - creating great content.

Since a publisher’s audience is constantly switching between devices to consume content, ad inventory shouldn’t be tied to a specific device, but instead to content and audience. Going forward, inventory in DFP will no longer be tied to only desktop or mobile campaigns, rather all inventory will now be able to accommodate any campaign for any device.

With this update, publishers will be able to forecast, traffic, and report on campaigns across all devices without having to split an advertiser’s impressions, budget, or campaign objectives across multiple inventory units. Publishers will have the flexibility to target mobile or desktop attributes for all inventory.

Unified inventory is designed to help you succeed in a multi-screen world and will roll-out to publishers on DFP and DFP Small Business this summer. Here are some helpful resources to help you get started.

Posted by Florent de Gantes, Product Manager

As we announced yesterday, we're excited to host a live hangout on air from AdMonsters OPS Mobile & TV in New York next week, as part of our Video in the Future Digital Dialogues series. Joining us on stage are Rahul Chopra, VP and Head of Video at News Corp, and Kirk Linden, VP Digital Partnerships and Operations at AMC. We warmed up the microphone with a few questions for Rahul yesterday and caught up with Kirk today on the things he's excited to speak about at AdMonsters OPS TV.

We’re collecting more questions for both Kirk and Rahul, so tweet your questions to @doubleclick_pub with #digitaldialogues #opstv, and we’ll try to get to them on stage.

Tell us about AMC’s digital video focus, and what sets your digital video offering apart from your competitors?
As a content company, AMC is focused on delivering distinctive, high quality content no matter the platform, providing authenticated episodes online, award-winning Web series and our industry-leading second screen application, AMC Story Sync.

AMC has a lot at stake when it comes to TV ads, but what gets you excited about the future of digital video advertising?
I am most excited about the opportunity digital video advertising provides to support distribution of great content across multiple screens. AMC is an ad-supported network, and digital video advertising helps us to bring quality content to more screens and more devices.

What are some key things you'd like to discuss with participants at AdMonsters OPS on July 18th?
1. How can we better leverage data to deliver more efficient campaigns and stronger viewer experiences?
2. As an industry, we need to find a way to better streamline the delivery and stewardship of cross-platform campaigns.
Come join us in New York at AdMonsters OPS TV to continue the conversation. Are you unable to make it to New York, but want to participate? Contribute a question for Kirk, and we'll get back to you if we're able to host you during the Google+ hangout during the talk on July 18th, at 1:50 PM ET, 10:50 AM PT.

Posted by Mel Ann Chan, Product Marketing Team

We’re going to be at AdMonsters OPS Mobile and TV on July 18, hosting a live Hangout on Air interview as part of our Video in the Future Digital Dialogues series. Joining us will be Rahul Chopra, VP and Head of Video at News Corp, and Kirk Linden, VP Digital Partnerships and Operations at AMC.

We’d thought we’d warm up the mic with a few preliminary questions for Rahul, and follow up with a few for Kirk the next day. We’re collecting more questions for both our panelists, so tweet your questions to #digitaldialogues #opstv, and we’ll try to get to them on stage.

 What sets News Corp’s video offering apart?
News Corporation possesses some of the biggest brands in publishing today across the globe, covering every possible genre. By harnessing the power of more than five thousand journalists, we have the ability to activate a video network that will be live when our readers want us to be, in depth when they need us to be, everywhere and anywhere they are.

The Wall Street Journal, a News Corp brand, was the only news publisher invited to the Digital Newfronts. What’s been the response from advertisers?

The response has been fantastic as we were able to present a clear vision for how video is now an inseparable part of the Wall Street Journal experience. It was a great opportunity to talk about how WSJ Live provides more than four hours of live video each day and hundreds of hours of on-demand content every month distributed on 30 platforms globally with video streams increasing 370% during the 2012 calendar year to 35 million across all platforms.

What are some key things you'd like to discuss with participants at AdMonsters OPS on July 18th?
I would like to discuss where does the advertising industry go from pre-rolls and how advertisers view content on owned sites versus off-platform (eg YouTube).

Come join us in New York at AdMonsters OPS Mobile & TV. Unable to make it to New York, but want to participate? Tell us your burning question for Rahul, and we'll get back to you if we're able to accommodate you in the Google+ hangout during the talk on July 18th, at 1:50 PM ET, 10:50 AM PT.

Posted by Mel Ann Chan, Product Marketing Team

The mobile advertising industry continues to evolve at a rapid pace - as new technologies have created new ways for publishers to grow and engage with their audience, new ways for advertisers to reach their customers have also emerged. With new opportunities aplenty for both buyers and sellers, how have they engaged with each other to shape the mobile ads ecosystem?

Based on aggregate data from across our network, we took a look at the economics behind the mobile ads ecosystem in a study: The Mobile Buyer & Seller Relationship. The study looks at mobile advertising from both a buyer and seller perspective, focusing on the types of content that are driving the most mobile web and app traffic, where advertisers are focusing their budgets, and the intersection of the two.

Here are a few highlights from the research:

• Mobile application inventory is highly concentrated: On mobile applications, ad impressions and spend are highly concentrated around games, which account for 46% of total ad spend.
• Advertisers are embracing mobile applications: We're seeing all types of advertisers embrace advertising on mobile applications, with Media & Entertainment and Technology advertisers leading the way. These types of advertisers account for nearly half of all impressions and spend on mobile applications. 
• Advertiser spending on mobile web is closely tied to relevant content: Unlike mobile applications, on mobile web, advertisers are predominantly focusing their spend on ad inventory that closely relates to their products or services. 
• Spending on mobile web is evenly distributed amongst advertisers: The top five spending advertiser categories on mobile web accounted for 12-16% of total web impressions each. 

Check out all of the findings by downloading the full report here.

Posted by Stephen Kliff, Product Marketing Manager

It’s important for businesses to stay up to date about the most recent research and insights related to their industry. Unfortunately -- with so many new studies and with data being updated so often -- it can difficult to keep up. To make life a bit easier, we created the Databoard for Research Insights, which allows people to explore and interact with some of Google’s recent research in a unique and immersive way.

The Databoard is our response to three big challenges facing the vast majority of research released today.

1. Ease of consumption: The databoard introduces a new way of sharing data, with all of the information presented in a simple and beautiful way. Users can explore an entire study or jump straight to the topics or datapoints that they care about. The Databoard is also optimized for all devices so you can comfortably explore the research on your computer, tablet, or smartphone.
2. Shareability: Most people, when they find a compelling piece of data, want to share it! Whether its with a colleague, client, or a community on a blog or social network, compelling insights and data are meant to be shared. The databoard is designed for shareability, allowing users to share individual charts and insights or collections of data with anyone through email or social networks.
3. A cohesive story: Most research studies set out to answer a specific question, like how people use their smartphones in store, or how a specific type of consumer shops. This means that businesses need to look across multiple pieces of research to craft a comprehensive business or marketing strategy. To address this need, the Databoard allows users to curate a customized infographic out of the charts or data points you find important across multiple Google research studies. Creating an infographic is quick and easy, and you can share the finished product with your friends or colleagues.

The databoard is currently home to four research studies including The New Multi-screen World, Mobile In-store shopper research, Mobile search moments, and more. New studies will be added frequently so be sure to check back often. To get started exploring the Databoard and creating your own infographic visit google.com/think/databoard.

Posted by Adam Grunewald, Product Marketing Manager

When people are given a choice in the ads they see, it provides incentives to advertisers and publishers to create a better user experience. The rising popularity of skippable video ads is one example of how choice is propelling video advertising to a whole new level. As more brands and publishers grow their video advertising investments and increase programmatic video budgets, we're seeing first-hand how giving viewers choice drives better results for everyone.

To bring together how choice benefits publishers, advertisers and viewers, we analyzed skippable video ads on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and revisited some previous studies on the skippable video ad format TrueView in-stream in our research “Video Advertising Momentum”.

• Publishers get a more attentive audience: Skippable ads reduce audience abandonment rates by 50% compared to standard in-stream ads. That means more people are continuing to watch video, swelling your audience numbers and deepening their engagement with your content. Selling skippable ads through DoubleClick for Publishers or through AdX increases monetization without sacrificing viewer experience.
• Advertisers get a more engaged audience: Viewers are 75% more engaged when watching a skippable ad compared to a standard pre-roll, and this engagement has positive knock-on effects on brand favorability and purchase intent. And once you've identified viewers who choose to watch your ad, you can extend your campaign through remarketing or storyboarding a continued message.
• Viewers get a better experience: 4 out of 5 viewers prefer skippable ads to non-skippable ads. Cultivating a viewer-friendly advertising experience is proving more effective for advertisers and enables publishers to earn revenue without impacting viewers.

Digital video opens up new ways to engage viewers, and skippable ads are just one way of doing this. But if these findings are anything to go by, there are strong reasons for advertisers and publishers to incorporate skippable video ads in their advertising strategy.

Posted by Mel Ann Chan, Product Marketing

In today's edition of "Video in the Future", Lucas Watson, Google's Vice President of Global Sales and Industry Marketing, speaks with Liz Schimel, Executive Vice President & Chief Digital Officer at Meredith Corporation, about how they're adding sound and motion to print. You can watch the conversation when it goes live here or join from the Think with Google +page with your Google account and leave questions for Liz with the hashtag, #videointhefuture.



Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Team

Continuing our thought leadership series "Video in the Future", this week, Lucas Watson, Vice President - Global Sales & Industry Marketing at Google, speaks with Liz Schimel, Executive Vice President & Chief Digital Officer, Meredith Corporation, on how the magazine publisher is leveraging digital video to drive engagement and revenue.

Join the conversation on Thursday, 6/27, at 11:30 AM PT/ 2:30 PM ET.

Register here.

Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Team

Video is the rising star of digital advertising. As we discussed in last week’s post, our new research “Video Advertising Momentum” found that brand advertisers are upping their video campaigns to reach their audiences across the web. In this installment, we uncover another rising trend: advertisers are increasing their video budgets in programmatic channels.

We've seen quite an uptick in video ads across the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, with volume tripling in the first quarter 2012 - 2013. The stars of programmatic video are Automotive and Retail advertisers. They were the top two video advertiser categories overall, and both of them quadrupled programmatic video spend in Jan - March compared to last year. But growth seems across the board - nearly every advertiser category posted double-digit growth in spend and impressions. Take a look at the full research New ways of buying and selling video ads: the programmatic channel in “Video Advertising Momentum”. 

Why would an advertiser or publisher consider video advertising on the Ad Exchange? The reasons are numerous, but we've distilled it down to four:

• Efficiencies: The Ad Exchange streamlines workflow between advertisers and publishers, with campaigns running across multiple sites and viewing devices.

• Emerging technology: Advertisers can now optimize their buys across destinations using advanced bid controls and analytics. The Ad Exchange brings new formats such as skippable video ads and comprehensive methods of measuring campaign performance to more advertisers and publishers.

• Expanding audiences and revenue: Programmatic video buying through AdX helps advertisers extend their reach and gain frequency to new audiences. Publishers can expand their demand sources and gain increased revenue for their video inventory.

• Evolving video advertising: As digital video gains even more momentum, publishers and advertisers are forging new ways to create shared value, including private exchanges and preferred deals.

For a discussion about programmatic video in from both advertiser and publisher perspectives, check out the Q&A between TubeMogul and Silver Chalice “What’s the value in programmatic video?”. Next week, we’ll take a look at how choice is changing the way we think about video advertising.

Posted by Mel Ann Chan, Product Marketing

Join the live Hangout on Air with Susan Wojcicki, SVP of Advertising and Commerce, and three AdSense publishers to celebrate our 10th anniversary today, at 10 AM PDT/ 1 PM ET. We'll share stories from the early days of AdSense and discuss the future for publishers and online advertising.

You can watch the hangout live below and submit a question to Susan with the hashtag #adsense10onair on Google+. Please note that she won't be able to address individual account questions.

Posted by Ian Cohan-Shapiro, Product Marketing Team

How is Disney.com leveraging online video to deliver engaging user experiences?

That's the question Xavier Kochhar, CEO, Structured Data Intelligence, is going to explore in our hangout on air with Mark Walker, SVP, Disney.com.

You can view the conversation right here at 10:30PT/ 1:30 ET. If you'd like to leave comments or questions for Mark, please look for the Hangout in the Think with Google +page stream.


Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Team

How can large publishers create digital video content strategies that drive user engagement? That's the question Xavier Kochhar, CEO , Structured Data Intelligence, will ask of Mark Walker, Senior Vice President, Disney.com, in the next edition of our Video in the Future hangouts on air series.

Join the conversation live on Thursday, June 13th, 10:30 AM PT/ 1:30 PM ET. Questions and comments welcome!

Did you miss our last couple of conversations featuring AOL's SVP of Video, Ran Harnevo, Silver Chalice's EVP Rich Routman and TubeMogul's Chief Strategy Officer Jason Lopatecki? Watch them now.

Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Team

[Cross-posted on the DoubleClick Advertisers blog]

When we think about the multi-billion dollar future of digital advertising, we believe that much of that growth will be driven by video. Video advertising is a very compelling way to connect and grow an audience, especially when we layer on technology’s creative possibilities. What’s driving its astronomic growth?

We took a look at video ads across DoubleClick’s advertising platforms to identify areas of opportunity for advertisers and publishers, and shared these areas of growth in a three-part research collection: “Video Advertising Momentum”. We exclusively analyzed in-stream video ads that played against video content, and focused on ads served on sites globally, excluding Google owned and operated sites like YouTube. We're going to unpack the findings over the next two weeks, kicking it off with this infographic.

Digital video advertising is essential for brand campaigns.

• Advertisers are getting into digital video in a big way: two out of five video ads on the DoubleClick advertising platforms came from advertisers new to digital video in 2013 - and many of them were large brand advertisers.
• 68% of video ads in the last 12 months came from four advertiser categories dominated by large brand advertisers. The top video advertiser categories were Automotive and Retail, with Consumer Packaged Goods and Technology advertisers rounding out the top four.
  
  

Publishers are growing audiences and revenue with more video.

• News publishers are redefining the way they deliver the news. As they increase their focus on video news content, they're running 3 times more video ads this year than last.
• Video content is coming from all across the web - not just from TV or entertainment publishers. Sites that have benefit from increased video spending include Automotive & Vehicle, Sports, Computers & Electronics, and Shopping sites.

For video, the opportunity is clear: brand advertisers are using video to reach their audiences across the web, and publishers are powering their content strategy with more video. We can't wait to see how video rockets digital advertising to new heights.
Stay tuned for next week’s post as we dive into how programmatic video has hit its prime-time. And if you can’t wait that long, check out the full Video Advertising Momentum collection to explore them on your own. 

Posted by Mel Ann Chan, Product Marketing

This morning, I’ll be kicking off thinkDoubleClick, our annual industry event where we discuss the future of digital media. At this same event last year, we unveiled DoubleClick Digital Marketing, the unified platform we’re building to help advertisers and agencies manage the entire breadth of their digital marketing efforts.

Our goal with this year’s event is to take a deeper look at how digital helps us forge deeper connections within organizations, with our partners and with consumers. We also have several exciting pieces of news to share about investments that will help our advertiser and publisher partners make the most of these connections.

Connect your business
At the core of of digital media is its ability to build connections, and we’ve seen that it can be incredibly valuable in helping our partners connect across their business, offering a holistic picture of how all their marketing efforts work together. This was the vision behind DoubleClick Digital Marketing, and today we’re making two key improvements:

• A new DFA: DoubleClick Campaign Manager. We’re excited to announce a brand new version of DFA, which we are calling DoubleClick Campaign Manager. In the biggest upgrade to our core ad server in the 15 years since its inception, DoubleClick Campaign Manager completely re-imagines the ad management and ad serving process. DoubleClick Campaign Manager will be available to all advertisers globally in the coming months. 
• DoubleClick goes social. Today’s digital platforms play a critical role in helping marketers adapt to constantly evolving formats and channels. Today, social is a good example of that; it has changed the way we communicate, share and interact. And not just with our loved ones -- 80% of consumers say social interactions with brands influence their purchase decisions. It’s why we acquired Wildfire last year, and today, we’re happy to announce that we’re taking steps to integrate Wildfire into the DoubleClick platform. Now, marketers can address a critical part of the customer journey, and do it alongside search, display, rich media, video and mobile as part of the broader DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform. This is just the beginning of how we’re incorporating Wildfire’s technology. There are more exciting things to come in this area.

Connect with your partners
Technology is also about connecting you with your partners - bringing buyers and sellers together at scale. We’re introducing a few new ways to make this happen as well:

• Shared sales with YouTube in DoubleClick for Publishers. For our publisher partners, we’re hearing that video, and YouTube in particular, is becoming an increasingly important part of your selling strategy. But when you have a partner like YouTube that is also selling this inventory, we’ve heard that the process of booking these shared sales was incredibly cumbersome. So I have some news: in the coming months, we're introducing a new feature called Cross-Sell in DoubleClick for Publishers, to automatically and easily manage joint sales for our YouTube partners. Our goal is to let your sales team work hand-in-hand with ours to maximize every sales opportunity and to give you extra time to focus on your advertiser relationships. 
• Making native native... to DoubleClick. Recently, “native formats” have emerged as an important new model. They provide new types of brand experiences, like sponsored stories, that are unique to each publisher. We want to support formats like this that connect advertisers and publishers in a meaningful way, while also creating real value for users. We're already testing this capabilities with a handful of publishers and will be looking to expand in the coming months. Our goal is to make this technology seamless for publishers who want to have flexibility in implementing native formats and making the most of them on their properties.
• Making a viewable standard a reality with Active View. To help publishers tap into the accelerating brand opportunity, we’re focused on unlocking new ways of measurement with the rollout of Active View in our core publisher products: DoubleClick for Publishers, AdSense and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Publishers using these products will be able to measure what inventory is viewable. In early tests, we’ve found that Active View can help uncover “gold below the fold.” Click-through rates double for viewable inventory below the fold - in other words, users that are engaged with the content are also engaging with the ads. Active View complements our other investments in making digital an effective medium for brand marketers and their awareness-building campaigns, like Lightbox ads and TrueView in AdMob and games. These efforts appear to be paying off for brand advertisers: we saw a 65 percent increase last quarter alone in the number of brand advertisers using our brand formats and buying tools. We think these investments will be mutually beneficial for publishers, their advertiser partners, as well as users. 

Connect with consumers

The third (and in my mind most important) type of connection that digital helps create, though, is with consumers. As you all know, we are now living in a multi-screen world. Consumers are effortlessly shifting from screen to screen. In fact research has found that 90% of multiple device owners switch between screens to complete tasks. We’re investing in helping advertisers and publishers connect with them across screens as well:

• Google Web Designer. To help advertisers and publishers more seamlessly unlock the potential of cross-device programs, we are investing in a new HTML5 creative development tool - Google Web Designer. Available in the coming months, Google Web Designer will empower creative professionals to create cutting-edge advertising as well as engaging web content like sites and applications - for free. Google Web Designer will be seamlessly integrated with DoubleClick Studio and AdMob, greatly simplifying the process of building HTML5 creative that can be served through Google platforms.

No other medium builds connections like digital - it’s one of the reasons I remain so bullish on this industry. But digital is not just a medium. It’s the bedrock which enables connections between advertisers and publishers, within our own organizations, as well as brands and consumers. That’s why we’ll continue to invest in helping build these connections - between re-imagined creative tools, reinvented measurement solutions, and revamped ad buying platforms - that will accelerate and propel digital advertising into a $200 billion industry that funds and supports great content.

And this is just some of what we’ll be discussing today at thinkDoubleClick, I encourage you to tune in to our live stream to check out the entire program running from 9 am to 12:30 PDT today.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising