Advance Auto Parts (AAP) is a leading retailer of automotive parts, accessories, batteries and maintenance items with over 3,900 physical stores as well as a thriving e-commerce business.

In late 2012 AAP began testing DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) in order to offer ad placements on its e-commerce site. The aim was to derive additional revenue from non-converting traffic, and AdX proved a perfect fit:

More revenue, more conversions
AAP’s goal was to gain incremental revenue from the ads, but they were worried that existing conversion rates might be negatively affected. Fortunately, these fears were quickly overcome, as implementing ad units on the site in fact saw conversions increase.

Great tools equal happy customers
AAP was concerned about preserving brand safety as well a positive site experience for its users. Thanks to the robust set of tools and controls provided in AdX, AAP was able ensure ads from major competitors didn’t appear and that bounce rates remained unaffected.

E-commerce and ads: an ideal balance
“Working with AdX has taught us that online ads and e-commerce can certainly work together gracefully,” says Howard Blumenthal, AAP’s director of eBusiness platform solutions. “If you can get this balance right, you end up with the ideal situation.”

So what’s next? Howard reveals AAP has plans in place to use AdX to monetize the company’s mobile site, too. “We are always looking for ways to increase incremental revenue by optimizing AdX as much as possible.”

Read the full Advance Auto Parts story >>

Posted by Ian Cohan-Shapiro, Product Marketing Team

A top name in weight loss and healthy living for 50 years, Weight Watchers serves over 140 million ad impressions a month at WeightWatchers.com.

Weight Watchers began using the Google Publisher Tag (GPT) in 2012 once they upgraded to the DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) ad server. They were hoping for better targeting, but they got much more.

Higher ROI, happier advertisers
With up to five levels of targeting hierarchy, GPT let Weight Watchers improve its targeting and end manual re-tagging. The results have been strong with Click Through Rates across all standard display ad units are up 13%, and for leaderboards up 76%. Advertisers are loving the performance and Weight Watchers now runs four times more monthly campaigns with advanced targeting than with basic demographic and geo-targeting.

100% boost in operational efficiency from DFP

"I would actually say we've had a 100% increase in efficiency," says Jordan Tuck of Weight Watchers. Campaign setup is faster, and new features like the ability to update multiple line items on the same page save even more time later.

30% rise in indirect inventory earnings

With the move to DFP, Weight Watchers benefited from Dynamic Allocation with DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) to monetize indirect inventory. Their indirect inventory rates are up 30% year-over-year, and the clickthrough rate is 2.5 times higher than it was before AdX. AdX now has 70% share of their indirectly sold inventory.

Weight Watchers helps its customers "move the needle," and DFP and AdX have helped them do the same with their own online properties.

Read the full Weight Watchers story »

Posted by Yamini Gupta, Product Marketing Team