App promoters: Are you prepared for a surge in downloads this holiday season?

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

With 29% of shoppers planning to purchase smartphones this holiday season, there’s no doubt that some of the shiniest new mobile devices will be wrapped up under the tree this Christmas. Little time will be wasted before happy new smartphone and tablet owners begin searching for the best apps to fill these new devices. So it’s no surprise that according to Google Trends, during the week following Christmas last year, searches for “best tablet apps” rose by more than 70%, while searches for “free phone apps” jumped by about 37%. The holidays are prime time for app promotion, so it’s important for marketers to make sure their app stands out from the crowd.

Maximizing reach with search and display ads
Whether you have a shopping companion app, a banking app, or a mobile gaming app, it’s important to reach the right audience to drive downloads and increase awareness. Many marketers have made mobile work for them by using search and display strategies together to raise interest and drive downloads of their app.

TripIt, a mobile travel organizer, used click-to-download ads on Google Search and the Google Display Network to promote their app to business travelers on the road. By creating and optimizing display ads within other apps, TripIt increased downloads by more than 75% and slashed cost-per-download by more than 96%. According to Rhonda Hanson, senior director of search marketing, promoting their app with mobile ads allowed TripIt to, “redirect the dollars we've saved on app promotion to improving our app and providing a better trip-organizer service to our business travelers.” Download the full case study here.

Maximizing ROI with Conversion Optimizer
Savvy advertisers also know they can take app promotion to the next level with optimization tools. Leading mobile game developer GREE promoted their apps to gamers using Google Search click-to-download ads along with image and text ads on the Google Display Network. To make sure they were getting the best return on investment for their in-app display ads, they used Conversion Optimizer for apps to reach their cost-per-download targets. This automated campaign optimization helped them improve app download rates by 150%, decrease cost-per-download by 52% and improve click-through rates by 49%. Download the full case study here.

If you haven’t already created your holiday app strategy, it’s not too late. Here are some things you can do to win across search and display:

1. Make sure you’re reaching people when they search for apps like yours and help them easily download your app with click-to-download ads and mobile app extensions
2. Reach relevant users within over 300,000 premium apps on the Google Display Network with image and text ads
3. Track downloads on Android and iOS with AdWords conversion tracking and optimize ROI with the automated bidding feature, the Conversion Optimizer for apps
4. Measure in-app user activity with Mobile App Analytics in order to optimize
5. Increase app promotion campaign budgets for the holidays to account for additional ad clicks

For more on how you can drive cost-effective app downloads with Google AdWords, check out this recorded Learn with Google webinar.

Posted by Jessica Sapick, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

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Upcoming Improvements for Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC Users

Monday, October 22, 2012

Using AdWords Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC can help you get more conversions at lower cost, and reduce the time required to manually optimize your bids. When using either one, changing your ad rotation from “Optimize for clicks” to “Optimize for conversions” increases conversions by an average of 5%. That’s because “Optimize for conversions” shows your higher-converting ads more often.

To help you get better performance with AdWords, we’ll be linking these options more closely together in a series of changes that we plan to roll out during the week of November 12th, 2012.

What’s changing

• New ad rotation default when using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC. When you first activate Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC in a campaign, your ad rotation setting will change to “Optimize for conversions” by default. We recommend this setting to get the most conversions, but you’re free to change to a different option.
• Eligible campaigns will switch to “Optimize for conversions.”As we announced last December, all campaigns using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC which are set to use “Optimize for clicks” will be switched to “Optimize for conversions.” You can opt out of this update via this form up until November 9th, but you may miss out on getting more conversions by doing so.
  
  Update: The migration of eligible Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC campaigns will now occur during the week of 11/26.
  
  
• “Rotate evenly” change for campaigns using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC. As we announced earlier this month, campaigns set to “Rotate evenly” automatically begin to optimize for clicks when ads in an ad group are unchanged for 90 days. Similarly, when using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC, campaigns set to “Rotate evenly” will automatically begin to optimize for conversions when ads in an ad group are unchanged after 90 days.

After these changes roll out, you’ll still have control over your ad rotation settings and can make changes at any time.

More information

To learn more about the Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC, you can watch the following short videos. For more details on ad rotation, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Conversion Optimizer
 

Enhanced CPC


Posted by Wilfred Yeung, Product Manager

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Migrating Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC campaigns to “Optimize for conversions”

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

If you’re focused on conversions and CPA (cost-per-acquisition), you may already be using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC to optimize your campaigns to get you more conversions at a lower cost. To ensure that your campaign settings are also in line with your conversion goals, we plan to migrate existing campaigns using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC with “Optimize for clicks” ad rotation to “Optimize for conversions” ad rotation. Our studies have shown that campaigns moving from “Optimize for clicks” to “Optimize for conversions” see a 5% increase in conversions on average. This migration is scheduled for February 2012.

Update: The migration is now expected to begin rolling out in May.

If you would prefer not to have your campaigns migrated to “Optimize for conversions” ad rotation, please fill out this form by January 31, 2012.

Update: The new deadline to opt out your campaigns from this migration is February 14th, 2012.

Not currently using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC?

Please watch the videos below to learn more about the Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC. You also can visit the AdWords Help Center to learn more about ad rotation options.

Conversion Optimizer

Enhanced CPC

Posted by Andrew Truong, Product Marketing Manager

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