Google today has announced that it is introducing a way to automatically convert Adobe Flash-based ads to HTML5. Google says that eligible Flash ad campaigns, both existing and new, will automatically be converted to HTML5 when uploaded through AdWords, AdWords Editor, and a variety of third-party tools.
Google has updated several online security features to help protect users from malicious sites and content. Chrome has gained new warnings about sites that attempt to fool users into downloading unwanted software, providing an option to go back to the previous page and avoid these types of sites.
Search has been updated to make it harder for those sites to show up in results, and Google has started disabling ads that link to them. All of these moves continue Google’s recent push to enhance security on its products. The company recently helped improve security by providing users an incentive to enable two-factor authentication.
Google today announced a new feature for AdSense users called Upgraded URLs that aims to make managing and tracking information easier for advertisers. The new URL feature allows advertisers to update tracking info while avoiding having to reset ad stats. Specifically, Google says the new Upgrade URLs offer advertisers these benefits:
Google says it will begin rolling out its Upgraded URLs feature to advertisers this week while the company is encouraging advertisers that use tracking to upgrade to the new system by July 1, 2015. Google also mentions advertisers that use tracking platforms to manage URLs to work with them to take advantage of the new feature.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVYtzF5SemU]
Google along with other tech companies including Amazon, Microsoft, and Taboola, have reportedly reached a deal with AdBlock Plus to prevent the service from blocking ads on their websites. Financial Times reports:
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Microsoft’s sleazy and highly publicized Scroogled ad campaign has been its primary marketing effort against Google for two years now, but it appears that the program is finally dead. Speculation began to arise last year that Microsoft was slowly killing the controversial ad campaign after corporate restructuring.
Today, Winbeta noticed that the Scroogled website is no longer live, and instead redirects to a new “Why Microsoft” page. The Scroogled page had been live up until very recently, but without much publicity from Microsoft. The death of the Scroogled webpage also comes with no comment from Microsoft, who appears to want to act like it never happened in the first place.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUsLPPuJhZc]
Lightbox – the scalable multimedia ads that Google first introduced to the desktop back in 2012 and finally brought to mobile devices in September of this year – are now available to all AdWords advertisers globally.
The Lightbox format allows advertisers to quickly and easily combine existing video, images and maps in an HTML5 ad that will scale correctly for all standard ad sizes and devices. Hovering over the ad expands them to full-size no matter what the device …
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The Apple TV today received a brand new YouTube app, bringing it up to speed and largely mirroring the experience available on other set-top boxes, with new predictive search and recommendations. The previous app felt like something built by the Apple developers internally, whereas this new app seems to be predominantly designed by Google … with rich YouTube branding throughout.
Google has taken over Times Square with a new Android ad on a massive billboard in the iconic intersection, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The search company is using the largest digital screen in North America to promote its interactive campaign Androidify, which allows users to create and share their own Android mascot.
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Nest recently rolled out a barrage of new commercials to promote its collection of home automation gadgets and we have to say they’re pretty entertaining. The Google-owned company has produced four adverts: one for its smart thermostat, two for Dropcam and a single piece for its swanky smoke alarm.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlId9Yv6xsU]
The holiday season is underway and Samsung is continuing its big marketing push for the Galaxy Note 4. The company recently released a few new commercials for its colossal smartphone that highlight some of its key features like Smart Select, which lets you save text and images from any other app on your device for later use.
Earlier this year, Google released an official app for its Google Analytics service on iOS allowing users of the popular service to view data and reports on the go, but the dedicated app has only been available for iPhone and iPod touch users. Today that has changed, however, as Google has updated its official Analytics app for full iPad support.
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Samsung released a pair of new web commercials today that highlight some of its upcoming Galaxy Note 4’s key features. Each ad clocks in at 30 seconds and unlike the company’s previous efforts these ads focus solely on Samsung’s new phone and what it brings to the table.
Google announced today on its AdWords blog that it will be rolling out new mobile display ad formats and tools for advertisers in the coming months. Google is hoping the new ads, which will be available through the Google Display Network, the AdMob Network and DoubleClick, will help advertisers increase engagement with users on mobile devices.
The ad types include “Mobile lightbox Engagement Ads” that will dynamically resize to fit any ad and device size, TrueView video ads that will roll out more broadly in apps through the AdMob network, as well as an anchor ad format for mobile web apps and magazine style text ad formats that will expand into apps instead of just on mobile websites. Google also announced a number of new tools coming for advertisers to help improve the experience with mobile campaigns:
Google says the new ad formats will roll out to its various ad networks in the coming months.
Google just announced that it’s expanding its local inventory ads first launched for users in the US last fall to more countries starting today. The ads, which promote items from local nearby retailers to shoppers on Google, are now available in the UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, and France.
Google said today that it will also start showing the ads to desktop users:
We have also expanded support for store-only products and campaigns to desktop devices, enabling retailers to promote stores to the right customers at the right time. For example, you can prioritize showing local products to get shoppers in your doors during the weeks and days leading up to the holidays. As items go out of stock online and last-minute shipping costs increase, retailers who can provide cost-effective, quick in-store purchase options stand out in the crowd
Retailers can get an overview on the program here and users will in the countries above should start to see the local “in store” ads appear in search results.
Today, Google announced a new product search tool for its AdSense for Shopping platform that helps retailers monetize their websites. Walmart.com is among the early participants in the fairly new program, which displays sponsored ads across the discount mega-chain’s site that are relevant to a visitor’s product search results.
Patent troll Beneficial Innovations is being ordered to pay up $1.3 million to Google after the company lost its case targeting Google’s DoubleClick customers. ArsTechnica reports that after suing Google and losing— Google proved that its DoubleClick customers were already covered under a license it had from Beneficial Innovations— the company will now have to pay $1.3 million for Google’s troubles:
Gilstrap ordered Google to be paid a total of just more than $1.3 million in fees. That number is down $101,324.50 from what Google had asked for, because Gilstrap found that Google wasn’t entitled to include the costs of its expert witness into the fee total.
“Beneficial went back on the terms of its own license agreement, pursuing our customers for simply using our licensed services,” said a Google spokesperson at that time.
It’s not a lot of money for Google, but it’s certainly a nice win against a patent troll that has already gone after a long list of media companies from Amazon to Viacom.
Google today announced that the app promotion ads it first announced back in April are now available globally for search and YouTube. The search option will allow app developers to easily advertise with click-to-install ads in search that appear on both iOS and Android devices. Developers can even start deep linking to a specific pages within apps for users that already have an app installed:
Starting today, you can deep link users directly from Google Search into specific pages of apps they’ve already installed by signing up for the beta here. Customers like LINE, Zoopla and Booking.com are already testing deep-linking with their apps. Here’s how it works: let’s say someone has the Booking.com app installed on their phone and searches for “San Francisco Hotels” on Google.com; now they can go directly to the specific page in the Booking.com app that shows listings for hotels in San Francisco.
Google is also rolling out app promotion ads on YouTube globally starting today: Starting today, you can showcase your app when people are watching their favorite videos using a new enhancement to TrueView ads. With TrueView, advertisers can reach potential customers based on their interests, previously-watched videos and demographics. Start promoting your app on YouTube by simply linking your app’s ID to your TrueView campaigns.
Google has links to resources for the new features and more info here.
Google launched a new AdWords portal today called Website Call Conversions. This new tool lets advertisers identify and measure calls from their website that occur following an ad click. Here’s how it works: whenever someone spots your search ads and click on them, they’ll be directed to your website and will receive a special phone number to call that is connected to the ad they’re viewing.
Android Wear is definitely getting a lot of attention over in Mountain View, and the company behind what has easily become the current top-dog smartwatch platform is now trying to make it even more clear why you need Android on your wrist. The LG G Watch and the Samsung Galaxy Gear are already out and making waves in the industry, and with the Moto 360 not far off—and presumably the competition as well–it seems as if Google is now ready to make sure you’re aware of all the great things Wear can do for you.
Google appears to be experimenting with new “Listen Now” ads in search results for streaming music services including its own Google Play Music and competitors like Apple’s Beats Music. The Wall Street Journal first noticed the ads and confirmed the new format with Google:
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Adage reports that Google is testing a new method that could track users from mobile sites to the mobile apps they use allowing advertisers to see how much time a single user is spending in a browser vs a native app. Currently advertisers aren’t able to detect how much any individual user is spending on a mobile site vs in an app, meaning the usage would appear to advertisers as two separate users.
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In a blog post, Google today announced that it is adding product ratings to its Product Listing Ads within searches. The stars will come from a variety of reviews and sources, including merchants, third-party review sites, users, and more. Google says that adding product ratings to its Listing Ads within searches will drive higher traffic through these ads. The company claims that this change also helped increase click-through rates of Product Listing Ads in early testing.
We believe these ratings will help differentiate products across google.com and google.com/shopping and will help merchants drive more qualified traffic through Product Listing Ads. In initial tests, product ratings also helped increase click-through-rates of Product Listing Ads.
Google has announced that it’s bringing more ads to Google Maps on both the desktop and mobile by integrating local ads into the new list view for search results it rolled out recently. That means that when you search for things like restaurants, hotels, and other points of interest, you’ll see ads appear at the top of the search results in addition to overlaid on the map itself (as pictured above).
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Samsung’s advertisements are often inflated, but every now and then the company manages to get things right. Today, the outfit released a new marketing piece promoting its partnership with the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) and guess what? The ad is pretty darn good. Unlike previous efforts, there’s no mention of the competition and product placement is very subtle.
