Last October Google launched its Display Ad Builder. Murdok has covered various features of this product since its launch.
“In short, DAB brings some key attributes of search — simplicity and cost-efficiency — to display, a form of advertising that many agencies find to be more resource intensive and complex,” a spokesperson for Google tells Murdok. “Since the fall, it’s become much more relevant to the industry as the economy has made executing campaigns efficiently more crucial.”
“A number of agencies and clients have used the specific coupon display template to test and iterate with new ad formats, allowing them to bring their customers’ offline circulars, to the online world, at scale on Google’s content network,” she added.
She also put me in contact with Product Management Director Brad Bender, with whom I conducted a small Q&A.
Chris Crum: Are advertisers finding that rich media ads are working better than other formats?
Brad Bender: For advertisers that have multiple tangible products to sell, several of our rich media formats are definitely very fitting, especially with the high interaction rates that we are seeing.
Several of them allow users to scroll between product images and click through to a unique destination URL associated with that product. We are seeing particularly strong uptake with the retail vertical.
Also, the video ad format in particular lends itself to branding, and we have several brand name advertisers using those formats. For advertisers who are selling services or items that are less well visually represented, one of our all-purpose templates or ones pre-designed for certain industries may be just as appropriate, or even more so than a rich media template.
Chris Crum: Can you give me a percentage/estimate on how many of Google’s advertisers are actually taking advantage of the Display Ad Builder?
Brad Bender: Advertisers using Display Ad Builder have grown significantly in the past quarter. We have thousands of users in over 40 languages in 100+ countries.
Chris Crum: Are there any new features for DAB in the works that you can tell me a little about?
Brad Bender: Global availability: Our engineers have now made it possible for our templates to support text for nearly all major languages which AdWords supports, which has allowed us to now launch in over 40 languages and over 100 countries worldwide.
Templates for everyone: We now have more than 90 customizable templates (in the last launch we had 40), with designs for local holidays & seasons around the world, specific industries such as retail and finance, rich media and video, and fully customizable “all-purpose” templates to maximize the clients’ and agencies’ creativity. We’ve also launched several more templates, which require only text and no images, a popular option as we know many advertisers don’t have images to use in an ad.
Other facts Bender shared include:
– Average CTRs, which significantly exceed industry averages
– Templates, which require no images are by far the most popular (users don’t have to upload any images)
– We are finding that many advertisers are seeing their cost/conversions go down in content by using DAB, as compared to text campaigns.
– Advertisers in every vertical are using the tool
– Much usage and spend actually comes from users who have other display ads that they had designed in-house or by an agency. The DAB allows them to use the images they’ve already had designed, to upload them to a template, and then to quickly edit messaging for timely promotions, discounts, etc. for free.
Google’s Display Ad Builder can be accessed here under your AdWords account. It accepts image, Flash, video and other supported ad formats.
