We'd like to introduce Google TV Ads, a flexible, all-digital system for easily and efficiently buying more accountable and measurable TV advertising. The program, which has been an invitation-only beta test since June 2007, is now available to all US-based advertisers.

Television is a great way to reach new customers who might not be familiar with your product or service. Research shows that 37% of online search users were prompted to perform a search as a result of exposure to television advertising.* Now, you can launch a national television ad campaign right from your existing AdWords account.

How does it work?
First, you'll need a TV commercial. If you don't have one yet, check out Google's Ad Creation Marketplace, where you can connect with industry professionals who provide script writing, editing, production, and voice-over talent at an affordable package cost. It's free to search for specialists and send them requests for project bids, and you aren't under any obligation to work with them until you accept a bid. To celebrate our launch, for a limited time Google will cover the cost of creating your TV ad through our Ad Creation Marketplace, up to $2,000. Learn more about this special offer.

Next, you're ready to create your campaign. You can choose the networks and dayparts on which you'd like your ad to run. If you're looking for guidance on how to best reach your target audience, TV Ads offers recommendations based on audience demographics, or you can request a free customized campaign proposal. You can also run your ads during specific television programs that are relevant to your product or service. If you search for program content such as "home improvement," TV Ads suggests programs based on matches with the title, program description, cast, genre, episode information and networks.

With Google TV Ads' auction model, you choose the maximum cost-per-thousand impressions that you're willing to pay, and only pay when your ad airs.

Ready to learn more?
We'll be holding online webinars led by AdWords and TV advertising specialists covering tips on how Google TV Ads can help drive more web traffic and increase your sales volume, turning TV viewers into your customers. Sign up here for the upcoming webinar.

You can also read about how other advertisers are finding success with Google TV Ads, and check out our product demo to learn how to create a campaign step-by-step. Click on the image below to be taken to the demo.

(click the image to go to the demo)

* iProspect Offline Channel Influence on Online Search Behavior, August 2007 (PDF)

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

At Google, we're committed to the online safety and security of our advertisers and users. Recently, Google's Security Team has put together a list of tips on our Official Google Blog regarding phishing and how you can protect yourself and your sensitive information online. We encourage you to read the post, and feel free to contact the AdWords Support Team if you have any questions.

Posted by Vivian Leung, Inside AdWords crew

In celebration of Earth Day, we've decided to take a brief break from AdWords news and tips to share our favorite "green" tips for the office.

1) Turn off the lights in conference rooms after you're finished with a meeting.

2) Turn off computers when you leave for the day.

3) Bring your own reusable water bottles and coffee mugs to work.

4) Carpool with your co-workers.

5) Try duplex printing -- save paper by printing on both sides.

We hope you'll take some time today (and every day) to think about how to make your workplace more Earth-friendly!

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords conversion tracking is a free AdWords tool to help you understand what happens after a user clicks on your ad. By knowing which clicks most often lead to conversions, you can spend your money most effectively – on the clicks most likely to lead to a conversion.

We've recently improved conversion tracking. You can now define the actions that are most important to your business and track conversions on each of those actions independently.

Why is conversion tracking important?
Clicks on different keywords can lead to different types of conversions and in different frequencies, so it’s important to know how well a particular keyword performs when deciding how much to bid. Most advertisers will want to bid higher on keywords which convert well for them and lower on the others. In this way, conversion tracking helps you improve your ROI.

How does it work?
Using conversion tracking involves inserting a small snippet of code into specific pages on your website that indicate an important event has occurred, for example, the order confirmation page you show after a purchase. When a visitor clicks on your ad and eventually reaches this page, AdWords will register a conversion. You can then view this data as part of your account statistics and reports.

Please note that Quality Score does not consider data from AdWords conversion tracking. However, your conversion rates are taken into account by the Conversion Optimizer when determining whether ads have high enough bids to show.

What's new?
You can now define and track your own conversion types that are important to your business. For instance, if you are selling flowers online, you might have one conversion type for Mother's Day bouquets, and another for graduation bouquets to differentiate between your two best-selling products.

Defining and tracking several types of conversions will give you more detail about how conversions occur on your website. Using AdWords Conversion Tracking is also the first step towards qualifying for the Conversion Optimizer, AdWords' CPA bidding feature which has helped many advertisers save time and money.

You can start using AdWords conversion tracking by clicking on “Conversion Tracking” in your AdWords account. If you are using AdWords Starter Edition, you will need to graduate to Standard Edition before using conversion tracking. For more information and help getting started, take a look at these articles in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Today, we're announcing that Google Website Optimizer is officially out of beta. For those unfamiliar with it, Website Optimizer is Google's free content testing and optimization tool. It allows you to test different variations of your site content and design to determine what will be most effective at converting your visitors into customers.

Based on advertiser and agency feedback, we've released several updates to make the product even more accessible and effective for users:

• We've made it easier for you to sign up and use Website Optimizer. In addition to accessing the tool through your AdWords account, you'll now be able to sign up for and access the tool without having to first sign into your AdWords account. Also, you can now use Website Optimizer even if you are not an AdWords advertiser.
  

• You'll experience an improved setup flow for multivariate experiments, with more straightforward tagging instructions and a sample tagged page for you to examine.

• The Website Optimizer microsite has been updated to include more educational information, including archived webinars, articles on optimization, testing strategies, and best practices.

You can keep up with Website Optimizer at the new Website Optimizer blog where you'll find the latest product news, industry insights, and testing recipes straight from the Website Optimizer team.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

If you're an AdWords Editor user, you'll be happy to know that we're introducing a new announcement-only Google Group devoted solely to information about AdWords Editor. When you subscribe to this group, you'll receive product news, helpful tips, and other updates straight from the AdWords Editor team. All posts to the forum will be in English.

To subscribe, visit the AdWords Editor forum and select one of the email options.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

In the recent past we've let you know of many opportunities to learn new things about AdWords, while also meeting some of the friendly and knowledgeable people on the AdWords team. Now, we hope you'll consider joining a number of such folks in San Francisco, as they discuss best practices for making the most of AdWords at ad:tech -- a conference for digital marketing.

If you don't already have a pass to this conference please visit the ad:tech site, by April 14th, where you may obtain a free exhibit hall pass to attend the sessions described below:

Tuesday, April 15:

Time & Title: 12:00 - 1:00: AdWords Fundamentals
Description: New to online advertising? Learn the fundamentals of Advertising with AdWords.
Speaker: Google Media Partnerships Development, Senior Strategist, Daniel Helmhold

Time & Title: 3:30 - 4:30: Optimization Strategies: Part 1
Description: Use simple AdWords optimization tips & tricks to make the most of your AdWords budget.
Speakers: AdWords Optimization Specialists, Paul Coutts and Stephanie Lim

Time & Title: 4:45 - 5:45: Efficiently Managing Your Account
Description: Learn how to manage your AdWords account efficiently and effectively with AdWords Editor, and other tools.
Speakers: Google Product Manager, Doug Raymond

Wednesday, April 16:

Time & Title: 9:30 - 10:30: What's New with Google Analytics and Website Optimizer?
Description: The latest on Google's web analytics and multivariate testing products: Google Analytics, Urchin Software and Website Optimizer.
Speakers: Business Development Manager, Scott Crosby; Business Product Manager, Tom Leung and Product Marketing Manager, Jeff Gillis

Time & Title: 11:00 - 12:00: Increase Your Advertising Reach
Description: Using the Google Network including TV, audio and print to reach your target audiences and increase traffic.
Speaker: Traditional Media Specialist, Nicole Resz

Time & Title: 2:45 - 3:45: Optimization Strategies: Part 2
Description: Using advanced AdWords optimization tools and techniques for refining and improving your AdWords account.
Speaker: AdWords Optimization Specialists, Geoffrey Stirling

Time & Title: 4:00 - 5:00: Measuring and Tracking For Success
Description: Use Google Analytics and AdWords to define and track key metrics, and make the most of your investment.
Speaker: Google Analytics Product Specialist, Ashish Vij

Thursday, April 17:

Time & Title: 12:00 - 1:00: What's New with Google Analytics and Website Optimizer?
Description: A repeat of the Wednesday 9:30 - 10:30 session.
Speakers: Business Development Manager, Scott Crosby; Business Product Manager, Tom Leung and Product Marketing Manager, Jeff Gillis

Time & Title: 1:15 - 2:15: Online Video Advertising at Scale
Description: A discussion of the trends, benefits and strategies of online video advertising.
Speakers: Product Marketing Manager, Ryan Hayward and Product Manager, Shamim Samadi

Time & Title: 3:15 - 4:45: Successful Web Analytics
Description: Straightforward, data-driven techniques to enrich your website and business, including tracking AdWords, Pages, Segmentation and Rich Media.
Speaker: Analytics Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik

Please note that the location for all sessions is Room 110. Be sure to mention that the Inside Adwords crew sent you. ;)

Posted by Blake, AdWords crew

On Saturday, April 12th, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT due to our regularly scheduled maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month during the above times -- although in May it is planned to occur one week later than usual, on May 17th, due to Mother's Day.

We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but you may want to take note of our intended dates and times to help you plan for any scheduled downtimes further down the road.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Did you know you can use the Search Query Performance report to refine your campaigns? Or that echoing your ad text in your landing page's headline helps create a positive user experience? Have you heard about our free campaign optimizations?

Our AdWords Industry Newsletters address companies in specific verticals, but enterprising advertisers in any business can often find universal, useful advice in them. For example, the above tips come from three of our most recent newsletters for the Auto, Tech B2B, and Entertainment & Media industries.

You can sign up to receive AdWords newsletters via email through your AdWords account. You can also find previous issues of these newsletters at the Auto Industry Knowledge Center, Tech B2B Industry Knowledge Center, and Entertainment & Media Industry Knowledge Center.

Posted by Christian, Inside AdWords crew

In this installment of Analytics 101, we'll dive straight into some statistics that you can use right away. Hopefully by now you've finished installing your tracking code and have had some visitor traffic you can look at.

When you sign in to Google Analytics and view your reports, you'll be taken straight to the Dashboard, which is a top-level view of your site so that you can see how you're doing at a glance.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

It's important to make sure you always have the date range you want selected. Use the Date Selector in the top right to choose your range with either the Calendar or Timeline view.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

The large graph shows your Visits over time by default. If you click on the drop-down near the top right of the graph, you can make it expand to select any one of six important statistics for your site: Visits, Pageviews, Pages/Visit, Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site, and % New Visits.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

You might also notice that these same six statistics appear in the Site Usage section under the graph. You can learn how Google Analytics defines the basic terms of Visits, Pageviews, and Pages/Visit from this Help Center article; to be consistent, make sure everyone who'll be using your reports understands them.

The latter three stats are where it really gets interesting. Each of them will provide unique insights into your traffic based on context that only you, the person who best understands your website, can provide.

• Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors who left your site after only seeing one page. For most sites, a high Bounce Rate is bad since people are arriving, taking a quick look around, and leaving immediately. Either the site isn't useful or they're turned off by something. By monitoring your Bounce Rate over time, you can optimize your landing pages and then check to see if your changes worked - a lower rate means people like what you've done with the place. Bounce Rate is best used to compare different sets of your own data. Websites and industries vary too greatly for us to give you here a set number on what a healthy Bounce Rate is. For example, blogs usually have high Bounce Rates no matter what since normal visitor behavior is to read the newest post and then leave.
  

• Average Time on Site indicates the average length of time a visitor spends on your site's tracked pages. A high number may mean that visitors are very engaged with your site, which is great if, say, your goal is to provide entertaining content. However, you may not necessarily want it high. If you have an e-commerce site and people spend a long time on it, perhaps your buying process is too long or confusing. Once you find out which way is best for you, you can take steps to change your Average Time on Site number in the desired direction.
  

• % New Visits tells you the percentage of visitors that have never visited your site before. If you look at a date range where you've run a far-reaching ad campaign, you'd be excited to see an increased number of new visitors who have been exposed to your campaigns and are curious to see your website. Or perhaps your goal is to create loyalty among your customer base, in which case you'd want a significant portion of your visitors to be returning. Because % New Visits is a statistic that usually needs more context and absolute numbers to be useful, go ahead and click on the link to see a detailed report for it. You can do the same for any of the statistics we've discussed. In fact, you can pretty much click on any stat in the Google Analytics interface to drill down for more details.
  

We've just covered the first set of metrics that you can use to measure the performance of your site, as well as the success of any changes you happen to make to it, and we didn't even have to leave the comfort of the Dashboard. Next time, we'll look at another set of useful data, your Traffic Sources reports.

Posted by Christian, Inside AdWords crew

We're proud to announce a new member of the AdWords family -- Frank the hand turkey. You may remember Frank from previous blog posts, and as of today, Frank will be the official mascot of Google AdWords. As part of our continuing efforts to improve the quality of online advertising, we're also introducing FrankRank(TM), a new ad ranking technology and algorithm inspired by our new mascot.

To learn more about Frank and FrankRank, we sat down with the new mascot for a quick interview:

I see you're sporting a new look.
Frank: Oh? What? Oh yes, the bow tie. Well, I'm a big corporate mascot now. I need to look the part. Plus, I hear they have big plans for me, so I've got to look sharp.

Tell us about FrankRank.
F: I'd be happy to. Well, as you might know, AdWords rankings are now based on how well a particular ad goes with mashed potatoes and gravy... and quite frankly, how much I like the ad. Some people thought this connection between mashed potatoes and bids was confusing, but since it's really all about what I like, I figured we'd just name it after me.

We've done some usability studies with it, and you wouldn't believe the results. People are like, "Who's Frank?" and the User Experience Researcher is like, "He's a hand turkey," and then the people are like, "Woah, I get it now." Truly fascinating stuff.

How did you become the AdWords mascot? Were there others competing for the title?
F: I did have to beat out a snowman and his girlfriend for the title, but fortunately I received a travel hair dryer in my office's Secret Santa last year. That certainly heated up the competition, if you know what I mean.

Any concerns that you might be eaten?
F: Well, not in particular, I mean I'm a hand turkey, not the real thing. Now I could see that someone could be enjoying some mashed potatoes and gravy while managing their AdWords account, and then see me, think I am delicious turkey, and try to devour me, but I mean what are the odds?

What else do you have lined up for the future?
F: I've got big plans! First off, I'm going to learn 42 new languages so I can speak to all of our AdWords customers. I also hear that the AdSense folks are looking for a mascot. After that, I'm off to Mars with Project Virgle.

Posted by Trevor & Vivian, Inside AdWords crew