New digital innovations to close the loop for advertisers

Mobile phones have created new ways for consumers to engage with brands, often blurring the physical and digital worlds. People research products online and go into a store to buy. They see a brand on TV and then go online to learn more. Or they watch mobile videos on their commutes that inspire them to book a trip when they’re back home on their laptops.

However your audience engages, only Google has the scale and the tools to help you reach people in the moments that truly matter and measure impact across devices and channels.

I look forward to sharing several new innovations with you on Monday morning at Advertising Week’s Times Center Stage -- all of which are designed to help you close the loop between television and digital, online and offline, and mobile and desktop.

Close the loop between TV and digital with Brand Lift 

For the last several years, we’ve been investing in our Brand Lift product to show marketers how YouTube campaigns impact brand metrics like awareness and purchase intent -- throughout the entire consumer journey.

Today, we’re extending the capabilities of Brand Lift to TV campaigns to show marketers how TV ads increase Google and YouTube searches for your brand compared to YouTube campaigns. From early tests, we've seen that YouTube generates almost 2x searches per impression than TV generates.¹




Brand Lift for TV requires very little set-up – you don’t even need to provide your media schedule. As long as you’re running Brand Lift on both a TV campaign and a YouTube campaign, we’ll be able to report the incremental searches for your brand.

"We are excited to see the work Google is doing to better understand the impact of video. Brand Lift now presents us with a way to specifically, credibly, and scientifically compare the effectiveness of cross media campaigns. This is interesting to Volkswagen as we move closer to measuring TV and digital platforms (like YouTube) on even ground." - Paige Parrent, Digital Media Manager, Volkswagen Marketing

Close the loop between online ads and offline sales 

In addition to the interaction between TV, YouTube and online search, there is now a real connection between online ads and offline visits to stores: 30% of smartphone users who visit a website or app on their phones buy something in a store within 24 hours.²

That’s why we’re introducing location extensions and store visits measurement for the Google Display Network -- to help marketers close the loop between online ads and offline sales. As consumers browse their favorite websites or interact with their favorite apps, you can reach them with ads that show your business address, Google Maps directions and photos. It’s a high-impact, immediate way to increase foot traffic to your store.

For The Home Depot, location extensions for display ads reached consumers actively browsing their phones near the brand’s most popular stores, delivering an 8X in-store ROI. “Mobile location extensions for display really proved their worth very quickly,” says Umut Dincer, Director of Online Marketing for The Home Depot. “We're able to reach DIYers who are close to our stores and make a 'just-in-time' connection that brings them the information they really want in their I-want-to-buy-it moments.” [Full story]

So how do marketers measure the impact of these online ads? Store visits for display measures the impact of your Display Network ads on actual visits to your store, hotel, auto dealership or restaurant. With the power of Google Maps technology, we have access to the exact dimensions of over 200 million stores globally to deliver 99% accuracy in reported visits.³ Only Google can deliver this level of precision and scale. [Learn more]

Close the loop across devices 

The final loop to close is the one across all the devices people use -- phones, tablets, laptops and everything in between. Today, we’re introducing cross-device remarketing for Google Display Network and DoubleClick Bid Manager to help you reach the same user across devices, apps, and sites. You can now tell a single story to your audience and decide how frequently they see your ad across devices.

Let’s say you’re a retailer and want to build a customized Halloween campaign. With cross-device remarketing, you can reach your customers with an “It’s almost Halloween” ad on their phone during the morning commute. Later in the day, you can follow up with a limited time offer on decorations and recipes when they’re browsing a tablet at home.

All of these innovations will be rolling out over the course of the next few months.

It’s a privilege to build products that help brands close the loop for measurement, reach and engagement. We’re excited to share more details about these innovations with you throughout Advertising Week, and I look forward to your feedback as we continue this journey together.

Join the conversation at #GoogleAW2016.

Posted by Brad Bender, Vice President of Display and Video Advertising 

---

1.  Google Internal meta-analysis of 1188 U.S. studies, August 2015 - April 2016.
2.  Google/Purchased Digital Diary: How Consumers Solve Their Needs in the Moment, May 2016, Representative sample of US smartphone users = 1000, Visited a Website or App = 721.
3.  Store visits are calculated using conservative data thresholds with 99% certainty that reported visits are less than or equal to actual visits.