Rewind: Google TV Ads in 2008

Tuesday, December 30, 2008 | 12:24 PM

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While you are deciding on your New Year's resolutions and preparing for an exciting 2009, the Google TV Ads team would like to thank you for tuning in and reading our posts. Here's a look back at our favorite product enhancements of 2008.

Expanded reach
We announced partnerships with NBC Universal, Bloomberg TV, and the Hallmark Channel, all in our mission to grow our inventory so that advertisers can leverage the benefits of Google TV Ads to reach up to 94 million households. Bloomberg TV network inventory became available in Q4, and eight more networks will be available in early 2009.

Paving the way for additional future inventory partnerships, our partnership with Harris Corporation will enable media companies to more easily make their inventory available to Google TV Ads advertisers through Harris' current traffic systems' inventory tools. Our inventory providers will find it easier to manage their media sales through our platform within the existing Harris system.

The right audience
Making ad spend more efficient is about airing an advertiser's message to the audience that finds it most relevant. Program Targeting was enhanced to provide advertisers with "Broad Match" results that not only match the keywords you entered into the search field, but also TV programs related to the keywords. With this enhancement you can discover and target even more programming content that is relevant to your business. We also had a beta launch of Demographic Search, where advertisers select the audience attributes they value most, and are then presented with a list of networks and programs whose viewership includes a high concentration of the ad campaign's intended audience.

Data to help you optimize for improved ROI
We added a few features to help advertisers fine-tune their campaigns for an improved return on investment.
Nielsen viewership demographic data is available in Report Center for each ad airing in a campaign. With this data, advertisers can get directional feedback on whether their ads are reaching the desired demographic, and then adjust their campaign targets accordingly. Report Center also has new Reach and Frequency reports to provide insight into how often viewers see an ad, helping determine whether the campaign is delivering on goal.

Better campaign planning tools
Some of the feature updates we implemented this past year will help advertisers by improving the campaign creation process. Our Traffic Estimator got a new look and enhanced functionality, while still providing estimated impression counts for each target network/daypart and program, based on budget and bid. And the new Flight Controls feature allows advertisers to schedule in advance when they'd like to pause their campaigns, saving time when managing their campaigns.

Easier campaign management
We like keeping things simple, but useful. This year we added some tools to accomplish just that. To help save you time when creating a new TV campaign, we launched a new feature that allows advertisers to copy your targeting settings from a previous campaign to a new campaign. We also created the Ads Diagnostic Tool to quickly provide details on why an uploaded ad may not be ready to air.

As 2008 comes to a close, we are already working hard to bring your more exciting developments in Google TV Ads for next year. Stay tuned...

Posted by Aly Makishima for Google TV Ads