AdWords Launches Product Listings Ads and DFA Analytics, Updates Ad Planner

Google AdWords has unleashed a heap of updates, so let’s dive right in and see what’s going on.

Product Listing Ads

This is a new type of ad that will be included in shopping-related results on Google.com. The ads are Cost-per-Action (CPA). Advertisers will only pay when users click through and make a purchase. It works in conjunction with an advertiser’s Google Merchant Center account.

Because of the Google Merchant Center connection, advertisers don’t need to find keywords or create ad text. Google will cull all that information for you and serve up the ads when the relevant keyword is searched. (Of course, you’ll still want to do keyword research and make sure you get the right keywords in when you’re setting things up in the Google Merchant Center).

Ad Planner Updates

Google’s media buying tool, Ad Planner, has received some updates:

• Subdomain data – View data such as traffic and demographics for publisher subdomains
• Ad placements – View specific sections of a website where advertising can be purchased.
• Reach and relevance at a glance – New interactive graph shows which sites in your planned campaign will perform the best
• More detailed publisher data – Since publishers and advertisers can share Google Analytics data with Ad Planner, more data points are available such as page views, unique visitors, total visits, average visits per visitor, and average time on site.

DART for Advertisers Updates

DART for Advertisers (DFA) is the DoubleClick platform and it has a new Analytics feature that’s been launched into beta. Google is touting the features and benefits over at the AdWords Agency blog:

• Quick insights. Interactive reports with charts and graphs.
• Fast reports. Reports update frequently – every few hours – and the new user interface enables you to access your data quickly.
• New Report Types. Geographic delivery data as well as additional reports that show delivery data by bandwidth, browser, and operating system.