An update on Google TV Ads

Thursday, August 30, 2012 | 5:59 PM

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Our goal is to provide all our customers with the best digital marketing opportunities. In 2007, we launched Google TV Ads in AdWords to bring digital buying and measurement technologies to traditional TV advertising. Since then, lots of our clients have bought traditional TV advertising for the first time.

However, video is increasingly going digital and users are now watching across numerous devices. So we’ve made the hard decision to close our TV Ads product over the next few months and move the team to other areas at Google. We’ll be doubling down on video solutions for our clients (like YouTube, AdWords for Video, and ad serving tools for web video publishers). We also see opportunities to help users access web content on their TV screens, through products like Google TV.

Of course we'll continue to support our partners, and our clients’ campaigns, as we shut the product down.

Thanks to all our clients, partners and the team that has worked on Google TV Ads over the past few years. The future of video advertising is extremely bright and we’re excited to devote ourselves fully to it.

Google TV Ads: New year, new partner and new technology

Monday, January 9, 2012 | 6:00 AM

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Since launching in 2007, Google TV Ads has provided advertisers a smart, measurable way to run national TV campaigns, while at the same time helping our partners (including networks, cable and satellite operators) work towards maximizing revenue from their inventory.  Over the past year, we’ve seen a 6-fold increase in the number of ads aired per day as our household reach across cable and satellite operators has tripled.  Today we’re pleased to continue this momentum, to help both advertisers and partners get the most from TV advertising.

New partner - welcome Cox Media

Cox Media, the advertising division of Cox Communications, the third largest cable operator in the US with more than 6 million total customers, has entered into a strategic partnership with Google TV Ads, adding their inventory to our national TV buying network.  Cox becomes the first major cable industry partner to deploy Google’s next-generation advertising management solution, a major update to the TV Ads platform.

As a result of this partnership, advertisers who use Google TV Ads will have access to inventory on over 75 networks across Cox's channel line up.  Cox Media is available in many cities across the country.

Building upon previously announced inventory deals with DIRECTV, Verizon FiOS, and Viamedia, Google TV Ads has nearly tripled its operator household reach since the start of 2011, to a total of 42 million households nationwide.


For Cox Media, this partnership will deliver new national TV advertisers, particularly those focused on high levels of measurement and accountability in their TV advertising, similar to how they use Google's online advertising products.

Mike Zeigler, Cox Media’s Vice President of Operations and Field Management, told us: “The media industry is changing rapidly.  Our new partnership with Google TV Ads allows us to reach new market segments through a highly automated and efficient distribution platform.  We are pleased to be part of bringing new television opportunities to Google advertisers.”

New ad management solution

As the TV landscape has evolved from a few to hundreds of networks, audience attention has fragmented, making the process of reaching one large audience more challenging.  At the same time, TV ad inventory is split between a number of players - national networks, regional affiliates, cable, and satellite operators. As a result, each has its own slices of inventory to sell - divided across many shows, in disparate regions, on lots of channels, at various times of the day. On its own, each slice may not have a large number of viewers, or enable a major advertiser to reach a nationwide audience.  And it’s time consuming to buy and sell each slice individually.

To solve this problem, Google TV Ads is announcing an update to its service that enables operators to easily opt-in and contribute these narrow slices into the Google TV Ads national  inventory pool.  As thousands of these slices are aggregated, this pool represents a large national audience that marketers can then customize to their audience goals.

Cox is the first major cable operator to choose this new Google TV Ads ad management solution, and moving forward we will be integrating with new partners, including Suddenlink Communications, which reaches 1.2M households.

The new solution aims to deliver higher returns for our operators while integrating with existing industry technology, streamlining time-consuming inventory management tasks such as ordering, trafficking and reporting.

Bendbroadband, a Bend, Oregon-based cable company, was the first to trial this new platform, starting in May 2011.  Tim Olson, General Manager of Ad Sales for Zolo Media, a division of Bendbroadband, told us: “Google TV Ads generates more revenue, uses our inventory more efficiently and is overall easier to work with...we’re generating 4-5 times the revenue we used to.”

While we’ve come far in 2011, going forward we’ll keep working to help our partners maximize their advertising revenues.  Our advertisers will be happy to know we’ll also be adding more inventory to our system by expanding our relationship with Cox Media and establishing partnerships with additional operators beginning with Suddenlink Communications.  At the same time, Google TV Ads will continue to provide the same level of precision, flexibility and measurability that our advertisers have come to rely on.

You can find out more about Google TV Ads at google.com/tvads.

Posted by Mark Piesanen, Director of Strategic Partner Development, Google TV Ads

You're Invited: Making CPG TV Buying Smarter

Wednesday, November 9, 2011 | 10:49 AM

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Calling all CPG marketers:

Are you marketing a brand next year?  Will TV be part of your strategy...or at least, do you hope it will be?

Let’s make 2012 the year we learn more from our TV campaigns.

As the next webinar in our series, the Google TV Ads team would like to join us on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 to demonstrate how brand marketers are getting smarter about their TV buys.  Highlighting real use-cases, members of the Google TV Ads sales team will show how Google TV Ads can support each stage of the product life cycle, including:

  • Enabling macro and micro level targeting at launch
  • Segmenting your audience on TV to drive growth
  • Analyzing post-campaign attribution and improved ROI metrics
We hope you can join us!

What: CPG Webinar: Make Your TV Campaign Smarter
When: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 2:30pm EST/11:30am PST
Register here

For more information on Google TV Ads, visit us today at google.com/tvads

You're Invited: Making B2B TV Buying Smarter

Monday, October 31, 2011 | 1:54 PM

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Over the past year, Google TV Ads has been investing in new features to help our advertisers make smarter decisions about their TV campaigns.

The Google TV Ads team would like to invite you to a webinar on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 to discuss the changing landscape of TV advertising for B2B marketers and how features that tie TV to online can help you better reach the B2B consumer on TV. Members of our B2B sales team will specifically cover:

  • The changing TV landscape - reaching the B2B consumer on TV today vs. in the ‘Three Network World’
  • How Google TV Ads is working to make your TV buy smarter, including:
    • Search Triggers: Harnessing the power of Google Search to influence your TV buy
    • Web Attribution: Linking TV ad exposure to website visitation
We hope you can join us!

What: Making B2B TV Buying Smarter Webinar
When: Wednesday, November 9, 2011  2:30-3:00pm EST/11:30-12:00pm PST
How: Register here

Not a B2B marketer?  Don't worry!  This is just the first in a series of upcoming webinars from Google TV Ads.  Stay tuned for more announcements in the near future. 

Online Search as a Driver of TV Buying

Wednesday, October 19, 2011 | 12:11 PM

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When Searches take place online, business usually follows.  Advertisers utilizing Google’s AdWords and Insights for Search data have watched this pattern emerge for years, and we’re excited to now bring similar capabilities to our TV advertisers. As of today, we are pleased to announce the launch of Search Triggers, a new tool offered by Google TV Ads that uses national search trend data to control when and how you deliver your TV ads.

Let’s take a look at how this works. Suppose you own a business that sells grills.  The summertime is when you generally run television advertising.  But what if it’s a rainy weekend? By tapping into the power of search data, Search Triggers watches for real-time changes in the demand for terms you specify, such as “grills” or “charcoal.”  When query volume spikes or declines, the Search Triggers tool automatically adjusts your daily budget up or down accordingly each day so that you’re delivering the right message with appropriate frequency at the right time.


Using search data to optimize your TV campaigns is another way that Google TV Ads is working to make your TV buy smarter.  For more information, or to get started with Google TV Ads, visit google.com/tvads.

Update: Read more about Search Triggers on Mashable

Posted by Jody Shapiro, Google TV Ads Product Manager

More DIRECTV Networks Now Available through Google TV Ads

Thursday, October 13, 2011 | 4:57 PM

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       Since announcing our inventory partnership with DIRECTV in August 2010, Google TV Ads has offered advertisers the ability to place their TV spots on a broad selection of national inventory across 11 its networks.  Today we are pleased to share that we have grown our DIRECTV reach to include five new networks.  Now when you plan your TV campaign with Google TV Ads, you will have more inventory from the following networks with which to target your audience on:

  • FOX Soccer Channel: America's premier destination for the world's game, FOX Soccer Channel offers unprecedented coverage of live and premier world-class soccer, news and original shows throughout the year.
  • Gospel Music Channel: The only network with a truly non-controversial programming slate of movies, dramas, comedies and music, Gospel Music Channel is America's favorite channel for uplifting entertainment.
  • Logo: Appealing to a broad range of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender viewers and their friends and family, Logo features a vast library of major film titles, documentaries, and quality original shows and specials.
  • RFD-TV: Devoted to rural issues, concerns, and interests, much of the programming of RFD-TV is concerned with the culture of farming and agriculture.
  • TV Games: The leading horse racing television network in the U.S
       Adding these networks expands our already strong reach on DIRECTV, which includes networks such as the TV Guide Network, Fox Business Network, Current TV, and more. Along with our previously announced operator partners including Dish Network, Verizon FiOS, and ViaMedia, Google TV Ads now offers the ability to reach up to 35M households across the US.

For more information on how to get started with Google TV Ads, visit www.google.com/tvads today.

Posted by Sanjeev Das, Software Engineer, Google TV Ads

*Network descriptions sourced from the Cable Advertising Bureau

Viamedia Launches on Google TV Ads Platform

Wednesday, July 27, 2011 | 9:46 AM

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Earlier this year we announced a strategic inventory agreement with Viamedia, a provider of advertising sales services to some of the fastest growing cable and telco operators in the US. Today we are pleased to announce that we have completed integration of Viamedia’s two million households into the Google TV Ads platform, making inventory available on 64 networks across their operator partners. With this integration, the household reach of Google TV Ads has now nearly tripled since the beginning of the year.

For those customers that already have Google TV Ads campaigns up and running, there’s nothing you need to do at this time. When eligible, your campaigns will automatically include Viamedia inventory, maximizing reach while staying within your desired budgets.

For more information or to learn more about advertising with Google TV Ads, visit www.google.com/tvads.

Posted by Kevin Buskirk, Technical Account Manager, Google TV Ads