Google Improves Tools in Ramp up of Display Ad Battle

As Google continues its assault on the display advertising ecosystem, it announced new features this week that will help advertisers better manage their advetising in the Display Ad Newtork. If forecasters are correct and display advertising overtakes search advertising by 2015, then Google will be ready.

Advertisers, already used to the extremely low click-through rates common in the display world, will now be able to see Relative CTR, so they can compare their ads performance against competitors. They all may be low, but if and advertiser’s click-through rate is half that of the competition, that’s something they’d like to know.

The second new metric is Impression Share which allows advertisers to see the percentage of time an ad appeared when it was eligible to appear. Even better, the tool gives visibility into the auction process, so the advertiser can see the impact of increasing the  budget or improving the ad rank.

Another new tool, the Content Display Diagnostic Tool, will provide insight into why ads may or may not be appearing on the display network, right down to specific placements. This tool will give advertisers greater control of where the advertising appears in the display network.

And the final tweak, the Unseen Impression Filter, Google will discount impressions when it determines the user was unlikely to scroll down a page to see your ad.

When and if the display world overtakes the search world is still yet to be determined, but Google is determined to be a major player when it does. Source