First off, you should watch their demo to see how Google AdWords Display Ad Builder works.  When I first log into Google AdWords, I am presented with  “create a new campaign.”  I enter a name for the campaign and then select where I would like the ad to be seen. What’s interesting here is that I can choose to target businesses if I am creating an ad for a B2B operation.  If so, I can then connect to the Google Local Business Center, if a business owner, or add addresses manually, if not.  If a B2C operation, I  can instead choose to target by demographics, male/female and age range only.

I then select the networks I want to run in and on what devices, desktops/laptops and/or mobile.  I then decide if I want to pay on a CPC (cost per click), CPA (cost per acquisition), or CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis.  If I want CPA, it directs me to setup conversion tracking on the Reporting tab, meaning, I will pay only if there is a sale, signup, lead generated, or view of a specific page.  This step provides conversion tracking code that has to be added to the web page.  I then enter a budget for the campaign per day, if CPC I enter a bid limit, and start and end dates.  Lastly, I can also choose to cap frequency, meaning, the same person won’t see the ad or “ad group” more than once per day, per week or per month.

Once I have saved my options, on the next screen I can choose to create a text, image or mobile ad, or select Google AdWords Display Ad Builder.  I then enter keywords (and negative keywords) manually or upload a spreadsheet (see my blog post Free Keyword Suggestion Tools for help with this step).  Pressing the “estimate search traffic” button, I will see what Google figures my average cost per day would be, given the maximum CPC and budget entered previously.  Lastly, I can enter specific websites that I would like to show the ad (see my blog post Manage Your Advertising ROI with Google AdPlanner for help with this step).

Finally, I’m now at the step to create the display ad.  My options are: create an ad for a currently hosted YouTube video, place a 15 or 30 second video ad within video publisher content, create a click-to-play video creative, create a “roll-over showcase,” “tabbed showcase,” “scrolling showcase,” “peel effect,” or slideshow.  They also have various templates for seasonal ads or for companies that specialize in education, entertainment, financial, retail, technology and travel.  Lastly, they offer “people” ads with, what else, people in them doing things like pointing, running, hugging and dancing.  You can even select to see those ads that offer the highest click-throughs.

If you’re wondering where these ads will show up, there is information here on the Google Network, Gmail, Search Network (Google search results pages and the search results pages of Google’s search partners), Content Network, and Content Network Partners.  Also, remember you can specify locations in the earlier step.

A new development in Google AdWords Display Ad Builder you should be aware of is their recent acquisition of Teracent.  You will soon be able to setup “intelligent display advertising” to have multiple elements within the same ad that can be targeted to the recipient based on geographic location, language, the content of the website, the time of day or the past performance of different ads.  While dynamic ad serving is exciting, it will also create more work for those setting up campaigns and we will once again return to talks of multivariate testing (see my last post How To Test Landing Pages for more on this).

A couple of useful articles:

• How to link Google Analytics goals and transactions to AdWords Conversion Tracking
• How to import Google Adwords campaigns into Yahoo and MSN

Lastly, if you have website content that is new every day or can be used frequently, such as a blog, news feed, map, calculator, videos or games, you might consider creating a Google Gadget ad.  There are multiple ways to go about building a Gadget, including using their templates and wizards.  It says on their site, “To get started, all you need is a basic understanding of HTML. We will teach you all you need to know about XML to write gadgets. Later, as you write more sophisticated gadgets, you will probably want to learn some JavaScript if you’re not familiar with it already.”

If you use the tools that I have shared with you today, I’d love for you to come back and tell me your experience and how well it worked for you in achieving marketing ROI.

Related posts:

1. Increase Your Website ROI With Google AdSense and AdManager
2. Evaluating the ROI of Your Online Friends