Acting On Your Moments: Five ways to go from knowing your users' moments to winning them

This is the third in our series of posts about micro- and macro-moments. In parts one and two we talked about how to think about these moments of intent and find out what they are for your audience. Today let's talk about what to do about it.

1) A good place to start is with a moments map. This is where you identify the set of moments you absolutely want to win or can't afford to lose. Examine all phases of the consumer journey for your business, and look for the moments when people want to find inspiration, learn about something you�re reporting, make a social statement, or anything in between.

Breaking news stories are an

example of moments you

can�t afford to lose

Suppose you have a news site and a user visits your review of a restaurant as they walk through town. They may just want to know if you gave it two or four stars� or they may want to know your reviewer's in-depth thoughts and recommendations for each course. How you deliver this information will make a big difference. (And remember, they're impatient!) 

2)  Next up: try to understand customer needs in the moment. Put yourself in the consumer�s shoes for each moment you want to win. Ask yourself, �What would make this easier or faster? What content or features would be most helpful for this moment?� Again, ask yourself: Is your user looking for a quick moment or are they there for the long haul?

In a story or photo feature about fashion, for instance, you could add a widget showing locations of the stores that sell each dress or pair of shoes you feature, or video of the fashion shows where they were revealed.

3)  Third, make sure you use context to deliver the right experience. Contextual signals like location and time of day will help you deliver experiences and messages that feel tailor-made for the moment.

For example, if a soccer fan is having a micro-moment, they probably just want the top highlights and the final score from the match last night. This could be your spot for a social media update or a 30-second video. But if they're in a macro-moment, they'll want in-depth match analysis, team lineups and analysis of how the final score will affect the league. That's your moment for the long-form article or podcast.

What contextual signals can 

you gather from your users?

4)  Be sure to optimize across all aspects of the journey. People move seamlessly across screens and channels. Does your brand deliver seamlessly in return? Don�t let competing internal objectives or departmental silos stand in the way; anchor your action to the consumer and organize around their moments.

Ask: "Is our journey optimized for search?" How do consumers across all the different social channels interact with your sites? Are they optimized correctly?

5)  Now keep the momentum rolling: measure every moment that matters and iterate. Keep improving your content based on what you find; then measure and iterate again.

You can't afford to under-serve your customers while you deal with measurement gaps. Even if the return on investment (ROI) for certain moments may not be directly measurable (yet), train your team to use credible estimates to ensure nothing�s falling through the cracks. 

We�ll leave you with these questions:

1. Are you ready for the moments ahead? 
2. Can users consume your content (or a form of it) in the queue at Starbucks?
3. How are you capitalizing on seasonal macro-moments like the Rugby World Cup or the upcoming Summer Olympic games?

If you take the time to think about your customers, find their micro- and macro-moments, and then fill their needs in those moments, you'll be well on your way. And in fact, you'll likely be getting a leg up on the competition.

Think with Google recently published a research study that takes a deep dive into micro-moments, it's a great follow up to this blog series. Download your copy today, and win the shift to mobile.

Posted By: Chris Jones, Audience Development Specialist

Are you on Twitter? Follow us for more insights and tips @AdSense

App Monetization Insights: How MobiSystems adapted their way to success

This is post 4 of our 5-part blog series featuring monetization tips straight from successful app developers. If you�re interested in further exploring the question, �what�s the best way to monetize my app?�, check out our free No-nonsense Guide to App Monetization ebook.

Our guest this week is Elitza Bratkova, Director Business Development at MobiSystems, the company behind a few of the most popular business and productivity apps on Google Play. Their flagship product, OfficeSuite, is a successful mobile office solution for Android with a user base of over 200M download and preloaded users.

A clear company value surfaced as a big part of MobiSystems' success � flexibility. Check out ways you can also use flexibility to your advantage with these tips:


1. Adapt quickly to promising platforms and opportunities.

MobiSytems started over 10 years ago. In its early days, they created dictionaries for the most popular platforms � PalmOS and Pocket PC. When a new platform popped up called Symbian, they were quick to build for it, with some success.

Then Android came along in 2007, and Elitza saw the opportunity, despite the business being resource constrained.

�It was clear that mobile devices were becoming more popular for working professionals. The trend was clear. While we did opt-out of building for smaller platforms, this opportunity was in line with our vision and it seemed promising. It seemed like a platform where our target users would be. It was a risk, but we took it.�

The risk paid off. Being one of the earliests apps on the Google Play Store, and being pre-loaded on thousands of devices helped boost MobiSystems' presence. Android as a platform significantly grew, expanding the user base that MobiSystems had access to.

MobiSystems' most recent analysis of their target audience revealed that 15-20% of their users have devices on more than one platform. They�re now working on a new iteration of their products that allows users to use one license to access the app on multiple platforms.

2. Be flexible with your monetization strategy.

MobiSystems' early users were accustomed to only one type of app monetization model from business apps � paying for access to premium versions. As consumer apps became successful with new models, the MobiSystems team was eager to adopt new monetization features in Android.

Since profiting from in-app purchases was a business model they could easily adopt, they decided to offer a version of their app for free with an in-app subscription to gain access to premium features. They saw a huge spike in downloads but some initial decline in revenues. To solve this, they turned to a monetization model that business apps never tried before�in-app advertising.

Transitioning to ads did take some time, but worked out positively. By starting slowly, experimenting with placement, being committed to showing high quality ads, and being clear that ads were critical in supporting their free version, MobiSystems bridged their revenue gap and built a successful business. Best of all, they�re able to sustainably offer a useful app for free. One of their products, OfficeSuite, has over 100,000 daily installs and has been consistently on the top free apps list in the the Play Store�s business categories.

When considering your app�s monetization strategy, consider all of your options thoroughly. There may be potential to use business models that are unusual in your space.

We hope you enjoyed the tips from MobiSystems. If you found this information helpful, don�t forget to check out The No-nonsense Guide to App Monetization. Also, stay connected on all things AdMob by following their Twitter and Google+ pages and be sure to connect with MobiSystems on Twitter here.

Posted by Joe Salisbury, Product Specialist, AdMob

From Micro to Macro: How to find your audience in all the moments that matter

In the last post we talked about the rise of micro-moments. But what about macro-moments?

According to this great response to micro-moments and our own interpretations, the three most important types of macro-moments are:

• Affinity Moments, when fans act in unison in support of their favorite team or musician. 

• Buddy Moments, when friends connect and bond everything they see, hear or read -- whether that's a live concert or a funny cat video on YouTube.

• Deep Knowledge Moments, when someone wants to learn deeply about a topic (maybe political issues or financial news) so they can share that knowledge later.

In essence, micro-moments happen on the go and with intent, while macro-moments are more tribal or community-based. They're deep-dive media experiences that impact individuals in ways micro-moments can�t.

Publishers should remember that preferences and loyalty are shaped by both micro and macro moments. The brands that do the best job of addressing our needs in each moment will gain the greater share of our attention, and they'll be the publishers we start with next time. They will, in short, win.

Where to begin? 

Determining the right macro moment to target a user is no easy feat, but here are some Google tools that can help you discover what your audience is looking for, set your strategy and start taking action.

Google Trends 

What are the biggest events coming up this year? When do searches spike for football or flowers? The Google Trends tool uses real-time search data to help you gauge consumer search behaviors over time. Find out more �

YouTube Trends 

The world's largest video site has a lot of content and a lot of users. The YouTube Dashboard lets you track what's being viewed and shared all over. Compare trending videos by age, gender and location, and see what the world's watching. Find out more �

Google Consumer Surveys 

This fast and affordable market research tool lets you ask questions to Internet and mobile users on high-quality content around the Web. Users who answer the survey gain access to content or get credits they can use for music, apps and more. Google aggregates and analyzes their responses, so you can make more informed business decisions. Find out more �

Marketer's Almanac

From the Super Bowl kickoff to holiday gift giving, each year has trends and events that create huge opportunities to connect with consumers. The Google Marketer's Almanac offers data and insights for these key moments to help you get a jump on planning. Find out more �

And as always, some of your best insights can come from good old-fashioned methods like talking to and engaging with your audience.

Once you have the insights, it's time for action. We'll cover that in our next post.

Posted by:

Chris Jones
Global Audience Development Specialist

Micro-Moments for Publishers: Reach your users in their moments of intent

For a long time, we've all heard that we're perched on the edge of a new golden age of digital, like divers on a cliff.

By now it seems clear that we have well and truly jumped off that edge and are swimming, frolicking (and sometimes drowning) in that futuristic sea of digital, connectivity, cams, drones, the Internet of Things� and especially mobile.

Today, we'd like to kick off a three-part blog series that will look at how publishers can do more frolicking and less failing in this digital sea. In particular, we'll look at what we call digital moments that matter, and the best ways for publishers to think about those moments. Part one today is Micro-Moments for Publishers, to be followed by From Micro to Macro and then part 3, Acting On Your Moments.

Where to start? In an age where people create and consume their very own newsrooms on a daily basis, expectations for content are growing higher and higher. Just a few examples:

• People over 35 tend to print out recipes, while 59% of 25- to 34-year-olds cook with their smartphones or tablets handy.
• 35+ million hours of movie trailers were viewed on mobile on YouTube in the first six months of 2015. The same period saw a whopping 41% growth in mobile searches related to movie showtimes.
• Seven in ten millennial dads seek parenting information online. 59% of those dads say they use their smartphones for those searches more than any other device. Searches for baby-related terms on mobile have grown 52% year over year, according to Google data.

So the publishing business has changed tremendously over the last two decades, but the big questions are still very much the same:

• How do I reach the right audience?
• How do I make sure I stand out?
• How do I drive enough views and revenue to grow my business?

Today you have more choice than ever in how to approach these questions, thanks in large part to huge changes in mobile consumer behavior.

We don�t 'go online' 

anymore � we

live online

There's no such thing as sitting down for an �online session� anymore. Mobile is not just a hand-held device; it is a human and consumer behavior. It's why we no longer have those empty spaces in our day -- at the bus stop, in line at a store, or even at night in bed.

As a publisher, you don't always have to be there for those moments when users browse their friends' photos and status updates, or find out that they need to pick up milk on the way home from work. In fact, if you try to insert your content when people aren�t receptive, it can do more harm than good.

But certain moments really do matter for publishers: Moments when consumers turn to their phones to seek information or ideas. In those moments they have an intent: a need that can be met, a curiosity fulfilled, or a decision made.

These countless moments are full of intent signals that publishers can capitalize on. A "time for a new one" moment with a worn-out hairdryer can be satisfied with a product review. An "I can fix it" moment is perfect for do-it-yourself articles from publishers. (Over 100 million hours of �how-to� content have been watched on YouTube so far this year.) What about �I want to watch� moments? Can you give those users short and easy-to-watch content?

"How do I reach my audience?" "How do I make sure I stand out?" The answer lies in creating the content for these micro-moments. And in the next post, we'll talk about an opportunity that's similar and yet different: macro moments.

Want to learn more about micro-moments? Check out the Think with Google Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile.

Chris Jones
Global Audience Development Specialist

Watch our new �Zen of Monetization� video series to learn how to make money from your app

So you built an amazing new app and it�s attracting lots of users. You�ve received stellar reviews and your ratings are up, but you don�t hear coins falling into your money box.

How do you change that?

The path to a profitable business isn�t necessarily an easy one. To make the journey less rocky,  the  �Zen of monetization� video series blends instruction, tips, and real-life examples to help you effectively develop, implement, and measure your monetization strategy.

Our series focuses on:

Android In App Payments That Works - Learn how to use In App Payments and make more money from your app.

The Revolution Of Cryptocurrency - Get a quick overview of bitcoin technology. Find out why it's interesting, how it works and what are the main challenges.

The Art of Retaining Users - Learn how to create an effective user retention plan.

In App Payment House Ads - Grow your revenue and create new revenue streams by using In App Purchase House Ads

Introduction to In App Billing - (Coming soon)

If after watching these videos, you�d like to dive deeper into the business of making money,  try our �App Monetization� course with Udacity. Also, stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

Until next time,
Ido Green, Developer Advocate

Online Indexes for Death Records, Cemeteries and Obituaries (USA) - Latest Additions

Listed below are the latest additions and updates to the Online Searchable Death Indexes and Records Directory...

Arizona
- Arizona Death Records Index 1870-1965 and Birth Index 1855-1940 (update: year 1965 added to the death index; year 1940 added to the birth index) includes PDF images of the birth and death certificates

California
- Humboldt County Wills Index, Feb. 26, 1855-Aug. 7, 1931
- San Francisco County: California Mortuary Records of Chinese Decedents, 1870-1933 (at Ancestry/requires payment)

Colorado
- Pueblo County: Roselawn Cemetery Burials (Pueblo, Colorado)

Connecticut
- Connecticut Death Records Index, 1897-1965 (from the Connecticut State Library)
- New London County: Norwich City Cemetery Burials

Florida
- Santa Rosa County Obituary Indexes

Georgia
- Houston County: Evergreen Cemetery Tombstone Transcriptions 1827-1997 (in Perry, Georgia)

Idaho
- Idaho Death Certificates Index, 1938-1961 from FamilySearch
- Ada County: Idaho Statesman Obituary Index 1957-Present (update: more years added)

Illinois
- Grundy County: Obituary and Cemetery Indexes (includes an obituary and death notice index from the Coal City Courant and other sources, and an index to the cemeteries of southern Will and Grundy Counties)
- Grundy County Cemeteries
- Logan County Cemetery Surname Index (from the Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society)
- Macon County: Decatur Public Library Herald and Review Obituary Database
- Pike County Cemeteries

Indiana
- Indiana Wills and Probate Records, 1798-1999 (at Ancestry/requires payment) coverage varies by county
- Lake County: Post Tribune or Gary Post Tribune Obituary Index, 1921-current (from the Lake County Public Library)
- LaPorte County Indiana Obituaries Indexes
- Madison County Pioneer Cemeteries
- Morgan County Public Library Obituary Finder and Cemetery Database (also has a partial probate index)

Iowa
- Decatur County Genealogy Indexes (includes indexes for deaths 1906-1921, and some cemetery burials)
- Lucas County: Chariton Newspaper Index 1867-2005 (indexes obituaries, weddings, deaths and other items; from the Chariton Public Library)
- Monroe County Genealogy Indexes (includes indexes for probate records, wills and cemetery burials)

Kansas
- Riley County Cemeteries (from the Riley County Genealogical Society)

Kentucky
- Kentucky Death Index 2000-2013 (update: year 2013 added)
- Kentucky Death Certificates and Records 1852-1963 (at Ancestry/requires payment) includes digitized Kentucky death certificates from 1911-1963, plus earlier records for some counties (update: digitized death certificates for 1954-1963 added)

Maine
- Hancock County Probate Index 1790-2000

Maryland
- Anne Arundel Genealogical Society Obituaries Index c.2004-c.2007

Massachusetts
- Middlesex County: Wakefield Death Record Search 1850-2014 (update: more years added)
- Middlesex County: Chelmsford Cemetery Archive

Michigan
- Michigan Death Records, 1867-1950 (at Ancestry/requires payment) includes scanned death registers from 1867-1897; and scanned death certificates from 1897-1941; 1942-1950 is index only
- Michigan Masonic Deaths, 1929-1937 (Extracted from Transactions and Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of Michigan)
- Oakland County: Milford Times Obituary Index 1929-1959 (update: more years added)

Minnesota
- Minnesota Wills and Probate Records 1801-1999 (at Ancestry/requires payment) coverage varies by county
- Minnesota Death Search 1997 to Recent (You must know the person's date of birth or Social Security number to do a search.)
- Anoka County Genealogical Society Indexes (includes indexes for births, marriages, deaths and probate records)
- Meeker County Influenza Epidemic Deaths, 1916-1919

Missouri
- Missouri Deaths, 1883-1930 (for 15 Counties) at FamilySearch (images only; not yet indexed; for Andrew, Audrain, Buchanan, Cape Girardeau, Clinton, Cole, Howard, Jefferson, Macon, Marion, Monroe, Morgan, Scotland, Texas, and Warren counties. Coverage varies by county.)
- Jackson County: Midwest Genealogy Center Indexes; includes indexes for: Independence Examiner Newspapers -- birth, death, marriage, divorce, and other records 1900-1959 (some years are incomplete); Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times Obituaries 1975-2006 (not complete); Kansas City Call Newspaper Obituaries 1995-2001 (African American newspaper in Jackson County)

Missouri (St. Louis)
- St. Louis City Wills Indexes, 1816-1962 (update: more years added)
- St. Matthew Cemetery Burials (Cemetery in South St. Louis)
- United Hebrew Cemetery Burials
See: Online St. Louis Death Records and Indexes

Montana
- Montana: County Births and Deaths, 1840-2004 at FamilySearch (Includes registers and certificates from Broadwater, Deer Lodge, Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, Powell and Silver Bow counties. Coverage varies by county.)

New Jersey
- New Jersey Death Records Index, June 1878-June 1894 (update: one year added)
- Warren County: Belvidere Apollo/Intelligencer Obituary Index 1826-1953 (update: years 1915-1953 added)

New Mexico
- Lea County: Hobbs Public Library Obituaries Index
- Otero County Cemeteries

New York (State)
- New York State Genealogical Research Death Index, 1957-1965 (update: June-Dec 1965 added; does not include NYC)
- Allegany County: Burial Lists for 3 Cemeteries in Cuba, New York
- Hamilton County Cemeteries

North Carolina
- North Carolina Estate Files, 1663-1979 at FamilySearch (partially indexed; coverage varies by county)

North Dakota
- Emmons County Cemeteries and Burials

Ohio
- Ohio Wills and Probate Records, 1786-1998 (at Ancestry/requires payment) coverage varies by county
- Geauga County Cemetery Burials and Estate Records Index
- Lake County: Evergreen Cemetery Burials (in Painesville, Ohio)
- Mahoning County: Youngstown Vindicator Obituary Index Search, Nov. 2011 to Feb. 2014

Oklahoma
- Muskogee County: Greenhill Cemetery Online Burial Search (Muskogee, Oklahoma)
- Oklahoma County: Resurrection Memorial Cemetery Burials (Catholic Cemetery in Oklahoma City)

Oregon
- Douglas County Genealogical Society Indexes; includes indexes for some cemetery burials and other items

Pennsylvania
- Pennsylvania Death Records Indexes 1906-1965 (update: year 1965 added)

South Carolina
- "CSI: Dixie" - South Carolina Coroners Reports, 1800-1900 (has 1,582 digitized coroners reports from Anderson, Edgefield, Greenville, Kershaw, Spartanburg and Union Counties)

Tennessee
- Tennessee Wills and Probate Records, 1727-2008 (at Ancestry/requires payment) coverage varies by county

Texas
- Caldwell County Genealogical and Historical Society Research Center Obituary Index (dates not given)
- Erath County: City of Stephenville Cemetery Burials (for West End Memorial Cemetery and East End Memorial Cemetery)

Utah
- Utah County: Salem City Cemetery Burials

Washington
- Spokane County: Eastern Washington Genealogical Society Indexes (includes obituaries, cemetery burials and other items)

Wisconsin
- Brown County: Bay Area Genealogical Society Gravesite Search
- Green County Obituaries Indexes and Cemetery Surname Indexes
- Winnebago County: Neenah Public Library Obituary Index, 1907-1910 and 1912-1943

This is a list of the most recent additions. There are many more links for death records indexes at: Online Searchable Death Records Indexes and Obituaries

Now you can also earn money with Matched content

Last year we launched Matched content to help increase user engagement on your site by promoting relevant content from your site to your visitors, which may help grow your ad business as well. Starting today, you can use Matched content units to directly generate revenue by allowing ads to appear alongside your recommended content.

Matched content with content recommendations and ads

With the new �Allow ads� feature, relevant ads will appear within your Matched content units, and will be styled to complement the look and feel of your content recommendations. We'll gradually roll this feature out to all Matched content eligible publishers across the globe over the coming weeks. To enable ads, visit your My ads tab and choose �Allow ads� for your Matched content units.

Matched content is available for sites with multiple pages with unique images and high volumes of traffic. Have a look at the site management settings in your account to see if your sites are eligible and to get started with Matched content. Matched content units don�t count towards your Google content ad limit per page - to get the most out of this new tool, check the best practices in the AdSense Help Center.

As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts about this new feature in the comments section below.

 Posted by Tobias Maurer, Product Manager

Mediate rewarded video ads with AdMob Mediation

This week at the Game Developers Conference, we announced that developers can easily monetize apps with rewarded video ads from a number of ad providers in AdMob Mediation. Supported networks and platforms include AdColony, AppLovin, Chartboost, Fyber, Upsight, and Vungle, with more being added all the time. So if you�re a developer monetizing with these providers and using AdMob Mediation to do so, you can easily manage and optimize them through the AdMob interface.

What�s rewarded advertising?
Rewarded advertising has become a popular form of monetization. With rewarded ads, users are given the choice to engage with ads in exchange for in-app rewards. For example, in a gaming app, a user can watch a video to receive a power up after failing a level.

Features to help you optimize
You can already use AdMob Mediation to monetize apps using banner and interstitial ads. Now, you can enjoy the same powerful meditation tools for rewarded ads:

• Ad network optimization - Earn more by automatically generating the highest CPM from your mediation stack. Ad network optimization looks at all the CPMs across the networks you�ve set up in AdMob Mediation and dynamically chooses the highest paying one from which to show an ad.
• Frequency capping - Improve your user experience by setting frequency caps to make sure your users aren�t seeing the same ad again and again.

In addition, we�ve made it easy for you to experiment with rewarded ads with these features:

• Server-Side Settings - We store reward and waterfall settings for each ad unit server-side so you don�t need to change your code to experiment with new configurations.
• Ad Unit Level Configuration - Try different networks, network order or reward settings at different places in your app to optimize performance.
• Reward Unit & Amount - You can use existing third-party settings or input your own values.

When creating a new ad unit, you can choose your reward values and set your frequency cap

Here�s what our developers have to say about rewarded ads in AdMob Mediation:

Rewarded ads in AdMob Mediation has been running very smoothly and effectively since we launched it. On top of a complete management of the reward mechanics within the tool, it offers dynamic allocation of each ad request to the highest paying network.  

- Baptiste Chardon , Monetization Manager @ Ubisoft

So far, I've connected 2 reward networks and AdMob has proved as reliable and stable as it is for standard display formats. A great push for my business! 

- Nicolas Sorel, Co-Founder and CEO of Magma Mobile (France)

Not mediating yet? It�s easy to set up and takes very little time to manage. With AdMob, you can focus on building great apps while we do the hard work for you. Here�s how you can get started.

For more about AdMob Mediation, visit our help center, and to stay connected on all things AdMob, follow our Twitter and Google+ pages.

Posted by Arun Balaraman
Group Product Manager, AdMob

New ad formats and targeting to find, keep and monetize high-quality gamers

When mobile users are looking for entertainment they often turn to gaming apps. In 2015, an estimated 41% of all apps downloaded were games (1). However, while a user may be excited about downloading an app, it can soon be forgotten; studies have shown that 1 in 4 installed apps are never used.

For game developers, building a successful business has often depended on an approach of acquiring as many users as possible, then trying to keep them engaged in the game as their interest wanes. While volume is important, it�s more important to find the right kind of user, who�ll open the app and keep on playing. That�s why today, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), we announced a host of new features in AdWords and AdMob that make it simpler for developers to reach the right users at scale.

SGN�s Search Trial Run Ad for Panda Pop

Let users try your app before downloading from Google Search
We recently introduced Trial Run Ads on the Google Display Network which let users stream your game from a display ad for your app before they download. In the next few weeks, we�ll extend these ads to search results on Google as a beta for selected U.S. advertisers. With Search Trial Run Ads, when a user searches for a game on Google, they can click �Try Now� from within a search ad and try the app before installing it, similar to streaming apps from organic results. These ads will appear to smartphone users on WiFi, and the user can play for up to 10 minutes, then download the app in full if they choose. This format drives highly-qualified users who are more likely to stay engaged with the app after install. Contact your Google representative to learn more about using this new format.

Showcase your game with portrait videos
More than 80% of video ad views in mobile apps on the Google Display Network are from devices held vertically, but often, the videos are created for landscape viewing. Over the next few weeks we�re launching Portrait Video Ads so users have a full-screen, immersive portrait video experience without having to re-orient their device. We�ve seen significant improvement in both click-through and conversion rates from game developers using Portrait Video, resulting in much lower cost per install and a larger number of downloads.

In AdWords, you�ll be able to give us a portrait video and we�ll display it full screen to the user. 

Promote your app to game-lovers
Advertisers have long been able to control who sees their AdWords ads, and in the coming weeks we�ll be launching even finer options to reach high-quality users with Active User Targeting for Games. This new type of targeting for Android apps can show ads to users who have spent more than 30 minutes playing games, or who have played a Google Play Games integrated game in the last 30 days. Game developers can show their ads to game lovers, and combined with other types of targeting, such as a particular game category (e.g., Adventure), they can reach a very precise audience.

Earn money from rewarded ads with AdMob Mediation
AdMob helps app developers around the world earn through in-app advertising with best-in-class formats and smart tools to maximize revenue. Increasingly, rewarded advertising is becoming a popular form of game monetization: users are given the choice to engage with ads in exchange for in-app rewards. Today, we�re introducing a way for developers to easily monetize apps with rewarded video ads from a number of ad providers in AdMob Mediation. Supported networks and platforms include AdColony, AppLovin, Chartboost, Fyber, Upsight, and Vungle, with more being added all the time. So if you�re a developer monetizing with these providers, you can easily manage and optimize them through the AdMob interface. It�s part of our ongoing commitment to provide app developers with a first-class mediation solution, and follows our recent launch enabling SDK-less mediation.

We�re working closely with developers to innovate our ad solutions and help them build strong businesses. If you�re a game developer, come and meet with our ads teams at GDC at the Google booth between Wednesday and Friday, to discuss developing great games, growing your user base and earning more money. We�ll have a series of great talks in our booth mini-theater each day, and on Thursday morning we�ll be part of the main GDC sessions, with a discussion on user acquisition and monetization.

Posted by Sissie Hsiao, Product Management Director of Mobile Display Ads

(1) App Annie, Mobile App Forecast, Feb 2016

Best practices for reviewing products you've received for free

Editor's note: This post was cross posted from the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

As a form of online marketing, some companies today will send bloggers free products to review or give away in return for a mention in a blogpost. Whether you�re the company supplying the product or the blogger writing the post, below are a few best practices to ensure that this content is both useful to users and compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines.

1. Use the nofollow tag where appropriate

Links that pass PageRank in exchange for goods or services are against Google guidelines on link schemes. Companies sometimes urge bloggers to link back to:

    a. the company�s site
    b. the company�s social media accounts
    c. an online merchant�s page that sells the product
    d. a review service�s page featuring reviews of the product
    e. the company�s mobile app on an app store

Bloggers should use the nofollow tag on all such links because these links didn�t come about organically (i.e., the links wouldn�t exist if the company hadn�t offered to provide a free good or service in exchange for a link). Companies, or the marketing firms they�re working with, can do their part by reminding bloggers to use nofollow on these links.

2. Disclose the relationship

Users want to know when they�re viewing sponsored content. Also, there are laws in some countries that make disclosure of sponsorship mandatory. A disclosure can appear anywhere in the post; however, the most useful placement is at the top in case users don�t read the entire post.

3. Create compelling, unique content

The most successful blogs offer their visitors a compelling reason to come back. If you're a blogger you might try to become the go-to source of information in your topic area, cover a useful niche that few others are looking at, or provide exclusive content that only you can create due to your unique expertise or resources.

For more information, please drop by our Google Webmaster Central Help Forum.

Posted by the Google Webspam Team

Check out our developer talks at the Google Booth @GDC 2016

We�re excited to be at the Game Developers Conference next week. Come visit the Google booth (612 in Zone 1) to learn how to build great games with AdMob, AdWords, Cardboard, Cast, Cloud Platform, Play and Tango. We�ll also be doing talks throughout the day covering a wide range of topics from developing an app and growing users to monetization. The talks are 20 minutes long and open to anyone to drop in. Seating is limited so be sure to come 5 minutes early to the talk you want to hear. We hope to see you there!

Wednesday, March 16

10:00am-10:20am	Here Be Dragons: 4 years of DragonVale and Google Cloud Platform Chris Goody from Backflip Studios is going to talk to us about his experience building and running a top grossing mobile game on Google Cloud Platform for the past four years.
11:00am-11:20am	Gaming with Project Tango Schell games show their tango apps and talk about their experience building w/ Tango.
11:30am-11:50am	"The Purple Ocean Strategy" Cross-Platform Opportunities The Purple Ocean Strategy talk explores how Google technologies make it feasible to reach our enormous (1.4 billion Android users) installed base of potential gamers, AND explore exciting new technologies like our VR, Project Tango, Cast Games, Android TV and more, simultaneously.
12:30pm-12:50pm	PeopleFun and Google Cloud Platform Leon from PeopleFun will be discussing their experiences building mobile games using Google Cloud Platform.
1:00pm-1:20pm	App Promotion  Insights and best practices on how mobile-first companies are using Google's app promotion solutions to take their apps to new levels.
1:30pm-1:50pm	Optimize your ads stack Learn more about AdMob as a smart mediation platform and how it can optimize your yield across formats, regions, and third-party ad networks.
2:00pm-2:20pm	Realtime Multiplayer with Firebase and Unity This talk will cover how Firebase�s new Unity plugin can be used to enable real-time date synchronization across your Unity based games.
2:30pm-2:50pm	Exploring Open Data in the Cloud with BigQuery Robert Kubis, a Developer Advocate on Google Cloud Platform, will show you how cloud computing makes it easier to explore big data. You'll leave knowing how to use the cloud to effectively explore all that valuable data you've been logging.

Thursday, March 17

10:00am-10:20am	PeopleFun and Google Cloud Platform Leon from PeopleFun will be discussing their experiences building mobile games using Google Cloud Platform.
10:30am-10:50am	Bringing Multiplayer Social Game Experiences to the Big Screen Learn how to bring multiplayer social game experiences to the big screen through Google Cast, and find out about the many cool interaction models you can implement.
11:00am-11:20am	Promo Codes and You: A Love Story Overview, best practices, Q&A on self service promo codes now and into the future.
11:30am-11:50am	Engage more users with better ad formats See some of the exciting new ad formats AdMob is bringing to apps, including Native Ads, Interactive Interstitials, and playable Trial Run Ads.
12:00pm-12:20pm	Realtime Multiplayer with Firebase and Unity This talk will cover how Firebase�s new Unity plugin can be used to enable real time date synchronisation across your Unity based games.
12:30pm-12:50pm	Gaming with Project Tango iguanabee, Eike Consulting introduce 'Raise' and 'Slingshot Islands' will talk about Tango apps and their experience building with Project Tango.
1:00pm-1:20pm	App Promotion As the Team Lead for Google�s App Developer Sales, Beth will share insights and best practices on how mobile-first companies are using Google's app promotion solutions to take their apps to new levels.
1:30pm-1:50pm	Optimize your ads stack Learn more about AdMob as a Smart Mediation platform and how it can optimize your yield across formats, regions, and third party ad networks.
2:00pm-2:20pm	View-driven interactive storytelling for mobile and VR Concepts and techniques for sequencing nonlinear immersive stories, understanding the audience engagement and reacting to it in real time.
2:30pm-2:50pm	Exploring Open Data in the Cloud with BigQuery In this session Jen Tong, a Developer Advocate on Google Cloud Platform, will show you how cloud computing makes it easier to explore big data. She'll use Google BigQuery to poke around some really big data sets including the GDELT news database, Wikipedia logs, and weather data going back to 1929.

Friday, March 18

10:00am-10:20am

Real-time Gaming with Containers and gRPC Look at how gRPC can be used as a performant real time communication framework that works across platforms such as mobile and embedded devices as well as languages, such as Go, Node.js and Java. We will also combine this with Kubernetes� powerful ability to orchestrate containers at scale, handling and coordinating large amounts of traffic from all these users.

11:00am-11:20am

Lightsaber Escape Chrome Experiment We�ll discuss how the Lightsaber Escape Chrome Experiment (lightsaber.withgoogle.com) was built. Combining WebGL, WebRTC, WebSockets and Google Cloud Platform, this application lets you wield a lightsaber in a daring escape from the clutches of the First Order.

Even if you can�t attend this year, you�ll be able to stay in the loop. We�ll be live tweeting and sharing the event on our Twitter and Google+ channels, using the hashtags #Google #GDC16.

Posted by Henry Wang
Product Marketing, AdMob

Introducing Sawkward - home to the socially awkward

Since launching the AdMob Student Challenge 2016 in January, we�ve met with students at several universities, and have been thrilled to see that teams are already hard at work designing their apps. Last month, our Google Student Ambassadors hosted an event at James Madison University (JMU) in Virginia. They met a team working on a new social app called Sawkward, a tool to help you rediscover personal contact.

Sawkward helps people in social situations so they always knows what to say. It helps them gain access to suggestions for conversation starters, topics, and stories. Users can vote on their favorite suggestions (�Sawks�), and give their opinions or anecdotes. It�s goal is to help alleviate social awkwardness and connect its users with the people around them.

The team behind Sawkward are two seniors from JMU, Jon Romero and Josh Kay. As engineering majors, they usually find themselves to be more introverted, and often have a hard time finding what to talk about. Their mission with Sawkward is to give the less outgoing the tools needed to connect with their community in a more personal way.

If you have not signed up, it�s not too late, so be sure to visit the AdMob website to register. Follow us on our AdMob G+ and Twitter channels and keep an update on #AdMobSAC16 too, for regular updates on the challenge.

Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 3 loading methods that can optimize your viewability

Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

On this blog, we're breaking down the best practices into small, approachable chunks. Already, we've focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement, 3 speedy ways to improve viewability, and 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability. In this post you'll learn 3 content and ad loading methods that can optimize your viewability rates.

Here is today's recommendation:

We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran 

Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 3 loading methods that can optimize your viewability

Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

On this blog, we're breaking down the best practices into small, approachable chunks. Already, we've focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement, 3 speedy ways to improve viewability, and 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability. In this post you'll learn 3 content and ad loading methods that can optimize your viewability rates.

Here is today's recommendation:

We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran,

Product Marketing Manager

Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability

Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

On this blog, we're breaking down the best practices into small, approachable chunks. Already, we've focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement, and 3 speedy ways to improve viewability. In this post you'll learn tips for laying out ads on a webpage or scrollable page in an app in order to improve viewability rates.

Here is today's recommendation:

We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 3 content and ad loading methods that can improve viewability.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran 

App Monetization Insights: How TapBlaze designed their game app for user retention

This is post 3 of our 5-part blog series featuring monetization tips straight from successful app developers. If you�re interested in further exploring the question, �what�s the best way to monetize my app?�, check out our free No-nonsense Guide to App Monetization.

Our guest this week is Anthony Lai, founder of TapBlaze, a popular game app company based in Los Angeles, California. TapBlaze has developed over 15 titles, collectively garnering millions of downloads. Anthony�s been able to grow the company from a one-person show, to a team of 7 full-time developers, designers, and artists. Check out these tips from Anthony.

1. Design your app for retention.

When Anthony first started TapBlaze, he initially focused on building simple, virtual simulation games. An example was his app �Good Pizza, Great Pizza�, which allowed users to virtually make and sell pizza. These early apps were interesting concepts and received a lot of attention but had a difficult time retaining customers. After the novel experience wore off, users had little reason to come back.

For his next game, Anthony wanted to build something that would keep users engaged for months, not days. To do this, he infused 4 elements into his new match 3 puzzle game named Gummy Gush: 1) a compelling story, 2) fun challenges, 3) rewards, and 4) multiple levels that built on each other. This took a lot more time to develop, and his key metric (retention) took a little longer to measure than downloads, but the work payed off.

�When we first launched Gummy Gush there were some players that only played for a few days, but there were others that clearly liked the art, story and puzzles and just kept playing. It was working! That was enough encouragement for us to keep improving these elements into the game. Ultimately this investment lead to much higher revenue, and even to rapid growth. Since launching in March of 2015, we have over 1,000,000 downloads.�

Consider designing your app for retention. Retention is a key metric for successful monetization and nailing retention will lead to a much more long term, sustainable business. To learn more about practically how to retain users, check out this video from Google Developers called �The Zen of Monetization: The Art of Retaining Users�.

2. Understand the amount of polish your app needs to succeed.

Early last year, Anthony�s team was focused on launching Gummy Gush as quickly as possible. Anthony�s a firm believer in swiftly getting product in the hands of users to collect real user feedback, then iterate. His aggressive timeline meant making sacrifices with the polish of the app, but because he had a few artists on the team he was confident that v1 would be �good enough�.

After launch, there was no user feedback on the polish of the game. But, a new engineering hire with a lot of game development experience urged them to invest in perfecting the look and feel of the game � standardizing UI elements, smoothing out all animation, and adding the finishing touches to the art work.

At first, Anthony was skeptical. But, they decided to devote 2 weeks to the initiative and see how it affected their key metrics. The overhaul paid off big time. Within the first week of the update, Gummy Gush saw a 25% in average revenue per user (ARPU).

Depending on the type of app you're building, fierce competition may have raised the bar for the amount of polish that users expect. For Anthony�s niche, a beautifully designed app built trust and increased revenue. If you�re in a highly competitive sector, it's important to assess what the industry�s threshold for aesthetic finish looks like and decide whether an investment in design app is worth making. Check out Google Play�s �Top Charts� to see what the benchmark is for your category.

3. Use analytics to prioritize your team�s next steps.

After launching, user feedback started rolling in. Although a lot of the reviews were helpful, there were also a number of issues that were unclear. He explained,

�We�d receive a lot of positive and negative reviews and emails from users and didn�t know how representative the feedback were of the broader user base. Were the complaints from users who�d complain no matter what? Or were the complaints serious problems that deserved to prioritize?�

What made it tougher was the time already spent on some of the features being criticized. For example, Anthony had invested in building an engaging introduction story that played the first time users opened the app. He even worked with a professional story writer to impart light-hearted humor in the story. His instincts knew that the story made this new app more compelling than his older apps, but did he go too far?

His solution: test solutions with his users. The team built the smallest version of solutions to proposed problems, taking no more than 2 weeks to release. They�d then monitor key metrics to see if the change had a positive affect. For the introduction story, the team quickly built a �skip� button. After releasing it, nearly 60% of users used it, confirming that it was a real problem worth solving more deeply.

For your app, use in-app analytics to test the individual pieces of feedback you get from users and internal hunches your team comes up with. Overdevelopment is more costly only to find out that your assumptions are wrong is much more costly that actual testing and observation. To learn more about observational testing, check out Tomer Sharon�s talk at Google I/O called �Don't Listen to Users, Sample Their Experience!�.

If you found these tips helpful, don�t forget to check out The No-nonsense Guide to App Monetization. Also, stay connected on all things AdMob by following their Twitter and Google+ pages and be sure to connect with TapBlaze on Twitter here.

Posted by Joe Salisbury,
Product Specialist, AdMob

Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability

Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

On this blog, we're breaking down the best practices into small, approachable chunks. Already, we've focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement, and 3 speedy ways to improve viewability. In this post you'll learn tips for laying out ads on a webpage or scrollable page in an app in order to improve viewability rates.

Here is today's recommendation:

We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 3 content and ad loading methods that can improve viewability.

Meet the AdMob Team at the Game Developers Conference 2016

We�re excited to be at Game Developers Conference 2016 in San Francisco, from March 14th to 18th. Visit us at the Google booth (612 in Zone 1) to meet with experts from a host of our teams: AdMob, AdWords, Cardboard, Cast, Cloud Platform, Play and Tango! Get your questions answered and discover how you can build a great game with Google.

Meet the AdMob Team at the Game Developers Conference 2016

On Monday the 14th of March, join us at the Google Developer Day, to discuss developing great games, growing your user base and earning more money. If you can�t make it on the day, tune into the live stream here.

On Thursday the 17th of March at 11.00 am don�t miss our ads talk: Grow Users, Earn Revenue: How to Build a Successful Games Business with Google, including a special Q&A with a top game developer. After this session you'll be fully up to speed with how game developers are finding success with AdMob to earn money, and AdWords and YouTube to find new users.

Even if you can�t attend this year, you�ll be able to stay in the loop. We�ll be live tweeting and sharing the event on our Twitter and Google+ channels, using the hashtags #Google #GDC16. We hope to see you there!

Posted by Mike Schipper
Product Marketing, AdMob

Why are my earnings down right now?

Four things to explore if your AdSense earnings take a dip

Today we'd like to share some insights about why AdSense earnings sometimes go down -- and look at how to troubleshoot what's going on when that happens. Google has a variety of tools and reports that will help you see what might be causing a decline and how you can respond to optimize your earnings.

One of the first things to consider is: have your overall page views gone down, or are other issues causing the drop? There are many factors that affect revenue, but the key ones to look at include:

• Clickthrough rate (CTR)
• Cost per click (CPC)
• Page revenue per thousand impressions (page RPM)
• Page views

You can view all these metrics on the Performance reports tab in your AdSense account. Here are a few tips on how to address issues you may discover.

1. My page views have decreased

When troubleshooting changes in page views, it's a good idea to extend the date range of your reports out to 30 days or more to help identify trends or specific issues. A drop in page views could simply be seasonal; retailers, for instance, tend to see a traffic drop after the holiday season. But a decrease can also be due to a change in your content.

If your traffic has dropped, here are some ways you might increase it:

• Promote your site with other major sites that cover the same topics.
• Promote your site through social media, and create a group of interested people who regularly visit your site.
• Use Google Search Console to make sure your site is being correctly crawled and indexed.
• Update your site regularly to encourage repeat visitors. You might also want to send out an email or a newsletter about your updates.

2. My cost per click has decreased

CPC is market-driven and depends on factors like advertiser bids on keywords and the CPC values they're willing to pay. For example, CPC can fall at the beginning of each quarter when marketers are shifting budget. When looking at changes in CPC, it's a good practice to extend the date range of your reports out to a year. Then:

• See if you're using the best-performing ad sizes. Generally, our most successful sizes for CPC and CTR are 720x90, 336x280, 160x600, and the 320x100 mobile banner. Learn more about the most successful ad sizes.
• Make sure you're not blocking ads you don't need to. Blocks on too many advertisers, ad networks, general or sensitive categories will often decrease CPC because there are fewer advertisers in the auction bidding on your inventory. The more inventory your site has access to, the greater the chance that auction pressure will drive up your CPC.
• Look at how seasonality can affect your advertisers' bids. For instance, swimsuit advertisers often increase their bids in the early weeks of summer. But if your site caters only to students, you should expect traffic to fall in the summer. Learn more about how the ad auction works for a clearer understanding of how these kinds of changes can impact your earnings.

3. My search rank has dropped

Deeper investigation may show you that your page is not ranked as highly in search results as it once was. The Webmaster Troubleshooter is designed to help you resolve common issues with your site in Google Search and the Google Search Console.

4. My CTR or page RPM has decreased

A drop in CTR or page RPM can be caused by confusing site design or poor targeting. Visitors who see your ads might not click on them because they find them irrelevant, or perhaps they don't see your ads at all. And that leads to lower earnings.

Here are some best practices to help drive up your CTR and page RPM:

• Blend, complement, and contrast: use these techniques to design ad styles that will be successful for your site.
• Maximize ad space with multiple ad units: be sure to see if three ad units is right for your site; it's also our policy limit.
• Use the best-performing ad sizes: As noted in the CPC section above, our most successful ad sizes are 720x90, 336x280, 160x600, and the 320x100 mobile banner.

We hope these tips will help you understand exactly what's happening on your site ? and send your earnings back in the right direction.

Posted by Rachel Barrett

Google AdSense Team