Advertisers and agencies who work on display ad campaigns often wonder "How do I know if my display ad campaigns are doing well?" and "What credible benchmarks can I use to compare the results on my current campaign?"

Some might rely on past campaign performance metrics while others might compare across multiple campaigns and advertisers within their client roster. All are fine means in the absence of larger, more comprehensive industry benchmarks.

This is why we're particularly pleased to make available DoubleClick benchmarks so that marketers, agencies, and publishers have a reference by which to evaluate the performance of online display advertising campaigns in the U.S., relative to industry norms.

These benchmarks are derived from a robust data set across DART for Advertisers, based on rigorous methodology with input from the Advertising Research Foundation. Benchmarks in this report cover those for 2008 and transect ad format, ad size, and industry vertical. The benchmarks are normalized across hundreds of advertisers, thousands of campaigns, and tens of billions of ad impressions.

You can download the report here. More in-depth benchmarks by industry are available exclusively to DoubleClick clients so contact your account manager to discuss further.

If you're interested in learning more you can attend our webinar, "Benchmarking Ahead: IAB Reveals the DoubleClick Benchmarks Report," co-hosted with the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) on June 24th at 12pm EST. Register here for the webinar.

Over the last several months, we've been working hard to develop a new tool for creative teams who build rich media ads and the media agencies and publishers they work with. The result of our efforts is DoubleClick Studio, a free rich media production and web-based workflow tool designed to streamline development processes for creative teams and to provide more control over turnaround times. We've designed DoubleClick Studio to significantly improve upon the existing Ad Kit, and pave the way for future innovation in rich media.

To learn more about DoubleClick Studio or to fill out a form showing your interest, please visit studio.doubleclick.com. As creative teams migrate to this new tool, users will also be able to log in here, download components for Flash, and access the web-based workflow.

Here are a few of the features we think creative teams will really like:

• Improved workflow that gets preview links into client's hands faster
• A fully searchable archive of work structured by clients, campaigns and creatives
• Integrated QA processes that get errors identified and fixed earlier in the process
• Full range of intuitive Flash components and full APIs in both AS2 and AS3
• Direct upload to DART for Advertisers ensures smooth transition to traffickers for approved creatives

Testimonials

Josh Race of Ogilvy RedWorks, a member of the DoubleClick Studio beta program, has this to say: "DoubleClick Studio has a clean interface and you will never get lost trying to figure out where you are, which is uncommon amongst ad-serving tools. Our developers are all now self-sufficient and not depending on the one guy who knows his way around some wonky interface."

Will Campbell, also a beta member and owner of ARC Media Group, a creative agency based in Southern California, says, "DoubleClick Studio can greatly improve the workflow for any interactive studio working with Flash. From development to getting creatives ready for publishing it has increased our productivity and decreased the amount of steps we take to accomplish different tasks. It really shows that DoubleClick has given a lot of thought into not only increasing productivity on the development side, but also improving the workflow on the administrative side."

Benefits for Media Agencies

Although not direct users of the authoring tool, media agencies will also benefit from DoubleClick Studio and its integration with DART for Advertisers (DFA), enabling agencies to streamline the process for getting rich media campaigns approved and live. With DoubleClick Studio rolling out on a global basis, it is now easier than ever to manage local, regional and global campaigns on a single authoring platform. Here are some of the benefits:

• Direct link between DoubleClick Studio and DART platforms for instant transfer of creative
• Automated creative checks reduce approval time for campaigns to go live
• Preview links include a view into all rich media events that can triggered by the ad for easy testing, review and sign-off

More Details

For a quick tour of DoubleClick Studio, take a look at this short video from Shamim Samadi, product manager for DoubleClick Rich Media.



For those of you who have used DoubleClick Rich Media tools in the past, we will continue to support the Ad Kit though we do not plan to make future upgrades. We also want to note that, while we intend for DoubleClick Studio to make rich media production more efficient for agencies, advertisers and publishers who would like to own the entire process themselves, we remain fully committed to the highest levels of customer service.

To learn more, visit studio.doubleclick.com or contact your DoubleClick representative.

Today we're happy to announce the general availability of DoubleClick Network Builder, a complete toolkit for building and managing networks of partner sites to create new revenue opportunities, expand reach and increase efficiency.

We first introduced this initiative a little over a year ago in response to the audience fragmentation challenge facing many of our publisher clients. This challenge is even more pronounced today. The overall number of websites and blogs has continued to grow in tandem with online audiences, increasingly fragmenting consumer time and attention across more and more online destinations. In response, many publishers continue to leverage their brands to build vertical networks of partner sites to expand their overall reach and grow advertising inventory.

With the potential revenue opportunity that vertical networks offer also comes a number of operational challenges. These include efficiently managing network inventory, partner management, billing and reconciliation and reporting. In our customer surveys, publishers also expressed the need for better inventory forecasting and reporting that was more tightly integrated with the systems they were already using to sell their owned and operated content. Similarly, our ad network customers voiced the need for a better solution to manage their numerous and often complex partner relationships and inventory.

With these needs in mind, we built DoubleClick Network Builder to provide a comprehensive solution for brand-name publishers and ad networks to solve many of the challenges involved in managing networks including:

• Integration with core ad systems - Seamless integration with our DART for Publishers (DFP) ad serving platform unifies data and workflow across both owned and operated content as well as partner sites. This streamlines and enhances key sales and operations tasks including inventory packaging, forecasting, reporting, and trafficking. Publishers also benefit from DFP's industry-leading reliability, scalability, and service.
• Efficient network management and control - We designed DoubleClick Network Builder to help increase efficiency and visibility through intuitive partner management, automated tag generation, simplified network inventory setup, and extensive controls for revenue adjustments.
• Managing partner relationships - DoubleClick Network Builder's partner portal allows large publishers and networks to more easily provide the service and transparency needed to retain partners, enabling more rapid and profitable network growth. The partner portal provides partners with the ability to login and view their sites' performance, access detailed reporting, pick-up tags and receive messages from the network.
• Managing complex financial reporting and partner payments - DoubleClick Network Builder's revenue and financial reporting can help publishers drastically simplify the partner payment process and improve overall profitability. DoubleClick Network Builder gives publishers the flexibility to accommodate a number of complex partner financial terms and features a complete set of reconciliation tools including expense deductions and partner payout calculations. The product's detailed revenue reporting makes it easy to monitor the performance of site partners and provide visibility across the network and for each individual partner.

Since October 2008, we have been testing a beta version of DoubleClick Network Builder with a number of premium publishers and networks, including Real Girls Media and InvestingChannel. These publishers realized a number of immediate benefits including significant improvements in the efficiency and accuracy of their network operations, enabling more rapid growth. Today, we're excited to extend these benefits by making DoubleClick Network Builder available to all publishers using our DART for Publishers ad serving platform. If you're a publisher who is ready to start using DoubleClick Network Builder to help create and manage your network, contact your DoubleClick account manager or click here to learn more. If you aren't already a DoubleClick client, please contact us here.

Today, the Online Publishers Association (OPA) announced that over two dozen members plan to introduce larger format ads on their sites by July 2009. They've proposed the following units:

• The Fixed Panel (recommended dimension is 336 wide x 860 tall), which looks naturally embedded into the page layout and scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as a user scrolls.
• The XXL Box (recommended dimension is 468 wide x 648 tall), which has page-turn functionality with video capability.
• The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page.

For publishers and agencies looking to get a head start, these units can be done with DoubleClick Rich Media today and are easily implemented in either the DART for Publishers or DART for Advertisers ad serving systems.

Yesterday, the AdWords team announced the launch of their beta test for expandable rich media ads on the Google content network (GCN). The beta test is open to U.S. advertisers and agencies participating in Google's third-party ad serving program, of which DoubleClick is a certified vendor.

DoubleClick Rich Media has received an additional level of certification from Google for the expandable format. This extra level of certification is necessary because expanding ads on GCN need to intelligently expand in the correct direction depending on the placement of the ad slot on the page. For example, if the ad is displayed in a skyscraper on the right side of the page, the ad needs to "know" in real time to expand to the left.

Due to this special consideration during ad creation, DoubleClick clients that wish to run expandable ads on the GCN should be sure to loop their account manager and campaign manager in as early as possible. We look forward to helping you take advantage of this exciting new feature to make your campaigns more effective.

Before the election, we hosted an informal web poll that asked our visitors the following question, "Which issue do you think the next U.S. president should make a primary focus during his or her first 100 days in office?" Visitors resoundingly voted for the issue of economy/recession. Here's how the 1760 responses broke out:

• Economy/Recession 62.27%
• Foreign Policy 11.59%
• Environment 8.01%
• Healthcare 7.50%
• National Security 5.85%
• Immigration 4.77%

If you're ready to get even more participatory, head over to The Davos Debates on YouTube where The World Economic Forum invites you to send in your solutions and suggestions for the key issues facing us today. The focus issues include the state of the economy, the environment, US politics and business ethics. The four questions up for public discussion through the YouTube platform are:

• Are you confident that global growth will be restored in 2009?
• Will the environment lose out to the economy in 2009?
• Will the Obama administration improve the state of the world in 2009?
• Should company executives have a code of ethics similar to doctors and lawyers?

The person who submits the best video will be invited, all expenses paid, to attend The World Economic Forum's upcoming Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters and interact with world leaders in person.

To learn more, watch the video about joining The Davos Debates:



Visit youtube.com/davos to join in.

Every year since 2003, the ClickZ Marketing Excellence Awards has recognized "the technologies, companies, and campaigns that made a positive difference in the online marketing industry." To win, a product or solution must be selected by a judging committee of industry practitioners, which includes contributors to ClickZ and Search Engine Watch. This year, DoubleClick was recognized as a winner in three categories: Ad Management, Mobile Marketing Tool, and Video Ad Format or Platform. We are very honored to receive these awards and would like to share the judges' thoughtful comments with you for each award.

On DART for Advertisers' win in the Ad Management category, Tessa Wegert, Interactive Media Strategist with Enlighten and ClickZ Media Buying columnist commented, "DFA remains the industry gold standard for ad serving and ad management. This is the technology that's behind the majority of the more notable and impressive campaigns we see and a sure bet for any advertiser on the fence about which company can offer the most seamless, streamlined campaign solutions."

On DoubleClick Mobile's win in the Mobile Marketing Tool category, Courtney Jane Acuff, VP and Director with Denuo and ClickZ Mobile Marketing columnist commented, "It is critically important for mobile advertising (buyable off-the-shelf solutions) to have a standard serving and reporting platform. The DoubleClick Mobile product enables digital buyers and planners to have consistency in reporting and publishers the ability to sell through integrated mobile packages."

On DoubleClick Rich Media's HD Video format win in the Video Ad Format or Platform category, Christine Beardsell, VP Creative Director with Digitas's Third Act and ClickZ Online Video Advertising columnist commented, "You want the creative and content you develop for your brands to look great. But, unfortunately, video placements in general have suffered from low-bandwidth specifications and site-publisher limitations. So any media partner that can make your content look its best, and that won't degrade your original vision, is a partner worth having. The new DoubleClick HD looks great. And if your content already has a compelling idea and creative execution behind it, HD quality is really the icing on top!"

Thank you Tessa Wegert, Courtney Jane Acuff and Christine Beardsell for your support and to all the other ClickZ judges.

Last week, DoubleClick hosted the third annual Digital Movie Advertising Creative Showcase awards event. This event honors the best rich media creative work in digital movie advertising. This year five finalists were recognized for their work in three categories: best home entertainment rich media ads, best theatrical rich media ads and best multi-channel digital campaign.

In the home entertainment category, congratulations go out to:

• AvatarLabs and Warner Bros./New Line for Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

In the theatrical release category, congratulations go out to:

• AvatarLabs and Sony Pictures for Pineapple Express
• Backward Heroes and New Line Cinema for Journey to the Center of the Earth

In the multi-channel digital campaign category, congratulations go out to:

• Backward Heroes and New Line Cinema for The Golden Compass
• Palisades Interactive and MGM for COLLEGE

We would like to give an extra congratulations to Palisades Interactive and MGM for the Best in Show award for their work on the multi-channel digital campaign for COLLEGE. This campaign used rich media expanding ads, a widget ad, Flash banners and a large social media presence to position COLLEGE as a hilarious, must-see movie.

To make it possible for you to learn more about these winning campaigns, we've made the show guide available for download here.

Today we launched DFA 6, the new version of DART for Advertisers, which includes a completely revamped trafficking interface. Based on feedback from our agency and advertiser clients, we know that trafficking can be one of the most complicated and time-consuming activities. As a result, we focused this release on improving the speed and simplicity of the DFA trafficking workflow.

For example, we:

• Reduced the number of webpages required to perform the most common tasks.
• Built quick links to tasks via simple icons and menus.
• Developed inline editing to help you move through the workflow more quickly.
• Enabled Excel imports and exports to eliminate duplicate data entry and reduce potential errors.

Ready to start using the new workflow? Contact your account manager to upgrade to the new DFA (which will also ensure you can take advantage of upcoming feature releases). If you aren't already a DFA client, please contact us here.

We're confident that the new DFA, plus our proven services and support, will help you meet the increasing demands of the online advertising marketplace. We look forward to releasing even more features soon. Stay tuned for more information.

Yesterday, we announced the launch of DoubleClick In-Stream support for Microsoft's Silverlight 2 player framework. The technology will be used to serve ads for the NBCOlympics.com site. This feature gives our publisher clients the ability to run ads against video on whatever framework they choose, be it Windows Media, RealMedia, Flash or Silverlight 2.

There's lots of coverage on the story. Here's a few to check out:

"Microsoft, Google Play Nice: DoubleClick to Serve Silverlight Ads" --Silicon Alley Insider

"Google's DoubleClick to Tackle Microsoft's Silverlight and the Olympics" --InformationWeek

"Google to Deliver Ads to Online Olympic Video" --CNET News.com

More information on DoubleClick In-Stream is available here.

I am pleased to share the news that Google has acquired DoubleClick. Please go here to read Eric Schmidt's blog post.

Yesterday I was excited to announce DoubleClick's support for the Silverlight 2.0 framework at the Microsoft Mix conference in Las Vegas. As I said at the conference, Microsoft and DoubleClick are competitors in many ways, but we share a commitment to enabling advertising in rich video experiences.

DoubleClick In-Stream is our framework for serving, targeting, forecasting and reporting on in-stream video advertisements. Over the past six months there's been a steady increase in publishers looking to move their legacy Windows Media video players over to Silverlight, and in the months prior to the announcement of the 2.0 framework's beta release we worked closely with Microsoft's team to port our technology to this new technology.

We expect to make Silverlight 2.0 support available to clients in Q2 2008.

Congratulations to our very own David Fall, vice president of product management, search technology, for his second term on SEMPO's Board of Directors! David will be serving as Treasurer and Co-Chair of the Metrics and Standards Committee this year, and plans to continue to play an active role over the next two years.

DoubleClick's participation on the Board provides opportunities to contribute in discussions about better advancement of search advertising, streamlining the process, and educating and informing the search community at-large.

Yesterday, we released a new feature called HD Video that makes it possible for a rich media ad to expand into a fullscreen video ad in HD quality. We worked with Adobe on this release to incorporate their latest Flash technology into our fullscreen capabilities.

Epson is the first advertiser to use this feature. A special thanks goes out to them and their creative agency, Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP) for being innovative clients. Jordan Kretchmer, BSSP's associate creative director, shared with us why HD Video made such a good fit for the campaign. He said, “Throughout this campaign, we aimed to present Epson printers with a human touch and personality. DoubleClick Rich Media with HD Video was exactly the type of solution that helped us achieve our goal. HD Video lets us deliver our creative in a way that reflects the high quality of Epson products. Consumers aren’t used to seeing such pristine video online, so we expect the new HD technology to capture peoples’ attention like a standard video unit never could.”

To learn more about HD Video and to watch Epson's ads, visit our HD Video Page. Also, read more about it in the Adotas article titled, “DoubleClick Goes High-Def in Bid for Consumers’ Attention.”

As of today, members of the Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike since Nov. 5, 2007, are going back to work. The guild voted late yesterday to end the walkout after agreeing with Hollywood's producers on compensation for TV shows and movies streamed on the Web.

Previously on DoubleClick's Web site, we asked visitors, "What month will the writer's strike end?" Almost 150 people responded.

Here's how you replied:

January: 5.63%
February: 28.17%
March: 27.46%
April: 9.86%
May: 13.38%
June or later: 15.49%

Congratulations to the 28.17% of you that accurately predicted the future!

For the past two days, I've been the chairperson of the Strategy Institute's Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit. Throughout the event it was clear that measurement challenges go hand-in-hand with the increasing number of digital advertising opportunities today. In the 16 sessions of the conference, we covered topics including user generated content, social networking, paid search, in-game advertising, mobile campaigns, three types of widgets, digital signage, in-stream advertising, in-banner video, rich media advertising, podcast advertising and more.

This fragmentation is hitting agencies and marketers, which accounted for about 80% of attendees, the hardest. Their challenge is setting the right media mix across digital and traditional media. One comment on the marketing mix that really stood out is that one marketer was asked to provide a single line of pricing and measurement data to represent all their digital advertising initiatives for the company's media mix modeling analysis. The reality is that 10 or 20 lines of digital advertising data could be used.

I've noticed at the event, and day-to-day in my role at DoubleClick, that agencies and advertisers are very aware that one form of media affects the other. One attendee shared that they noticed a decrease in search results when they lowered their display spending. We do quite a bit of work in our research department to provide clients with insight into the correlation between search and display. We've also built advanced reports into DART to provide insight on topics like these. For example, our Exposure to Conversion report shows how media exposures beyond the last click or impression affect conversions. We're hoping to share some of this work at future events such as this one.

Talk about synergy! We announce a new capability, Spotlight for Rich Media, our client pepperjam blog about it and the benefits it offers to their clients, and we blog about them blogging about us! It's the new economy!

Thanks for the mention Kat.

On January 23rd, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), along with the Media Ratings Council (MRC), will be hosting a webinar that will take you through the recently released Rich Media Measurement Guidelines. DoubleClick has been heavily involved in this project from its outset and are big supporters of the IAB and their leadership role on measurement. In the webinar, George Ivie of the IAB and MRC will present learnings on the point at which rich media advertising impressions should be counted. Attendance is free, simply register in advance here.

Webinar: IAB Rich Media Measurement Guidelines Webinar
Date: January 23rd, 2008
Time: 4:00 - 5:00 EST

This webinar is for anyone whose company hosts, sells or serves internet advertising and is especially relevant to clients of DoubleClick Rich Media, as our metrics our both IAB-compliant and MRC certified. In related new, read about our most recent accreditation.

Today I'm happy to announce the release of Spotlight for Rich Media, a powerful new report for DART for Advertiser (DFA) clients that allows you to correlate how specific creative elements inside your DoubleClick Rich Media ads (i.e. videos, games, exit links, etc.) turn into purchases or conversion on your Web site. The report helps you answer questions like:

• How do interactions directly tie to results?
• Are users who watch the complete video more likely to come to our site later?
• Which drives more conversions, the "buy now" or "learn more" links?
• Are expanding ads worth the extra expense and creative cost?
• Does a video play change user behavior?

Starcom USA is one of the first agencies to use this reporting feature. For more information, you can read about the insights Starcom gained or learn more on our Web site. Also, clickZ's Fred Aun has written a great article about the report.

Earlier today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cleared Google's acquisition of DoubleClick. This is obviously excellent news for both companies. The FTC's decision publicly affirms what we and numerous independent analysts have been saying for months: the acquisition does not threaten competition in what is a robust, innovative and quickly evolving online advertising space. In fact, we firmly believe the transaction will increase competition and bring substantial benefits to consumers, web publishers and online advertisers.

If you would like to read Google's analysis on the FTC's clearance statement, click here.

Henry Blodget and the Silicon Alley Insider team recently announced the people recognized in their first Silicon Alley 100 list. We're pleased to see such a list return – it's been awhile since the last similar list ran in the now-defunct magazine Silicon Alley Reporter – and SAI's effort has resulted in a solid roundup of some of the leading business and technology movers and shakers in New York City.

DoubleClick's own CEO David Rosenblatt is listed at #15, and we're proud that he's included. We're also pleased to see a handful of notable DoubleClick alumni in the mix. Former DoubleClick team members who made the cut include Adam Benjamin and Roger Jehenson, Wenda Harris Millard, Jonathan Shapiro, Mike Walrath, and 2007 "up and comer" Court Cunningham. Kudos to all involved!

Who do you think the most important people are in the world of online marketing and advertising? Email me the people you'd put on your list.

On Monday, we made an official announcement regarding the availability of the DART for Publishers (DFP) Dashboard. This new interface leverages the latest Web 2.0 technology to provide greater visibility and flexibility for publishers in managing their advertising operations. The DFP Dashboard is fully integrated with the DART for Publishers platform and is included at no additional cost to all existing DFP users. Fred Aun, at ClickZ wrote a great article that highlights some of the key benefits of this new release.

If you liked our post about Cyber Monday, join DoubleClick Performics next week on December 4th at 2 p.m. Central for our Web event Holiday ’07 Reality: Early Lessons and Learnings from Black Friday and Cyber Monday with guest speaker Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group.

DoubleClick Performics regularly partners with online retail expert Lauren Freedman to provide our advertiser and publisher clients with valuable insight into best practices. Lauren will share some preliminary findings from the e-tailing group's 10th Annual Mystery Shopping study and her thoughts from a review of a few affiliate publisher sites.

In the last month-plus, I’ve been lucky to participate in two conferences that are worth commenting on – and shortlisting for your potential attendance next year.

In early October, I participated in Forrester Research’s 2007 Consumer Forum. The agenda focused heavily on social media and potential applications for marketers and advertisers. I was particularly intrigued and inspired by Josh Bernoff’s call for a strategic approach to social media, Richard Edelman’s perspective on the role of corporate communications in the Web 2.0 world, and Henry Jenkins’s comments on convergence culture. Luckily, Forrester is offering online video segments from the event, so you can explore some of the ideas yourself.

More recently, I spoke at the 2007 Word of Mouth Research Symposium, which was hosted by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. While there, I presented our report Influencing the Influencers, and I sat in on most of the other sessions over the course of the day.

Of special interest was “Measuring the Ripple: Creating the G2X Relay Rate and an Industry Standard Methodology to Measure the Spread of WOM Coversations and Marketing," which was presented by Matt McGlinn of BzzAgent and Dr. Walter Carl of ChatThreads. They’ve gone far to calculate the iterative effect of word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. I was also impressed by “The Effects of Word of Mouth: An Agent-Based Simulation of Interpersonal Influence in Social Networks,” which was presented by Dejan Duzevik, a complexity scientist at Icosystem. By modeling various marketing activities, you can gauge the potential impact of word of mouth.

While I wasn’t able to stay in Las Vegas for the following WOMMA Summit, I got several ideas while at the research symposium and spent quality time with peers in the industry – some of whom I’ve known for years but never met. If you’re interested in word-of-mouth marketing, the state of the research backing it up improves every year.

DoubleClick Ad Exchange recently hosted two roundtable dinners to engage with publishers, agencies and marketers, foster direct dialogue between buyers and sellers of online display media, and learn more about issues on the minds (and budgets) of disparate members of the advertising community. We invited Forrester's Shar VanBoskirk to present. (Visit our Web site to see Shar discussing the future of online media, among other topics).

Among the ideas that Shar presented at the two dinners:

• New media advertising, which now accounts for 8% of total ad spend, will become more important as younger consumers become mainstream. Across all channels (SEM, display, emerging, video, etc.), CAGR through 2012 projects to be 27%, with video at nearly 80% CAGR over the same time period.
• Marketers expect interactive effectiveness to increase, and their budget projections and plans over the next three years reflect this.
• Interactive continues to serve marketer needs more effectively, from selling products and services online to driving Web site traffic to lead-gen and relationship building.
• Exchanges will drive the next generation of sales – what is a relatively new concept now will become a core component of media buying and selling in the future.

If you're heading to Vegas next week for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's Word of Mouth Marketing Summit, be sure to check out Heath Row, DoubleClick's research manager speaking at the Research Symposium on Tuesday about Influencing the Influencer: How Online Advertising and Media Impact Word of Mouth. It's based on a popular research paper of ours by the same name.

Heath's one of DoubleClick's best public speakers. He's also fun to schmooze with, if you get a chance, a former journalist of many years for Fast Company magazine and an avid blogger in his own right. We'll make sure he gives a quick write-up of the event when he gets back.

There's a good overview of my recent keynote at Streaming Media Europe on the Streaming Media blog. During my presentation I was worried that I was going to be blogged -- and I guess that worry came true!

Integration of SEMDirector Paid Insight and DoubleClick’s DART Search Offers New Method of Implementing and Monitoring Paid Search Campaigns

SES SAN JOSE (SAN JOSE, Calif.) AND NEW YORK, – August 21, 2007 – SEMDirector, the leader in search marketing automation software, and DoubleClick Inc., the premier provider of digital marketing technology and services, announced today at the 2007 Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, Calif., the formation of an alliance to deliver comprehensive paid search execution capabilities to large advertisers. Through this alliance, large advertisers can now get a closed loop system to launch search campaigns through DART Search and gain complete performance visibility through SEMDirector’s Paid Insight technology.

"Both DoubleClick, through DART Search, and SEMDirector, through its Marketing Action Platform, focus on building scalable solutions for managing the world’s largest paid search programs," said Craig Macdonald, vice president of marketing, alliances and product management for SEMDirector. "Through our integration with DART Search, SEMDirector can automate the collection of data necessary to devise global strategies around paid search advertising within SEMDirector’s Paid Insight product, and then make those strategies operational within DART Search."

This fusion of DoubleClick and SEMDirector technologies enables customers to leverage the DART Search paid search campaign management processes while automatically tracking all performance data within SEMDirector Paid Insight™. Through SEMDirector Paid Insight, advertisers can analyze campaign performance by geography, product, agency, platform or language. Strategies developed via SEMDirector Paid Insight are then executed through changes to bid strategy within DART Search across search engines globally. This process is in production now at a large high technology manufacturing organization where the search campaigns are managed by DoubleClick Performics, the performance-based marketing division of DoubleClick.

“The complexity of large search programs, like those targeted by DoubleClick and SEMDirector, demand the type of technological integration we are launching today, “said Dave Fall, vice president of search product management for DoubleClick. “Our best in class, scalable search campaign management technology, combined with SEMDirector’s expertise in search marketing automation, make this integration a must-have for all our joint customers.”

The combined solution from SEMDirector and DoubleClick is now commercially available.
For more information on SEMDirector Paid Insight, please visit http://www.semdirector.com/productsEnterprise.shtml. For more information on DoubleClick’s DART Search, please visit http://www.doubleclick.com/us/products/dart_search/.

Wait, wrong football! We're talking American football from the NFL, with in-stream video ads baked in courtesy of DoubleClick In-Stream. Check out NFL Video.

ClickZ is posting an interview with yours truly. I discuss mobile, rich media, video, widgets, a little bit of everything...

We are pleased to announce the release of the latest version of DART Search on Saturday, July 14th, 2007. In this release, we will upgrade DART Search with the following new features:

Yahoo Geo-Targeting in DART Search

DART Search users can now use geo-targeting at the campaign level for Yahoo. This feature allows you to target prospective customers in the geographic locations that your company supports. By default, your geo-targeting preference is set to display ads to your entire market, which is the country or multi-country region in which you are advertising. Yahoo Geo-Targeting lets users take control of their targeting with three distinct types of geo-targeting:

• Your entire market
• Your State, Territory, or Province
• Your City or Surrounding Area

Additional Reporting Columns

We added the following columns to the DART Search Account, Campaign, Group, Type, and Category reports:

• Cost Per Action Fee
• Cost Per Order Fee
• Average Position

Along with the features outlined above the DART Search team has made great strides enhancing the UI speed, Data Processing capabilities and the Scalability of DART Search. For more information about this product release, please visit the DART Search website.

It's not just the last click – or is it?

A number of studies have highlighted a growing concern that the logic of attributing conversions to only the last click just doesn’t always hold. With some claiming it’s not only the last click but the last search click that matters when evaluating user intent, it’s become increasingly difficult to parse truth from fiction and, more importantly, understand how to buy, plan, and optimize digital media.

With these concerns in mind DoubleClick has developed the Exposure to Conversion Report (E2C). A new advanced report, available in DFA’s ReportCentral, the E2C will allow customers to view up to 10 exposures leading to a conversion. Exposures will include display (Rich media, video and standard) views and clicks as well as DART Paid Search clicks. Information available for each exposure can include campaign, site, site placement, creative and timing details. You will also be able to select up to 20 spotlight activities to designate as conversions to evaluate user pathways (ad exposures) driving to each.

The E2C offers the opportunity to gain better insight into the way your media allocation strategy drives conversions. You will be able to determine for yourself whether it is display, search and display, or just search that is in fact driving your customers to convert. Ultimately, the E2C affords deeper understanding of how search and display influence conversion for your campaigns and how you can optimize your media spend to maximize ROI.

The Exposure to Conversion report will be available in DFA’s ReportCentral beginning July 21st. For pricing and enablement information please contact your Account Manager.

DoubleClick Inc., the premier provider of digital marketing technology and services, today announced that Pepperjam, an Inc. 500 company and industry leading full service Internet marketing agency, has selected DoubleClick's integrated DART® platform to meet the digital marketing needs of Pepperjam and its clients. Pepperjam is a rapidly growing agency that specializes in search-engine marketing, affiliate marketing management and online media buying and planning. The agency serves clients in the fashion, entertainment, education, retail and consumer packaged goods industries, such as The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, 1-800-PetMeds (PETS: NASDAQ), and Sesame Street.

Click here to read the full article

Earlier this month, DoubleClick achieved Support Center Practices (SCP) Certification for the second straight year. SCP Certification measures the effectiveness of customer support based upon a stringent set of performance standards and industry best practices. DoubleClick is the only digital marketing company that has earned this recognition.

This certification further demonstrates our dedication and commitment to our clients and their support needs.

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At DoubleClick, we're always on the lookout for ways to make search engine data as accurate as possible - and to deliver that accuracy to our clients. With that in mind, DoubleClick announces the 99% Data Accuracy Policy for DART Search (click link to download the 5-page whitepaper).

What does this mean for you? As a DART Search customer, you should expect less than a 1% discrepancy in your DART Search reporting data when compared to reports in Google, Yahoo, AOL, & MSN. If you notice discrepancies that amount to more than a 1% difference between the reports you run in DART Search and the reports you run on the search engines, we invite you to contact your DoubleClick Technical Account Manager (TAM). Your TAM will work with you to attempt to resolve the discrepancy.

With better accuracy comes substantially improved decision making. The DART Search technology is the only search product to be able to claim this level of accuracy across all the above-listed engines.

Better accuracy is only one of the many features and benefits our technology delivers. The DART Search feature set also includes geo targeting, negative keyword lists, Content Targeting, Site Targeting and Image Ads. As always, we will continue to add features and enhance our product to meet your growing needs. Feel free to email us at doubleclickblog@google.com to offer any comments, suggestions or questions!

DoubleClick announced last week that their DART Search^SM application is compliant with Google’s AdWords API terms and conditions. Through the AdWords API program, DART Search provides agencies and advertisers with improved options and flexibility by offering additional campaign management tools and functionality.

DoubleClick’s DART Search application is a complete search engine marketing technology solution providing clients with robust keyword management, bid management and reporting tools. Built on DoubleClick’s proprietary DART® platform, the industry leading ad management platform, DART Search enables clients to manage the execution of their paid search campaigns and creates efficiencies by allowing clients to track display, rich media and search advertising in one centralized location when using DoubleClick’s DART for Advertisers.

DART Search, which powers DoubleClick’s full-service Performics® search offering and is also offered as a self-service solution, currently leverages Google’s AdWords API to offer a variety of other features to search engine marketing agencies and advertisers. For example, DART Search loads actual search engine performance data such as impressions, clicks and click costs for reporting and automated bid management. DART Search supports Google’s Quality Score by notifying users when keywords are not being served due to a low minimum cost-per-click (CPC). In addition, DART Search delivers email notifications to users when submitted ads have not met the AdWords editorial guidelines.

Performics, the country's largest Search Engine Marketing firm (Source: JupiterResearch 2006 Search Engine Marketing Agency Constellation) and the performance marketing division of DoubleClick is the largest worldwide user of the DART Search technology.

“We are delighted that DART Search is compliant with Google’s AdWords API. This means even more value and flexibility for users of DART Search,” said Stuart Larkins, vice president of Search at Performics. “Performics’ relationships with search engines such as Google are a major benefit to our clients and offer unparalleled access to emerging technologies and high-growth opportunities. Integration with Google’s AdWords API represents just such an opportunity and allows clients to take advantage of the additional features and functionality of the Google offering.”

In order to comply with the Google AdWords API terms and conditions, DART Search added several enhanced features, including:

• Geo-Targeting – Advertisers using DART Search can set their ads to appear when customers are searching for results in (or located near) the regional areas or cities selected. This is an enhancement to the country targeting options previously available in DART Search.
• Negative Keywords – The negative keywords feature allows advertisers to develop a better targeted keyword list ensuring that more relevant ads are displayed.
• Content Targeting enhancements – Advertisers can create separate content targeting campaigns as well as bid separately on content targeting traffic.
• Site Targeting – Advertisers using DART Search can set up site-targeted campaigns in addition to keyword-targeting campaigns. Site Targeting is designed for advertisers who want to place their ads on specific content sites within the Google network.
• Image Ads – The new image ads feature provides an option to upload image ads (including Adobe Flash files) through DART Search to be displayed on content sites within the Google network through site-targeting campaigns or keyword-targeting campaigns.

Compliance with Google AdWords API terms and conditions means DART Search is now tightly integrated with Google AdWords, providing additional Google campaign functionality for search engine marketing.