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Gmail Ads (Gmail Sponsored

Promotions)

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What are Gmail Ads?

• Gmail ads, formerly known as Gmail Sponsored

Promotions (GSP), are now a part of the AdWords interface

• Gmail ads are shown above the email list in the category

‘Promotions’ as a collapsed ad

• The collapsed version opens to an expanded ad that can be

designed to achieve a variety of goals (including embedded

forms or videos)

• Advertisers only pay for the clicks on collapsed ads. Any

subsequent clicks on the ad are not chargeable

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What do Gmail Ads look like?

Users initially see the ‘collapsed ad’ in Gmail inbox above their regular emails. They can click on this ad to expand it and get more details

The ’expanded ad’ unit, triggered by a click on the collapsed ad, can include a link to an external website, app market, or a click-to-call feature

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Where are they shown?

• Gmail Ads are shown within the

Promotions tab in your Gmail

mailbox

• One Gmail ad across 3 screens –

Write an ad only once, and it

customizes itself as per device

automatically

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Why Gmail Ads?

• Fully Automated - The process by which ads are shown in Gmail is automatic. Google doesn’t read your mails in

order to show ads

• Accurate & Relevant Targeting – Google uses the information provided by users in their Gmail account to target

the users. This ensures higher relevance of ads as compared to other Display ads, which rely mainly on browser

cookies

• Interactive Ads - Reach users in their Gmail inbox by showing ads, that can also help advertisers drive user

actions before getting them to their website

• Cost Effective – Gmail ads seem to record higher traffic and significantly lower CPCs as compared to other GDN

ads. However, the KPI benchmarks for these ads may vary based on factors like advertiser goals and industry, as

well as the targeting methods used

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Targeting Options AvailableLocation:Reach the perfect audience located in specific geographies. Using this targeting, choose the locations (country, region, city or a specific radius around a location) that you wish to include and exclude, on a campaign-level

Demography:Based on the information shared by users on their Google profiles, the age, gender and parental status is derived by Google. These details come into play when you wish to target an audience of a specific age, gender or parental status

Device:Show ads in Gmail on desktop devices as well as on mobile devices. AdWords adjusts the size of your ad (the ad layout remains the same), based on whether it appears in Gmail mobile app or in Gmail inboxes on desktop computers

Language:Use this targeting in order to extend the reach of your Gmail ads to your audience based on the languages they speak

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Targeting Options Available

Placement Targeting:In order to show your Gmail ads, you need to add ‘mail.google.com’ as a managed placement. This is the only way to differentiate your Gmail ads from other ads on the Display network. If you use managed placements as your targeting on the Display network, Google won’t automatically add ‘mail.google.com’ to your targeting. If you are not using managed placement targeting, Google will add Gmail as an automatic placement to serve your Gmail ads

Keyword:Add specific words or phrases, relevant to your product or service, that you wish to target. This will help you to show ads to users who have those specific keywords in their 300 most recent emails

Topic:This targeting helps you to choose from Google’s pre-existing list of topics and show ads to users whose recent email content is relevant to, or falls under the topics you have targeted

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Targeting Options Available

Domain:You can target your own domain, competitor domains or any other site your target audience receives emails from. Simply add these domain names in the ‘Display Keywords’ tab, in order to serve your ads to email recipients from the targeted domains

Interest:Google lets you target users based on their interests, who frequently browse pages about a specific category (This helps you target a list of people who Google thinks are interested in that category, based on their browsing history pattern)

Custom Email List:Target specific users by adding a custom e-mail address list (create a custom list in the shared library) to your campaign in order to serve your ad in your customer’s Gmail inbox

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Incompatible Targeting Methods

• In addition to ‘job title targeting’ and ‘purchase history targeting’ (which were a part of the GSP beta version),

the following targeting methods are not available in AdWords:

1. In-market audience targeting (users that are actively researching, or are interested in buying products or

services that you offer)

2. Remarketing lists (However, in an attempt to serve the same purpose, you can remarket to your email

subscribers or purchasers by targeting your own domain)

3. Placements other than Gmail inboxes (mail.google.com)

• Adding any of the incompatible targeting methods to an ad group would cause your Gmail ads to stop running. So it

is best to create separate ad group or campaign that consists of only Gmail ads

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Conversion Tracking

• Every account has a default code which works for

conversion tracking. This code is to be placed across all

the pages of the websites. Conversion rules are then to

be defined as per requirement

• Multiple codes can be created (not necessary) for

multiple products

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Conversion Tracking

• The tracking for the GSP campaigns is done the same way as other display campaigns, but the remarketing tag

cannot be appended for Gmail ads

• The conversion tracking code can be appended to the ‘landing page’ or on the ‘thank you’ page. It totally

depends on the requirement of the advertiser

• If a landing page is ‘content based’, then the tracking code can be appended on that page. If it is ‘product

based’ then the tracking code can be appended on the thank you page

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Gmail Metrics

• When a user clicks on the collapsed ad, an

expanded version of the ad pops up with

one of the ad creatives (Rich media, Image,

video etc.)

• On the expanded ad, a user has the option

to either save the ad to his inbox, forward

the mail, or click on the link and go to the

website. All this is tracked by Google and it

gives the option on AdWords called Gmail

metrics for the advertiser to track the user

engagement and act accordingly

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Gmail Metrics - Engagement Type

Gmail

Forwards

Gmail SavesClick to go to

website

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Gmail Specific Metrics

Below are the 3 Gmail metrics tracked by Google in AdWords for which Google does not charge

Gmail Saves - This metric tracks the number of times a user saves your Gmail ad to their inbox. When the Gmail

ad is saved, it remains in the user’s inbox in the expanded form

Gmail Forwards - This metric tracks the number of times a user forwards your Gmail ad to someone. When the

Gmail ad is forwarded as a message, it is sent in the expanded form as an email from the initial viewer of your ad

Gmail clicks to Website - This metric indicates the number of clicks to your landing page. These clicks on the

expanded state of Gmail ads are free, even though they result in visits to your landing pages

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Gmail Specific Metrics

• Gmail Saves and Gmail Forwards are good indicators of how an ad and targeting is performing, especially if

branding and awareness are important to you

• Gmail Clicks to Website are important if you ultimately want to drive direct conversions from these ads or can be

a major KPI for advertisers who are interested in driving maximum traffic to their website

Gmail Clicks v/s GDN Clicks

• In AdWords, the ‘Clicks’ reported for Gmail ads (GSP), are the clicks to expand your ad. The ‘Gmail Clicks to

Website’ metric indicates the clicks on the expanded ad which leads the user to the website

• For GDN ads (other than Gmail ads), the clicks which lead the users to the advertiser’s website can be observed in

the ‘Clicks’ metric

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How to Create a Campaign

• Advertisers can show Gmail ads to users by

starting with the creation of a ‘Display Network

only’ campaign, through AdWords

• Although you can have Gmail ads and other

display ads in the same campaign, the best

practice is to create a separate campaign

dedicated to Gmail ads, for the purpose of better

optimization

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How to Create a Campaign

Add location

Select language preference

Set your daily budget

Name your campaign and select the type

Select bid strategy

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How to Create a Campaign – Ad Group Creation

Set ad group

level bid

Select targeting method

Name your Ad GroupListed below are the two major

factors that help you form an ad

group for Gmail ads:

• Adding ‘mail.google.com’ as a

managed placement

• Creating ads using specific

Gmail ad templates available in

the Ad gallery

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How to Create a Campaign – Ad Creation

The AdWords ad gallery consists of various

Gmail ad templates that can be used to create

expandable, interactive Gmail ads

You can also upload a custom HTML file for your

ad, that meets the formatting requirements of a

Gmail ad

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How to Create a Campaign – Ad Creation

Website URL

Collapsed Ad Details

Name your Ad

Expanded Ad Details

Final ad preview

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Explore Gmail Ads

• GSP can be implemented for accounts with varied advertising goals (branding, conversions, awareness, etc.).

Many advertisers use a lead form in their ad creative to lead the users to their website on form submission

• If you find your Gmail ad campaigns to be spending at a very low rate, it could be due to the layering of different

targeting methods in your ad groups, or due to low bids

• Since there are limited ad slots available for Gmail ads (2 slots for desktop and only 1 for mobile devices), the

competition is really high. So, when it comes to bidding, it is more of a “go high or go home” situation for advertisers

• Gmail ads were introduced to AdWords in 2015, and are still being explored for changes to make it better and

easier, for advertisers to achieve their targets

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Thank you!