Google Redesigns AdWords To Match Its Other Web Apps

Google’s AdWords now sports a much-needed update that brings its design up to par with most of the company’s other web apps.

Most of Google’s services, including Gmail, Drive and Analytics, now sport the company’s new, flat look. Even after a few years of going through this process, however, some apps still look just like they did back in 2011. Both AdSense and AdWords, the publisher and advertiser back ends to the company’s most important revenue sources, were among the services that were left behind in the first waves of the redesign.

AdSense started testing a new homepage last November and it got a bit of a facelift back in 2012, too.

With today’s change, AdWords’ interface now looks more like Gmail and also sports the same gear icon you find in most of Google’s consumer apps to get to the settings menu. Of course, it will also feature the same colors and other design elements that are now part of Google’s design language for web apps.

If you’ve spent some time in Google Analytics, this new look will feel pretty familiar (though Analytics still uses Google’s old menu bar). Google says this change is also meant to provide more real estate to the most important tools in AdWords and for the charts and tables most users rely on to track their ad campaigns.

As part of this update, Google has also made it easier to see who else is currently signed into your account.

Google Launches AdSense Direct, A New Tool For Direct Ad Sales

Google today launched AdSense Direct, a new tool for publishers who – as the name implies – want to sell ads directly and aren’t large enough to make dealing with the complexities of DoubleClick for Publishers worth their while.

This puts it into direct competition with iSocket, BuySellAds and other services that make it easier for smaller publishers to sell ads directly. This also marks Google’s first foray into this area of the advertising business for small publishers. AdSense, after all, has always been about programmatically choosing ads to display on a given site based on the content on the site and Google’s knowledge of what a specific reader is likely interested in.


With AdSense Direct, which is currently only available in the U.S., publishers can make deals with individual advertisers – no matter whether the publisher is on AdWords or not. Publishers can simply give potential advertisers a link to their AdSense Direct page and all the publishers have to do is upload their creative and pay for the ad.

Google takes a 15 percent cut from all AdSense Direct transactions. All invoicing and billing is handled through Google Wallet.

There are no upper or lower limits for the number of impressions served through one of these campaigns, by the way. Advertisers simply buy the space for a given day or longer time period, though campaigns can’t last longer than 90 days.

As a site becomes more popular, direct ad deals tend to be far more lucrative than just running basic AdSense ads. Google recommends a price when publishers set up a new campaign and the company says its research has shown that publishers can generally charge about 2.5x the price of a standard contextually targeted ad.

Yahoo Acquires Mobile Marketing Startup Sparq

Mobile marketing company Sparq announced on its site today that it has been acquired by Yahoo. The company did not disclose the purchase price.

Yahoo declined to illustrate the deal’s financial details. Sparq’s team will be joining Yahoo’s Sunnyvale campus.

Before it was acquired, Sparq raised a total of $1.7 million over several small rounds, most recently picking up more than $650,000 last year.

According to a Yahoo spokesperson, the company’s technology helped users “jump from app to app to discover, consume and engage with content.” Or, put more simply, it helped users take in more total mobile content.

The fit with Yahoo is quite plain: Yahoo needs to monetize its mobile user base if it wants its mobile-first strategy to drive lacking revenue growth. Picking up a firm that specializes in that space is reasonable.

And, given how little the company raised, it was likely a cheap pick-up for Yahoo.

Given Sparq’s focus on inter-app movement, Yahoo might be able to deploy its technology to help its users move between its own stable of applications. It isn’t clear if the company’s assets will be used in that fashion. However, if Yahoo could lash its apps together in a more cohesive fashion, it could bolster its engagement per user, and presumably its revenue per user. For a company that is forcing Wall Street to remain patient in the face of its slipping top line, such increases would be welcome indeed.