This post is the third in a series exploring several of Ad Manager’s key features and how they help our publisher partners maximize their ad revenue. To learn more, see posts one and two which were published in March.

Protecting users from bad ads and malicious actors is key to a healthy revenue stream. Things like inappropriate creative, counterfeit inventory, and malware not only divert revenue from you, but also alienate your users, and degrade the online experience in general.

Some people respond by installing ad blockers, which prevent ads—all ads, good and bad—from appearing. When this happens, every publisher pays the price, as it means they earn less money from the free content we all enjoy. For advertisers who create good ads, these obstacles make it tougher to connect with customers. And for consumers, it means they’ll see less useful ads.

Google Ad Manager helps power our partners’ digital advertising businesses, including helping to combat ad fraud and bad ads. Here are three ways we're working to protect your business and the broader ecosystem from bad ads and invalid activity:

We continuously invest in our defenses against ad fraud

By using a combination of people, policies, and technology, our global team of subject matter experts, PhDs, and engineers have fine-tuned our ad systems policies to provide clear guidance on what is and is not acceptable. To date the team has launched over 200 automated filters that help defend our ad systems from invalid activity in a lasting way. 

One of the ways we did this in 2019 was by investing in new technology to better identify policy-violating behavior at the account level, as opposed to the ad level. Our efforts resulted in 2.7 billion bad ads being taken down in 2019—more than 5,000 bad ads per minute—and the termination of 1.5 million advertiser accounts for violations, 3x more than in 2018.

We develop tools to help you manage which ads are shown on your properties 

We provide and develop new tools to help you manage and control which ads are shown across your sites and apps. Pricing rules and blocking options provide granular control over your inventory before the auction process. Features like the Ad review center help you review individual ads after they've been shown to decide whether you continue to show them, block them, or report them in real-time.

We also understand that sometimes people make honest mistakes when setting up their ads businesses, so we’ve developed solutions like the App Policy Center to help you easily review and monitor policy violations or appeals you may have. The App Policy Center was designed to provide greater insight into our policy enforcement process and help reduce the risk of potential revenue loss.

We support industry initiatives

We invest in industry initiatives to help tackle bad ads for everyone in the ads ecosystem. Here are three key initiatives that we invested in and continue to support to help prevent bad ads.

• Ads.txt and app-ads.txt: These projects are aimed at preventing counterfeit inventory, which diverts revenue from publishers. They allow Ad tech companies to identify unauthorized and domain-spoofed inventory being sold across the industry by letting website owners publicly declare who is allowed to sell their ad space. We scan more than 30 million domains a day and are proud to say that nearly 90 percent of our publisher partners have adopted ads.txt.
• The Better Ads Standards: These standards are based on extensive user research conducted by the Coalition for Better Ads about which ad formats and ad experiences consumers think are the most annoying and disruptive. They’ve identified 4 desktop and 8 mobile web display ad experiences that companies should avoid in order to maintain a good user experience, and help create a better online environment for everyone.
• Open Measurement: This software development kit (SDK) is an industry-wide solution to the challenge of measuring viewability of ads in apps. We offer our partners access to the Open Measurement Initiative by integrating the SDK into our mobile ads products. This preserves your revenue stream by ensuring your inventory is considered for purchase.

The Ad Manager team is constantly working to develop and improve ad policies and protective solutions like those mentioned above. When we protect our publishers, we help ensure the entire advertising ecosystem is as healthy as possible, and everyone benefits.

To learn more about how Ad Manager can help you manage, protect, and grow your advertising business, visit our new feature brief archive in the resources section of our website. And keep an eye out for our next post, "Deliver the best ad experience every time".

Online content and media consumption behaviors are continuously evolving. If you'd like to optimize your online business and help improve your AdSense performance, it's important to follow and adapt to the trends. We'd like to provide some resources to help you successfully navigate in an ever-changing digital environment.

Adapt your content to changing trends

It’s important to understand what’s top of mind for the people you’re aiming to reach in order to make your content interesting and useful to wide audiences. Below are some tools you can use to optimize your content:

Use Google Trends to analyze the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across regions and languages. If you need help with understanding, using and visualizing the data better, you can get Google Trends lessons.  

Stay on top of market trends in a dynamic environment and reflect it on your content to keep it up to date. While doing so, please be mindful of our content policies.

Use Question Hub to create richer content by leveraging unanswered questions online. Review these questions to get inspired and create deeper, more comprehensive content.

Track how your content performs 

Get to know your audience and how they engage with your site through Google Analytics. The earlier you spot changes in your user behavior, the quicker you can address them. You can review the below reports to get the insights: 

• Realtime Content Insights to identify the most popular articles amongst your audience
• Behavior Reports to understand the overall page and content performance of your site
• Acquisition Reports to review the shift in your site traffic and traffic sources. If you see unusual spikes from certain sources, you might want to monitor them. 
• AdSense Overview to see your revenue information once you link your AdSense account to Analytics. 

As an addition to your current content strategy, experiment with different content formats such as video or infographics and track the engagement on your site. If you see an improvement, you can double down on those content formats. Diversifying your content could help you expand your audience, and also improve the engagement of your current ones. 

Optimize your revenue stream

When your content is ready, appealing and easy to reach, you can optimize your AdSense account to maximize your revenue from the content you created. We know that creating content takes time, so we’d like to remind you of some solutions that you can use to get the most out of your content.

You may consider using Auto ads to help you increase your ads revenue. Auto ads are optimized to deliver better performing ads, so that you can spend more time creating the content your audience is searching for. As they work through any AdSense ad code, you can start using Auto ads byturning them on in your account. 

As time spent on mobile increases, it becomes even more important to have a mobile-friendly site with goodpage speed. This will help people to access your content without problems. Make sure your ad units are responsive in order to provide a positive ad experience regardless of which device people use to visit your site. 

Lastly, make sure that your site complies with the AdSense Program policies so that your business can grow sustainably. 

We’re here to support you through the AdSense forums, email and troubleshooters. Learn more about the support options available. 

Back in the 18th century, visitors to La Scala Theater in Milan had to scramble for good seats. Though the aristocrats owned their boxes, most people just had to stand on the ground floor the whole time, with no chairs at all. 

Starting today, nobody will have to worry about getting a good seat because La Scala of Milan, one of the most iconic theaters in the world, is raising its (digital) curtain on Google Arts & Culture. You’re invited to take the best seat in the house.

In La Scala’s online collection, you can now walk through the theater with Street View. Discover what it feels like to stand on the main stage like an opera star, enjoy a ballet performance from the Royal box or, even look around the industrial workshop, where  artisans create impressive stages, props and nearly 1,000 costumes every year, including creations by fashion designers Gianni Versace and Yves Saint Laurent. With high resolution imagery captured by our Art Camera you can even zoom into the finest details of the costumes—from ivory brocade and gold cabochons to black velvet and ruby mirror stones—worn by opera icon Maria Callas.

Go even further behind the scenes and explore over 259,000 images digitized from the theater’s archive. You can flip through the pages of a rare edition of the rare hand-painted edition of Turandot music score, the first libretto for Verdi’sNabucco or learn about the many different artists whose work has graced the La Scala stage, including artists David Hockney and Giorgio De Chirico.

Wherever you are, you can look behind the curtain of one of the world’s greatest theaters. And while we wait to travel again, La Scala Theatre comes to you, online on Google Arts & Culture.

Lately our family dining table has also become a work desk, a video conference room and … a kid’s playground. As I learn how to become a full time kids-entertainer, I welcome anything that can help me stay productive. And while I usually turn to Search when learning about new things, sometimes what I’m looking for is hard to describe in words.

This is where Google Lens can help. When my family’s daily activity involves a walk in the neighborhood, Lens lets me search what I see, like a flower in our neighbor’s front yard.

But it can also be a helpful tool for getting things done while working and learning from home. Today, we’re adding a few new features to make you more productive.

Copy text from paper to your laptop

You can already use Lens to quickly copy and paste text from paper notes and documents to your phone to save time. Now, when you select text with Lens, you can tap "copy to computer" to quickly paste it on another signed-in device with Chrome. This is great for quickly copying handwritten notes (if you write neatly!) and pasting it on your laptop without having to retype them all.

Copying text to your computer requires the latest version of Chrome, and for both devices to be signed into the same Google account.

Learn new words and how to pronounce them

Searches for learn a new language have doubled over the last few months. If you're using the extra time at home to pick up a new language, you can already use Lens to translate words in Spanish, Chinese and more than 100 other languages, by pointing your camera at the text.

Now, you can also use Lens to practice words or phrases that are difficult to say.  Select the text with Lens and tap the new Listen button to hear it read out loud—and finally figure out how to say “hipopótamo!”

Quickly look up new concepts

If you come across a word or phrase you don’t understand in a book or newspaper, like “gravitational waves,” Google Lens can help. Now, with in-line Google Search results, you can select complex phrases or words to quickly learn more.

These features are rolling out today, except for Listen which is available on Android and coming soon to iOS. Lens is available in the Google app on iOS and the Google Lens app on Android.

We look forward to hearing about the ways you use Lens to learn new things and get stuff done while at home.

Viewer attention is shifting dramatically as we spend more time at home–and we’ve heard directly from many advertisers that are working quickly to adjust their creative and media strategies, especially to orient toward streaming platforms.

Today, we are sharing new advertiser insights and accelerating the launch of a number of tools–including Brand Lift measurement on the TV screen and more flexible formats for content casted onto the TV screen–to help advertisers navigate this rapidly changing environment.¹

People are streaming on TV screens more than ever

As people spend more time at home, we’re seeing major shifts in streaming viewership. A recent Comscore report highlighted that over 70 million US households are now streaming content on their connected TV screens.

Nowhere is this shift more pronounced than on YouTube and YouTube TV. According to Comscore, YouTube has the highest reach and viewing hours among ad-supported streaming services, and represents a quarter of all streaming watch time across both subscription and ad-supported platforms in the US.² Stay at home directives have amplified this shift to the TV screens, as overall watch time there has jumped 80 percent year over year in March 2020.³

Diversity of viewer passions and interests is what inspires people to stream YouTube on their big screens–from tuning into their favorite health and fitness videos to leaning back with a creator sharing a bit of their world to watching more traditional media outlets reinvent their content for this new reality.

Below, we’ve shared just a few of the top content growth areas across both YouTube and YouTube TV on TV screens during this time. While people are enjoying movies and shows to unwind, they are also watching live content from their favorite creators and cultural moments.

People are also gravitating to the consistently new and fresh content YouTube creators put out every day. In fact, over 60 percent of signed-in viewers of YouTube on TV screens watched a video published in the last 7 days.⁴

And, we see different user behavior when people engage with YouTube on the TV screen–it's often enjoyed with others, unlike the more individual experience on the mobile device. In a recent custom Nielsen study commissioned by Google, we found that 26 percent of the time, multiple 18+ viewers are watching YouTube together on the TV screen, compared to 22 percent on linear TV.⁵  

Making it easier to measure results across YouTube streaming platforms

With increases in watch time and an influx of daily visitors, brands in a position to continue marketing can make their budgets go further on YouTube by expanding their strategies to incorporate streaming.

With media mixes becoming increasingly reliant on streaming, it’s more important than ever to measure its impact. As a result, we’re accelerating the launch of Brand Lift for YouTube on TV screens. For viewers, this means surveys are now optimized for the big screen and interactivity with a TV remote, so people can easily respond or skip the survey.

This will enable marketers to make informed decisions about ad performance, and better optimize streaming campaigns in real time whether they are using Google Ads or Display & Video 360 for both reservation and auction campaigns.

Whether a campaign is focused on ad recall, purchase intent or awareness, Brand Lift will help make budgets go further. It will be available in the coming weeks for the YouTube app, and in early Q3 for YouTube TV. 

Bringing more formats to the big screen

As viewers spend more time watching YouTube on the TV screen, we are continuing to evolve to help advertisers better reach their customers where they are.

Late last year, we launched the YouTube Masthead on TV screens to help advertisers drive awareness with a large audience in a single moment. Advertisers like Uber are seeing success using this format to reach their audiences when they’re in lean back mode and where they are increasingly spending their time.

Travis Freeman, Global Head of Media at Uber said, “The Masthead on TV screens has been a critical component to build awareness for our #MoveWhatMatters initiative—which offers 10 million free rides and food deliveries for frontline healthcare workers, seniors and people in need. The Masthead, deployed in both the US and Canada, enabled us to easily amplify our message and reach our audiences where they are watching now more than ever.”

This year, we’re also bringing more format flexibility to streaming by introducing the popular skippable ad format for content that is casted onto the TV screen. As casting watch time soared by over 75 percent year over year,⁶ this provides advertisers a new way to reach their audience as they embrace the evolving ways consumers are watching their favorite content.

In a time when an eager audience is hungry for new content, YouTube is able to deliver fresh video to households across the world daily—within the niche or mainstream categories they love. By accelerating new tools and features, we’re committed to helping you grow your business in the changing world of viewership and streaming on TV screens. 

Reach out to your Google sales team to learn more about YouTube and YouTube TV on TV screens, and the new features shared today to support your campaigns.

2. Comscore OTT Intelligence, Oct. 2019, U.S

3.  YouTube Internal Data; US, March 2020 over March 2019 YoY

4. YouTube Internal Data; Global, March 11-April 10 2020

5. Custom Nielsen study commissioned by Google. Custom YouTube cTV match to Cross-Platform Homes Panel. Coviewing percentage is calculated as the percentage of minutes when a P18+ is watching with another P18+ in the same household. YouTube commercial viewership identified by matching served time of the cTV ping with Cross-Platform Homes Panel viewership during that minute. Linear TV is based on Live Total Day viewing of commercial minutes across all broadcast and cable networks. One minute qualifier. 11/5/2019-11/28/2019; 2/14/2020-2/29/2020. Results among US TV Households

6. YouTube Internal Data; Global, March 11-April 10 2020 over March 11-April 10 2019 YoY