Dish Network Goes Mobile, AdWords Campaign Experiments Debuts, And More

Dish Network To Stream On Mobile Devices

If you own an iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, or Blackberry, and are a Dish Network subscriber, you’ll soon be able to stream live television to your respective mobile device.

Come October, Dish Network Corp. announced it will be using Google Inc.’s Android system to mobile live television, provided you have the correct hardware to do so. A SlingBox ($180-$300) or a Dish Network HD DVR upgrade ($200-$400 when purchased, monthly fee increase varies) are two viable options.

This new app will allow Dish Network viewers to change channels from a remote location, but it does not allow the remote viewer to watch a different channel than someone watching at home. For that, your set-top box has to have a dual tuner, making it capable of watching or recording two channels at once.

This is the latest promotion in a heated competition for subscribers between satellite, cable, and phone company video services.

AdWords Campaign Experiments Full U.S. Roll-Out And Tracking Tag

Thanks to advertisers’ positive response to two month’s worth of beta testing, AdWords Campaign Experiments is poised for a full (and cost-free) release in the United States.

AdWords Campaign Experiments allows advertisers the luxury of testing and accurately measuring the impact of keyword, bid, ad group and placement changes. The program ultimately aims to boost confidence and lower risks involved with changing strategies and optimization on a frequent basis.

From the Google AdWords blog:
“Without ACE, you might evaluate optimizations by comparing key metrics before and 2-4 weeks after making campaign changes. Differences in those key metrics are assumed to be the result of the changes. But fluctuations in demand, shifts in competitor tactics, and even changes in the weather can complicate things.

With ACE, experimental campaigns run side-by-side with the original campaign in a simultaneous split test. This approach lets you run shorter tests that start and stop whenever you like, with less concern about your results being affected by seasonality or other factors. You get more precise impact estimates and more chances throughout the year to test and improve performance.”

ACE will automatically show up under Campaign Settings when advertiser’s sign into AdWords. Although only currently available in the US, Google is sure to announce the program’s expansion to other countries and languages soon.

iPad gets better ad results than iPhone

According to the July 2010 numbers compiled by mobile ad network Mobclix, iPad apps with embedded ad code have a five times higher ECPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) rate than the iPhone. Users are also 10.7 times more likely to respond to iPad video ads than those in standard formatting.

Those numbers are all the more impressive when you figure in the ratio of iPads (4 million) to iPhones (24.89 million sold in 2009 alone) used by consumers.

By Jake McCormick

Rocket Clicks Staff