• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, January 30, 2013

Google released three new AdWords measurement reporting tools for video Wednesday, which makes me wonder how soon until the engine brings video to text and product listing ads (PLAs).

While it seems that David Tattersall, product manager at YouTube, describes measurement tools for the video site, it makes sense for Google to expand the use on other platforms, such as Google+ and PLAs.

Measurement tools aim to help brands understand the impact of their campaigns and make reporting more consistent with other goal-oriented media. Brands that frequently buy television media should more easily see the connection between traditional advertising and digital. Adobe released statistics Tuesday predicting a 20% gain in Web traffic for brands running television Super Bowl ads.

AdWords for video now displays reach and frequency metrics to provide insight into how many unique viewers have seen an ad and the average number of times they viewed it. To view these metrics on a campaign, ad or targeting group level, marketers must click on Columns >> Customize Columns and look under the Performance section.

Column Sets, another tool, feature group-relevant metrics by marketing objective. Select an advertising goal, such as brand awareness, to see metrics in reporting columns. For example, marketers that want to optimize conversions need to select the Web site Traffic and Conversions objective to see how video ads drove viewers to actions. It shows Web site traffic, number of conversions, cost-per-conversion, and conversion rate from people who viewed the advertisement.

Knowing the geographic location of the video views becomes important, especially when it comes to targeting.

The AdWords for video visualization feature tell marketers with help from an interactive map by selecting the Campaign tab and click "Map View" to generate a snapshot. Clicking on the regions drills down to states and provinces globally and the DMA-level in the U.S.

While I don't think it's available yet, imagine the feature for video in PLAs.

"U.S. Map photo from Shutterstock"