Google Ads move beyond Text
A very interesting adwords development that’s been trialled across the US recently has finally made it to these shores. Essentially what’s happening is that Google are allowing some accounts, initially just ones with particularly high quality scores, to show more than just text in their ads, this can take some surprisingly diverse forms with everything from links and maps, to pictures of products and even videos.
The idea is to cater to each individual searcher, providing them with not only exactly the information they require, but in the right form, i.e., price comparisons if you’re searching for ecommerce items, maps if you’re searching for local businesses. The Google blog explains it like so…
“Text is often useful, but sometimes videos and pictures are a more effective way to receive information. For example, if you want to learn a magic trick, a video showing you how to perform the trick is likely the best result”
The newly available types of ad are listed below.
Multiple Links
One of the simplest and most effective forms is the multiple linking option. This allows you to specify a number of specific hyperlinks which take people to various parts of your site. For instance if someone was searching for golf clubs you could offer separate links for drivers, putters, wedges and irons.
Video
This is an interesting one. If you’re looking for instructions on how to do something, a video is quite often the most useful thing to see. This ad allows advertisers to show individual videos below their text ads. Like many of the other new kinds of ad this takes up quite a lot of space in the SERPS, but I’ll come onto that later.
Maps
This allows you to show your business location, address, phone number etc., on a map within the ad. This already goes on to an extent with Local Search, though here it’s actually in the ad so you can appear above your competitors easily – if you’re willing to pay, that is. Obviously, it’s particularly good for people doing regional searches. There’s even a version for bigger brands and chain stores that allows you to display all the branches in the area you’re searching for.
Product Images
A very recent edition to the stable is product image ads, this allows you to show thumbnail images of the products people are searching for within your ads. Again, this is similar to Product Search, except that, since it’s an ad, you can leap frog your competitors. Also, it’s better for Google as they can monetise it.
Price Comparisons
This is by far the most audacious thing Google are planning. From the early looks I’ve had it seems to be basically a price comparison website, but in the sponsored results. Google will take your price information and rank you and your competitors accordingly, you’ll then pay when people request a quote. I’ll give you more information when I have it as this is potentially huge.
Well, there you go. This should make adwords management a little more interesting. It obviously has some major advantages for advertisers but also some big ones for Google. From my point of view Google get two main things out of this.
One: The sponsored list becomes more relevant, which means they stand a chance of lowering the 70% of people who apparently bypass the sponsored listings entirely, making them more money.
Two: It lowers the overall importance of the natural rankings, making SEO less relevant (Google aren’t generally fans of people manipulating their results). Call me cynical but…
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