Google Begins “Next Chapter” in Search Advertising

Update: Google says its new ad formats are "the next chapter in search advertising", and its "AdWords New Ad Formats Initiative" will focus on two themes:

• Ad extensions offer you the ability to enhance your existing text ads with additional relevant information. Some examples of ad extensions include Ad Sitelinks which allow you to provide additional links pointing to specific information on your site and Product Extensions which allow you to show images and prices of relevant products from your Google Merchant Center account. By putting the most salient information directly wiithin the ad, ad extensions are designed to help users more quickly and easily find the products and services they seek on Google.
  
  
• New ad models are formats that offer better solutions to more complicated queries. For example, Comparison Ads enable users to specify the exact product or service they're looking for and compare multiple offers in a single location. New ad models also offer advertisers new pricing models, like cost per action for Product Listing Ads. Our new ad models are designed to make it easier for users to find exactly what they want and for you to reach more users with better information.

Original Article: Google is now offering some new formats for search ads. They have already been testing them in the U.S., so there is a chance you have already seen some of them if you live here.

Some of them include videos. Some include maps. Some include multiple links for different landing pages. Some of the new ads include product images with corresponding links and prices. Some actually offer comparison shopping functionality.

Take a look at some examples:

"At Google, we're committed to giving you the information you want — regardless of the form in which it might appear," says Google VP, Product Management Susan Wojcicki. "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. So over the past few years, we've blended videos, images, maps and more into the search results on Google.com."

Using that logic, Google figured its search ads should fit a similar mold. The company says that while it is experimenting with new formats, they will "remain loyal" to their core principal, which is, "getting the right ad to the right person at the right time."

Google says you will probably see even more formats appear with search results in the future. This will occur until they figure out which ones are most useful, relevant, and engaging. Expect a lot of new things.

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More “Ads by Google” Across the Web

Google has started adding "Ads by Google" to more of its ads around the web. The reasoning for this is that a lot more advertisers are using Google's rich media ad formats these days, and the fact that they come from Google may not seem so obvious all the time.

"You'll soon notice a small 'i' (for 'information') icon overlay in the bottom right-hand corner of these ads, which will expand when the user hovers over it," explains Dan Friedman from Google's Inside AdWords crew. "This was specially designed for rich media ads. This new message will appear on your AdWords rich media ads, and will show up on standard AdSense ad units."

It will look something like this:

Just as in the past, when users click "Ads by Google," they will be taken to a page where they can learn about Google advertising. Google says tests have shown that this doesn't affect ad performance.

Google also recently started adding YouTube promoted videos into the AdWords/AdSense mix. In addition, they have introduced a new way for local businesses to advertise, and given advertisers more tracking options.

YouTube Videos in AdSense Could Drive Clicks

Google has decided to start including promoted YouTube videos in AdSense. This means that these videos are now an available ad unit that can be displayed on AdSense publisher sites.

YouTube promoted videos include a thumbnail image with three lines of text, and when clicked, they take the user to a video or a channel on YouTube, so it's not like there will be full-sized YouTube videos in AdSense ad spots on publisher sites.

"Extending Promoted Videos to AdSense sites will enable these content producers to broaden their reach, while providing you with another way to earn from your ad space," says Arlene Lee of Google's Inside AdSense team. "At this time, these ads are only available in English to US publishers, but we're looking forward to expanding to additional regions and languages in the future."

The promoted videos are contextually targeted to AdSense publisher pages, and publishers will earn from them on a cost-per-click basis. They are available in the following formats:

- 300x250 Medium Rectangle
- 336x280 Large Rectangle
- 728x90 Leaderboard
- 250x250 Square
- 200x200 Small Square

"Just like other ads, Promoted Videos compete in our standard ad auction, so they'll help drive up competition among advertisers bidding to appear on your pages," says Lee. "When a Promoted Video wins the ad auction, it'll be shown alone in one of the eligible ad formats."

Videos of course have to meet YouTube's advertising guidelines and terms of use, as well as community guidelines. Publishers can prevent promoted videos from appearing on their sites by adding "youtube.com" to their competitive ad filter list. This will block all YouTube content.

It should be noted that the addition of promoted YouTube videos to AdSense has nothing to do with Google's video ads offering.

YouTube promoted videos could be a good way to increase AdSense clicks, because the very nature of them draws the user's attention to watch a video, and at the world's most popular online video site. Plus the videos should be relevant to the content of the page. This could be a big money maker for AdSense publishers. It should be big for people promoting their videos as well.

Marketing Best Practices for Long Form Video

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released its "Long Form Video Overview." The organization says that long form video is forecasted to be the driving factor in the growth of digital video advertising over the next five years. The overview is designed to provide marketers and agencies with guidelines to better understand and make the most out of their digital video campaigns.

The IAB defines long form video as any professionally produced or user-generated video that lasts longer than 10 minutes, and consists of a content arc, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

"Broadband penetration and the convergence of the television with the PC are accelerating, making long form video advertising a strong focus for marketers," said Jeremy Fain, Vice President of Industry Services at the IAB. "Our goal is to describe clearly the outlook and opportunities for anyone who is interested in learning more about long form video."

"Long form video online is a natural fit for a lot of brands, not just those that do well on television," said Geoff Coco, a Group Product Manager with Microsoft and Co-Chair of the IAB Digital Video Committee. "Long form video is close enough to the television experience that comparing its effectiveness is a no-brainer. But the future success of long form lies in giving marketers the ability to enlist viewers to engage with their brands in new and powerful ways."

The Long Form Video Overview covers the current digital video ad marketplace, multiple forecasts for future ad revenue, common long form ad formats & other ad-buying opportunities, and definitions of key terms associated with long form video.

Along with the Long Form Video Overview document, the IAB has released the digital video in-stream ad format guidelines and best practices, the digital video ad-serving template, and the digital video in-stream ad metrics definitions. All of them can be found here.

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