Google video ads on search results
On Thursday Google started testing video ads on some search results pages.
Marissa Mayer explained this was in response to the impact of blended results. When video, news and images are included in regular results, the eye scans to the images first and ignores the ads.
“With universal search, something is getting shaken up a bit on the bottom part of the page,” she said. “The ads on the top part of the page should match.”
The screenshot of an Enquiro eye-tracking study shows clearly the traditional golden triangle being displaced by a very different scan when an image is introduced to the results page. The eye scans first to the image, and then to the text alongside the image before continuing at the top left hand corner of the page.
Using the same argument we could question what happens when a multimedia ad is included in a results page where there are no universal results – will advertisers have an advantage over natural results? Also does this mean all advertisers use MM in order to compete for attention? Guess we’ll need to see how this evolves.
One of the most advance technologies deployed with Google universal search was the ability to compare relevance of ordinary text documents with video, images and news. This ability to compare apples with pairs and position them on the same page based on user needs – promoted an important question ‘Will Google blend advertising with regular listing?” Marissa Mayer’s answer then was characteristically vague –
“I do think that this opens the door for the introduction of richer mediums into the result page,” she said, adding, that search results in any form should encompass the best answer no matter the medium. “For us, ads are answers as well…. And so I was hoping that we could bring some of these same advances in terms of the richness of media to ads.”
Well now they have.
Search as direct response to brand
Traditionally, search has been used strictly for direct marketing – selling boxes. The branding benefits have been an added value thrown in but rarely paid for.
With MM ad formats on search results, Google may protest about being seen as a media company, but, the migration of traditional display dollars to search is inevitable. The introduction of multimedia ads will be a real threat to the current dominance of search by DM. At the very least the lines will blur between brand and DM or we’ll see a more severe displacement of DM as a result of higher click costs driven by the budgets available for brand.
With the slowing economy and advertisers increasingly moving to online channels, Google for the first time in the last two years saw a decline in share of online ad-spend. John Battelle argued this was due to brand advertisers preferring to spend their money on display ads distributed on content sites, as oppose to search properties. So it’s not entirely surprising that Google would try to make their search space more attractive to brand advertisers.
When Google Universal launched everyone knew this was a big deal, but we’re only just starting to see it playing out. For advertisers there’s a real opportunity to combine targeting synonymous with the pull marketing power of search with the capabilities of multimedia display advertising.
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