Google trying new ad formats — could they land on a parked domain near you?
During the past two quarters Google has been rolling out a number of new ad formats for search ads on Google.com. On yesterday’s investor conference call, the company explained a few of them.
Site Links – these came online in Q4, and basically deep link to sections of an advertiser’s web site. For example, here’s an ad for Toys R Us:
Product Links – ads for specific products might show pricing and pictures, such as this one for “HP All in One Printer”:
Video Ads – these expandable ads show videos directly within the Google.com ad. Here’s an example when you search for the new movie “The Losers”:
Of course, the company also is testing lead generation ads.
Also on the call, Google explained that it’s getting more involved with cost-per-action. Some e-commerce stores will provide Google with their product list and pricing, and then turn over advertising to Google. Google chooses when and where to display ads, and then gets a cut of sales — much like an affiliate program. It’s kind of like affiliate arbitrage for Google, except they get to bid on trademarks whereas most affiliates can’t.
Obviously Google is trying these new ad formats because they boost revenue. Could that translate into more ad options for Google Adsense, including the parking channel? That could be a big boon. Right now most parking programs that display photos of products use a Shopping.com feed. A Google feed might produce better results. Showing videos and specific product links could also boost revenue on parked domains.
Seeing these ads on parked domains is obviously a long way off. But there’s potential.
Interesting and informative article Andrew.
This is where those longtails will prove very valuable. Bing is already doing something similar but internally.
Let’s see how these evolve.
Many thanks,
Henry.
It could also mean the end of PPC and the beginning of CPA.
If G’s CPA is a slam dunk winner then that may make PPC look like a second rate advertising vehicle, which could put Yahoo and Bing under extreme pressure to upgrade to a CPA model, which ultimately might mean the death of PPC.
Let’s hope the CPA pays the same or more for domains. Experience, at least with other networkds like CJ and LinkShare, shows the payouts to be paltry. Of course, I’ve always thought they were never being honest.
The formula for Commission Junction is, “You send us 30,000 uniques and we pay you $30 for that prime product traffic from your premium generics”. I hope Google can do much better than this.
@ Tim – but as of now, Google is using PPC as its vehicle for CPA. It’s still paying publishers a per click price, but will drop that publisher from showing the ad if it’s not converting.
Andrew, so this is for google search feed – meaning only domainsponsor will possibly have this?
@ Peter – right now its only on Google owned properties — no feeds. But that doesn’t mean it can’t/won’t be expanded in the future.
Given it numerous attributes and advantages, PPC will be with us always.
Even if CPA proves/ed more profitable, Google wouldn’t drop it, since other cos–including Yahoo and Microsoft–would happily (re)embrace it.
Google ads slow loading of the page, from what I read on Google forums on speed improvement. I have never signed up with Google adsense, but they look like they make a site slow-loading. Those shown look like they will make websites REALLY slow loading . . . what do you think?
Very nice…the ads now are very slow if they optimized their speed of the ads that would be huge.