Watch Closely - Google Debuts Video Ads
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Written By Reprise Media | May 23, 2006 | Share This
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Yesterday, the Inside AdWords blog announced that click-to-play video ads will join text, flash and image ads as an available format for advertising on Google’s AdSense network.
Advertisers can choose to pay on either a cost-per-click or cost-per-thousand impressions basis, and can target ads either to specific sites or direct them to run against specific keywords. Geo-targeting is also available for the ads, to tailor their reach locally, nationally or internationally - although at the moment the video ad format is only available to advertisers in the US, Japan and Canada.
Unlike many video ads you may have seen on the net, Google’s will not begin playing automatically; a user must initiate the ad view, and can stop, fast-forward, rewind or adjust the volume of the video at will. Inside AdWords doesn’t specifically say that advertisers will have to pay for ad displays even if no one decides to play them, but we’re guessing that’s the case.
Few have had a chance to actually test the ads out yet, but the offering is already generating reviews of the ‘mixed’ variety. While Google made sure to pay heed to user experience by giving web surfers control over the ads, Jen Slegg is a little peeved that Big G is ignoring the quality of the publisher experience by not allowing content providers to “opt-out of video ads.” Greg Sterling, quoted on Search Engine Journal, has an upbeat view, saying the ads give Google “a real product for brand marketers, something the company has wanted but hasn’t really had until now.”
Michael Arrington, though, provides a laundry list of reasons why he’s “betting against” the product. Probably the most compelling: “When someone clicks on a video, they aren’t clicking through to a website, where some sort of action can occur that can be tied to an ROI.” It’ll be interesting to see how popular the ads are, given that they engage the user much more than a text ad but also demand more action from the user in order to convert.
Topics: Advertising: Contextual |