Google Tests Video Ads on Search Results Pages
Google has always had a love-hate relationship with advertising. Its power and wealth come from the $16 billion a year of advertising that it sells. Yet on its most important pages, the results from its Web search engine …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google had already tested advertising for its video service in 2006, then explored richer ad formats on search pages in 2007. The search-results test extends that progression to Google’s most valuable advertising surface.
Google’s advertising business generates approximately $16 billion annually, making the format of search ads consequential even when the change is only a test. The same story was also picked up by Between the Lines, indicating attention to whether video changes the character of search results.
First-order effects
- Google adds video as an experimental search-results ad format, giving advertisers a potential alternative to text-led search creative on those pages.
- Search users in the test encounter advertising that occupies more visual attention than conventional text ads, raising the stakes for Google’s page-design decisions.
Second-order effects
- Advertisers must weigh video production and placement against established text-search campaigns if Google makes the format more broadly available.
- Google’s search-ad sales organization gains a richer format to test for engagement without abandoning the text ads that underpin its advertising revenue.
Third-order effects
- If richer formats continue to move onto search results, Google’s results page shifts from a largely text-based marketplace toward a more visual advertising inventory, with user tolerance constraining the transition.
The trend: Search advertising is moving from standardized text listings toward richer media formats on the results page itself.