• 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.

Related Articles:

> Google and Heineken Study Paid Search for Branding

> Report: Paid Search Spend Up 10%

> Search Ads Convert Better with Display

Microsoft Needs Live Search On Facebook

In the days when hoops legend Michael Jordan dominated the NBA as part of the Bulls, he essentially had the power to be paid whatever he asked to be paid. It took longer to get him to ask for a number than it did for ownership to write the check.

We see Facebook and Microsoft having a similar relationship, through their recent negotiations. Microsoft has plenty of cash. $240 million is a big number, but to a Microsoft, it’s virtually just another number on a spreadsheet.

It could be a bargain, if they can do what Greg Sterling expects them to do: place Live Search for web searching on Facebook. For some reason, the respective representatives of Facebook and Microsoft played a little coy when asked about search.

Microsoft didn’t value Facebook at $15 billion just to own a piece of a possible IPO. Microsoft wants search advertising to be a big part of its business model in the coming years. That youthful demographic of students on Facebook makes marketers drool with the desire to put ads in front of them.

As Sterling noted, anyone who wants to do a web search has to leave Facebook to start one. If people are going to leave, it makes sense for the web search to start at Facebook, with Live Search, and hope people exit through the contextual ads alongside the search results.

Of note, a company called SoulMate Calculator shows up in #12 spot for search ad impressions bought, just behind Yahoo. Not clear on what it is exactly but I see a couple of negative reactions to the ad in the blogosphere. Not that the blogosphere is something you should be condoning or paying attention to! Anyway, I thought Google was clamping down on low quality offers? Must have been temporary insanity, or they fixed whatever it was they were doing.

SoulMate had zero such impressions in previous months. That’s quite a campaign.

The usual suspects in terms of search ad impressions are well represented in the list: eBay, Amazon, Shopzilla, Nextag, and the “AOL of 2006″ (I dub them, for their mass marketing moxy), Vonage.

John Wiley & Sons had a big surge, which appears to be attributable to ads for Cliff Notes. “Cramming for Christmas” – it’s one of my favorite carols/carrels. (???)

Netratings/ClickZ ought to clarify if they’re including contextual ad impressions or not. Stats are so frustrating when they’re widely disseminated and you don’t know what they refer to. In Netratings’ methodology notes it almost hints that this might include contextual, which would make a real mess of things, because impressions can be extremely high on some contextual campaigns. And the rules for placement apply differently, so the minimum bid placed on low-quality campaigns/keywords may not hurt low-quality ads showing up in the contextual space (as much, as far as we know).

Comments

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Andrew Goodman is Principal of Page Zero Media, a marketing consultancy which focuses on maximizing clients’ paid search marketing campaigns.

In 1999 Andrew co-founded Traffick.com, an acclaimed “guide to portals” which foresaw the rise of trends such as paid search and semantic analysis.