Whoa! Gary notes that AdSense Image, itself a test program, is planning on taking animated gifs for a test group soon. From the site:
Enhanced image ads
Google will soon be expanding its image ad program to include a wider variety of creative formats. We’ll be accepting animated GIFs from a small test group of advertisers, and you’ll be able to display these ads on your pages! The new ads will still adhere to the 50KB size limit, and will be reviewed according to our editorial guidelines for image ads. You can opt in to image ads from within your publisher account – for full instructions, please refer to the AdSense FAQ.
OK, now, this is interesting. On the one hand, it’s Google clearly following its customer’s lead – the advertising customer, that is. And it’s crossing a line that until now has not been crossed – moving, dancing images. What that has to do with relevance, the watchword of Google’s ad policies up until now, I can’t really say. Well, yes I can: Nothing. Animations are all about the other portion of advertising; getting your attention.
It won’t be long till my vision of Google as clearinghouse for the entire television upfront comes to pass, I’d wager…
Aren’t text ads considered more effective? I can’t find the links right now, but I thought studies have found that most users ignore banners and pay attention to text ads.
Hey John, you said:
” What that has to do with relevance, the watchword of Google’s ad policies up until now, I can’t really say. ”
The ads should be extremely relevant since they will still be targeted based upon keywords when you are setting up your ad campaigns on google…the only difference is that they will be image ads instead of text…and now they will be dancing monkeys…
I am just wondering what the overall CPM would be on ads like this…it seems the advertisors are getting a pretty good deal to get targeted advertising.