Google has embarked on its next paid for advertising program and launched today the Google Ad Gadget.
Google Gadget Ads take the form of ‘mini’ websites that allow companies to market and promote their products or services on the Google Content Network. These ads offer an alternative to what Google already has in place and will compete with other ad formats such as text, image and video ads offers.
Advertisers will have the opportunity of two payment models - Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per A Thousand Impressions (CPM) and will bid for keywords to place their gadget ads within Google’s network in the same way they do for Google AdWords and Google Website Targeting.
What is the Google Gadget?
The Google Gadget is a widget that allows advertisers the opportunity to display videos or trailers to tell a story and include RSS feeds that can be continually updated.
Visitors will have the opportunity to download the widget to their desktop or add them to other websites such as blogs. That in essence virally markets the widget for the advertisers i.e. free advertising. Also, you do not even have to visit the advertiser’s website and can read and watch everything within the Gadget itself!
In the example below, a user can watch the trailer directly within the gadget and at the bottom of the gadget, there are links entitled 'Chain of Events' that allow the user to read up on how events transpired and led on from one another. There is also a link to an RSS feed on selected stories concerning the advertiser.
All of this can be updated by the advertiser so your gadget can always be kept up to date and you only pay for your advertising costs and not your update costs. Obviously there are clear benefits for advertisers and marketers as the minute they update the media that makes up the gadget, these changes are immediately available to consumers on the advertising platforms you are using.
Click on the links at the top and the bottom as they appear:
The Google Gadget is currently still being tested and is not available to all Google AdWords Advertisers as it is currently in beta. However, Google did many test in the summer with a number of selected AdWords advertisers so the tool should be here soon for everyone.
This is an excellent new tool for marketers and something that big businesses will no doubt be embracing. The Google Gadget website has lots of interesting information on how to get started, tutorials and a Google Gadget Editor (a development tool that helps you build test and validate your ads).
For more information, please visit Google Gadget Ads
