Google to add Banners

Google is allowing banner ads, skyscrapers, leader boards and inline rectangles in its AdSense ad network. The ad displays will not be shown on Googles site or any of the search engines, but will appear on content oriented sites. Google will not be allowing rich media (yet), but we wouldn’t be surprised if that happened in the future.

Google will link the new image ads to keywords in the same way it handles the text ads. Advertisers will bid on keywords for placement across Google’s network of content publisher Web pages. The ad formats will consist of some of the top sizes and file size will be limited to 50k.

For now there will be no additional premium for the image ads; the advertisers opt-in to the program and send Google the creative. Publishers also have to opt-in and decide what formats to accept.

There are some downsides to this new feature to consider, such as, advertisers won’t have any control over when, where, or if their creative will be shown. This point has been a source of frustration in the past for Google Adwords customers.

According to Salar Kamanger, director of product management for Google, Google’s AdWord ranking program will determine whether image or text ads will perform better based on evaluating previous performance. An automated AdSense program will determine keyword relevance and the best match will be served. Each display ad will equal four text ads. Google will determine if four text ads will perform better than the one display ad.

Google will also scale back the banners in order to place two small pieces of text underneath the creative; one will show the company’s URL and the other is for feedback. This could affect the overall look of the banner. Google did say that the advertisers could put these pieces of text into the creative themselves, if they want to.

Google is expanding because they see a new way to generate revenue. Currently, most of their revenue is generated from text ads. It was an inevitable move on their part.