Google Tests Video in Search Ads

The entertainment business has so far stayed away from search advertising, preferring to display ads that are better suited for the type of content it typically markets. Text ads, which have become synonymous with search advertising, don't make much of a medium for promoting a movie but Google is trying out a new search ad format to tap into this potentially huge market.

Searches related to movies, games, music or celebrities make up a large part of the queries on Google but this hasn't translated into a proportional amount of advertising from this type of companies. In a move to change that, the Internet giant is now experimenting with video inside the search ads, currently partnering with a small number of advertisers like Miramax, Electronic Games and Discovery Channel, according to AdAge.

This new ad format was actually previewed last year in a small-scale test and then resurfaced earlier this year in another one. The format is now ready for a wider release and the new ad deals with the entertainment companies are the final step before launching the product on a larger scale, though Google says this may not happen and a final decision hasn't been reached. The ads themselves may actually be familiar to Google users as they are similarly designed like video search results part of Google's Universal Search.

The ads will look mostly like any other text ad showing up directly below the search bar but will also have a “watch video” link with a plus sign, which expands the ad overlay to reveal the full video player. Google gets paid if the users watch the video for longer than 10 seconds or click on the link. The results for the advertisers are already showing, with Discovery's Travel Channel tripling the click-through rates for a campaign for its "Man vs. Food" series, going from 2.18 percent for the text ads to 6.34 percent when using the video ads as well.