14 DAY TRIAL // Google has announced that it's started to roll out the +1 button integration for ads that it unveiled a few weeks ago. With the new social ads, users will be able to see if any of their friends found them useful.
They'll also be able to mark the ads, via the +1 button, to let their friends know that this is a relevant ad.
This should improve the quality of the ads that users see and it should also improve the engagement with the ads, thus the advertisers will be happy as well.
Of course, happier advertisers and more engaged users means more money for Google, so it looks like the new social-enabled ads are a win/win/win situation.
Except for one small, but crucial detail, most likely, no one is going to use them. Google has an answer for that, though.
"Starting today, if you’re running display ads through the Google Display Network, you may begin seeing the +1 button and annotations with your ads," Dan Friedman, from the Inside AdWords Team, wrote.
"Now, with a single click, people can recommend your ads’ landing pages to their friends and contacts," he explained.
"We believe that incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it," Google said, confident in its ads.
The new social ads are a great idea. But it's hard to imagine that many people actively +1'ing an ad, even if they found it useful. It's unlikely that the ads will see the kind of activity they need for this feature to be truly relevant.
But there's one thing that could change that, or at least, improve the number of +1's for ads. You see, the +1's in the ads are not for the 'ad' itself, but rather to the ad's landing page. If a website would add a +1 button to that landing page those +1's will likely count as well and will show up in the ads.