Google Inc., widely considered to be the most powerful search engine and ubiquitous brand on the Internet, is quietly testing a new advertising strategy on an unexpected medium: paper. The search powerhouse makes 99 percent of its revenue from selling Internet ads. But according to Google and executives at companies that buy advertising from them, the search engine company recently bought full-page ads in at least two technology magazines and resold parts of those pages to small advertisers that belong to its online ad program, known as AdWords. more here: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1855093,00.asp
Seems foolish to me. AdWords ads are already skipped over by most internet users, and even more likely to be skipped over in print. This type of text based ad doesn't work as well in print advertising. Especially for web sites - it takes out the instant gratification of seeing the ad, clicking and instantly being at a place where the product/service is available (especially if you're reading somewhere other than at your desk). I won't be participating.
We also have pay-per-call rolling out although Yahoo is the only one of the major players to be considering it
Others are more than considering it http://www.miva.com/us/content/advertiser/paypercall.asp I've heard rumors about Google too, but my adwords rep "Isn't allowed to talk about it"
Yeah, I saw there are a few existing...Verizon (superpages.com) is also rolling it out as we speak I don't think Yahoo and Google are as well suited which is why they haven't thrown their hat in the ring.........yet
Google is raising eyebrows by probing for opportunities outside the digital world for the first time ever, announcing it would conduct a test of a program to re-sell print advertising space to customers of its online marketing programs. Google has purchased space in next week's issues of PC Magazine and Maximum PC magazine with the intention of re-selling that space to its online customers. The move marks the first time that Google ads will appear anywhere but online. Speculation in the advertising industry was that Google may experiment with various payment options for the print space, possibly auctioning it off the way it lets marketers bid on keyword placements or attempting to translate the pay-per-click-through model that works well online by pricing ads based on the number of visits to a certain Web URL or calls to a specific phone number they generate.
Print ads are very expensive. I guess if google buys enough volume, they can work out a nice little discount. Question is how much ad space (full page, half page, 1/4 etc) and how many ads per space. Its kinda scary to me. Google could easily manipulate the advertising market with its resources. Whats next Google tv ads? LOL
Actually I was seeing something today where they are planning on implementing video services where there would be video commercials involved. I think they have their eye on the entire advertising spectrum.. Which I think is actually a good strategy as it gives you more options with advertisers and allows you to become a one-stop shop for a lot of them.
They have already started Google Current which is aired after every one hour on a TV channel. I wonder whether they will start displaying ads there as well in bottom of the screen. Difinately no doubt that one of the main reason behind google success is that they first focussed on the search engine and with time they put their entire efforts in enhancing it. And now when they have captured the search engine market they are putting their efforts in new things. I wonder if they have any plans regarding starting a Travel Portal like googletravel.com, where one will only get searches related to travel industry and their will be graphical ads there. This might not sound so good, but if google implement it everybody will go after it. Even travel.yahoo.com use to do PPC in google.