The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is launching a test for a new form of advertising dubbed a “product ad”. Unlike the standard text ads that users are used to seeing on search results pages, product ads will “feature product specific information directly in the ad such as price and product image,” says Google. The product ads will only show when users use Google to search for retail products like shoes or camcorders.
Google is currently making the product ads visible to a small number of US users and the ads will be displayed along with standard text ads on Google.com. Unlike Google’s standard search ads, the company will only be paid for each user that makes a purchase. In the past, Google has priced its search ads based on a price-per-click methodology. Advertisers will be able to set the commission that they pay to Google and Google will decide which ads to display based on the commission level, how often the ads are clicked, along with other factors.
Many believe that the new ad format is an effort to combat Microsoft’s new Bing search engine which targets online shoppers by providing more detailed information about products being searched for. In order to participate in Google’s new service, retailers are required to submit a feed of their products through the existing Google Base service.
