AdSense has long offered quite a large variety of mediums on which to display adverts on the Google Display Network. The choices range from a simple banner advert offering a special promotion, to a video or rich media ads explaining specific product benefits.
But with the plain text advert (the ads that resemble actual Google results) flavour of AdSense it has always been difficult to create a distinct message, as it only allows text copy and not any visual design elements.
Now Google has released a feature allowing some tweaks to text ads, if for nothing else other than consistency.
Customisable Formats and Increased Visibility
Okay, so you won’t exactly be given free artistic rein over your advert, rather you’ll be able to make some subtle changes to its appearance, including:
* Font sizes
* Letter spacing
* Text layout
Unfortunately it seems you won’t be able to change the typeface, for now. Later updates may include this but it could be too radical a change for text ads.
Also, a new arrow button will now appear either below or on the right of text ads. As these will serve as link buttons, the same as the ad title, it won’t add any increased functionality. Rather, the feature will make adverts more visible on participating webpages and make it easier for web-users with tablets and mobile devices to touch select ads that peak their interest.
The colour of the arrow will be coordinated around the selected colour scheme of the campaign.
Any Benefits to Your Google Ads Campaign?
It’s hard to tell exactly what the benefits will be right now. From a purely statistical perspective, adverts being more visible and easier to select will obviously results in a greater number of clicks. Which is almost certainly good, for Google.
The real concern for those running PPC campaign with Google Ads, will be whether the quality of these clicks (conversion ratios) will be maintained, or even possibly improved. After all, ads which are easier to click are bound to cause a greater number of accidental clicks and subsequent abandonments, particularly for touch screen users. Although time, and tireless analysis, will tell.