Ads are coming to AI Overviews, Google announced today at Google Marketing Live 2024.
What’s new. Google is testing the inclusion of search and shopping ads within AI overview boxes that can appear in search results for complex queries.
How it works. When an ad is deemed relevant to both the search query and AI Overviews, it will appear within that overview in a “sponsored” section.
No action required by advertisers – existing search, top performing and shopping campaigns can be automatically eligible.
Why we care This could make advertisers happy as their ads could be improved, but it could also result in fewer clicks to a brand’s site. This could be the start of the traffic drop as Google provides the information consumers want directly in the SERP.
The general picture. This update represents one of Google’s first steps toward monetizing its AI investments in consumer products like Search.
Early user testing found that people are finding the AI overviews useful and are visiting a more diverse variety of websites through the links provided, Google said.
What they are saying “We will remain focused on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators,” Google said, suggesting a balanced approach between AI content and external web sources.
between the lines Inserting ads into AI descriptions is new territory for Google and comes at a time when AI is expensive and a potential threat to its lucrative search ad core business model .
intrusiveness Any overly disruptive or intrusive ad placement in AI-generated Overviews could undermine its perceived usefulness and objectivity.
[ad_2]
Source link
