Ready For Prime Time? Google Serves Second Course of Print Ads
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Written By Reprise Media | February 9, 2006 | Share This
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Attention US Adwords advertisers: if it’s always been your dream to buy an ad in Pregnancy magazine from Google, your ship has finally come in. Clickz news reports that Google’s venture into print publication advertising, which began as a select, invitation-only experiment late last year, is now open to anyone with an active Adwords account and some additional cash to spare.
When we touched on this topic in December, the short-term prospects for Google’s print ad endeavor seemed fairly dim. BusinessWeek called the result of the 10 advertiser trial run “lackluster.” It was said that 9 of the 10 lost money on their ads, and for 8 of them it was enough to put them off the Google print proposition for the forseeable future. Analysts came up with several reasons why it might be slow going for awhile, one being that the direct marketers making up the bulk of Google’s online advertiser army are traditionally ignored, underserved, and priced out by print publications.
With Google calling all its Adwords subscribers on board today, it’s time to put those theories to the test (and possibly to rest). Google’s print ad auctions will be similar to their online Adwords counterparts in at least one respect: winning bids will be discounted to the amount needed to beat the next highest bid for space on a given page. Bidders may try for ad space in up to three issues of 30 different magazines, among them Car and Driver,
Martha Stewart Living and Ellegirl. Google reminds us that this is still only a dry run, and that they are “not planning to provide any tracking or reporting services;” bids will be accepted through Feb. 20 (check the FAQ for more info).
Predictably, the plan does have its detractors. Marketing Shift warns that online advertisers, who are accustomed to “measurable ROI and conversion rates,” could take much convincing, and opines that fiddling with an old economy advertising model “is like landing a plane without the gear down.” That said, it seems like many Adwords veterans are tentatively optimistic, if one can judge from bloggers’ reactions and these discussions on the Search Engine Roundtable forums. At least for now, it’s open season on Google print ads. Happy hunting, and if anybody’s got early feedback on how the system is working, shoot us an email - we’d love to compare notes.
Topics: Advertising: Offline |