Google to allow PC Ads on Mobile
Google has announced a new feature for its AdWords service today, which will enable ads that were once formatted and restricted to the desktop computer to also appear on mobile phones. Historically, it didn’t make sense to deliver desktop ads to the phone because if a consumer clicked on it, they wouldn’t be able to view the page correctly. But now that some phones have full Internet browsers, this is less of a concern. Google said today in a blog post that advertisers will be able to place the same ads on the iPhone and the T-Mobile G1, as well as other phones with full HTML Internet browsers as they become available. This is likely a compelling option for an advertiser since it will allow them to reach mobile users without having to fuss with building separate mobile ad formats.
So what does this mean for non full web browser mobile phones? Clearly there are agreed standards for mobile ad formats. But it is going to be hard to convince Marketing Managers to run an ad plan with further fragementation of what ads can be served to what consumers.
I like the concept of this announcement. It will be interesting to see these ads on an iPhone and G1. It will be further interesting to see CPM and CTR rates and prices.
One Comment
Oli
Posted December 10, 2008 at 5:36 pm Permalink
But this would suggest that Google mobile was working, and displaying ads that would only take you to a mobile site… not so.
Google never got mobile advertising right in the first place… PC ads have consistently been displayed for mobile searches and therefore it’s a failure in my opinion. I think many other folks with mobile sites like me tried out Google Ads with excitement and shortly later switched back to more mobile friendly services like AdMob.
I think that all this announcement means is that now Google will have an excuse when the ad takes you somewhere that won’t display properly on your phone.