It’s no secret that, as time goes on, consumers and prospects grow more and more impervious to advertisements. Search ads, banner ads, Facebook ads, even billboards, highway signs, and yards signs have or are becoming a more difficult medium to use to reach customers.
Google knows that this is a phenomenon. It’s painfully aware of it, in fact since they run a significant portion of the pay-per-click advertising on the web today. Luckily for them, they’re doing something about it. They’re adding more and more information to advertisements in the form of reviews, ratings, videos, and links.
This creates ads that are more and more complex and offer virtually enough information to give a user a good idea of whether or not they want to click through to the site in question.
I think this indicates a trend that has bene taking shape for many, many years. Information is the advertising of the future. As the world and Internet grow more and more socially-based, the information required and the time that it’s required in grow larger and smaller, sequentially. In other words, people don’t just want to be told about a product, they want to know the price, ratings, reviews, any coupons, where it’s available, and how many in stock. Right now. Where they are.
A simple worded ad will very soon no longer suffice for information-hungry searchers. You will soon need to add video, photos, reviews, and more.
It’s such a strong trend that Google says that 1/3 of all of its search ads are no longer simply worded, but “enhanced”.
You can read more about it here.