Google Flash ads

It’s official. With almost no hullabaloo, Google’s content ad network has begun allowing the use of rich-media Flash ads. Given that Flash ads are the ‘holy grail’ according to most major online marketers, this is potentially a big shake-up to online publishers and advertisers.

In the world of brand marketers, who focus on building brands rather than “direct response”, these Flash ads fill a gap that has been missing from Google’s “sponsored link” text ads. While revenue from sponsored text links represents the vast bulk of Google’s income, many big brand marketers have avoided plain-Jane text ads, preferring instead the “emotive” experience of banner ads. The arrival of Flash ads in Google’s ad inventory is likely to appeal strongly to these brand conscious marketers.

So why has Google barely even announced the Flash ad addition to their system? Good question. So far there’s barely been a peep from Google’s Moutainview base. At best guess, it may have something to do with the extra ad serving capacity that will be required from serving Flash ads to billions of pages. Or it may be that other projects, such as Google Analytics, currently have the limelight as Google tries to eliminate the system’s existing capacity issues. No-one except Google really knows.

If you are keen to trial Flash ads in the content network, then Google does have some specific animated image ad guidelines, although some of the important technical Flash requirements (such as using Flash’s clickTAG function in the ads) are not yet listed on the website. Any internet marketing agency with even the slightest bit of nouse will be able to work out how to submit Flash ads into the system with a bit of trial and error.

If you want to try the Flash ads for your own business, please get in contact and we can help you out.

For the DIY “techie” advertisers then we suggest you check out Macromedia’s information about clickTAGs or follow these simple steps from Adlink. Please note that contrary to Adlink’s tips, newer versions of Flash are case sensitive (ie, use clickTAG not clickTag).