Google AdWords and Yahoo! are both now displaying video ads. You can see screen shots here and here.
I think you’re going to start seeing more and more of this. We’ve expected it for some time. The only question was, what would it look like? Well, now we can see.
It looks just like a text ad with a plus sign at the bottom that expands into the video view. Then you can watch the video right there in the SERP. I think the big question is going to be how many people will actually click to watch the video? If text ads are any indication, it will likely be quite low. But advertisers will know that anyone who does click to watch the video is a targeted lead. And that’s what advertisers are geared to pay for – targeted leads.
I expect pay per video prices to start off low then crawl upwards and more and more advertisers learn to use them. It will likely take a year, maybe two at the most, before the pay per video prices reach a level comparable to pay per click prices. And, who dares to mention PPV fraud?
