Google recently held its annual Google Marketing Live conference in San Francisco and our Digital Media Team was excited to send two members to represent Thruline.

One of the biggest announcements from the event was Google's announcement of Gallery Ads. This new ad format will roll out later in 2019 and allows advertisers to visually promote their product or service with a series of images relevant to the brand.

If you're familiar with Facebook's carousel ads, you have an idea of what Google's gallery ads will look like. The ad, which will be featured only in the top spot of the search engine results page, will feature up to 8 (minimum of 4) scrollable images. The ad will include a clickable headline above the images and each image can feature a tagline up to 70 characters to further engage search audiences with a visual experience.

Google's early testing showed the potential of 25% higher engagement in the form of clicks and swipes compared to standard text ads. The reason behind this lift is due to consumers growing needs to see what they're getting in order to understand the value. In the growing age of mobile, users are more engaged with imagery than with words alone, so this is a big step for Google: from copy-heavy ads to experience-focused imagery.

Once available in Beta testing, Thruline will work with our Google reps to build these out for our partners. Because these will be available only in the top spot at the start, we will focus on building these out first for brand campaigns and programs of high importance. To set these ads up for success in the world of education, we recommend using imagery that speaks to the experience the potential student will have at your university.

If you have more questions about Google's gallery ads product and how we can achieve success for your brand, please reach out!

Caryn Tate, Senior Digital Media Buyer