Google has announced a new version of AdWords called Media Ads, aimed initially at marketers of major motion pictures with new releases. It will allow them to embed the trailer into their ad, and have it automatically come up first when someone searches for the title, or some variation of it. When someone clicks, Google will bring up a large lightbox to play the video, dimming the rest of the screen.

Marketers will pay a flat fee every time someone clicks on the ad, but there’s no bidding and no keywords. If they’re the verified studio behind the movie, they’ll get the top ranking.

Google’s been experimenting for some time with ways of allowing major film studios to make trailers available within AdWords. First, Video Extensions, which embedded videos inline, were in limited beta release. Now Google is making the new offering available to the same people. Eventually, the company plans to make the product available more widely, to other providers of video content.

The company says this is part of an initiative to create new AdWords formats, which it started more than a year ago.

(Home page image via Shutterstock, used with permission.)

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Executive Features Editor at Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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