Carousels of Google Shopping ads spotted on YouTube
Testing an expansion of Shopping Ads on YouTube.
Google began integrating Shopping Campaign ads into YouTube in May 2015 — first for brands and retailers to show their own ads alongside their videos with TrueView for Shopping, and then opening up to all advertisers as part of the Search Partners network with Shopping Ads on YouTube nearly a year ago. Now, it appears Google is testing a traditional carousel format for Shopping Ads on YouTube.
Rather than showing a couple of ads along the right-hand side of a video on desktop, a scrollable carousel shows four ads below a video at any one time. The format was spotted by the team at s360 in Denmark on Monday. Below is a screen shot showing relevant shopping ads below a Bruce Springsteen video and another showing ads for cleats below a soccer cleat product review video.
Click to enlarge.
[Click to enlarge]
The s360 team says the ads are not showing for all users in Denmark, and I have been unable to replicate these results in the US. The test appears to be on desktop only at this point. This type of format makes sense, though, and I’d expect to see the test expand. In May, Google officially rolled out product listing ads in image search results.
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