Google Testing New Ad Formats For Movies, Music In Anti-Piracy Effort

Today, Google published a report on how the company fights piracy. As part of this, Google provided updates on new ad formats its using to point users to “legitimate sources of music and movie downloads”. The newest format, which we have just seen in the wild, shows a list of ads in a card at […]

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Today, Google published a report on how the company fights piracy. As part of this, Google provided updates on new ad formats its using to point users to “legitimate sources of music and movie downloads”.

The newest format, which we have just seen in the wild, shows a list of ads in a card at the top of the search results.

Google adwords movies ads card

In the example above, Amazon, Google Play and Netflix are all advertising on a search to “Watch Star Trek Into Darkness Online”. These ads appear when there is no knowledge panel showing up on the right side.

Google says the ads will show on queries that include terms such as “download,” “free,” or “watch”.

The second type of ad format showing for movies and music queries is one we’ve covered before. Ads are displayed within the knowledge panel displayed on the right-hand side of the search results.

It appears, though, that this test is expanding. Ads routinely show up now on queries for major artists and bands.

Music ads in knowledge panel Google


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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