There’s been lots of testing of new ad formats going on at AdSense recently – but this one is really interesting – it’s a much more interactive looking AdSense unit that looks and functions a lot like Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks units.
It seems to be called the ‘Google Checkout Gadget’.
The ad was seen on a UK Tech site – Technical Itch by Dean.
My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from this new and dynamic medium from blogs like Digital Photography School and TwiTip - Twitter Tips.
Back in 2002 I stumbled upon an article about ‘Blogging’. I didn’t know it at the time but that moment changed my life. Since then I've become a full time blogger and have blogged on over 20 blogs and co-founded the b5media blog network.
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43 Responses to “New Interactive AdSense Unit with Pictures Spotted” - Add Yours
Chris Jacobson
December 20th, 2007 9:26 am
I wonder how those will have an impact on site load time?
Stephanie
December 20th, 2007 9:29 am
Similar to Chitika indeed! But I can’t blame them for wanting to offer some of that functionality to advertisers.
Chris Vincent
December 20th, 2007 9:33 am
Looks pretty much like a google version of all the widgets you see hanging around….
I wonder if these sites that the adverts are found on are in some sort of beta period…
Mathew Packer dot com
December 20th, 2007 10:30 am
Looks kinda cool, similar to Amazon and a few others..
Jodie
December 20th, 2007 10:34 am
that is really sweet, iv noticed them on various sites, it certainly catches the eye and is a change to the normal adsense units many people have become blind to…
Ron
December 20th, 2007 10:50 am
This is great, it is about time Google came out with something like this. It should add alot to a sites monetization.
Wedding Professional
December 20th, 2007 10:50 am
I think interactive adverts are definately the way that Google is heading.
The usual text ads are becoming a victim to banner blindness.
asynadak
December 20th, 2007 10:54 am
This is really cool staff!!! I am going to check if it is available in Greece!!!
Neerav
December 20th, 2007 10:56 am
They better not be be testing those on people who only use google text ads
Also I can’t see any point testing them on Australian sites since no one uses Google Checkout here
Complete Geek
December 20th, 2007 11:17 am
Looks pretty good to me. Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to test adsense out on my own blog.
trmanco
December 20th, 2007 11:18 am
They look kinda weird.
but, if this will bring more income for publishers, they are welcome..
JoLynn Braley
December 20th, 2007 11:25 am
Are they open for testing by all adsense users and they just show up in place of other google ads (if in the correct size unit), or do you have to activate them after signing up? I’ll have to check and see if I have an option to use them, thanks for the info Darren!
Lipton
December 20th, 2007 11:32 am
hmm that is pretty cool, I guess they have to catch up… Good to see they are trying more things, since well text link ads are getting boring.
The World's Smartest Man
December 20th, 2007 11:33 am
Very interesting. It seems like the obvious next step, I’m a fan.
jhay
December 20th, 2007 11:41 am
Hmm, maybe this is the reason why my blog loads a little longer nowadays and sometimes the ads just don’t show up. Not that I’ve seen one in my blog but the other interactive adsense units have appeared in it on a few occasions.
If this becomes mainstream, ad optimization schemes would have to be tweaked once more.
Lara Kulpa
December 20th, 2007 11:44 am
Gee, just in time for the holidays, eh? ;) lol
motorsportBABESau
December 20th, 2007 11:48 am
looks good
cant wait for this to come out of beta
Johnny
December 20th, 2007 12:01 pm
glad they’re coming out with something new….that’ll help combat ad blindness as the standard adsense is everywhere.
i know it’s like chitika…which never performed well for me..but somehow i’m getting excited about this? hmm…must be the brainwashing google has done on me. :)
Bri
December 20th, 2007 12:19 pm
As long as it does not impact load times too much, it could be a winner.
I actually saw one of the scrolling ads on one of my sites the other day – not too sure about those. Not convinced people will realise they can scroll to see more ads.
David Scrivner
December 20th, 2007 12:19 pm
I really like this ad. It looks pretty clean and it seems to be a lot more interactive like the Chitika and WidgetBucks. I wonder why it has taken Google so long to come out with this kind of stuff. I do wonder as well how load times are affected by such widgets though. I want my page to load fast but look really good too. It seems that it is sort of a balancing act.
Mike - Twenty Steps
December 20th, 2007 12:20 pm
So Google ban you from aligning images to your AdSense units to enhance them but it’s OK for them to use images to promote their Checkout product?
Double standards coming out of the Plex. No surprises there, eh?
Bri
December 20th, 2007 12:27 pm
It seems to be a play on this iGoogle gadget that was announced back in July
http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/2007/07/our-new-igoogle-gadget.html
MJ Klein
December 20th, 2007 1:15 pm
we had a couple of color Adsense units with photos running the other day, but they’ve disappeared. they’re testing something for sure.
we have also had some bizarre Widget Bucks wide banner ads appearing too. since we are outside the US, they are apparently using affiliate links because there was even one ad for sexy chicks and i’ve never seen anything like that from WB before.
Darshana
December 20th, 2007 1:15 pm
It’s about time Google made a change to there add format, people are becoming more and more blind to standard add unit.
This looks pretty cool! The challenge will be to see if they perform better overall than standard adds.
Justin Khoury
December 20th, 2007 1:37 pm
Lately I’ve noticed Google’s been playing with quite a lot of different templates for their Adsense ads.
Definitely one I like, they’re on the ball with this one.
Technology Slice
December 20th, 2007 1:38 pm
I really like this ad. I haven’t seen it anywhere before.
Marlon
December 20th, 2007 2:28 pm
Its great to see AdSense trying some different things. Will be interesting to see how these more visual / interactive ads perform compared to the standard text link ads.
Jeremiah - SimpleTiger
December 20th, 2007 4:25 pm
I think this is pretty interesting. Do you know any of the semantics like how many times one of these ads can be placed on a page, etc? I just checked my adsense account and I don’t have it yet. Pretty nifty though!
manica
December 20th, 2007 6:33 pm
I have the igoogle gadget on my igoogle page. So, goggle want compete with all advertising network… mmh I don’t know, if It is a good thing
Dean Taplin
December 20th, 2007 6:53 pm
Thanks for the link. I haven’t noticed any decrease in web page load times with these types of ad running. So far they’ve only appeared in the footer. I will monitor CTR over the next few days and see how it performs.
kickstyle
December 20th, 2007 6:54 pm
this should be an exciting thing to test, but I will definitely stick with the good old text ads, they will keep rocking
Joe Austrian Blogger Fischler
December 20th, 2007 7:50 pm
I like it
David at free Christian resources
December 20th, 2007 8:07 pm
Looks good to me. It is great to see google trying out new formats. Really they should have been doing this all along.
I look forward to trying these out in the near future!
SpicePuppy
December 21st, 2007 1:19 am
It looks very nice, but I’d like to hear about the results from people who test it.
GettyCash
December 21st, 2007 2:09 am
It looks nice.. I hope it ’s not gonna slow down the page.
Michael Grove
December 21st, 2007 4:32 am
Wonder what the next step will be? They are sure trying out lot of new ad-senses
Ruchir
December 21st, 2007 6:38 am
Haven’t they been testing a lot of new features lately? I’d love to see this new unit integrated officially…
m
December 21st, 2007 8:33 am
Much better to look at than text links. Will they perform any better?
Bruce Keener
December 21st, 2007 9:59 am
I’m glad to see Google doing more experimenting. In a sense, we all learn from it.
Artur Kim
December 21st, 2007 1:22 pm
Its simplicity is what makes this unit look different from Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks units, which might be better for some sites. This is a very interesting ad format coming from Google.
Mahesh
December 22nd, 2007 5:14 am
It looks good… and Google must introduce this sort of things…. in adsense ads….. the old text ads are boring now…. ;)
immy
March 24th, 2008 6:39 am
they still did’t launch them yet, lazy ;)
MOin
September 2nd, 2008 7:41 pm
its been long and still i did’t spotted any of these its mean they postponed the idea of launching this type of ads.
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