AdWords News: Google +1 Coming To Display Ads

Google has announced that their relatively new Google +1 button is coming to Google AdWords display ads!

As you probably know by now, the +1 button has been live on search ads for a while now. Here’s a screenshot of one of my own ads showing that I +1′ed it:

Now, similar functionality will show on Display Network ads. Here is an example of what a display ad with +1 functionality will look like (photo courtesy of Google’s Inside AdWords blog):

Courtesy of Inside AdWords

As with +1 implementation on search ads, you won’t have to do anything – sometime soon the +1 button will simply begin appearing on your display ads.

The goal in this is to make ads more relevant by showing who, in an end-user’s Google network, has endorsed the ad. I expect this advantage to grow, perhaps slowly, but nevertheless exponentially as more and more people get on board with Google social features.

I also expect that this may make a bit of a dent in Facebook’s ad growth. While Facebook ad revenue is exploding, and is predicted to rise 104% according to eMarketer, the truth of the matter is that Facebook ads are still relatively ineffective when compared with AdWords. While Facebook may be current king of the “Like” button, AdWords still rules the pay-per-click space in terms of both market share and return-on-investment for advertisers, and the new +1 on ads will likely continue that dominance.