Written by Honcho | Feb 10, 2011 1:50:42 PM
Google have been experimenting with comparison ads for around 2 years now without many advances in product ranges or ad formatting. Just over a year ago we did a blog post about comparison ads and it seems that not much has changed. Recently I have started to see them appear more often as seen in the screen shot below.
The comparison ads allow you to quickly compare a range of different products by a number of different variables quickly and easily. Currently comparison ads in the UK are only showing for terms like “credit cards” that are very expensive and very competitive. So is this just a sneaky way of Google squeezing even more money from these already very lucrative search terms? When clicking the compare button you are directed to Google compare with a number of different credit cards and search options. These cards can be applied for via the Google comparison website that will undoubtedly earn Google some more money. So comparisons can potentially turn one ad into hundreds of high commission links. So what’s the future of comparison ads then? Well in the US you can already compare prices of mortgages, checking accounts, CDs and Savings accounts, so in the near future I’m sure we will begin to see these appearing in UK PPC results. What other search terms do you think Google could include in comparison ads? Do you think these ads could be taking too many clicks from PPC impressions you’re potentially paying for?