The mobile platform is has been proven to be a lucrative and rewarding advertising space for many businesses over the last few years. In recognition of this trend, Google recently announced the launch of an innovative pilot program allowing mobile app development companies to advertise their own apps from right inside the Google Play Store. To start off with, these advertisement options are to be made available to ad account holders who advertise at the Google web page. Their advertisements will now be shown in the same format for Google Play Store search results. This is a great new mode of advertising that mobile app developers are likely to find extremely suited to their needs.
Advertising in Google Play
According to initial reports, this new pilot program will not put ads in overpopulated category pages or the Top Charts section. Instead, ads will be displayed based on targeted search queries, much like the experience on the main Google search engine page. Mobile app developers can target their ad impressions based on a particular set of search keywords like Google Adwords, and their apps would be displayed on the top region of those relevant search results on the Play Store, with a small label indicating it as an advertisement.
The search query-based ads for the Google search engine have done a great job improving content discovery for both advertisers and users, and this new feature is well set to follow the same trend. Being a competitive, bid-based advertising platform, this system will allows startups and smaller developers to gain visibility, showcase their products and compete with larger companies in a platform which has already seen over a million apps, according to Google.
Search Advertisers get First Dibs
Since the program is in the pilot testing phase, the action at both ends is limited. The ads will display only on the most recent version of Play Store, and will be seen by a small number of users. Advertisers were selected for the pilot run from among those companies that already advertise with Google. Invitations were sent out to a few companies to be part of the pilot testing process, which does not involve any upfront fee for the ads to begin with. This period is supposed to help publishers and user get a feel for the platform and test out its nuances. Matters coming under scanner are likely to include the ad mix, the number of ads shows per search, the keyword targeting process and any future of chance of these searches influencing the Top Charts algorithm later.
There is no opt-in scheme currently available for either advertisers or users for this program. There is also no confirmed time table yet for the pilot run. Google has made it clear that currently, there is no connection between advertisements being displayed in the main search page and the Play Store, although, advertisers currently advertising with Google are likely to be given preference when the platform open up after the pilot period.