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A man stands next to an oversized Google map marker pin as attendees wait to enter the Google I/O developers conference at the Moscone Center on May 15, 2013 in San Francisco, California. Google is now letting advertisers place ads on Google Maps along users’ route
Google executives announced Tuesday that the company is adding more features and updating its mobile search and display ads, as marketers continue to shift spending from desktop ads to ones built for smartphones.
Google said advertisers can pay for promotional pins, or markers, placed on the routes of Google Maps users, so that a user who likes drinking Starbucks may see a discount on a Frappuccino on the way to the coffee bar. Search ads on Google Maps will also have more detailed information, so when a user looks up a nearby electronics store, for example, it will list what items the retailer has in stock.
“It’s very clear to us, and to all the advertisers that we speak with, that mobile is something that is already here,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, a senior vice president of ads and commerce. “It is the mainstream. You’ll see our product announcements really reflect that.”
Revenue from mobile search ads is expected to grow, as sales of desktop ads decline, according to research firm eMarketer. In 2014, Google made $5.9 billion in U.S. mobile search ads, compared with $10.3 billion for desktop ads, eMarketer said. This year, mobile search revenue is expected to be greater for the first time, with mobile ads raking in $11.45 billion compared with desktop ads at $10.58 billion, the research firm forecast.
Google’s display ads on mobile devices aren’t expected to eclipse desktop ads anytime soon. In 2016, Google’s U.S. mobile display ads are expected to bring in $1.89 billion, compared with desktop ads at $2.72 billion, eMarketer said.
The advertising announcements, made at a press event at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, had a different feel than last week’s I/O conference for developers in Mountain View, where Google CEO Sundar Pichai talked about the potential of machine learning and Google’s technology to cure diseases like diabetic retinopathy. At the San Francisco event, Google touted solutions to a far more prosaic if profitable problem: how to get people to buy things.
Jerry Dischler, a vice president of product management, said advertiser-sponsored pins on Google Maps will begin appearing this year on users’ screens based on their location, interests and other data. There will not be an option to turn off the promoted pins, Dischler said. Google Maps has more than 1 billion users, the company said.
Reactions will depend on whether the ads deliver things they actually want, analysts said.
“If I am passing areas of interest to me, making a side stop to buy something is logical,” said Tim Bajarin with advisory services firm Creative Strategies. But he warned that if the ads are “not contextual and something I am really interested in, it’s just an annoyance.”
Google says it sees an opportunity for the company, as 90 percent of sales happen in physical stores and nearly one-third of all mobile searches are related to location. Location-related mobile searches are now growing 50 percent faster than mobile searches overall, Dischler said.
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