AdWords has been making several big pushes over the last few years that contribute to this.
Among them:
- Pushing advertisers to advertise higher up in the funnel with additional clicks. Things like the push for "ZMOT" (Zero Moment of Truth) and such focus on the branding side of things before people are ready to convert. Google has long had advertisers focus primarily on last click conversions which does not play nicely with tracking for brand efforts.
- Video ad pushes by reps have been pretty big. Video CPMs are much higher than static display images, and that is also why you see every publisher under the sun having a a video for every article that autoplays even if it is a useless annoying video. And why they are looking into auto-generated videos.
- Turning previously free resources into paid plays (Google Product Search)
My gut right now in terms of their future monetization is the continued transition of Gmail from a "regular" mail platform into an algorithmic feed where advertisers have to pay a dynamic, auction-based payment model to get into the inbox. The Promotions tab is the first step in that direction. Gmail ads have been the next step. I would expect them to start adding them spread out through your inbox feed in the not too distant future, and then start drastically tapering brand reach unless you pay up like FB has done.
Additionally, their push for bots and voice search is to have people ask questions and just provide the answer and not give a list of choices. They want to know you well enough where they can guess right, but the options they provide are all paid placements, so you get the most relevant paid placement. It won't happen now, but once voice assistants are an integral part of the mobile experience that people can't live without and Google succeeds in owning the space.
Among them:
- Pushing advertisers to advertise higher up in the funnel with additional clicks. Things like the push for "ZMOT" (Zero Moment of Truth) and such focus on the branding side of things before people are ready to convert. Google has long had advertisers focus primarily on last click conversions which does not play nicely with tracking for brand efforts.
- Video ad pushes by reps have been pretty big. Video CPMs are much higher than static display images, and that is also why you see every publisher under the sun having a a video for every article that autoplays even if it is a useless annoying video. And why they are looking into auto-generated videos.
- Turning previously free resources into paid plays (Google Product Search)
My gut right now in terms of their future monetization is the continued transition of Gmail from a "regular" mail platform into an algorithmic feed where advertisers have to pay a dynamic, auction-based payment model to get into the inbox. The Promotions tab is the first step in that direction. Gmail ads have been the next step. I would expect them to start adding them spread out through your inbox feed in the not too distant future, and then start drastically tapering brand reach unless you pay up like FB has done.
Additionally, their push for bots and voice search is to have people ask questions and just provide the answer and not give a list of choices. They want to know you well enough where they can guess right, but the options they provide are all paid placements, so you get the most relevant paid placement. It won't happen now, but once voice assistants are an integral part of the mobile experience that people can't live without and Google succeeds in owning the space.