on 25 February 2010In a move likely to reignite the ongoing debate about Google’s influence over the travel industry, engineers have the sector back on their radars as they launch another AdWords Comparison Ads trial.
The extension of the Google Comparison Ads pilot to the UK announced yesterday will see a new vertical tested by the search giant: credit cards.
Comparison Ads is effectively a metasearch (or price comparison, using the Cheapflights parlance) of products already in the AdWords system.
It looks and feels like a scaled-down Kayak in terms of functionality.
Trialled for the first time in some selected states in the US with mortgages in October 2009, credit card firms will be the next sector taken on board to test pricing, interest from suppliers, functionality and user behaviour.
Google is inevitably and officially remaining tight-lipped as to how, where and when it might extend the project further.
Even back in December 2009, representatives were playing down any idea that Comparison Ads would be extended.
Fast forward two months and unofficially from within the mothership travel is now acknowledged as an obvious sector to consider for a trial given the quantity of ads in the system, size of the marketplace and the engine’s starting point for many travel consumers.
As noted previously, Comparison Ads as a concept throws up a multitude of issues for Google and advertisers alike:
- PPC ad copywriting
- Product feeds
- Google client servicing
- Product sourcing
- Feed reliability
- Placement within Google real estate
- AdSense extension
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I think that Google has been hinting for awhile that it is interested in the travel sector. Travel and hospitality websites that optimize to rank well in Google are doing themselves a favor not only because Google is the most popular search engine, but the extra Google attention will pay off in the long run.