Google has begun testing “Ads Related to” for segments and categories for a few different search queries. They tested this last year but it quietly went away.
Dream Systems Media broke the news earlier this week when they found that Google has yet again started to test these types of ads in the search results:
For example, when you search for [fountain hills pest control] you will see “Ads related to fountain hills pest control” above the ads section that appears over the organic search results. Previously ads were seen with “Ads” or “Sponsored links” but this is the first time that Google has included and bolds the actual term that you searched for. You can see this in the image below of a search for [social media marketing]:
Around a year ago the ads were a little different. We noted that you can see “Related to airline pilot jobs:” and ads in the right column of your search results. I haven’t seen these ads in the past year though.
Were these ads working for anyone? I noticed that they fell out of the search results soon after we reported about them. Is Google trying to revive something that possibly got better results? Did anyone get better click-through rates with these types of ads?
Over the past couple months Google has been trying several different new ad placements. One that I have been playing around with is the top vs bottom placements of ads and having great success with bottom ads. Though it isn’t near what the top converts, it’s costing me and my clients far less money. It will be interesting to see which one converts better.