Giant Banner Ads Being Tested In Google’s Search Results

Google is running what it calls a “small experiment” in the US to show giant banner ads for specific branded search queries. The screenshot below posted by @SynrgyHQ shows a sponsored ad for Southwest Airlines on the branded search query [southwest airlines]. It doesn’t appear easy to replicate this test, but Google has confirmed that […]

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Google is running what it calls a “small experiment” in the US to show giant banner ads for specific branded search queries.

The screenshot below posted by @SynrgyHQ shows a sponsored ad for Southwest Airlines on the branded search query [southwest airlines].

Google Branded Search Query Ad Banner

It doesn’t appear easy to replicate this test, but Google has confirmed that it is occurring.  The ad takes up a substantial portion of the page, and no other ads appear on the page. Here’s a screenshot from today of a search results page for the query [southwest airlines]. Notice the non-brand, standard AdWords text ads from CheapOair and Chase credit cards.

Southwest Airlines branded search results

After the brand results for www.southwest.com, the traditional organic listings actually seem to appear in about the same spot on the page as they do when the giant ad is displayed in the test screenshot. It’s the competing AdWords ads that lose out to the branded ad banner.

More Brand Banner Ads Found In The Wild


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was formerly Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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