Amid the buzz of Google’s new logo last Monday, a lot of people missed Tuesday’s announcement that native Gmail Ads are now available to all advertisers. The option to run these Gmail ads is now available in AdWords as part of a Display Network campaign.

This native ad format has been in beta testing since 2013 and is very different from the early days of Gmail ads. There is only one type of ad with two display formats: a collapsed ad that looks a lot like an email in the inbox, and an expanded format that opens after you click. Google compares the expanded ad unit to a landing page. Within Adwords, Google provides a number of templates for these expanded landing pages and gives users the ability to build a completely custom option in HTML.

After spending a day playing with these new ad types my head is spinning with possibilities of how to integrate these ads into clients’ marketing. Most of the targeting options available to you in Google Display Network are also available for those for Gmail ads. I’m not expecting a high click-through rate from this ad type, but I think it’s quite possible that these ads will help improve email open rates in the same way that buying the top ad result in Google Search also improves organic click-through rates. 

For those of you who immediately thought of using these ad types for B2B sales by targeting Google apps users, sadly you won’t have it that easy, as Gmail ads do not run on Gmail for work.  Still it’s huge news for advertisers, as marketing automation has made it possible to know if someone didn’t open an email and to target them with an ad online. These full-page Gmail ads will offer a step forward for those who already embrace omni channel marketing.

The templates Google currently provides within Adwords for the expanded Gmail ad units place an a emphasis on forwarding the content to email contacts. I view the focus on sharing the ads with others as a way to compete with the shareability of social ads. A lot remains to be seen with these ads, but it’s an exciting possibility and this new format may just be Google’s best way to compete with Facebook ads. 

photo credit: AZRainman via photopin cc