If you currently publish ads with Google Adwords, you should check out the new features Google will be serving up in the near future. Prompeted by users complaining that they have seen the same ads on the same sites for too long, Google decided to change a few things about the way ads are displayed. You can find these changes and see screenshots on Google’s Adwords Enhancement page.

Target users by site
Advertisers will be able to choose site-targeted AdWords campaigns as an alternative, or in addition, to keyword-targeted campaigns. The site targeting option is designed to meet the needs of advertisers who want to place their ads on specific sites in the Google content network. Site-targeted ads run only on sites the advertisers select, based on their judgment of the sites’ relevance, reach and appropriateness. These ads do not appear on search result pages.

Keyword-targeted ads will work exactly as they do now. Advertisers choose keywords to help us match their ads to qualified prospects. Keyword targeting enables advertisers to reach new prospects at the precise moment when they’re looking for particular products or services. These ads appear on Google.com search results, and advertisers can have them appear on our content and search networks as well.

New max CPM bidding option
With site-targeted advertising, advertisers will simply set a max CPM—that is, the maximum price they’re willing to pay for every thousand impressions their ad receives on a particular site. Their ads compete for advertising space on the site with other site-targeted ads as well as with keyword-targeted ads.

Google’s technology ensures that advertisers pay no more than the minimum price needed to run an ad on the site. In many cases, they will pay a price lower than their max CPM. This model is different from other CPM (cost-per-impression) models, where advertisers must pay a fixed CPM. Keyword-targeted ads will still follow a cost-per-click bidding model, where advertisers set the maximum price they’re willing to pay for each click their ad receives.

Additional ad formats
Site-targeted ads can be text ads, static image ads or (coming soon) our new animated image ads. Advertisers can run image ads in five formats:

* banner (468×60 pixels)
* leaderboard (728×90)
* inline rectangle (300×250)
* skyscraper (120×600)
* wide skyscraper (160×600)

As always with Google, image ads are carefully evaluated before they are allowed to run on the content network. If Google believes the ads negatively impact the end-user experience, they are not permitted to run.

[Go to Google's Adwords Enhancement Page]