AdWords meets YouTube
The
AdWords advertising model is coming to YouTube, it has emerged.
Google, owner of the video-sharing site, is trialling a new pay-per-click (PPC) system called Promoted Videos, reports marketingmagazine.co.uk. Advertisers will be able to buy keywords in an online auction, just like AdWords, and consumers who search for these terms will be presented with sponsored content as well as standard results.
One of the first companies to join the pilot is Domino's Pizza, which will produce videos that appear when
YouTube users enter relevant terms such as 'pizza'.
George Nimeh, managing director of digital marketing agency Irish Digital, has hailed the launch of Promoted Videos. "YouTube is second only to Google in search volume," he said. "This move will make it easier for advertisers to generate revenue from their content and gain control over how they use YouTube."
YouTube – 1bn views and counting
The new
PPC marketing scheme comes in the same month that Google claimed YouTube videos were receiving over a billion views per day. Commenting at the time, Chad Hurley, CEO and founder of YouTube, described the milestone as a "great moment in our short history" and promised to introduce a "full spectrum of choices and tools for users, partners and advertisers".
YouTube was bought for £875 million back in October 2006. Since then, it has continued to grow in popularity and remains the world's most popular video-sharing portal. However, Google has struggled to monetise YouTube and it is widely believed the site still runs at a loss.
Earlier this summer, Google sought to redress this by expanding the YouTube Partnership Programme to incorporate one-off viral hits. Users were encouraged to set up an AdSense account and allow ads to run alongside their most successful clips in return for a share of the revenue generated.
