Google starts testing mobile ads in India

Sufia Tippu
Saturday, 18 November 2006 06:27

IT Industry - Market

India has become a huge testing ground for Google. India based mobile users are the latest target test audience for the advertising products of the number one search brand on the net.

Close on the heels of ramping up its development center, and investing in its soon-to-come-up data center, the search engine king is reaching out to the mobile user not only through Gmail Mobile but has started testing mobile ads for advertisers in India.

Google Mobile Ads are a text-based ad format, which the company began testing with AdWords advertisers in US, UK, Germany and Japan in August 2006.

These text-based ads appear along with search results delivered to mobile devices, and they contain either a link to a mobile website or a phone number which users can click on to connect..

For example, when you see two lines “ Hot Chicken Curry. Stop by today” you would see a number below. You just click on it and you are directly connected to that hot spicy restaurant where you can either place a takeaway order or just reserve a table to have lunch.

According to Google India, the mobile Ads test will bring in a new trend in advertising and advertisers can reach users with relevant information when they're on the move.

Google mobile ads will have the same basic features as PC text ads although there are some differences such as the character limit and call feature.The ads, which will be clearly marked as [Ad], will appear above and below the search results when a user searches on their mobile phone.

The application enables you to schedule your ads so users can call you only during your regular business hours and you can reach your best prospects among the rapidly growing base of mobile users in India.

Today with a growing number of PDAs and phones which have relatively larger displays, it makes perfect business sense for Google to leverage on its ingenious advertising route.