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Sponsored promotions (image ads) in GMail?

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While reading my e-mails today I’ve seen an ad format I’ve never seen before in GMail: “a new type of ad you can save to your inbox or forward on. If you dismiss this ad, you won’t see it again”

On the right, there was this image

GMail Images Ads - Sponsored Promotions

Under it, there was a small link reading “More promotions” (if I remember correctly, the above picture does not include the link), which, upon clicking, revealed a new page with more promotions, looking like this

GMail Images Ads - Sponsored Promotions

When clicking the above one, a nice big image opened

GMail Images Ads - Sponsored Promotions

with the following explanation

GMail Images Ads - Sponsored Promotions

Does anybody know what it actually is and how can we create such promotions ourselves? If you do, please let me know. If you don’t, tell me what you think it is.

Apparently, they’ve been around for a while, as Sakis Rizos pointed out on my G+ stream (http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2095222/Will-New-Gmail-Ad-Formats-Be-Totally-Worth-Dating-Engaging-Marrying-Having-Babies-With), and they’re also present in Italy, according to Andrea Testa.

 

Filed Under: Google AdWords
About Calin Sandici

Father of two and husband of one, at the crossroads of Google AdWords, Analytics and E-Commerce.

  • Hi Calin,
    It is the beta of AdWords. You have to be a “big” client of Google AdWords in order to run this up ! I believe your account manager will help you to get into beta group. It will be public after beta, no worries 🙂

  • Thank you, Gorkem. Yes, I’ve realized it’s only available for large customers, seeing the companies that are advertising.

  • Shane Kelly

    It is called Gmail Sponsored Promotions and I think this is invitation only at this time.

    • Calin Sandici

      Thank you, Shane. It is, indeed.

  • Zena Martin

    What are the design specs in terms of sizes for these ads?

    • Calin Sandici

      They are still in beta, Zena, which means that there’s no public documentation out yet. I assume that as soon as they are launched Google will publish the specs in the AdWords Help Center.

    • Zena Martin

      Thank you!

    • Mohamed Osman

      I’ve answered your question above, i hope you find it useful

  • Chandru

    Is that possible add html form?

  • The GSP (gmail sponsored promotions) are invite only at the moment. They’re testing it out. If you have an adwords rep, you can request that they help you set it up (as it’s only managable by a rep anyway).

    It’s great for demo targeting and getting REALLY cheap clicks. Minimum spend is $5k, so unless you have a big budget and willing to risk a $5k minimum test, i’d suggest that it’s not for you. However, the payoff can be huge if it works.

    • Calin Sandici

      Thank you, Brigham, the minimum spend condition is something I did not know about.

      Though it’s clearly not for every advertiser, I can think of a few situations / clients when it would be useful, especially with keyword targeted ads.

    • ava

      since when is it a minimum of 5k? O_o that’s not true. I’ve been setting up campaigns with 100 euros, please..

      it does overspend nearly every time (but only by like 10%) and is quite a quirky tool though.

      • Calin Sandici

        Good catch, Ava, thank you. But as you know, any AdWords campaign can overspend by up to 20% a day, as long as it stays within 30.4 x daily budget during a month.

        • ava

          Hm, yeah. I guess I wasn’t thinking of it as an AdWords campaign.
          Still, it normally doesn’t overspend more than 10% over the budget. Or maybe I just catch it before it does 🙂

  • Huan Chen

    5 Tips for AdWords GSP Campaigns

    you can get more details about the GSP in here :whatgsp.com