This content was written as a thought leadership piece for a company website.
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Search advertising hasn’t always been known for engaging imagery, but this is all changing. We’re taking storytelling beyond the search box with more visually immersive updates to enhance the advertising experience for consumers and advertisers alike.
Our Company is differentiating itself by putting visuals at the forefront. We’re evolving our platform to integrate information with imagery and improve the search experience for consumers. And advertisers now have more innovative ways to incorporate rich imagery into ads, enhance visual storytelling, and increase performance. So why does this matter? And why should you make images a key component of your strategy?
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We also see that advertisers who make visuals a key component of their strategy drive increased performance:
- Forrester research found that brands who invested in creativity saw more than 18% higher total ROI for the same budget.
- Our first-party data shows that small– and medium–size businesses that added images to their campaigns saw upwards of 21% lift in impressions, clicks, and revenue.
Here are a few ad types that serve rich visual assets that are inclusive of search and native ads — leading to better performance for brands.
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Earning customer attention
The way people browse, research, and discover brands is evolving. People are spending more time online than ever before — at all hours of the day. With the blending of work and life, we saw more search growth on desktops (3x mobile growth), on weekends (2x weekday growth), and in the evenings (3x daytime growth) across our network.
Consumers are doing more research and taking longer to make their purchasing decisions — and images are a major part of that journey. Our first-party research shows that longer research journeys became more prevalent during the pandemic as 30-day journeys grew 35% year-over-year (YoY).
With this influx of information, attention is now the biggest commodity up for grabs. Our brains need less than half a second to engage with content. At the moment someone is deciding what to click, it’s likely they’ll make their decision based on the visuals. So, how can you better earn customers’ attention?
Visual storytelling can help people quickly grasp a story without reading a word. As a result, it enables the storyteller to deliver a more compelling message. According to research firm Kantar, content with imagery results in 50% more recall. We see that visuals lead to more engagement, with 7% higher click-through rates (CTRs) — meaning better performance for your brand.
An excellent creative strategy can make the difference between ads that not only hit your goals — but ones that set new standards.
How we’re innovating for visual storytelling
Integration of search and visuals for consumers
Consumers are changing the way they search — which means that we’re looking to shake it up here as well.
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- People are starting to search for more exploratory queries where they’re looking for ideas and inspiration, such as recipes, travel ideas, home improvement, and more. In answer, we now show a collage of image and video content at the top of the page.
To increase visuals on the page, we’ve reconfigured how we show information on the right rail of the search results page. Now, images take precedent and surface information in a fun, attention-grabbing, and beautiful way.
While all of the above experiences make the platform more engaging for consumers, advertisers can also benefit. The more visuals you add to your campaigns, the more likely your ads will appear in innovative experiences.
Creative asset best practices
Imagery, video, and feed selection should be a key part of your planning process. Before deciding on placement and formats, think about the imagery you’d like to use, what you have, and how they’ll be received to meet your goals. It’s time to think proactively about creating, leveraging, and optimizing images as part of your strategy.
- Unify your creative strategy across tactics, platforms, and placements to make more impact and connect the dots for your customers.
- Leverage multiple image variations in one campaign.
- Use high-quality images that are not distorted, stretched, blurry, or pixelated.
- Refresh your visuals periodically to prevent viewer fatigue. Update seasonally for promotions and campaign relevance.
- Choose lifestyle photos. Images with people are more compelling to viewers.
- Ensure your creative strategy is inclusive and represents your values. Seek out realistic diversity, use inclusive language, and solicit diverse perspectives to uncover blind spots.
- Review platform requirements. Here are our audio and video guidelines.
Visual storytelling in the future
Using images will be even more critical as advertisers prepare for third-party cookie deprecation. Without easy retargeting, advertisers must deliver more captivating messages and experiences to drive engagement — and visual storytelling will be an essential component.
Visual storytelling makes your message easier to understand and results in more engagement for your customers — and better performance for your brand. As famed advertising executive David Ogilvy said, “It isn’t the whiskey they choose, it’s the image.”