| Good morning Marketer, have you noticed ads in your Google Discover feed yet?
If you haven’t, that’s because Google is playing it safe with its new ad product – which was revealed last year and quietly rolled out this April. Google made the official announcement Wednesday, allowing all advertisers globally to run eligible Discovery ads across the YouTube Home and Watch Next feeds, the Discover feed on the Google Search app, and in Gmail Promotion and Social tabs. The new ads use a distinct campaign type that is targeted with audiences, not keyword-based search intent targeting. Discovery ads take a page from the social advertiser’s playbook by pairing high-impact visuals with a native ad look and feel – along with targeting based on audiences. While Google says Discovery campaigns are delivering scale for advertisers, the company is being particularly careful about placement in the Discover feed, which currently contains only one ad slot. In a phone interview this week, Jerry Dischler, VP/GM of Ads Platforms & Google Properties, said the company is “holding the quality bar really high and only showing the ads that have the best image assets that we think are most relevant to users” in that context. Google’s soon-to-be-obsolete Gallery ads, which were announced at the same time as Discovery ads, didn’t make it and will be turned off in August. The format worked for the automotive industry but didn’t gain enough traction with other verticals. Here’s to hoping Discovery ads net out to be successful, especially since they offer a new avenue for both Google and advertisers. Keep scrolling for more, including a look at ad spend across streaming services. Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor | 