Paid search is now the most important channel in advertising. With digital ad spending eclipsing offline spending just a few years ago—and paid search being the largest single channel in digital—it’s hard to argue that it isn’t.
Although the channel has evolved over the last twenty years, its fundamental value proposition hasn’t: getting the right message in front of the right audiences at the right time.
While paid search has performed well for brands, one of the challenges with the channel is the limitations of the paid search text ad format. Unlike the sight/sound/motion of video ads, for example, search marketers just have a few short lines to grab user attention on rather jam-packed search engine results pages (SERPs). Traditional text ads don’t offer marketers much real estate to impact and influence users to take action. In essence, the search ad is meant to be more of a taste of what a user can get if they click the ad, and then the landing pages do most of the work.
But, wouldn’t it be great if the ads could do even more?
Microsoft Search Advertising’s innovative Multimedia Ads are bigger and incorporate visual imagery to help change the paid search game—and Skai now offers a unique support feature to enable marketers to take better advantage of this new ad type.
Launched in July 2021, In its announcement post, Microsoft Search Advertising offered this description:
Multimedia Ads are designed to combine your own assets like images, headlines, and descriptions with the power of machine-learning technology, to deliver the best attention-grabbing large visual ads. These ads will be prominently featured on the right rail (right side of the search results) or in the mainline at the top of the search results pages. To help your Multimedia Ad stand out even more and provide exclusivity, there will only be one Multimedia Ad on a page, for only one advertiser at a time.
And here’s what they look like:
Mainline ad examples (4:1 aspect ratio)
Right rail ad examples (1.91:1 aspect ratio)
Skai’s unique, one-click support option for Multimedia Ads
As you can see, Microsoft Multimedia Ads showcase your brand and products in a rich, visual ad format compared to standard text ads. Like Responsive Search Ads (RSAs), Multimedia Ads combine ad elements—in this case, images, headlines, and descriptions—using the power of machine-learning technology to learn over time which combinations generate the best marketing results.
But, loading assets into your Microsoft media library takes time. Because most advertisers have their approved visuals already loaded into Facebook/Instagram and Pinterest, Skai’s product team saw an opportunity to cut down the work needed to run Multimedia Ads.
Now, Skai clients can utilize a unique solution to quickly enrich their Microsoft Multimedia library by easily importing Facebook and Pinterest image assets via the Skai Creative Manager. Using this support is incredibly easy. Select your image assets from the Skai platform and, in one click, export them to your Microsoft media library.
Skai’s distinctive solution allows you to:
- Utilize your already built creative library for your Microsoft Multimedia Ads
- Effortlessly streamline your creative workflow.
Why duplicate efforts when your visuals are already readily available via one click?
Multimedia Ads best practices
Microsoft Search Advertising offers the following tips for when using Multimedia Ads:
Create multimedia ads in existing ad groups. For optimal performance, we recommend using image assets in all four aspect ratios: 1.91:1, 1:1, 1:2, and 4:1 to analyze performance and drive results.
Provide as many assets as possible. You can provide up to 15 headlines, 4 descriptions, 16 images, and choose from a variety of call to action buttons. We suggest at least 8 to 10 distinct headlines that don’t contain similar phrases. Use a combination of short and long headlines to maximize space on any device. Create headlines that are related to your keywords and use at least one brand title.
Make content distinct. Avoid repetitive language and create varied descriptions. Include additional product or service benefits and features, a clear call to action, and shipping and return information.
Skai’s search marketing solutions enhance your Microsoft Search Advertising
Skai’s 15+ year history of innovation in data, bidding, and measurement, combined with an independent, media-agnostic, and omnichannel position, sets search marketers up to stay in control while driving true business growth—at scale.
Schedule a quick demo to see all of the great features and functionality of Skai’s™ paid search solutions.
