We all know that Google are constantly trying to improve the experience web users have with both their search engines and advertising online. This is generally why the changes Google make always seem to make things that bit nicer and easier for the web user.
Although it has not been confirmed yet by Google, there are reports circulating the internet, in their early stages, that some Google AdWords search adverts have started to show emojis in the titles of the adverts. One such example comes from Germany, for a car advert which used the car emoji twice in the title:
It’s a bold move by Google and an interesting one too. Would emojis bring AdWords up to date with how people communicate? For example, I think everyone can put their hand up to using excessive emojis when using Apps such as WhatsApp.
The emojis in the adverts have both good and bad points outlined below:
Good points:
- Adverts tend to lack emotion, which can be considered a crucial part to advertising – you only have to take a look at some TV adverts which makes clear how critical it is that the adverts convey emotion to the web user to get the conversion the advert wants. From introducing emojis, it is possible for emotion to be brought to adverts which can help some campaigns gaining better CTR and conversion rates.
- The lack of color in Google search ads will work in favour of those that adopt emojis. Emojis are generally quite brightly coloured. Therefore, they are more likely to get the web user’s attention first, even if they have not ranked #1 for paid search results.
Bad points:
- Google have recently changed the look and colour of the ‘Ad’ sign in paid search results from yellow background to just a green border and outline. One of the reasons Google did this was to reduce the number of colours on their search results, making the whole experience of using Google and engaging with search adverts more minimalistic and cleaner. From Google introducing emojis is a bit contradictory of them, since the colour of emojis (even from the above example), will really ruin the ‘clean’ look of Google search results.
- The other problem is the potential ‘eye grabbiness’ emojis will bring. Depending on what sector the campaign is looking into will depend if that campaign can use emojis or not. For example, I can see a car company or a joke shop using emojis but I cannot see someone like Apple using them. Therefore, does this put Apple at a disadvantage just because they are less likely to use emojis to their benefit? PPC works best because everyone is roughly on the same playing ground – emojis could distort that.
Ultimately, the testing of emojis is in the very early stages considering the fact Google have not publicly released anything about emojis yet. Google have been known in the past to test things and discontinue them – hopefully, emojis will be one of these ‘tests’ from Google.
