Join us for a Hangout on Air covering AMP Ads on February 19 at 9am PT, hosted by the Google News Lab.
Last October, we previewed AMP with a simple vision: Make the mobile web great by connecting people to content instantly. This vision only works if publishers can also continue to grow their businesses. In other words, in order for AMP to be successful, the ads have to work, too.
Over the past few months, it’s been incredible to see the advertising community come together to take on this challenge. Our goals throughout the process have been twofold: 1) Ensure that AMP works well with the publisher business models of today; and 2) leave lots of room for bold innovation in the future.
A smooth transition to a better mobile web experience
In the near term, our top priority is making sure that ad formats, features and measurement that publishers rely on work within the AMP environment. When AMP launches on Google Search in February, it will include important, basic functionalities. These include the ability to traffic ads with ad servers of your choice, support for multiple demand sources and formats (including native ads), full control over ads placements, and viewability measurement. It also includes integration with 20+ ad tech vendors, all of whom are excited to participate in the AMP initiative:
“We are excited to be collaborating with Google to enable Moat Analytics within AMP. As an industry, we need to work together to improve the mobile web user experience and open source projects like AMP will be a key part of that process” — Jonah Goodhart, Co-Founder and CEO of Moat
“Kargo is excited to bring our bespoke mobile ad formats to AMP’s sleek publisher platform. We think the combination will be a win-win for publishers, advertisers and consumers.” — Ryan McConville, Chief Operating Officer, Kargo
“Over the past few months, Outbrain has been working with Google on its AMP project to address what’s always been a singular focus for this company: improving the user experience with content and how it’s discovered. AMP is a major step toward that future, and by delivering AMP-powered recommendations for publishers, we’re proud to aid that step” — Dennis Yuscavitch, Director of Product Marketing, Outbrain
A big bet for the long-run
We also can’t emphasise enough that this is just the start.
From Noah Szubski, Chief Product Officer at The Daily Mail (MailOnline), and one of the early partners working on the AMP Project, “Google has been very receptive to feedback throughout the process. They have prioritized partnerships with publishers and our 3rd party partners since the beginning. The industry should be aligned that we need to create better advertising experiences for users. We see AMP as an important early step but expect innovation and for this to be a long term strategy”.
Everyone involved in this effort recognizes that it will take time and innovation to transform the ads experience on the mobile web. We’re invested for the long term. As we look to the future, four key principles are guiding our development work on ads in AMP:
- Faster is better – Speed, speed, speed. There is no technical reason why ads in AMP can’t be as fast as AMP documents themselves.
- ‘Beautiful’ matters – At least as far as it concerns ads, right up there with speed, is our goal to ensure that ads in AMP are beautiful and innovative.
- Be safe, be secure – The digital ad industry’s rap sheet includes irritating and unsafe ads. We’re requiring all creatives to utilize the HTTPS protocol.
- We’re better together – Ultimately, AMP isn’t about supporting a single entity, but an entire industry. Therein lies our most fundamental value — success requires broad industry participation.
If we can crack this code, we believe it will help grow the advertising pie for the entire industry. As Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s SVP of Ads & Commerce, shared at the IAB conference today, improving the mobile user experience is THE key to unlocking the industry’s next $50 billion. We are thrilled about how far we’ve come on this journey for ads in AMP. We are even more excited about what we can achieve in the future by working together.
Nitin Kashyap, Product Manager, and Craig DiNatali, Director, Global Partnerships