The stories format continues to expand, as Google opens the doors for all advertisers to leverage AMP Story Ads.
New Stories to Tell
Advertisers can now take advantage of “stories” ads without needing to do so via a social medium. According to a recent Google blog post, the stories advertising format for accelerated mobile pages (AMP) is now available for all brands and advertisers to ad to their digital arsenal and deploy at will.
This announcement follows a roughly six-month period of closed beta testing, which enabled marketers to replicate a full-screen mobile display ad similar to the likes of Snapchat and Instagram.
AMP Story Ads will be accessible for use in Google Ad Manager (previously known as DoubleClick for Publishers) and will allow marketers to drive traffic from the stories content back to their website or the app store.
The Advertising Experience
Google has provided detail on three key aspects that make up a stories ad.
Firstly, ads need to be immersive and engaging. This means that ads must include a mix of video, images, and animations, much like a regular AMP story.
Much like AMP content itself, ads must obviously adhere to Google’s performance and security standards by leveraging the open source AMPHTML ad framework. For advertisers who are interested in learning more about AMPHTML ads, Google has provided a helpful resource here.
The final component leads us to where we are now- open availability. One of the things the AMP project prides itself in is the fact that anyone can access it build on it. This is no different from an advertising perspective, and AMP Story Ads have a wide array of .
Getting Started with AMP Story Ads
For those wanting to get the ball rolling with AMP stories, Google has provided an incredibly rich amount of resources to get you into the mix quickly. This includes the fundamentals to creating your first story, design best practices, how to configure your analytics, and a lot more. To view the full list, click here.
There is also detailed information on how to properly tag your AMP Story Ads, how to traffic your ads, and there is even a helpful live example located here.
Harnessing the Stories Surge
This announcement is the latest in a series of updates over the year that have seen stories ads dramatically rise in popularity. In October, Facebook opened the gates allowing all brands and advertisers to leverage its Stories ads. More recently, WhatsApp jumped on the stories-wagon, announcing that it will soon be rolling out a similar format within its new “status” section.
With 62% of people admitting to gaining more interest in a brand or a product after viewing it in a story format, and more people opting to consume digital content on their mobile devices, it’s not surprising to see Google jumping into the fray to try and compete for some of that market share. What is interesting about this is the fact that AMP will be the first non-social channel that will display this format.
It’s also important to note that – while still somewhat in its infancy – in the three years it has been in existence, AMP now powers billions of pages across the web. As it continues to gain more support, more AMP-friendly content will continue to be produced, ultimately increasing the value of any ads that display alongside that content.
Knowing this, advertisers should strongly consider going through Google’s documentation and working towards creating some AMP story ads of their own, as these will be the first of the stories to have the capability of reaching anyone who’s browsing on a mobile device, not just someone browsing on a specific social channel.
While it may seem daunting at first, the reward will likely be worth the effort – especially if leveraged early.