Google’s Responsive Lightbox Ads Now Available In AdWords

Google’s newly responsive Lightbox ads units that the company introduced back in September as part of a larger mobile display ad push, are now available to all advertisers through AdWords.

Google revamped the interactive ad format ads to run on mobile devices as well as desktop. The ads incorporate advertiser assets from an advertiser’s YouTube channel, uploaded images or Google Maps. When a user hovers over the banner unit, the assets dynamically fill the publisher site, mobile app, screen, or device — desktop and mobile — in full-screen.

“By launching this update to Lightbox ads, our goal is to free brand marketers to spend less time dealing with mobile complexity, so you can do what you do best — engage users with a compelling brand story,” James Beser, Group Product Manager, Display Ads, wrote in the announcement.

Google also says that the ads will soon be able pull in other assets from places like Google Shopping and, yes, G+ pages.

Lightbox ads are priced on a cost-per-engagement basis. Advertisers only pay when a user expands the ad by hovering over it for two seconds on desktop or tapping it on mobile.

Sony Pictures beta tested the responsive Lightbox ads using the video trailer to promote the movie Annie. “We chose to use Lightbox ads for our Q4 campaigns because we needed our content to achieve scale across the web. Our clients spend a lot of time, money and energy creating video assets and making sure they get seen by the most qualified, engaged users is our top priority,” Deborah Gaudette, Senior Vice President, Digital, Universal McCann, said in the announcement.