This has been a long time coming, but it’s starting to happen…. video in SERPs!  This is a big deal to the direct-response advertiser (i.e. most online advertisers).

Yahoo Shows Search Ads with Images and Video (NYT).  Excerpts from the pre-announcement:

Yahoo is introducing a new type of search advertising that integrates images and video in paid listings, the company plans to announce Thursday.

“It moves the advertising experience from just the blue links, to a more engaging experience for advertisers,” said Tim Mayer, the vice president for search monetization and distribution at Yahoo.

“Video is always more powerful than just words on the page,” said John Anton, the marketing director at Pedigree. “It’s definitely compelling to us to have options like this, where, when you type in ‘Pedigree,’ you get more than just the words, you get the video itself.”

According to Yahoo, some advertisers in the pilot program saw an improvement by as much as 25 percent in click-through rates. Karin Blake, the senior search manager at the ad agency Razorfish, who tested the offering for some of her clients, saw slightly less significant results: she said her clients had a 5 to 10 percent increase in click-through rates compared with a regular text ad.

Filed under: online advertising, video