• by Shankar Gupta , February 10, 2006

Online search giant Google has quietly launched a new phase of its offline media expansion strategy: a pilot test to gauge whether Google's online advertisers will bid for advertising space in major consumer magazines. During the test, marketers participating in Google's AdWords program can bid for full, half, or quarter-page ads in such titles as Ellegirl, Martha Stewart Living and Motor Trend.

"As part of this effort, we've been conducting a series of tests to determine how we could bring additional value to print advertising," a Google spokesman confirmed, adding, "We are continuing to experiment in this area and are now testing the application of an auction model to print media."

The deadline for the bids on the first slate of print ads is Feb. 20, and the first ads will appear in April. Other magazines participating in the test are Car and Driver, Budget Living, Entrepreneur, Women's Health & Fitness, PC World, Official Xbox Magazine, and InfoWorld.

The pilot is part of a Google's ambitious plan to provide advertisers with inventory beyond online search ads. Google Vice President of Advertising Sales Tim Armstrong indicated at a keynote address for a Software & Information Industry Association conference last week that the company intended to further expand into traditional media.

"The notion is... we're able to help advertisers break into other media, such as print, radio, and other areas, which will help the publishers themselves do better yield management," Armstrong said. "Our advertisers and publishing partners want to run their ads everywhere that makes sense for them, as long as it's profitable."

Google shook up the broadcasting industry on Jan. 17 when it acquired dMarc, a radio advertising rep firm that enables advertisers to insert broadcast radio spots through an online interface. dMarc's technology is capable of doing the same for TV ad insertion.

Search expert Gary Stein said the move indicates that Google is ready to move beyond search ads. "This really doesn't have much to do with organizing the world's information. This is them saying they have strong relationships with advertisers, so let's see what other kind of products we have to sell them," he said. "It sort of signals Google is one more piece that they're moving their way towards being this full-service advertiser."

Stein noted that, while built on an auction-based model similar to AdWords, the print ad pilot is not especially "Google-esque." "They're just selling an ad--meaning there's no targeting behind it, there's no keywords, there's no analytics behind it," he said. "How do you optimize, how do you get greater targeting--all that stuff you like from Google--this isn't really like that."