Google is replacing its traditional ranked link ads with sponsored questions that appear at the bottom of answers. The shift aims to make brand demand more efficient and push people toward direct transactions instead of just clicks.
When the ad unit is a link and when the UI is ranked order of links then you have to corrupt the rank order. At the end you have to show sponsored ads. Now we are saying let's avoid all this crap. Let's make the ad unit a question at the bottom of an answer which incentivizes the user to ask the next question. So if there is a question about like best running shoes and different running shoe brands can advertise to be a sponsored question at the bottom of an answer it's like which shoes of Nike are the most sought after in 2024? And if you clicked on them and learned more about a brand and you're able to transact directly if the answers come with the brand's product catalog directly, essentially the brand has generated a demand for itself through a question and fulfill the demand through a answer. And I think that's more efficient than like paying a certain ad budget for a 10blue link to be at the top when somebody types in running shoes.