Google has decided to phase out the Gallery ads that were rolled out just last year. These are the flashy ads that had an image driven format. Instead, Google will focus on its beta version of the Image Extensions. This phase out will take place in August.

The Gallery ads featured a carousel of images and required marketers to have a whole bunch of creative images ready to post and a whole new setting up. These ads were a hit in the automotive industry, but the other industry verticals saw very little use for such kind of ads.

Image extensions however have better prospects of getting popularity.

Image extensions are still in closed beta and users will not be able to see them on their accounts. These images will show as image icons alongside the text ads that are placed in the Google Search Results.

This feature had started out as a mobile only feature, but, now has been extended to desktop as well.

Dynamic image extensions

Google has also been testing for dynamic image extensions. This means that webmasters can select the image to be displayed alongside their ads (size 1200 x 1200 – square) OR Google will automatically select images randomly from the website and display it with the text ad.

It’s most likely that the Gallery ads suffered because of the need to set up a whole new ad format. They also functioned more like display ads and targeted broader queries. Plus the advertiser was charged once the user had swiped past three images in the gallery.

Gallery ads were an exciting addition for digital marketers, but they were more hassle than simple. Now this feature will be closed down as Google focused on Image Extensions which has new opportunities for advertising online.