Google launched AR beauty ads for lip and eye products TechCrunch

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Google sees augmented reality (AR) as a new and potentially quite effective advertising medium.

Today, the search giant announced the launch of AR Beauty Ads, a new type of smartphone ad that lets brands promote lip and eye products (and soon foundation) through virtual try-on experiences.

Instead of a product image in a standard Google Shopping ad, AR Beauty ads offer a tool that allows consumers to preview what different products might look like on themselves or a model that resonates with them. The tool comes with product descriptions and pricing information, along with a simple checkout flow designed to simplify the shopping process.

AR Beauty ads will appear on mobile-specific channels that Google Shopping ads typically serve, including the Shopping tab on Google.com, search, and Google Images.

AR Beauty ads help our beauty brand partners showcase their products in a more interactive way to drive demand, according to a press release attributed to Lillian Rinken, senior director of consumer acquisition at Google, shared with TechCrunch yesterday. When a new tool is useful for buyers, it can be useful for the entire industry.

The release of the AR Beauty ad, which comes as Google offers the first virtual hair color and foundation testing tools in Search, including one that lets users virtually try on foundation, shows a growing belief that The growth of the technology industry and advertising is to AR as a powerful force. Marketing.

Image credit: Google

In May, Meta announced that it would roll out AR ads to Instagram circles and Facebook Stories later this year. (Meta first tested AR ads in Facebook’s News Feed in July 2018.) Pokmon GO developer Niantic tested AR ad experiences earlier this spring at the Cannes Lions festival. And Snapchat has long served AR ads through its Lens technology and platform.

AR Beauty Ads is something of a follow-up to Google, which brought AR to YouTube display ads in 2019 as part of an experiment with makeup influencers. Powered by FameBit, Google’s in-house branded content platform, viewers can wear makeup virtually while following YouTube creators for product tips and reviews.

Mad rush does not come from hype alone or as brands say.

According to data from Shopify, AR ads often outperform display ads, with the average 3D AR ad generating 94% higher conversion rates than its static, 2D counterpart. Meanwhile, Snap and Deloitte found that brands that offer AR experiences are 41 percent more likely to engage with customers, and nearly three in four shoppers are willing to pay more for a product they can explore with AR.

Google, for its part, said that YouTube’s 2019 experiment with virtual reality ads resulted in less than a third of viewers trying on lipstick for more than 80 seconds on average. And the company claims that shoppers are likely to spend more time on a brands site, researching a product or making a purchase after interacting with the virtual test tools on Google search.

All of these metrics are perhaps the reason why by 2025, global AR advertising revenue is projected to reach $6.68 billion, up from 2020, when it totaled $1.36 billion.