Google Print ads? Not likely.

So Google is starting up a real test of putting ads into print newspapers. A lot of commentary seems to be fairly positive on the prospects. I think it's likely that this system will fail to meet expectations.

The best overview I've found about the project is the article in the New York Times. Google will take bids from its huge stable of small advertisers to give them an entree into newspapers, a market they cannot generally reach. They can bid on last-minute openings that the papers were not able to sell.

Great, but as the Times points out, a paper like the Seattle Times has "tens of thousands of advertisers we deal with face to face." Google is adding a pool of 100 advertisers for this test. Newspapers already tap their advertisers for last-minute, dicsounted ads to fill these spaces. How much will Google really be able to add?

But more importantly, can Google really add value to their online advertisers?

There are two innovations in online advertising that make Google ads successful. The first is targeting the ads to the content. That is done online by bidding on key words. Google will also drop ads that do not add value, as evidenced by the fact that few people click on them.

In print, potential advertisers will be able to target sports, business, lifestyle and other sections. But print advertisers can do that already.

What they can't do is place an ad with a particular article, say, Palm Pilot ads with a NYT Circuits article on PDAs. Newspapers and magazines do NOT let advertisers know what kind of Circuits article is running that day, because it's a potential conflict of interest. PDA advertisers would hound reporters to make sure their products are included in the article, trying to influence the editorial. So you'll have PDA ads running with an article about, say, new XBox games. The relevance is minimal.

Without the precision targeting Google provides on-the-fly online, these ads will be less effective.

The second issue is payment. Online advertisers don't pay for the ad unless someone clicks on it. This may not lead to a sale, but at least advertisers know that people have at least looked at their product. In print, there is no way to know if any reader actually notices your ad.

But you have to pay up front, just for getting your ad in the paper. Unless the advertiser offers a special discount for citing the ad, the company will not know if the ad has been successful at all. That does not provide the same cost/benefit as online ads.

Google's online model works. It does not translate well to offline advertising. Google will face the same problem in trying to place radio ads.

At the end of the test period, everyone is going to be disappointed.