Google officially opened up its AdWords for video product to all businesses on Monday with a new program offering $50 million in free advertising to small businesses.
The company announced on Monday that it is offering $75 in free advertising for 500,000-plus businesses. (The original post on the offer set the number at 500,000, which would come out to $37.5 million in total. A YouTube rep says the 500,000 isn’t a set number.)
Introduced in September, AdWords for video is based on the same technology as AdWords, but is applied to video on the Google-owned YouTube. While with AdWords you pay for clicks and set budgets via bids, with AdWords for video, you only pay when someone watches your ad. The program was actually opened up for all businesses in December, but Monday is the official launch, which Google is helping to publicize with the $75 offer.
Those interested in taking Google up on the offer can click here.
The AdWords for video program is Google’s latest attempt to monetize YouTube, which draws 800 million unique visitors a month. Google doesn’t disclose financial data about YouTube, but analysts have estimated that the site’s revenues were in the $1 billion range in 2011.
