I picked this info up from the AdWords blog and checked it out for you. AdWords now has an image ad builder in the AdWords ad variations control panel and it is cool.
Right now AdWords is showing Flash image St. Patrick’s day ad templates. The easy control panel allows you to add text, upload a logo or image, and does all the heavy lifting for you to have a very cool animated image ad in just the right sizes.
I think that this is a wonderful tool as the time to create all 8 size variations of image ads can be extremely time consuming and may even require the help of a graphic artist or Flash designer. The new image ad builder allows non-designer types to use image ads without having to spend huge chunks of time or money to create them.
When would you want to use image ads? Well, now this is the big question. In my years of experience I know that ads in the content network simply do not convert at the rate that they do in search, and right now image ads only show in content. So, it is important to know that you can really spend a huge chunk of cash advertising in content using image ads and not generate the real sales to cover the expense. Still even with that for name exposure, brand marketing, and wide advertising exposure targeting the content arena does work, just don’t expect the same conversion rate you get on Google.com.