Images in Google Adsense Text Only Ads

Advertiser favicons being used in AdSense ad units
Icons, better known as 16 by 16 pixel favicons, have been spotted in AdSense wide skyscraper ad units tonight. Register.com, eBay.com and Amazon.com are among those advertisers whose favicons are being shown.

www.amazon.com

www.register.com
These definitely catch the eye of the person viewing the webpage, which will be good for publishers as well as the advertisers who are using them to attract clicks. So it will be interesting to see if regular advertisers will be able to include icons in their content Adwords ads, or if they will be limited to the "big brands" only.

Quote from SearchEngineJournal;

This could have a negative impact on the earnings of Google Adsense publishers. A text link with an image on the left would attract more attention of the visitor and is more likely to be clicked than the one without an image. And premium advertisors might be paying less per click. So your Google.com Adsense CTR may go up but the EPC may fall.

Or, Google might be still testing this adsense feature and may eventually allow all adsense adwords users to use favicon in their ads. In that case, the skyscraper units will definitely catch the eye of the person viewing the webpage, which will be good for publishers as well as the advertisers who are using them to attract clicks.

*What do you think?