Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Google Extends Ad Targeting Based on Browsing History


28 June 2011

Instead of seeing irrelevant ads that you have no interest in while you browse, you may have noticed the ads are becoming more targeted. Google has been running interest-based advertising in beta for two years and it is now available to all AdWords advertisers. Advertisers can join the Google Display Network to provide ads to users based on their browsing history.


This advertising gives exposure to your company based on the interests of the browser. Essentially, this option allows advertisers to behaviorally target users. 



While users browse, websites will be displayed that are relevant to the products and services they have been browsing for based on cookies placed in their web browser. Of course, users can always opt-out of this. If they choose to option in based on privacy concerns, the user will then no longer see relevant ads. 



An advertiser can still use Google's Search Network which is separate from the Google Display Network. These two networks combined make up Google's entire advertising network and can provide targeting advertising for businesses. Advertisers pay clicks per impressions for the interest based advertising, as per usual. 



According to Google Display Network Product Manager Jon Krafcik, an advertiser chooses an interest category, and then these ads are shown to "people most likely to purchase your products or services, and you can reach them across all types of sites in the Google Display Network in addition to contextually relevant sites."



Krafcik goes on to explain how the system works. "The system looks at the types of pages and user visits, taking into account how recently and frequently those pages have been visited, and then associates their browser with relevant interest categories."



The network has over 1,000 interest categories to choose from, so advertisers should not have any difficulty in finding a relevant category. With the network reaching 70% of Internet users around the world, businesses will able to reach a large number of potential customers. 



This can have a tremendous impact on a business sine they are reaching targeted customers. That is always a much better audience for converting sales and making profit. 



Many times, when a user is browsing for a particular item, they may not be ready to buy. The addition of the Google Display Network should theoretically help the advertiser in reaching the customer at the right time.


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