europeforvisitors - 9:05 pm on Aug 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

EPV - I wanted to post something about your TRAINS example but lost my post last night when trying to reply. That example the advertisement was designed specifically for the publication and IT's audience and it's demographics. Now Adword advertisers don't have this control. They have a one size fits all type ad that gets placed hell who knows where. Not conforming to any demographic on any one particular site. It is a WIDE spread demographic than what you get from search results.

That TRAINS ad wasn't aimed at a "demographic" (age, sex, income, etc.). It was aimed at a special-interest audience (railfans). And it was a perfect example of how big companies (in this case, Canon) target niche audiences by using special-interest media.

You're correct in suggesting that such an ad, if it were an AdSense ad, might turn up on inappropriate sites. The inability to control where ads appear (or won't appear) is one reason why a company like Canon--or, more likely, a media buyer at its advertising agency--might be reluctant to buy contextual PPC ads. But if the media buyer had such control, the company might be willing to pay a premium for the ability to pick or block advertising venues. Why? Because even at a cost of several dollars per lead, a PPC lead can be cheaper than a lead obtained by traditional means.

By the way, someone drew my attention to a new WALL STREET JOURNAL article that quoted Jupiter Research as predicting that online advertising will total $8 billion in 2004 compared to $12 billion for magazines. Jupiter believes that, by 2008, online ad spends will exceed magazine ad spends by half a billion dollars, with the spread increasing after that. Clearly, online advertising has a great future. I think we can safely assume that (a) Google will want a piece of that mainstream advertising market, and (b) Google will do whatever it takes to acquire mainstream advertisers (even if that means raising a hue and cry on Webmaster World by getting tough with AdSense spammers).