Forum Moderators: martinibuster
We think we can make online advertising even more relevant and useful by using additional information about the websites people visit. Today we are launching "interest-based" advertising as a beta test on our partner sites and on YouTube. These ads will associate categories of interest — say sports, gardening, cars, pets — with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. We may then use those interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads.
Is the experiement running now?
I have today lowest of this month CTR and eCPM
Is the experiement running now?
From the Adsense blog:
Over the next few months we'll start offering interest-based advertising to a limited number of advertisers as part of a beta, and expand the offering later in 2009.
So I doubt if the effect you are seeing is due to interest-based advertising.
Get used to it.
honestly, if i were not a publisher but only a user getting wind of this data collection (though i expect most users won't), this would at the latest be the time to block adsense ads.
because users will rather block ads than opt out of things they weren't asked for in the first place.
adsense getting rough..
analogy: the more obtrusive the ad format, the more money it brings in. so do we all have pop-ups on our websites? there you go..
do we all have pop-ups on our websites? there you go..
However, the average user definitely notices popups and is annoyed by them. If G does this right, the average user will never even be aware that it is happening.
the average user definitely notices popups and is annoyed by them
where you can set your preference for interest-based ads.
The options are to show ads based on user-interest categories or to disable it
I believe that was exactly moTi's point.
Hmmm... maybe the point was ambiguous. I thought the analogy was meant like this: pop-up ads are intrusive and annoying and they make more money, but we don't all use them because they might drive visitors away. Likewise, interest-targeted ads may make more money, but we shouldn't use them because they might drive visitors away.
My point is that I doubt this will drive many visitors away, because most of them won't even be aware of it, whereas all visitors are aware of popups. I think the sort of person who cares about privacy is probably blocking Adsense already.
My point is that I doubt this will drive many visitors away
I just noticed a new option in adsense underMy Account > Account Settings > Interest based ads
where you can set your preference for interest-based ads.
The options are to show ads based on user-interest categories or to disable it
Thanks for that info.
I opted out.
most of them won't even be aware of it
throwing pop-ups in front of the visitor's face is disrespectful. collecting data about his user behavior without him knowing is deception. which one is worse?
Google isn't going to deliver off-base ads. That would be stupid, and G people are not stupid. Show a little confidence.
If your site is built on a well defined theme (how would you rank if there was a theme-strength tool, which there might be?) then you are already getting good CTR's and decent eCPM from on-target ad serving. If your site is a hodge podge of various topics slapped together with poor semantic html, the you're already in trouble from an advertiser's POV.
I'm betting that this will go the way of most things here: some will make more money --a lot more money-- and some won't. But its weeks, if not months, too early to reach any valid opinion.
I jump around. I might go to bestbuy, then do a search on new management research, then come to webmsterworld, then tweet, then do a search for a music title...all in like five minutes. How the heck can it know what I want NOW. I don't even know.
I think many people use the web like that. I don't want camera ads because now I'm looking at printer toner sources. I wanted camera stuf five minutes ago. TLN.
How the heck can it know what I want NOW. I don't even know.
LOL. Google tries to be better than you. :-)
Reminds me of that movie where people were convicted because they *will* become a criminal. That's probably one of the products Google is working on in their secret labs.
Suppose Widget ads are high CPM. At the moment pages about Widgets get Widget ads. With behavioural targeting, once someone has visited a widget site with adsense, or they have done a widget related Google search, they may see Widget ads on any site. The result will be that the Widget ads will be spread over more sites, so people targeting Widget related keywords will get fewer and make less.
I am not worried about the privacy implications - just turn off Google cookies, or use the Firefox extension that only allows certain Google services to see cookies. Compared to ISPs data gathering which stores every every page you viewed and every email you sent and ties it to your name and address, this is innocuous.
zett, the same film which has lots of behavioral targeted ads in.
Green_Grass, Defently agree. Switching to pure behavioral ads is not good for lots of reasons.
graeme_p, did you mean not innocuous?
#1 - My visitors can't agree to this, it's out of my control. As the middleman between Google and my visitors I need full control of what data Google takes via my site. I realize the argument is that the information comes from people's browsers, not my site, but that's false - browsers collect no data without visiting sites...
#2 - Is this the start to Google's planned "different serps for different folks" search result pages?
If #2 happens... there will be multiple sites for top spot depending on who's looking. If you are ranked #1 you may still remain #1 but not for everyone... Is that a good thing in the long term ?
#3 - if your traffic is primarily from search don't turn this on, your visitors are as motivated as they will get and ads targeted to their landing page work best.
#4 - if your traffic is mostly from social networks or advertising this may be a good thing since you're getting more visitors who aren't motivated to spend... thus are less likely to click.
#5 - It feels like the time to get out of adsense may be near. Imagine a person visiting a few sites and seeing the same ads over and over because he's being browser targeted... he/she didn't click on those other sites so can you actually expect a click on yours? My concern here is with the potential to increase ad blindness significantly (for everyone).
edit: What the heck a #6 - Netmeg said it best when she said "get used to it". I have to agree. As webmasters it's becoming increasingly difficult to "corner the money". More advertising dollars aren't being spent but it's getting spread around a lot thinner, how many will bolt from adwords with this? or from other services to adwords if it works?
[edited by: JS_Harris at 10:46 am (utc) on Mar. 12, 2009]
I would be happy to try this on a small scale and work my way up. But as my CTR on my largest site plummented yesterday (the others went up though) I have to opt out.
I would be more than happy to leave it on the smaller sites, but I can risk the larger one for it.
I think that this would be great for some kinds of sites, but not all.
Sites where people go for entertainment (mmmm... say like YouTube - I think this is a feature invented really for a single publisher who happens to be owned by Google) this is great as it increases the liklihood that someone would click on the ad where they would not have before.
But for informational sites, this is worthless. People are in the mind of now and the info they are looking at. Not the info they looked at 5 sites ago.
But for informational sites, this is worthless. People are in the mind of now and the info they are looking at. Not the info they looked at 5 sites ago.
Maybe, maybe not. If I just spent two days researching office copy machines online and then visit a site about flowers on Saturday morning, I don't think Google is going to ignore the fact I willingly went to the flowers site and show me only copy machine ads on the flowers site.
-------------------------------------------------
I'm guessing that I still need to make additions to my privacy policy in any case.
Anyone have a link to the new privacy text that should be added to our sites?
--------------------------------------
Choice - We have built a tool called Ads Preferences Manager, which lets you view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you.
I wonder if more than ... say 1% of the general public will ever visit to manage their preferences?
--------------------------------------------
FWIW, this morning I visited Amazon and they reminded me of something I searched for a couple of weeks ago. I had forgotten about it but made a purchase this morning.
----------------------------------------
On the privacy/moral issue, I think the battle is lost. I'm a person who primarily uses cash so as to minimize the paper trail I leave on a daily basis, but I see people around me who willingly give away a mountain of personal information one day and then worry about a mole hill the next day. We (collectively) are our own enemy in this regard.
--------------------------------------------
In theory this could suddenly make every site a candidate for AdSense ads - no more worrying about relevance and being a good candidate for getting targeted ads. I could write a site about training pet rocks and maybe get cancer attorney ads shown to someone who has been researching cancer issues.
On the down side, it would seem to once again open the door to a flood of garbage sites and blogs.
---------------------------------------
Time will tell.
FarmBoy
Anybody notice an increase in performance?
I'm not going to opt out quite yet, I'll give G a few days to tweak it first.
Anyone have a link to the new privacy text that should be added to our sites?
but im not sure if publishers can opt out yet. this is going to be beta tested in april with agencies, but like with all google beta tests, it will go live sooner or later. i'll try & keep this thread updated on the publisher opt out
