Google Content-Targeted Advertising

Google ads on blogs

[enda_001]

Google is giving free clicks until March 12 to their new content-targeted advertising.

Not only the ads will show on google and the search result of their partner, but now the ads can be show on other websites also, such as HowStuffWorks, Weather Underground, and Blogger.

Yes, now we, sort of, know why Google buy Blogger.

What do you think? And have anybody see the ads in other websites? One topic in Google Adwords forum mentioned about the ads showing on Sourceforge.

[top5jamaica]

can someone point me to an actual blog page where i can see google adwords displayed. i've been looking at some of the pyra weblogs and cant seem to find any

[rcjordan]

>point me to an actual blog page

Using stickymail, please.

[Rock_Steady]

Google and Overture are definitely not inventing anything new here.

In 1998 there are several references in the trade press about ideas such as "Transactive Content" and "Contextual Commerce".

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C2B Technologies Riding the Next Online Shopping Wave?
By Dianne See
Issue Date: Jul 28 1998
http://www.idg.net/english/crd_c2b_535265.html

"...transactive content, a term coined by Forrester Research (FORR). According to Greg Newman, cofounder and senior vice president of C2B Technologies, transactive content is the 'marriage of content with product and service recommendations.' ..."
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A similar idea called "Contextual Commerce" is generally credited to Dr. Augustine Fou, go-Digital Internet Consulting Group, Inc. in this seminal article from Aug. 1998:

http://www.go-digital.net/articles/contextcomm.html
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Indeed, many companies in this space have started and died in the last four and a half years:

YellowBrix
Vitessa
Pop2It
FizzyLab
VERSIFI
Cross Commerce

The following companies had nationally advertised initiatives in Contextual Commerce, but gave up that business:

Commission Junction
Screaming Media

The company FizzyLab of Seattle is particularly notable for raising $9MM of Venture Capital and burning through it in 10 short months before going out of business.

This path is littered with the skeletons of failed efforts. In order for this to get any real traction with publishers and advertisers it has to be done very carefully.

I'm not convinced the recent entrants in this field, including Google, have the seasoned experience to carry it out properly: note the concerns in this thread of seasoned publishers and advertisers alike.

[Chicago]

Where were you when we needed you RockSteady.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[Rock_Steady]

Thanks, Chicago, for that forum link. I am just starting out here. This is quite an intelligent & thoughtful crowd.

[Chicago]

Welcome to WW.

I was new recently too. One needs thick skin to break through on this board, trust me, but we need more individuals like you around. Stick with it. There is NO better place to learn then WW. Also take a peak at [webmasterworld.com...] this thread has really helped me to better use this resource.

[conecticslib]

It would be awfully nice if we could see *where* our targeted advertising is landing.

I'm getting a reasonable percentage of click-through on my free placements...but who knows where that's from?

Ironically, the single blog on Blogger that's really relevant to my key phrases is *mine,* but I have a paid account with Pyra, so no advertising shows up!

[Rock_Steady]

Someone mentioned Overture announcement of conxtexutal linking. The following thread is about a beta-test trial at USA Today with Overture links:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[GoogleGuy]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, Rock_Steady! We think we've got some new tricks that other companies haven't had before, but I'm counting on the folks around here to keep us grounded and honest (and to give good historical context).

[conecticslib]

Thanks for that tip, cline! Checking my stats this AM turned up several blogs and a forum or two where my AdWord must have turned up. I don't know how *targeted* those really are, since my audience isn't really likely to be there, but hey - it'll be an interesting excercise for a few more days at least.

[cline]

conecticslib, you're welcome. I have the same feeling about prospects being unlikely to be at certain syndication partners. One good thing, though, is that it's PPC. If the CTR is low, it really doesn't matter. The odd prospect may just happen to be on the odd website.

GoogleGuy, I'd really like to have the ability to select among your syndication partners about where our Adwords would appear. I'm already seeing patterns in response that are a function of where the ad appeared. The value of some of these syndication partners is looking like it's going to be very different than the value of others.

[Rock_Steady]

Thanks for the warm welcome, GoogleGuy.

You're right in that Google has to do things differently than the companies that are now RIP.

But, Google is doing some things that have been tried before. For example, a few years ago I was on the phone with a guy from Deja discussing content linking. He said that they tried it on Deja News, and the users complained about how text they wrote invoked advertising. Deja punted this idea.

It will be interesting to see if Google can pull it off successfully now that Deja News is owned by Google.