Sometime in the last few weeks, the Google Adsense team announced a new feature they would be rolling out called Interest based ads. What is this all about?
Google Adsense has tens of thousands of websites showing their advertisements, maybe more. As a result, Google is in a position to be able to accurately identify a specific users interests. I’m surprised they haven’t rolled something like this out before now!
How it will Work
Essentially, every publisher participating in the Adsense program will have their sites categorized. Then, through a cookie, or maybe an IP, Google will track users and determine which category of site they visit the most.
Traditionally the ads shown on a publishers site are targetted to the page content. After April 8th (the rollout date for this feature), surfers to your site could be seeing ads based on their interests.
The interest targeted ads won’t be replacing the traditional system, but will instead work in conjunction with it. The Adsense system will attempt to choose an ad best fit to the surfer, that will make you the most money.
What does this mean for the typical Adsense publisher?
Increased revenues, at least, in theory. Show users advertisements about things they are interested in, and they will be more likely to click. More clicks, more money.
In reality, I don’t think this change will do much for the average publisher. People aren’t going to suddenly start clicking ads just because it’s about something they like. The few clicks you do receive may earn you a bit more money, which is great, but don’t expect your earnings to double or triple overnight.
Reactions?
The reception to the news of this program has sparked some hot debate, as the anti big brother, tinfoil hat crowd reacts. Check out this post over at Adbusters to see what I mean. Google is monitoring our lives! Collecting our data and tracking our movements! Give me a break. Compared to the tactics traditional advertisers have been using for years, this latest Google move is nothing to break a sweat over. As a publisher, you have the option of opting your sites out of this new program too.
Personally, I’m keeping an open mind about the program until I see results. What are your thoughts?
Sometime in 2008, Google launched a new Adsense feature called Video Units. The video units allowed publishers to embed video players of different sizes into their sites, to try and earn revenue from clicks on the video ads.