Google’s AdWords have just allowed advertisers to start targeting sites with certain demographics as readers.
You’ll see below on the screen capture from my AdWords campaign some of the options for targeting that Advertisers now have according to gender, age, income, race etc.
This means that Google are now tracking the demographics of AdSense publisher’s readership using comScore data. They are only tracking this data on US readers from what they say on their AdWords site.
This is a good deal for Advertisers but how do you feel about them gathering this information on your site’s readers?
It’d be interesting to see how this information impacts advertisers targeting sites but also to see whether publishers will work out a way to find out what their own site’s demographics are by using AdWords. I can’t yet see an easy way to do it – but I’m sure it’d be possible.
For those who are considering the impact on their readers:
As a reader, I don’t want to be tracked like this and I won’t click the ads when I know, that I’m tracked for much more than location (you get that by the ip anyway) and counting the clicks to give someone some money. When there is tracking even without clicking the ads, I will avoid sites with AdSense. Or surf with anonymous proxies or something. This kind of datamining marketing gives me a sick feeling in my guts.
I think that Google is becoming a sort of Big Brother.
Like reader I don’t want to be tracked but, like blogger, I know that the added value of Internet regarding others media is that is more trackable and this is a way to attract investors.
Demographics have been a part of the marketing landscape for a long time. And demographic data is captured in many ways, whether people are aware of it or not. The question is, how well can we – as marketers – use this information to connect better with the people who can most benefit from our goods and services?
To me, it’s not much different than sorting by keywords or understanding that a customer who bought one thing will probably appreciate this other thing. Amazon has done this very well and the benefits of other social interactions are well known.
The “big brother” reaction is understandable. But, in the long run, a technology like this either benefits more people or it dies.
[…] Um was gehts? ProBlogger stellt das neue Feature vor: Google’s AdWords have just allowed advertisers to start targeting sites with certain demographics as readers. You’ll see below on the screen capture from my AdWords campaign some of the options for targeting that Advertisers now have according to gender, age, income, race etc. This means that Google are now tracking the demographics of AdSense publisher’s readership using comScore data. They are only tracking this data on US readers from what they say on their AdWords site. […]
Adriel: Benefits whom?
[…] AdCenter adds some nice features that weren’t previously available elsewhere, like demographic targeting. There are sites who will definitely benefit from being able to target a particular demographic, so this is a great feature. Google obviously thought so, too, as they just announced their own demographic targeting. […]