Today AdSense publishers (or at least some of them) received the following email outlining some recent ‘changes and improvements’ to the Google ad system.
These changes largely revolve around new features that they’ve added to AdWords to let advertisers target websites differently (more control).
One of the big changes is the introduction of ‘Ad Planner’ (currently in an invite only beta test) which allows advertisers to search for sites with certain demographics and interests. Advertisers can now also target sites with a combination of both contextual targeting (having their ads appear on pages with certain keywords) as well as placement targeting (targeting specific sites and ad positions on them).
Really there are no changes in terms of features for us as publishers – but it will be interesting to see how these changes impact the bottom line. It should advantage bloggers targeting specific niches and lucrative demographics (what those demographics are we’re yet to see). It’s also incentive to develop blog posts that target popular keywords to advertisers. It could hurt sites with more mixed topics and demographics.
Here’s the email from AdSense.
As one of our AdSense partners, we’d like to keep you updated on changes and improvements to the Google ads ecosystem. We’re writing to let you know about some recent developments in how advertisers can find and target your sites, which are intended to bring more advertisers to the AdSense content network. We hope that this will result in increased revenue for publishers like you while also benefiting your users with even more relevant ads.
We’ve recently launched Google Ad Planner, a media planning tool which will help give your sites more visibility and exposure. Using Ad Planner, media buyers can search for sites by demographics and interest. This will be useful especially for sites with niche audiences, since it’ll now be easier for advertisers to find sites that attract the types of visitors they’d like to target. As a publisher, you can also use the tool to gain insight into your audience and their preferences. We’re still beta-testing Ad Planner, but you can sign up for an invitation at http://www.google.com/adplanner/.
Also, we’ve recently made a change within AdWords to allow advertisers to target their ads through a combination of contextual targeting and placement targeting. Advertisers can continue to create campaigns targeted to your sites or ad placements, but can now also add keywords to those campaigns so that their ads appear only in the most contextually relevant placements. In addition, advertisers can now adjust bids by individual site in order to spend more of their budgets on specific sites which give them the most high-quality, converting leads. These changes may help improve the relevance of the ads on your sites, and advertisers who become more confident that their ads are reaching the right audience may increase their ad spend on the content network and on your sites.
With these improvements, we’re looking forward to expanding the number of advertisers who use the AdSense content network, helping them find your sites, and increasing the relevance of their ads on your sites. You can find more information about Ad Planner at http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/06/introducing-google-ad-planner.html and the AdWords changes mentioned above at http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/07/use-keywords-and-placements-together-on.html . If you have additional concerns, please contact your account manager. We’re working towards strengthening the relationship between our AdWords and AdSense partners, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted on these types of developments in the future.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team
Any new change by google will have positive impact.Hopefully.Thank darren for this useful news.
Great stuff. I see AdSense doing big things in the next year or two just because there’s so much other competition now, and if they don’t stay on top of the game, the empire could crumble. I agree this will help bloggers, the question is how much. How easy will Google make it to target certain ad groups and such? I guess time will tell.
These changes sound pretty good for adsense users. I have a question. I got removed from adsense for life about a year and a half ago and I am looking to try and get back into the system. Is there any way to do it?
Adsense do need to stay on top of the game, people are starting to demand more from them now as other companies are catching up
This sounds like a good idea- cause sometimes I get ads which are completely irrelevant to my site and target market – Speaking of adsense does anyone know how to stop the same ad appearing twice on my page….Is this normal? I don’t think it is really effective… I hope I can fix it.
thanks
jess
that gives me more incentive to try to create a made for adsense site
The big thing I have noticed about Google is how many top name bloggers are abandoning them for other sources. I am sure some of it is because of google’s mysterious practice of saying we feel some of your traffic is a threat to our advertisers good by, go away andw e are keeping your check. I know one or two people that happened to personally thanks to a major digg/reddit day.
All their recent changes and ruthless behavior are leaving me with serious trust issues for google. What looks good for little guys may well bite you in the arse as soon as you make some serious money with them.
good work … great goin… visit mine…link1
Space is only as deep as one makes it. All of the bits and bites are yours to imporve the betterment of all. If not for that the computer would have been gone to the river and thrown off the bridge. So it goes and we go on to make things better for all. Sweet. Yes it is good or so I pray.
As ever be well. Stephen Craig Rowe
G! adds new good improvements for publishers, great news!
Thanks for the info Darren. Hopefully this helps my revenue…
Hopefully,
The new structural changes in Adsense will cause a larger percentage of their clients an increase in the bottom line of any income generated.
That would be nice.
It was about time AdSense made some improvements. I’d like some publisher filtering, too.