Do We Need Google’s Behavioral Targetting Right Now?

March 11th, 2009 by Nick Gonzalez

Google’s gotten into behavioral targeting with their new “interest ads”. Like Google’s existing AdSense product, “interest ads” target users based on context. In this case the context is based on what websites the user has been, not necessarily the content of the web page. But aside from the privacy concerns, which I think Google has handled well, is behavioral targeting really what advertisers and publishers need right now?

The product doesn’t answer any of the pain points brands and publishers are facing right now. Brands want better experiences and publishers want easier ways to add value for advertisers. If anything, behavioral targeting destroys value for publishers because it means you may not have to advertise on interest based sites since you can access the same user on a long-tail blog.

What advertising needs, and what I think SocialMedia.com is pursuing, is improving the advertising experience, not targeting. Make ads better, not more targeted.

Tags: advertisers, publishers

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 11:04 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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real estate license 5 months ago 2 points
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I have often thought that the behavioral targeting is a bit off key with what advertising should be right now. I kind of feel like it is an invasion of privacy a bit for the end user and it seems to just be one more way we are being tracked online.

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http://realestatelicensedirect.com/

Wisdom_Stories 11 months ago 1 point
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Interesting conversation ... but I disagree with your final analogy ... It is essential that ads are tagetted, and it is essential they are better. Either way the natural economy will sift away the garbage ads. If the ads don't perform the advertisers can continue with them. This is why you said that better ads will win the day.

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nickgonzalez 11 months ago 1 point
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I'm not saying that ads don't need to be targeted, just that advertisers aren't suffering from a lack of targeting. We can already target ads down to users based on gender, location, language, interests...

They're suffering from a lack of experience.

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Raleigh Painting Services 3 months ago 1 point
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I subscribed to your blog when is the next post

regards
sanj kapton
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Computer Services Baltimore 3 months ago 1 point
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I posted your blog to my facebook group

respect
Davin saha
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