Sootle Weblog

Google Adsense has announced they’ll be using ads that are targeted on people’s online behavior. In the past Adsense ads were geared towards to topic of the page the visitor was at. Now Google will go a bit further and use data they’ve collected about websites a visitors has been at recently as well as the page’s topic to target an ad.

The announcement has already kicked off a bit of a flurry of opposition. That’s not unusual when Google first unveils a new project. Personally I’m of the “wait and see” school on the subject. Google Adsense targeting has been particularly woeful of late, and that makes me want Google to innovate.

Why remain complacent when it looks like Adsense revenue is drying up? If ads can be exceptionally well targeted and they bring results to advertisers while not distracting visitors, I’m all for it. Google is nothing if they don’t continue to adapt, evolve, and innovate in the search market.

Global business trends are down right now, so the only way to keep going forward for G is to make decisions that improve the user experience for site visitors and also give advertisers a fair shake for their money.

Google interest-based ads will be phased in over the next month.

This report is anecdotal, but it’s based on observation of many of the Google Adsense ads I see running these days. A number of the offers that appear on wide ranging sites seem to be shady. Google is an online marketing company that might be bigger than others, but clearly they’re having the same issues others are during the long, global recession.

Advertisers have been cutting ad budgets around the world.

Advertisers are cutting their ad budgets, especially the companies who are losing money. This means less big money ad campaigns are running than were in the past. Certainly online ads offer some real advantages over their offline counterparts. They’re easy to track, and highly targetable. Even given these advantages, it’s reasonable to assume that low sales are forcing companies to cut back on spending, offline and on.

The presence of shady offers indicates that Advertiser quality is at a low point. Many current Google Ads don’t lead directly to an advertiser landing page, but instead to a third party. Make sure to read the terms carefully, because a large number of these ads will end up with you incurring recurring credit card charges. Not exactly the type of product most people want to be in a recession.

Of course Google isn’t alone in selling these types of ads. They’re running through multiple networks. A new rash of “$12,000 Obama Stimulus Check” ads can be seen across all of the web’s most prestigious websites.

Adsense targeting ain’t what it used to be

Either Adsense targeting has gone downhill, or the dearth of good ads is just becoming painfully obvious. Either way, you can expect to see some pretty off-kilter ads these days. In the past, Google seemed to value relevancy above all else. Now they appear happy to get whatever cash they can for ads.

The really scammy ads are perplexing, though, from a business standpoint. If people are continuously present ads that lead to scam landing pages, eventually they’ll come to associate all “Ads by Google” with being of low value. When this happens in earnest, banner blindness becomes the norm. Google would seemingly be better served running tight controls over the types of offers in their system, but editorial control doesn’t appear to be a strong suit.

Google has been one of the best performing companies in business since they went public, but like anyone else, they’ll need to continue to upgrade their business model and current practices in order to expand their ad program and make more money.

Hopefully the quality of advertisers will improve in the next few months. That way website owners and visitors will enjoy a better experience than the one they’re currently getting.

More and more complaints are coming in daily about Adsense earnings being down, and it’s not really that big of a surprise. The overall economy is hurting, so there’s a lot less fat in advertising programs. The only companies that can afford to advertise these days are ones with a positive conversion rate. If they can’t make money buying ads, why do it?

Continue reading “Websites Without Products” »

Lately I’ve been reducing the number of Google Adense ads I’m running and replacing them with more direct ads. Why? Because for the first time in as long as I can remember, the quality is really, really dismal when it comes to the ads I’m seeing.

Revenues are fading, despite massive traffic increases, and it’s not hard to see why. How many more “IQ Test” ads can people click on before they say “Enough is enough?”

Have people become banner blind?

Google has been at this for quite some time. It’s not hard to imagine that Google ads just aren’t that exciting to the average surfer. Once you’ve seen many of these “landing pages” that are so prevalent in Adsense, you could hardly be blamed for not wanting to click on that many more ads.

“Garbitrage” is alive and well. Most marketers aren’t using Adwords to Adsense anymore, but they’re clearly looking for low cost traffic and then hoping to send it to a closing page so they can get the commission. It’s not really the most effective means of using your website’s traffic.

Of course it’s easier to use Adsense than it is to customize codes, but the custom codes are worth more in the long run, especially if you have any decently trafficked pages on high paying subjects. It used to make sense to slap Adsense up and forget it. Now it would be worth testing offers and seeing what converts. You’re bound to make more this way than the just running multiple occurrences of Adsense.

Microsoft gave up their bid for Yahoo and now Yahoo is looking to Google to shore up their search operations. Of course such an alliance might just create a near monopoly in the search marketing arena, so big advertisers are starting to worry about just how high ad rates will go up.

Advertisers are most concerned about whether the deal, between the two biggest sellers of search advertising, may affect the pricing of ads that appear alongside search results, a science in which online marketers invest heavily. The prices they pay Google for ads that are linked to searches for various search terms are established through an auction process.

While Google doesn’t set prices manually, some experts said prices might rise for keywords in situations where Yahoo chooses to blend in Google ads, as more advertisers compete for those terms. That is more likely to happen for terms where Yahoo has fewer interested advertisers such as “dry cleaners Fresno” or “small dog breeds.”

Of course it’s possible that keywords could continue their rise. This “merger” of search operations is bound to have a monster impact, since it affects the two largest destinations on the Web. In fact, an old school “consolidation” of large rivals will certainly make competition harder for rivals, as it has since the days of J.P. Morgan.

The bigger question for us publisher is whether the higher costs for ads will “trickle down” into our pockets.