New: Interest-Based Advertising

[Rudy]

Just got this email from the Google AdSense Team. Interesting. Can't say that I've even bothered with my privacy policies in the past although I'll try to look through this stuff and get it implemented.

Your Thoughts?

We're writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site's privacy policies. You'll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. "sports enthusiast"). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the "sports enthusiast" interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site's privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009. Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we're unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.

For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html.

We appreciate your participation and look forward to this upcoming enhancement.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

 

[whitebark]

Sounds like a lot of tracking on their part and I really wonder if it will translate into more earnings for publishers.

 

[shockie]

i don't think that the tracking part is an issue as google is good at collection all this information about us (doubleclick, google accounts, analytics, etc). yahoo is probably able to do the same too as they're soon releasing a product called "enhanced retargeting" which sounds very similar to this "internet-based advertising" offered by google.

my guess would be that this will translate to more earnings for publishers in the right niches and getting traffic from the right countries.

 

[yilduz]

I got the e-mail and read it this morning. As usual, it was kind of confusing to me but after reading it a couple of times, I think I understand what they're doing. So does this mean that a poker site could display ads for motorcycles if the user looks at a lot of motorcycle sites?

 

[TheBulldog]

The short answer is yes.....

If you have someone on your site once a month that looks at poker, and the rest of the month is looking at harley's, then the google ads would be for morotcycles or related.

It actually makes sense and should increase clicks.....but only if the ads are less "googlish".

At this point, on one particular site I have I can see the traffic increasing, as well as the clicks, 2-5% ctr. But I strongly suspect it is only new people finding the site and not regulars that are clicking. Regular internet surfers are fairly immune to the ads.

 

[Richniche]

I also received the same message. A per my understanding, Google Adsense only wants us to update our Privacy page and it was confirmed also by a good friend of mine.

Anyway, I only added the below information and I think that's it.

Google and the DoubleClick DART Cookie

Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site. Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to this site's visitors based on their visit to this site and other sites on the Internet. Visitors may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy

 

[mdamin76]

That means a ringtones topic site can possibly show some ads about cooking. Looks funny.

 

[AussieDomainer]

I got the email also. Haven't got around to doing anything about it as I was a bit confused and not quite sure what it meant. Put it aside to look at later but you guys have been a great help in explaining. I'm going to login now and set it up as anything that could possibly help increase earnings is always welcome.

 

[happyhappy]

hmmm why do they want to track everything... they will start tracking your damn Pin codes for you soon too... might be a great idea for some.. they also tried to get their feet wet in online medical records...

 

[motherknucker]

They were tracking everything from the beginning only. Now they are going to make use of it.

 

[bluearrow]

Does anyone know what exactly we have to add to privacy policy ? I'm not happy about this new change. We might get ended with plenty of crap ads which pay nearly nothing.

 

[prague7]

Does anyone know what exactly we have to add to privacy policy ? I'm not happy about this new change. We might get ended with plenty of crap ads which pay nearly nothing.

Jensense.com blog has a useful template:

http://www.jensense.com/2009/04/03/...ample-with-interest-based-targeting-included/

 

[happyhappy]

Thank you very much! Wonder if they will ping ppl for using duplicated Privacy Policy LOL

Jensense.com blog has a useful template:

http://www.jensense.com/2009/04/03/...ample-with-interest-based-targeting-included/

 

[Sudbury Guy]

Sounds to me like a good way to monetize social media People might want to click those ads more if they're about something they were already interested in... looking forward to seeing the results