excerpt via ClickZ, July 31, 2007:
“Many have expected the behavioral targeting shoe would eventually drop at Google, and now it has. Technically, anyway, though a new behavior-based ad system enhancement from the company’s ad quality group doesn’t resemble the segmentation-based approach to behavioral targeting most marketers are familiar with.
A few weeks ago, Google began delivering ads based not only on the current search, but also on the searches immediately preceding it, and sometimes a combination of more than one recent query, according to Nick Fox, Google’s group business product manager for ads quality. Fox told ClickZ this week that the feature, which has no official name, aims to capture a more robust understanding of user intent and thereby deliver a better ad.
“The current query the user is issuing is pretty useful, but in some cases it misses the context of what the user is doing,” said Fox. By studying the larger context of queries relating to a consumer’s “overall task,” he said, Google can boost relevance…
Fox doesn’t like the term “behavioral targeting,” partly because it’s a loaded phrase in marketing and privacy circles. Additionally, he said, Google’s intent-based approach doesn’t employ the audience segmentation favored by Tacoda, Revenue Science and other behavioral targeting tech firms, not to mention BT-friendly media sites like Yahoo, that serve ads based on recent Web pages seen…
Google introduced the feature without fanfare, and most if not all marketers whose ads are affected by it have no idea the targeting is taking place. That’s true to form for Google and potentially irritating to advertisers, according to Anna Papadopoulos, interactive media director for Euro RSCG 4D…
Papadopoulos also finds it remarkable that Google has changed its tune with regard to behavior-based ad serving.
“I think it’s a total turning point for them,” she said. “Now I’m curious how they’re going to handle this for AdSense. They were pretty steadfast about not wanting to play in the behavioral targeting space.”
Google didn’t immediately respond to questions about where else on the Google network the company might consider delivering ads based on consumers’ prior search or surfing behavior. But it’s something the company opened the door to some time ago, according to Dave Morgan, founder and chairman of Tacoda.
“As an observer in the market, certainly Google’s move into behavioral targeting appears to have been happening incrementally over the past couple years,” he said. “Certainly they’ve modified their privacy policy over time to permit it.”…
Google’s new ad quality feature uses referrer information rather than cookies to track user queries at this time, Google’s Fox said. In most cases the ads will only appear to users for searches performed back-to-back or “within seconds or minutes of each other.” He added the company is looking at other possible tracking and targeting methods to capture “full intent,” including, perhaps, cookies.”
source: “Google Targets Search Ads on Prior Queries, Ã la Behavioral.” Zachary Rogers. ClickkZ.
