Google expands data targeting and profiling to provide “more brand lift and brand awareness” for ads

Google’s new “Ad Planner” is just one of a series of tools now emerging which are designed to more precisely track and target consumers for advertising campaigns. Microsoft’s “Engagement” initiative has similar roots. “The focus [of Google Ad Planner] is primarily on creating more brand lift and brand awareness [for advertsiers],” [Wayne Lin, business product manager at Google] told DMNews.” Here’s an excerpt from the article:

The tool lets advertisers match demographics and related searches for a particular site, or aggregate statistics for sites in the advertisers’ buying plan.

“This will expose many more sites that are much deeper into the Web,” Lin said. “It opens up data that wasn’t necessary visible before.”

Lin would not elaborate on specifics of how the data is pulled, but said that Google’s wide reach and powerful analytics would provide information on the long tail of the Web.

Internet for Everyone: Broadband access should be a right, not just a feature of the “competitive” market

The new non-profit and corporate coalition has nice rhetoric, but fails to articulate a policy agenda that would really address the digital divide. Public interest media groups should be calling on government and industry to provide free access to broadband for those who can’t afford it (whose numbers must be increasing, given the current economic squeeze). Just having “access” doesn’t mean it would be really affordable. Universal service in the digital age should mean the right of everyone to have broadband service in their home–as well as eventually on the mobile network. Americans should also have a broadband system where privacy is protected and is not primarily focused on data collection and the delivery of interactive marketing messages. That principle is noticeably missing from the new group’s statement. But the kind of Internet Google and other online advertisers will bring us threatens our privacy. [Google is a member of this new group.] Yes, we should have real competition–and the Bush decision awarding cable and phone companies a monopoly over residential broadband service should be reversed. Yes, we need network neutrality. But we also need to address quickly how we can ensure low income Americans have the access they require. That should involve a call for the government to pass legislation requiring a build-out of digital infrastructure, foster for profit  and not-for-profit ISP competition, and provide subsidized access for all. Broadband access is a necessity, and should be an essential “Right” Americans have in the digital era.

Google pushes Plug-in Vehicles while it expands its ad pitching for the auto industry

We are glad Google seriously wants to improve the environment, and sponsored, as its corporate blog noted, this recent two-day conference in Washington, DC. The event was designed to “showcase plug-in electric vehicles and examine how the government can support their widespread adoption.”

But it needs to reconcile this noble cause with its business practices. Here’s an excerpt from Google’s job announcement for “Industry Head-Automotive” (based in the UK):

As a Google Automotive Industry Head, you’ll be working with those who produce, market or sell products or services related to cars, trucks, boats or other transportation vehicles. This includes original equipment manufactures, third-party websites, dealers and after-market parts and accessories companies. This is a highly consultative position that reports directly to the Automotive Industry Leader. You’ll be responsible for presenting the team’s strategy and managing a team of experts to increase sales on a national level. Focusing on building strong relationships at the highest possible level, your goal is to help your automotive clients get as many of their marketable assets online in an affordable and measurable way. You’ll combine exceptional Automotive knowledge, deep industry and marketing agency relationships…to develop and close new business as well as grow existing business.

Responsibilities:

  • Develop the vision and manage the sales/account strategies that will fully unlock the potential in the Automotive sector.
  • Build and maintain relationships with senior-level clients, industry-specific direct advertisers and relevant agency contacts.
  • Educate the Automotive industry and evangelise Google, particularly at targeted events, conferences and media opportunities….
  • Develop a deep understanding of the business needs of Automotive advertisers and insights into consumer behaviour.

Google’s Expanded Ad Targeting: Interactive Video & Rich Media

In May, when Google opened up its content network to other online ad companies, one of them was PointRoll. We think, as the online ad and privacy debate heats up, it’s useful to highlight the PointRoll announcement of its deal with Google:

PointRoll, the leading provider of rich media technology solutions, announced today that the company has joined with Google to enable PointRoll’s advertisers to run rich media ad campaigns across the Google content network, one of the world’s largest advertising networks… PointRoll currently provides its interactive capabilities and engaging brand-building formats to 65% of the Fortune 100, and now its clients can integrate the Google content network into their rich media campaigns…Using PointRoll’s precise targeting technology and measurement capabilities, advertisers are able to reach their desired audience with the most relevant and salient messages, and definitively analyze campaign effectiveness…PointRoll’s sophisticated targeting technologies can now optimize the breadth of Google’s sites and categories, matching advertisers’ messages to the users who find them most relevant…The Google content network joins the more than 3,000 online publishers-including elite sites such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo! and The New York Times-that leverage PointRoll rich media to provide powerful, engaging brand experiences to users.”

Google’s Hispanic Targeting via Search

Every marketer wants to target Hispanics and they are tracking their online behaviors closely. Here’s a view from Google:
Sarah Carberry, team leader at Google, says, “Connect with U.S. Hispanics at the right time and right place when receptivity is at its greatest. The consumer is choosing when to engage with your brand and signals their interest when they search for information on Google or on trusted content sites such as Univision or MySpace en Espanol. You can now tailor messaging to many niche markets, such as U.S. Hispanics, and target them with various ad formats in more places where consumers are throughout the web. This relinquishes marketers from the confines of traditional media where a standard design has been the norm.”

Carberry recommends optimizing on the fly after seeing what keywords, channels and messaging are working best. Also, she says, “take advantage of Google’s geo-targeting capabilities where there are higher concentrations of U.S. Hispanics. With AdWords, you can set your ads to show only to users within a certain radius of your business.”

source: 10 Experts Weigh in on Marketing to U.S. Hispanics. Joe Kotchera. imediaconnection. May 5, 2008

NebuAd’s CEO Discusses Online Targeting

“The latest in behavioral and contextual advertising technology enable marketers to personalize their messages to consumers by serving hyper-targeted and varied ad formats at every stage of the purchase cycle — ensuring that the right offer is reaching the consumer at the right time. New tools that measure engagement by the degree to which the user is engaged throughout the conversion cycle lets advertisers know what messages work. Rating systems that assign value to each consumer action throughout the funnel give advertisers a more accurate measurement of real engagement.”

Bob Dykes. NebuAd CEO. Imediaconnection. May 28, 2008

Google/Yahoo! Combine also raises questions about Publicis and WPP deals

Officials need to examine the recent deals made both by Google and Yahoo! with advertising agency powerhouses, Publicis and WPP, respectfully. The Google/Yahoo! combine reduces competition in the online ad sector, and these agreements need to be part of the analysis. Google and Publicis completed their deal last January “based on a shared vision of how new technologies can be used to improve advertising.” Last month, Yahoo! and WPP formed a “multi-year strategic partnership” that is connected to the online ad trading Right Media Exchange.

Search should not be considered a “natural monopoly,” as some cynics suggest. Nor should search by viewed as separate from display; increasingly the two are intertwined. Marketers desire cross-platform strategies. Perhaps that’s one reason Google is hiring cross-platform ad specialists. To quote from a Google job posting: “The Cross Platform Solutions team forms partnerships with advertisers and agencies to build brands online. We strive to deliver the most efficient and effective digital platform upon which the world’s leading brands are built. We connect advertiser’s brand messages to their target audience through innovative, precise and accountable online marketing solutions whose reach can extend around the world.”

It’s hard to keep up with the online ad world, so it’s not surprising that regulators have been slow to address the critical consumer and competition issues. But much is at stake in how diverse and consumer-friendly the new media world will become. That’s why the DoJ and the Hill need to look at these ad agency deals, among other issues we will discuss soon.  Btw, privacy is a serious issue in the deal, no matter how Yahoo! may be spinning it.

Google/Yahoo and the relationship between competition in the digital ad business and content diversity

We have long argued that we must focus on the implications to the funding of digital content diversity as fewer companies dominate the core revenue [monetization] apparatus. Google is in a position to become the primary digital gatekeeper for online/interactive publishing revenues. That’s because how revenues are shared, such as TAC (Traffic Acquisition Costs), is a fundamental economic lifeline for content. That’s especially critical as the old media economy of broadcasting and newspapers continues its meltdown.

We think this excerpt from TechCrunch underscores our view: “On the publisher side things are even worse. Google doesn’t share enough revenue with content sites that show their ads. The only thing keeping them even close to honest is the fact that Yahoo and Microsoft will occasionally compete for those partners. Take that away, and Google will go back to keeping the majority of advertising revenue generated at those sites (their only competition will be other types of advertising, which generate far less revenue). That is a terrible outcome when you look at it from the perspective of the health of the Internet.”

Trade Analyst on Google/Yahoo!: Google becomes “monopolistic gatekeeper”

From Diane Mermigas June 18, 2008 column in Online Media Daily [excerpt]:

excerpt: The deal puts more than 90% of the search ad market in Google’s hands, and raises the likely prospect that Google and Yahoo will work together on display ads. Executives from both companies have suggested as much, calling the partnership “good for competition;” when they should have said that it is “good for the competition.” The deal is a Trojan horse that makes Google the monopolistic gatekeeper, sucking the democracy and free capitalistic process out of advertising and e-commerce. The nonexclusive clause in the deal seems meaningless…Deutsche Bank, CitiGroup and Merrill Lynch are among investment banks reducing their estimates on Yahoo in anticipation of its advertisers shifting their business to Google. “This effectively signals the end of Yahoo’s competitive entry in the paid search business and signals to advertisers /agency customers to simply work with Google to purchase ad impressions from Yahoo longer term,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Jeetil Patel.

Watch out for those data-collecting “brand builder” widgets!

excerpt from Technewsworld: “…pairing widgets with behavioral analytics creates a sea change in the iterative marketing process. Emerging sophisticated analytics tools for widgets and social applications now give marketers unprecedented capabilities to reach out and track engagement within the consumer social networking environment. As a result, widgets and social applications may well become the most powerful brand builder of all for online marketers.

While most widget platforms that target the professional market provide analytics, some go a step further by giving marketers access to detailed interaction metrics, including time spent with the widget, number of viewings at the component level, rollovers, clickthroughs, pass-alongs, postings, and mass distribution. Brand awareness and recall, difficult to measure in traditional advertising without focus groups and surveys, can be measured at a granular level by analyzing widget engagement levels…By tracking posting, sharing, and viral hotspots, widget analytics provide specific metrics regarding a consumer’s actual and potential influence and his value on the engagement ladder…

With advanced widget analytics, marketers can identify, profile and reach out to opinion leaders within social networking communities. These influencers might be missed when tracking purchase history or Web site page views, because they may not be frequent or large dollar value purchasers. Instead, these opinion leaders influence their network of family, friends and associates by passing along content, posting it to their blogs or profile pages, or reviewing and rating it.”