Google IS Tracking You!

Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you...

So it's Friday and I'm trying to get better at putting blog entries in on a regular basis. It's the typical cobbler's shoes thing.

At any rate, I was checking out Matt Cutt's blog as I do a couple times a week and came across an entry clarifying Matt's stance on a few points. Now anyone who knows me knows that I may kid about the big Google monster and Matt especially, but the truth is I have a lot of respect for those guys. In a lot of ways they make my job easier (heck, they make my job possible). In his post, Matt references the Google Ad Preferences page where you can indicate your interests so ads are better targeted. I think this is both good and bad for completely different reasons.

Using the Google Ad Preferences for good

The good comes from people actually using the tool to see Google ads that they would be interested in. The content network is notorious for badly targeted ads, and from our side as marketers we typically don't even bother with the Google content network unless a client has a significant budget and is willing to do branding creative. I'd be happy if someone can show me an example of a text ad on the Google content network that has pulled a decent ROI. I have had clients spending $50k/month with nice creative and getting an OK ROI, but that was a niche and we were able to strictly target the placements.

Now that people can adjust their interests, maybe we'll start to see more viability in the Google content network. It's interesting that Google uses a cookie to track your interests based on the sites you've visited. I can only imagine what category some people I know will get put into. I can even see some embarrasing moments in the near future if some very niche ads start getting shown. Ah, the fun of advertising!

But not everyone will get it

I know this whole Google Ad Preferences thing is going to become the next challenge with many people though. I can see clients that sell a product by day that doesn't match their interests by night. When they go to a site where we say their placement has been targeted and they never see their ad we are going to have more explaining to do.

This is why measuring the real KPIs is so important. Frankly, I don't want my clients to see their own ads because they aren't going to get an ROI if they buy from themselves. Their impressions will drive down click-through rate which could possibly lower the quality score in extreme cases (I doubt 1 impression here and there is going to have a big effect). We definitely don't want them clicking through and having to pay for it. The real KPIs, such as click-through rate, cost-per-click, cost-per-conversion, and most importantly ROI, are what is really important.

As usual, I've gotten long-winded. But as always I'd like to thank you for staying with me through the whole post.