Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Another thread here in this forum had these posts:
>> According to Google, interest based ads are already in use.
> They absolutely are, I've seen ads on sites (not mine) which are certainly on the topic of previous google searches I have made and are totally unconnected to the topic of the page I'm viewing.
I realized Google had set every publisher's control panel settings so we had to opt out, but I didn't know exactly when Google hit the switch.
I haven't seen any case studies from Google which show what kind of revenue performance improvements we should expect from the new program. But in any case, recently I've seen a big drop in revenue--largest drop in many months--so I just opted out of the interest-based ads.
What is your experience? Are you seeing better or worse revenue?
Incidentally, my biggest concern about interest-based ads is not being able to filter advertisers. Many if not most of the ads others see will be based on their interests which I know nothing about. Therefore I have no idea what ads they see, and which advertisers to block.
Google has done very little to sell its new scheme to publishers, or address any concerns which could be anticipated. [googleblog.blogspot.com]
I am always skeptical of new AdSense ideas from Google, because its previous tweaks weren't very impressive. The video thing wasn't a bit hit; its graphic and Flash ads were so often so offtopic; the Advice notices were boilerplate junk; it still only offers an old filter for 200 sites; and it still regularly has reporting failures.
p/g
Google has done very little to sell its new scheme to publishers, or address any concerns which could be anticipated.
Google isn't "selling" this to publishers. We are being "TOLD" it's happening, period. Our 2 choices are live with it, or leave the program.
Any talk about "Opt-out" is a complete sham. The joke called "Opting-out" for publishers will do the average publisher little if any good at all.
And the average surfer won't even know it's possible to "opt-out". And if they do happen to somehow find out they can "opt-out" they have to read carefully to understand that they'll either need to "opt-out" everytime they start their browser UNLESS they let Google load a different TRACKING COOKIE on their computer.
What kind of OPT-OUT is that?
This thing should be OPT-IN.... period.
It is what it is. Sales are down all over. Advertising effectiveness is down all over.
You can turn it off in your account settings.
A new feature like this takes some time to go into full effect--advertisers have to start using it, after all.
Because when I used to work for Qwest that was the amount of pipe being used for such purposes:)
he was quoting me from another thread, and i have certainly seen it - and i'm not talking generic dating/loans etc. ads or whatever.
it is completely reasonable to assume that google has/is running tests on this.
advertisers have to start using it, after all.
What kind of control do advertisers have over 'interest based' distribution of their ads?
So when I visit my sites, I do not know, are this ads for the content of the page, or for my recorded interests.
... means 95% of adsense ads will now be adult based?Because when I used to work for Qwest that was the amount of pipe being used for such purposes
Actually it would be something like 67%, with 33% being used in P2P copyright infringments (as shown by recent Swedish numbers).
Another thread here in this forum had these posts:>> According to Google, interest based ads are already in use
I wrote the line about interest based ads are already in use and it came directly from information on Google that has been linked from this forum.
This has been discussed at length in another thread and a number of links to Google pages that explain this have been posted on this forum. See my post about clown shoes near the bottom of this page as an example - [webmasterworld.com...]
According to Google, interest based ads are already in use and have been.
What's NEW, and what's happening beginning April 8 or 9, is that interest based ads will be shown where the ads are drawn from CATEGORIES based on the user's past interest.
Even then, they will only show an interest based ad pulled from a category if it performs better than other ads.
So if a visitor visits your site you will now have three opportunities for an ad to be displayed - an ad based on content, an ad based on the user's prior interest or an ad based on the user's prior interest that is drawn from same category as ads the user has shown interest in previously. Of all those, the ads that perform the best will be shown to the visitor.
It seems like a simple and sound concept to me. It's an attempt to achieve a better CTR basically, and when that happens, Google makes more money and publishers make more money.
FarmBoy
so, on april 8 they are going to start to roll out the new feature, and everyone has to update their privacy policies. but, according to you, something even more likely to raise the eyebrows of privacy-advocates, has already been running?
publishers were not required to update their privacy policies to display ads based on _specific-users_ interests (!) but they do have to update privacy policies for the weaker privacy intrusion of category-based-ads?
i am not disagreeing that you have seen this in the wild - google always tests stuff first before a larger roll-out. but, i am reluctant to believe that anything interest-based (categorical or personal) has been rolled out on anything other than a test-sized scale.
As for the impact of "interest-based" ads, I'd expect that to vary according to a publisher's topic and the availability of relevant contextual ads that attract clicks from users. In any case, it's likely to be a while before we can draw any conclusions about revenue from the new ads, because the supply will probably start as a trickle before it becomes a torrent (if it ever does).
While I hope that this will increase CTR (which is a problem on our sites), I highly doubt it. Keeping fingers crossed though.
Another desperate move by Google to increase revenue.
I'd call it another well-planned incremental move to increase revenue, just like the other additions and refinements that have produced continued network growth over the years. Don't knock change: You wouldn't be a mammal if time and evolution had stood still.
i am not disagreeing that you have seen this in the wild
I didn't say anything about seeing something in the wild.
FarmBoy
Would be interesting to know how far Google plan to go-back in the visitors 'interest history'. If you were looking to buy something on-line yesterday, chances are you bought it yesterday too so wouldn't have any interest in it today.
I've disabled this for now, I'll let everyone else test it out first :p
Same here, after the disaterouse performance in April, I hope any change can only be towards better.
So I'm optimistic that it will help us publishers too. How much, who knows?
Not saying that I know anything, but I want to ask you one simple question: What is Google's motivation to increase payments to you for something where you had zero involvement? They see that you are happy at the current income levels, why would they rise the payments for clicks from "interest based ads"?
Maybe it helps with the CTR - let's assume for a second it does. Why would they want to rise the overall eCPM then? Why don't they just decrease the EPC so much that your current eCPM stays solid, also at the new click levels? Why?
I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic. I don't think much will change for us.
What is Google's motivation to increase payments to you for something where you had zero involvement?
They see that you are happy at the current income levels
The thing is no one has any idea just yet what kind of impact this will have. Oh, plus every site performs differently so your results may vary :-)
[edited by: Swanny007 at 5:24 pm (utc) on April 6, 2009]
They know that because I still have their ads up?
Exactly.
Without any serious competition they can easily keep us at the absolute minimum revenue levels (maximizing their own profit). There simply is no NEED to increase the eCPM for us. So, I'd not hold my breath hoping for a better revenue (for us) from interest based ads. Google may see improvements, but we (almost certainly) won't.
Without any serious competition they can easily keep us at the absolute minimum revenue levels (maximizing their own profit).
There is serious competition for the ad space on my sites, as there is for many other sites. Your thinking about it as if the only competition has to come from other similar companies (like yahoo), or ad serving, but if you have a problem with your business models, please don't paint us all with the same brush.
We regularly re-assess the use of our adspace, based on return, convenience, time involved, and a number of other factors, because we DO have options, and we DO consider our ad space open for competition.
Lest you think we're talking about cpm in the penny range, we aren't. Our ECPM for google ads is a "little" under $8.
It was twice that several years ago. Where it drops below a certain level on our sites or pages, we pull adsense ads.
I get a little tired of people who only have ONE way to make money and that's thru adsense, complaining that there's no "competition".
You make your own business bed. If you aren't able to make your adspace open for competition, it's YOUR business problem, not google's.
That said, Adsense is very disappointing, and has been for a long time.
got to go. It's time to do our stats analysis, and cut more adsense ads. If they want us, they can ensure its' more profitable for us. Otherwise, pffft.
