San Francisco — Almost after two years of deliberation and closed beta testing, search and advertising giant Google has finally unveiled a service dubbed as “Interest Categories” as an option for its AdWords advertisers that enables them to target consumers in search based on their previous behavior and search history.
The search giant has been intensely experimenting what it labels as “interest-based ad targeting” for the past year within specific verticals, but has now expanded it to all of AdWords. The newly released feature available for advertisers in the Google Display Network, enables advertisers to target users by their broader interests, regardless of the context of the current site.
Generally, an advertisement in the Google Display Network will only be displayed if it is directly associated with the content on the page. Although, consumers do have some control. They can now view and make changes to the categories in which they have been clustered.
However, the new AdWords service is also capable of monitoring the types of pages that a user visits, including the frequency of their visits as well as how recent the visits are. Besides, based on this data, Google then assigns that consumer a specific category, and advertisers now have the option to target their ads at these interest categories, targeting them at the consumers most likely to express an interest in their product and therefore increase their potential sales or page visits, etc.
Currently, there are more than 1,000 listed interest categories to choose from with over 500 million users listed within them. During the beta test period some participating advertisers have experienced exceptional results, claiming that their testers have used interest categories to meet all kind of goals, “from an advertiser increasing brand lift by 40% to a shoe retailer driving 400% more conversions at a lower advertising cost per sale.”
“Whether the purpose is to generate awareness or drive sales, marketers share a common objective: reach people likely to be interested in their product or service,” explains Jon Krafcik, product manager at Google’s Display Network, on the Google AdWords blog.
“We hope you will utilize these interest categories to enrich your advertiser campaigns. We think you will find them to be a practical way to reach more interested users, increase awareness of your products and services and ultimately drive more sales,” he added.
However, the “Interests” attribute lets advertisers continue to target users on outside sites based on their established behavior and overall interests. The price remains the same for Interest-garnered impressions and clicks, but the mechanism gives you more advertising opportunities.
However, it is not clear whether ads will be automatically delivered to all Google users or whether people have to opt in, but Google said on its AdWords blog that ads will feature the new industry standard Ad Choices logo and it will be easy for consumers to opt out.
Krafcik further explained, “As we have made interest categories available to more advertisers, we have remained committed to providing users with the highest level of control and transparency.”
He added that it will arm advertisers with an “effective way to reach more interested users, increase awareness of your products and services, and ultimately drive more sales”.
However, according to Search Engine Watch’s Rob D. Young, the new service is not for everyone, particularly he says, “Advertisers who are demonstrating on the display network at a smaller scale, advertisers who want to pay the absolute minimum for clicks or impressions, and users who want to see a wider variety of ad types”.