Archives for posts with tag: adsense

Google Catching Up In the Behavioural Targeting Game

March 17, 2009 //
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Google’s latest move into the world of behavioural targeting has been hit with a lot of publicity, but in reality, all they are doing is catching up with the game.  Yahoo and Microsoft have been using behavioural targeting functionality based on users search queries and pages browsed for a number of years, and charging a premium for the service.  But now Google have stepped into the game and all of a sudden it is big news again.

Obviously anything Google announce is going to be big news, but there isn’t much really to their new service that isn’t available in other portals.  They have tried to cover themselves from a privacy perspective by allowing people to select their areas of interest but really, is anyone other than those working in the digital arena going to now where to find these settings? No.  In reality the ability to select and deselect interests is a token gesture to the privacy police.  And of course they are going to sell it to advertisers as an opt in on interests and charge additional for the targeting options.

There is added complexity with Google due to their adsense network and it not being only their properties they would be targeting you on, but other than this, it is nothing more than Yahoo and MSN have been doing with their display advertising for years.  Of course the major benefit of Google is they will have much more data to work with than Yahoo and MSN combined so the targeting should be more accurate and more detailed, but other than that, its just Google catching up in the display advertising game.

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Categories Display Advertising

Google Looks to Challenge Skype in VOIP Market

December 7, 2008 //
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Google has launched a service which will challenge Skype’s dominance in the voice over IP communication project. The product comes in the form of Gmail chat which allows Gmail users to text chat with over internet connections but now also use voice chat and even see each other via video connections. (reported on bbc blogs)

This is a serious challenge to Skype and even more-so given the fact that Skype has struggled to monetise its service since its buyout by eBay.Google should have no such problems, even if it is only through Adsense text ads, it will be monetising this new solution. Also, if the only thing that this new Google initiative does, is to encourage more people to use Gmail, then Google also wins. As it is able to monetise these users through Adsense and CPM advertising.

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Categories Google

If you can’t beat them, join them

April 18, 2008 //
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It seems like Yahoo! may have finally given up trying to beat Google with the announcement that they are running a two week trial displaying Google AdSense listings alongside their search results in the US (more detail).  The initial trial will include the results displaying on no more than 3% of search queries submitted and will only be seen by Yahoo! US users.  Yahoo! claim the move is is part of an “exploration of strategic alternatives to maximise stockholder value”, i.e. make them more money.  Microsoft have already expressed their own concerns that should a future deal be struck this would take Google past the 90% market share mark and raise further competition concerns.

It concerns me what a future deal could mean for the search market as the it effectively means a consolidation of the market as opposed to the fragmentation we had seen coming over the past 2 years.  This simplifies the process and doesn’t necessarily bode too well for search marketing agencies.  From Yahoo’s perspective it may come down to purely monetary figures.  If they have decided that they are not going to get very far with challenging Google in the paid search market then displaying AdSense results would allow them to significantly reduce their staffing levels and technology costs.  Although it wont be nice for those people that end up getting the boot, the boardroom wont be concerned if the figures stack up.

It does make you wonder what sort of deal has been brokered for the trial and the possibilities beyond though.  A typical AdSense partner might be earning 40% of the click revenue generated but Yahoo! aren’t you standard partner! Could Google be willing to let Yahoo! keep all of the revenue for the sake of market share?

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Categories PPC, Search Engine Marketing