Google Adwords introduces Interest Based Advertising
I wrote last week on the fact Facebook is adding increased ways to target adverts through their interests – as one would expect the search advertising king Google is not far behind with products that provide similiar functions.
Ok, think of yourself as a hotelier for a minute; you’re trying to excite users during the holiday season about deals to visit your tropical destination. Prospects will come to your website, browse the promotions and think about booking a trip, but decide that the deal is still not quite good/cheap enough for wahtever reason and you don’t close right then so they continue to browse the web.
Later you decide to offer discounted deals or a special promotion, how do you reach those users who have already expressed interest in your product but you didn’t quite close the deal first time? (But you have done some good groundwork for the future)
Google Adwords are this week rolling out a new feature called remarketing. Any AdWords advertiser can use remarketing to reach users as they’re browsing the web on sites within the Google Content Network. Remarketing is a simple, easy way to connect with users, based on their previous interactions with you.
Google have been beta testing this functionality since last March as part of their interest-based advertising beta. They say that remarketing has worked well for many different kinds of advertisers – whether they’re looking to boost brand awareness, or drive clicks and sales, and whether they use display or text ads. For example, if you’re a search advertiser, you can use remarketing to create an integrated campaign strategy. After driving traffic to your site with search ads, you can then remarket to those users who reach your site by showing them tailored ads on sites throughout the Google Content Network.
It just makes sense – you’ve done some of the hard work in showing your product and brand to the consumer before – now close the deal with a very targetted communication when the opportunity arises.
It sounds great on paper – but unfortunately I have no ‘Audiences’ tab in my Adwords account…. come on Google get your act together, this sounds great but your missing an opportunity right now in not showing it to me!
Apparently Google are rolling it out currently – in the mean time I found a great blog post on the functionality here:
http://www.portentinteractive.com/blog/google-adwords-remarketing.htm
What is interest-based advertising?
Interest-based advertising is a way to increase the relevancy of your advertising campaign. it lets you directly connect with the people interested in your products or services more precisely.
You may be familiar with selecting keywords for your campaigns, which allows Google to show your ads to people who search on Google.com or browse relevant pages on the Google Content Network.
Interest based advertising lets you reach people based on their hobbies and interests in addition to the content they’re viewing. There are two main types of interest-based advertising:
- Remarketing allows you to show your ads to people who previously visited your website, and tailor your message to their specific interest.
- Interest category marketing (beta) allows you to reach people based on their interests (such as sports enthusiast, travel enthusiast). For example, let’s say you’re an online retailer who sells printers and TVs. With remarketing, you can show TV ads to those people who visited the TV section, and you can cross-sell, up-sell, and promote other relevant products: surround sound systems or DVD players, for instance.
Showing ads about a specific product or topic can be an effective marketing tactic to drive great results. Learn how to get started with remarketing.
With interest category marketing, based on the types of webpages users have previously visited, you can match ads to people’s interests. This improves the online experience for users and in turn increases the ROI for advertisers. This feature is currently in beta. You can learn more about it on Googles Adwords help page here: interest category marketing.
