Wednesday 30 January 2008

Google Adwords goes demographic!

Google has announced that it will be carrying out a Beta test on demographic targeting for Adwords. This will allow advertisers to target people by basic demographics such as age and sex. The test is only taking place on the content network to begin with. I am guessing Google will use sites that make people login and provide demographic information to begin with, Facebook would be an obvious starting point.

Could this test lead to demographic targeting in search results?

Although some doubt it, I firmly believe that demographic targeting will soon be available for search network ads. Google could collect demographic data through services such as G-mail and as the user stays logged in when searching. The search results and the Adwords adverts down the left hand side would then be affected by the data gathered on that person’s login. The I Google service is a further indication of Google eventual intention to do this.

Although this kind of targeting is great from a commercial point of view on a personal level it is quite scary. Although in theory the search results will be better suited to you. Does anyone really like the idea of a company being able to gather that kind of information on you?

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