Thursday, July 08, 2010
Ad Awareness
Ever wonder how those ads seem to know all about you? Well it turns out online ads rely on a lot of information about you and your spending habits. Targeted ads are nothing new. Googles’ AdWords for instance targets users through keywords found in search terms. Yahoo does basically the same thing. The difference is, the ads you setup with your favorite pay-per-click vendor can’t make use of information gleaned from a viewer’s personal purchase history.
There really is no creep factor here to describe, but it does seem too coincidental the first time you notice. Recently, my lead designer, noticed on her way to Seattle that the ads she was seeing in various applications on her iPhone related to her current trip to Seattle. Hmmm. Even the motel was part of the ad display!
Now, in this case, we narrowed the source of that info to Facebook activity. Apparently her and her friend were chatting it up on Facebook prior their trip to Seattle. Not long there after, the ads seemed to be synchronized with their activities. Its no secret that the Facebook business model was dependent upon data-mining. But they really aren’t a retailer of anything besides, well, data.
Apple recently announced a new advertising channel for inclusion in iApps. Its called, you guessed it—iAds. According to a Business Week article, “Relying on the music, videos and apps that customers are downloading from its iTunes, App Store and iBooks helps Apple sketch a behavioral profile that can be paired with appropriate promotional messages. On its website, Apple says its “standard targeting options” include demographics, application preferences, music passions, movie genre interests, television genre interests and location”.
Besides the basic demographics, what we’re seeing is an advertising channel designed to examine and mine media consumption habits and behaviors. Apple is not just a computer and phone manufacturer, but its iTunes Store and iApp Store are giants in the music and mobile software retail market. Here is a nice write-up of how Apple uses the data from a blog entry at TUAW.com.
If anything, this should reiterate what’s been said for many years—content is king. But, did you notice the inclusion “application preferences” as one of the targeting criteria? Yes, folks its time to seriously ponder how a mobile app for the iPhone, iPad or the Android handhelds can bolster your online ad campaigns. Not just as content delivery device, but think of a mobile app as a targeting criteria like a tangible keyword of sorts. Most companies will never produce music or a television show, but a mobile application is not beyond the realm of possibility.
If our SEO practices include harmonizing keywords and content with readable content, then why not a mobile app to help target your audience and increase the effectiveness of your online ad campaigns, and most importantly—reduce costs.
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