Mountain View, California-based Google will utilize its online advertising property DoubleClick to enhance Web  ad tracking for advertisers and plans to make it less likely for consumers to see the same commercial messages too many times, the Internet giant announced Thursday. New features will let online advertisers control and track how many times people see their ads using a technique called frequency capping, and to measure how often users visit their Web sites after seeing them. Google To Make Sizable Display Ad Push In a move aimed squarely at strengthening its position in the business of display ads, the ones typically incorporating graphics interspersed throughout the Web, Google has integrated ad tracking technology from DoubleClick, the advertising giant it purchased for $3.1 billion in March, which the company says offers "a better experience for users and better value for advertisers and publishers." Google senior business product manager Rajas Moonka, writing in a message posted Thursday on the firm's corporate blog, announced several forthcoming enhancements to the search leader's vast network of Web advertising that users and publishers can expect to see in the coming months. The announced changes came as "the latest result of our integration with DoubleClick," and will also affect those Web properties that Google partners with, Moonka noted. Frequency capping and reporting were at the center of the coming changes to Google's ad network. "Frequency capping [...] enables advertisers to control the number of times a user sees an ad," Moonka wrote in the Thursday announcement. "Users will have a better experience on Google content network sites because they will no longer see the same ad over and over again. I am personally excited about seeing more relevant ads, especially if I don't have to see the same ads over and over," Moonka said. View-Through Conventions Among Forthcoming Enhancements Marketers were expected to use the new frequency reporting features to track the average number of times consumers view the ads in a campaign, and to have greater insight into which ads actually led users to visit an advertisers site, using new "view-through conversion" information, Google said. "All advertisers will soon be able to take advantage of features like frequency capping,  better reach and frequency reporting, and view-through conversions," Trevor Claiborne of the Google AdWords program noted Thursday in a message posted to the company's AdWords blog. The changes could help advertisers reap greater sales according to Claiborne, and were expected to "help you meet your ROI [return on investment] goals by concentrating your ad impressions on the best inventory at the most relevant time and by helping you more effectively manage your campaigns on the Google content network." Single Cookie Tracking System Aims To Please Users When the enhancements take effect consumers will be able to choose whether or not to have their ad interaction histories in Google's content network shared with advertisers, through the use of a single combined Google DoubleClick Web browser tracking cookie, a small computer file containing a variety of information about browsing. "With one click, users can opt out of a single cookie for both DoubleClick ad serving and the Google content network," Moonka said of an expanded version of the existing DoubleClick cookie, that Google plans to use so that "advertisers and publishers don't have to make any changes on their websites." The system will also honor the wishes of users that have already chosen not to accept DoubleClick's tracking cookie. "If a user has already opted out of the DoubleClick cookie, that opt-out will also automatically apply to the Google content network," Moonka noted. Along with the changes announced Thursday, Google offered updated accompanying privacy policies covering the advertising changes. "Advertisers are able to see the total number of users who have clicked on their ad and proceeded to a page tagged with a conversion tracking tag, but they do not have access to personally identifying information," Google noted in the new updated privacy policy for advertisements on its network. Google Utilizes Its DoubleClick Arm To Enhance Online Advertisements The search leader "uses a cookie to measure advertising performance for advertisers," which "expire within 30 days and are not personally-identifiable," Google noted. "We use cookies, web beacons or other technologies  to record information about what ads your browser is shown, as well as what ads you click and other actions you take on our sites and services," the new Google policy noted. A large majority of Google's 2007 $16.6 billion ad sale revenue came from sales of the small text-based ads shown alongside search results and on its ad network, and with the forthcoming changes announced Thursday, the search leader appears well-positioned to begin capitalizing on its acquisition of DoubleClick to make additional gains in display ads. One member of WebmasterWorld's community of mostly technically savvy webmasters and search engine marketing (SEM) professionals, using the handle "bwnbwn," said that the planned changes to the Google advertising network announced Thursday were "huge," while another member of the message boards, using the handle "BradleyT," noted that "It's pretty good for advertisers but as a user I've already opted out on both browsers." Related Links:
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8:09 pm on Aug. 7, 2008 (utc 0)