Here’s one I’ll put away in my ever expanding “future research project file.”
Via
Recently Google began selling location-specific advertising on its search pages. Nancy Scola at TechPresident blogs on what she calls ambient advertising the use of location-specific ads by the AFL-CIO in the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act
Google ads now has a location targeting option, allowing advertisers to either drop a pin on a map or type in an address, and then set a radius within which their ads runs. (Google doesn’t set a minimum circle of influence, but suggests drilling in no closer than 20 miles.)
Scloa notes that the ads have been targeting readers in Maine, the home of the Senators Olympia Snoew and Susan Collins (a.k.a the moderate wing of the Republican party) with passages like “78% of Americans support workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.”
My question is whether Internet advertising of this form is a medium that lends itself to formal political appeals. The theory would be that people who searched for something related to the legislation would already be cued into wanting to know more about the bill and would thus be predisposed to click on a link to content related to the bill. Makes sense, but we know little about the political behavior of this population of “potential ad link clickers.” Is the group that would break the divide between legitimate link and Google Ad the same as the group that would not link to a Google ad under any circumstances. Are “ad link clickers” more or less disposed to be politically active.
On it’s face, one would think not. But I suspect there are differences between those who reject direct political appeals (i.e. they won’t click on a banner ad) and those who see no distinction (will happily click a banner ad). I’m in the former category. Not exactly sure why, other than most of my friends in high school became car salesemen (as did I for a short time).
Like I said…one for the “to do” file.
Comments 3
Kenneth M. Kambara — April 7, 2009
Interesting stuff. My guess is that clicking on links will be depend on context & source. This refers to sponsored search, albeit a few years ago in the early days. I'd wager that relevance and trust (source credibility) still matter most.
Jon Smajda — April 7, 2009
If the point of these ads is to, say, spread ideas like "78% of Americans support workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life," then click-through may not be necessary for effectiveness (as it would be for a more traditional ad). They'd be satisfied just spreading that meme, right?
Also, I wonder what words they're buying these ads on? Words very specific to the bill in question, or on more big picture words and phrases related to the economic crisis, health care, etc.
The point is that political ads probably follow a different set of rules & strategies than more traditional ads.
ellemac — April 7, 2009
As a web user, I've only just recently started to trust Google ads because of my experience as a web content coordinator. Normally I just visually filter them out completely. I work at a non-profit health organization, and we use Google ads (Google actually donates the ad space to us; I'm not sure if we would pay for it otherwise) to promote our website during various fundraising and awareness campaigns. It's sort of weird and ironic, that my view of web ads (well, Google ads, anyway; I still very rarely click banner ads) as a user is legitimized by my use of them as a content programmer.
But I would be very interested to learn more about the demographics of ad clickers.
(Aside: I very rarely click the Google ads that appear to the right. The ones that appear at the top are weighted according to relevancy to ther user's search terms. I trust the Google brand to bring me what I need as opposed to what will make them more money.)