In a post yesterday on the company blog, Google has announced that it’s going to be introducing some DoubleClick-like features into the Google Content network (that is, the group of sites that use AdSense to serve contextual ads). The new functionality includes:
- Frequency capping and reporting
- Improved ad quality
- View-through conversions
These new capabilities are interesting because they are the kinds of functionality that brand (as opposed to direct response) advertisers are likely to be most interested in, and indicate that Google is trying to broaden the appeal of its Content Network inventory in these areas (Google already offers CPM pricing for ads placed on the Content Network).
An interesting detail of the announcement is that Google is now serving a DoubleClick cookie with AdSense ads. The touted benefit to users is that they can now opt out of DoubleClick and AdSense ad targeting with a single click, whilst integration for existing DoubleClick advertisers and publishers will be simplified. The benefit to Google, of course, is that it can start using the behavioral data from the Content Network (which is huge) to be able to sell more targeted ads to their DFA (DART for Advertisers) customers.DoubleClick previously dallied with this kind of functionality in the early part of the decade, but jettisoned the technology back in 2002 in the wake of a bunch of class-action lawsuits accusing it of infringing users’ privacy.
We got a letter a few days ago. Maybe it will work out for the best in the end.