AOL Will Let Consumers Opt Out of Targeted Ads from the Wall Street Journal reports that AOL will announce today a new tool that will enable AOL users to opt out of targeted or personalized ads. (NOTE: The AOL announcement is now live). AOL has behavioral ad technology that stores consumer's preferences and then tailors ads based on the sites' users' visits. AOL is expected to announce a system that will give these users the ability to opt out of those ads. The Wall Street Journal says AOL most likely timed this announcement to pre-empt the Federal Trade Commission meeting tomorrow on "con [...]

Related Topics: AOL: Search Marketplace | Channel: SEM | Legal: Privacy | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting

Facebook Gets Personal With Ad Targeting Plan from the Wall Street Journal reports Facebook will be launching a new ad service as early as late fall. The ad service will generate very personalized results, based on the wealth of information Facebook has on their users. The ads will not just be generated based on gender, age or geo-location but also based on personal preferences such as religion, music, family and more. The ads will be displayed on a profile's "news feed" and on several other pages. It is still early in the game, and Facebook has not released any details about their ad pro [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Engines: Social Search Engines

The US Federal Trade Commission is going to have a public forum in Washington, DC on Nov. 1-2 to bring together various consumer groups, academics and interested parties to address concerns "raised by the practice of tracking consumers’ activities online to target advertising." The last time the FTC looked into "online profiling" for the purposes of ad targeting was 2000. However, "technology advances and the evolution of business models since that time have raised concerns by consumer advocates, privacy experts, and others about the implications of data collection in online advertising now [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Privacy | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting

We explained last week how Google was using search history to refine the ads it shows to searchers. But for now, Google says that's as far as it plans to go to behaviorally target people. Google wary of behavioral targeting in online ads from Reuters goes into more about this, from a talk between reporters and Susan Wojcicki, Google vice president of product management for advertising. Reuters summarizes: "Google was shying away from the industry race to deliver tools for advertisers that stitch together a user's various online actions into one profile." Susan told Reuters: Specifically, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting

Enterprise search provider FAST Search & Transfer has acquired personalization platform and recommendations engine AgentArts. The technology will be folded into FAST's various enterprise search offerings, which include a range of site search and monetization options for online publishers. The company also has a mobile search partnership with InfoSpace. FAST has positioned itself as a complete platform to help publishers of all stripes essentially compete with Google and avoid dependence on AdSense and other third-party contextual ad networks. [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: Contextual | Search Engines: Personalized Search Engines | Site & Enterprise Search

Yahoo is introducing new SmartAds that deliver display ads to people across the web based on their demographic and geographic profiles, plus search and web browsing behaviors. These ads represent the future of graphical advertising at Yahoo, according to Gaude Lydia Paez, director of corporate communications at Yahoo. SmartAds have been successfully tested over the past four to five months in the travel category, and they will eventually roll out across the larger Yahoo network and ultimately on RightMedia and other partner sites. While SmartAds won't replace pure branding in all circumst [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: SmartAds

Are you treating your PPC campaign as an advertising outlet or a marketing opportunity? Many PPC advertisers treat the engines as advertising distribution, but fail to create marketing messages. PPC engines have many features that let you have control over ad display, however, if you just use these features to serve ads—then you're not taking advantage of the opportunities available. You should move past just serving ads to putting forth comprehensive strategies that will grow your business. Just to clarify, advertising is the paid promotion of goods and services. Advertising is [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Paid Search | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting

So you got a click on your PPC ad. Now what do you do? The job of the B2B search marketer is only beginning when a prospect clicks. As MarketingSherpa points out, the decision to click is microscopically unimportant compared to all the things you are asking from a prospect after they've clicked: Stick around and read your copy, fill out a form, risk getting their privacy invaded, take a meeting, recommend your product, make a purchase, and so on. When the goal of search marketing is to drive high-quality leads to sales, no B2B pay-per-click campaign is complete without these additional & [...]

Related Topics: B2B Search Marketing | Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting

Microsoft Ad Push Is All About You at the Wall Street Journal has a nice overview of how Microsoft's behavioral targeting ad software works, nothing ground breaking, but a nice overview. I'll quote a piece of the article for you: Here's how it works: If someone types in "compare car prices" on Live Search, Microsoft's computers note that the person is probably considering buying a vehicle. The computers then check with the list of Hotmail accounts to see if they have any information on the person. If they do, and an auto maker has paid Microsoft to target this type of person, the computer wi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Features: Search History & Personalization