June 24, 2008
Google to give advertisers web-tracking data
The search giant hopes to lure in more advertisers by providing detailed information about how particular sites are used
Jonathan RichardsGoogle will today expand its offering to advertisers by unveiling a service which lets them track which websites their target audiences are visiting.
A new tool called AdPlanner is expected to offer advertisers a range of statistics - including demographic details - about particular websites, which in turn could be used to target advertising more effectively, it was reported.
The service, which is due to be announced this evening, signals Google's intention to ramp up its advertising business, which to date has focused on placing adverts next to search queries conducted on the web.
AdPlanner would effectively couple Google's existing advertising business with so-called "web analytics" tools, which measure audience behaviour on the web.
According to reports in the US, Google is planning to gather information about websites from a range of sources, including its own search engine but also third parties and, possibly, more traditional panels which track consumer behaviour online.
This data would then be offered to advertisers at the time they buy adverts through DoubleClick, the online advertising platform Google owns.
A Google spokesman declined to comment.
AdPlanner, it is hoped, will help advertisers make better judgments about the types of sites on which they buy adverts, based on concrete data such as the age, gender and previous online behaviour of people who visit such sites.
The Register sees this as a direct challenge to ComScore and Neilson:
... From today Google will offer shiny-suited types the tool, dubbed AdPlanner, to help them find the corners of the web where their target market might be hanging out. The New York Times reports that it will throw together data from audience measurement (Google Analytics, Google Toolbar etc), web searches, and third parties to build a picture of where advertisers will get the best results.The product is being widely interpreted as targeting Nielsen and comScore's business. It's likely to raise market dominance concerns, as a popular analytics suite could allow Google to increase its already massive sway over the online advertising market. It'll mean the dominant company flogging ads online is also the company telling advertisers where to place them. Which seems a nice racket to be in.
The Wall Street Journal reports no reaction to the news from Nielsen or comScore today, but the fact that AdPlanner will be free, at least to begin with, is sure to send chills down their spines.
Indeed, conspiracy theorists at comScore might wonder whether its recent spat with Google over paid-for clicks, which by most accounts comScore lost, was a set up:
1. Analytics company reckons Google clicks are down
2. Google proves it wrong to much embarrassment
3. Google launches rival to analytics productLast week Google also released Trends for Websites, another free measurement effort it describes as "a fun tool that gives you a view of how popular your favorite websites are". We're not sure where the "fun" lies, but it allows webmasters to examine the popularity of websites.
The principle and sources of data for Trends for Websites are similar to AdPlanner, but the output is comparative rather than the hard(er) numbers demanded by ad agencies. ®
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