Early April fools? No, sorry it’s not. However, as bad as that title sounds it’s not! Let me explain…

If you have used the intrawebernet sporadically over the past few years you know Google search has come a long way. Over the past few years, if you did a search on Google (natural listings aside) you could be shown ads with all sorts of misspellings, misleading to incorrect URLs or even suggestive language. Google has taken great strides to improve the users experience (we are all familiar with the emphasis on ‘relevancy’) and laser targeted ads have resulted from this. And it’s a good thing too; Google pushing advertisers to produce more relevant ads increases conversion rates and efficiency. But what about handing the keys off to the consumer? Well Google has done that officially (sort of) on Oct. 31, 2011.

In what seems like a reversal of all the work we have been doing in paid search on Google to increase relevancy, consumers now have the option to turn off ads both on the search results page and within Gmail. Ads will be displayed with a “Why these ads?” link next to them which, when clicked, explains to the user the point of the ad and what they can do to remove ads. The catch to the user is that they must be signed in to their Google account in order to make and save the changes. Either way, you’re probably thinking, “this can’t be happening!”

Example from Google:

As an advertiser, this seems pretty detrimental and that it could impact your campaigns negatively. In the words of Google, “your ads can still reach them (users) but the targeting might be a little less precise.” All that work towards increased relevancy is being compromised by this new function. Well maybe not. Think about it, you have users that had no intention of clicking on your ad turning off your ads. This results in decreased impressions for you which in turn means a higher CTR (click through rate) which translates into decreased costs. Where an advertiser will suffer though is the ‘personalized ads’ preference: targeting will be less precise since no information about the user will be known aside from the keyword used to generate the search query.

As an agency, we will absolutely be monitoring any impact this may have in our client’s campaigns. We do not expect this to have a measurable impact immediately but in the long run could domino into more user controlled advertising.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/10/improved-transparency-and-choice-with.html