Targetable Custom Channels for Adsense

Earlier this month Google announced another enhancement to their Adsense program. Its called targetable custom channels.

It works a bit like this:

• Each Google Adsense ad-block can be allocated to one or more “channels”. These are used to track the performance (including earnings) for the ad-block.
  
• This allows the publisher to experiment with colour, placement and Ad type to determine which combination works best for each site.
  
• Usually Ads are allocated to random Ad-Blocks by Google.
  
• Now, with targetable custom channels, advertisers can choose to locate their ads within a specified location on a publishers site.

There is a bit of debate about when and if this offering will be effective.It seems Google has taken a step to slow the growth of competition like Text-Link-Ads et al, who already broker fixed placement ads for publishers.

Its interesting that Google recently changed their TOS to exclude placement of competing advertisements with the same look as Adsense.

With Google rounding out its portfolio it clearly has the scope to slow the growth of any medium competing for its advertising dollar.

Even though the internet advertising market is growing, Google will be keeping a weather eye on market share and move to ensure it is not eroded by competing new offerings. This is perfectly normal (and expected) behavior.

And in a paragraph of pure speculation, a potential future development from Google, is a sponsored posting option. Instead of an ad with a headline and a few words, you will be able to buy a few paragraphs or a whole blog post. With the rise in popularity of blogs, sponsored posting is maturing and becoming an accepted practice.This is just like text-link-ads were a few years/months ago. It would be simple for Google to also implement this into their portfolio.
Now lets talk about the Publishers. Will this work for them ?

Obviously it wouldn’t be smart to immediately implement this blog wide. There just won’t be enough advertisers interested and this isn’t what the product was designed for. Revenues would plummet.

However for small pieces of prime real estate, a custom channel should drive bidding higher than it usually would be.

Suspect that in the medium term this is only a viable option for large, high traffic sites. The further up the SERPS the better this will work for you.

This development is good for advertisers who want to be specific about where their Ad is to be placed. By being able to target location provides, another tool to improve hit rate. Prime spots get more traffic. If they have deep enough pockets they could remove their competition from key positions by simply out-bidding them.

In summary the new offering will take some time to bed down. Both publishers and advertisers will take time to work out the wrinkles.

As a publisher a small trial in a hot spot is the way to start out.

For Advertisers, look for opportunities to get highly targeted, advertising in premium positions, on very high traffic sites. Will cost a bit more but the results should be worthwhile.