As most of our clients know, I don’t like site-targeted ads.  I think that online advertising is less of a creative process, and more of a technical process in which millions of data points are analyzed and an optimum mix of of creative/pricing/placement is developed. That being said, I understand that sometimes you have to buy advertising on certain sites. So, we are happy with Google’s recent announcement that CPC site targeting (i.e. placement targeting) is officially live.

This features allows us to offer clients a chance to target a specific site, but retain the hallmarks of SEM campaign - no minimum spend, control of creative, control of flight dates, etc.

However, I wonder how top publishers will react to Placement Targeting and if they understand the implications for their business model. Google built AdSense on two principles: First, their technology will deliver highly targeted ads which will increase CTR and thus the advertiser’s satisfaction & publisher’s revenue. Second, the network was double blind in that publishers don’t choose advertisers and advertiser’s don’t choose sites.

Now, placement targeting rolls out of beta and voila, Google is THE rep for every site that uses AdSense. Forget your salesperson’s relationship with an advertiser or the years of working together. When that advertiser realizes that they can buy advertising on your site and pay per click, instead of per impression - they are GONE! And, anyone who thinks that Google isn’t wickedly clever, hasn’t followed the story. Here is how you own the online ad space.

1. Roll out *cheap* targeted text ads that convert very well and deliver top-notch results. (AdWords)
2. Take those same cheap targeted text ads and 100,000’s of advertisers and expand beyond your domain. Now, everyone can share in your windfall, except that they don’t know their % share. (AdSense)
3. Expand the advertising creatives available to advertisers from text ads to banner ads to video ads (AdSense Image Ads and Click-to-Play Video Ads)
4. Get rid of the double-blind nature of your ad exchange and give access to 100,000’s of sites, as your technology serving as the easiest and most cost-effective way to buy advertising - severely undercutting the CPMs on the publishers’ rate card.

This is very much a game changer and it will be interesting to see which sites opt-out of site targeting or worse, opt-out of AdSense. There is no doubt that this makes Google’s platform much more compelling for advertisers, and less compelling for publishers. As an advertiser focused agency, we’re ecstatic, but we realize that the power of the Google platform is that we can reach great sites like CNN. It would be a shame if this development drove quality sites out of the network.