A couple of weeks ago we covered an article for how Google plans to clean up display advertising titled ‘Google introduces a default ad blocker to Chrome’.
To continue this trend, Google has recently announced updates to AdSense that will incorporate machine learnings and improve placements and monetisation choices for websites.
Using machine learning in this way is interesting because it’s not only being used to optimise where an ad is placed, but also data analytics will be collected for how well an ad performs and this will be used to “teach” the system how to place ads better in the future.
Another aspect of this change is that Google AdSense will also decide just how many ads it will place on a page, something website owners would have had more control over in the past and at times would lead to a lot of ad clutter.
The plus side for publishers and websites is that Google AdSense will increase their revenue by showing ads in placements that are likely to result in clicks and positive user engagement to keep them coming back to the website and thus consuming more content.
The upside for clients is that ads will be shown in better placements on a page to match the type of content viewed, this would then result in better ad exposure (viewability) and improved performance.
All Response Media viewpoint
The Google Display Network (GDN) has continued to improve with each innovation and machine learning update. We are always testing alpha/beta GDN products and have often seen great success for many of our clients.
This change is one of the first that attempts to further improve performance at a website level rather than a targeting capability that we have control over. As it aims to address ad clutter and improve user experience at the root, it’s a welcome change that we will be keeping an eye on to measure the impact on day to day campaigns.
The assumption is that by potentially having fewer ads but with better placements, we will see a reduction in impressions and increase in viewability/clicks/conversions. However, as a result, the auction space may become more competitive, which would cause an increase in bids.
Over the coming weeks, we will be monitoring the impact this may have on our GDN campaigns to ensure the changes are resulting in a positive impact.