What if every time you got online, each keystroke, search, and tap was compiled and used as data to get to know you better, all with the intent of showing you personalized advertisements that your computer is certain you’d click on?
Data and Its Effect on Personalized Advertisements
Throughout history businessmen and women have looked for ways to effectively market their products to the public. What if all of the difficulty of trying to find the right audience to target was done for them?
That sounds like a dream come true for almost every business owner or salesman out there and the truth is, it’s a lot more tangible than a dream. The average consumer goes through their day online. What they don’t realize is, every keystroke they make and every website they visit is being recorded.
The main cataloger of your keystrokes is none other than Google. The multi-billion dollar search engine keeps all of the data you give it, from looking for baby names to searching for the nearest White Castle, so that Google can send you personalized advertisements. How does Google know what to send you though?
How Does This Affect YOU?
The information, or data, collected allows those with access to it to make an accurate profile of each person. This profile is so comprehensive it contains assumptions on morals and preferences to their existing life. In turn, this informative profile allows companies to target a specific audience for their product. This isn’t just beneficial to one party though. It benefits the consumer by only showing advertisements that are relevant to them. Corporations also benefit since their ads are sent to potential customers instead of random internet users. This means the money they place into advertising has a higher turnaround and is a better investment than it was 10 years ago.
Many people have already noticed this change in advertising. They look up “roller skates” one time after they saw a talented Tik Tokker skating around effortlessly and now they are hounded by banners and pop-ups advertising roller skates for sale. Consumers noticing this are not crazy. Ads are becoming more personalized in order to reach each consumer in a personal way and get them to open their wallets.
Where to Find Your Google Profile and All the Data They Use for Personalized Advertisements
Google compiles every search an individual makes to create a thorough profile of each user (Google). After sharing this in a recent article, some Google users are thinking twice about turning on the “Personalized Advertisement” feature in their Google account. Any Google user can actually view the profile created by Google by visiting HERE and logging into their Google account.
What Google remembers about you and classifies as important knowledge may surprise you. “Google considers ads to be personalized when they are based on previously collected or historical data to determine or influence ad selection” (Google). Now consumers and Google users may be wondering what all falls into this category. The data Google collects includes “a user’s previous search queries, activity, visits to sites or apps, demographic information, [and] location” (Google). All of this collected data and calculated assumptions allow Google to charge businesses to have them distribute their ads. All the business has to provide is a demographic they want their ad geared towards.
How This Benefits Businesses and Consumers
Nowadays, with everyone and their mother starting a business and vying for your money it can be difficult for businesses to get their advertisements out there. This makes it even harder for them to successfully target their preferred audience. While traditional advertising tactics such as billboards are not necessarily a complete waste of money, it’s a risk. The business takes the chance that the spot they chose for advertising isn’t high in traffic. Or if it is, that the traffic isn’t from their target demographic, the people who will actually become customers. With electronic ads not only can the business be sure that their advertisement reached someone’s screen they also know that their ad is more likely to end up on the screen of someone who will actually buy their merchandise.
This specific targeting in turn allows businessmen and women who invest in online advertising to receive a higher ROI (Return on Investment). This is purely because supercomputers like Google know enough about each individual who has an account to identify whether or not they would even click on the advertisement. Not only do these computers store data in reference to each individual user but they track trends as a whole. This is how airlines know when to raise their prices based on the day of the week and why vacation destinations start popping up in your ads 3 months before summer actually starts. Below is a graph showing the trend in advertising revenue from Google, specifically from 2001 to 2020.
The 2008 Data Boom
Graph from Statistica.com
The personalized advertising boom occurred around 2008 when corporations began using targeted ads and media platforms began collecting data on their users to provide personalized ads (Google). This graph illustrates the point that the online advertising area has grown tremendously over the past 20 years. Not only because it’s so effective but due to more users on the platforms and a better targeting equation for advertisements. Google is the most utilized search engine in the world. They are the primary data-driven contact between businesses wanting to send personalized advertisements and consumers looking to buy.
While the knowledge that your computer is constantly relaying messages about what sites you visit and how often can sound scary to the consumer, as the businessman this couldn’t be closer to a dream come true. With the knowledge that whatever advertisement they drew up is landing on the screens of potential customers instead of random users, these business owners will receive a higher ROI and spread the word faster on their product.
Works Cited
Advertising revenue of Google from 2001 to 2020 (in billion U.S. dollars). Statistica. (n.d.). Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/.
Data Collection and Use. Google. (2021). Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020956?hl=en.
Pasquet, T. (2019, October 31). Mobile Advertising: The Shift From Data-Driven To Choice-First. Forbes. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/10/31/mobile-advertising-the-shift-from-data-driven-to-choice-first/?sh=61ab29786ceb.
The Role of Data in the Targeted Advertising Industry. New America. (2021). Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.newamerica.org/oti/reports/special-delivery/the-role-of-data-in-the-targeted-advertising-industry/.
What is targeted advertising? GCF Global. (2021). Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/thenow/what-is-targeted-advertising/1/.
