Google Adwords Demographic Bidding

Got an email from Adwords today. It seems that they just opened a beta program where advertisers can bid on specific groups of people.

Demographic bidding is a way to help your ad reach audiences of a certain age or gender. If you want your ads to be seen by women aged 18-24, or people over 55, demographic bidding can help. Demographic bidding is a new feature which is now available to a limited number of AdWords users.

When I first read this, it gave me the creeps. Google must really be mining its user's data. Then I took a breath and read some more. It is only for contextually targeted or placement targeted campaigns. So those sites that you visit, that run Adsense, and have you sign up are the ones using the data to gear ads specifically at you.

They say that only publishers that have permission from their users to use theit data can be involved on the Adsense side. Makes you want to read that fine print a little quicker before you hit submit. I know I never do.

What does that policy look like? "We will be giving your information to third parties, so sign right up."

But if you have read this blog for a while, you know I am just going off, half humorously.

But now this will give contextual advertisers the ability to bid higher on certain demographics of their choice, to have their ads show for only certain demographics, and to see demographic based reports showing which age and gender groups clicked the most.

It's beta right now. We all know how that goes. Sign up and see if you win the drawing. They invite everyone though and then only allow a few in, just to make those people who didn't get in feel loved.