Integrating text and display ads on the Google search and content networks: An AdWords innovation idea.

Informing and influencing a customer pre-sales or building a brand in the mind of a consumer are activities that work really well if you can create multiple, strategic, synergistic points of contact with a consumer. This is one small part of what Integration means in marketing.

Google’s AdWords lets advertisers place relevant text ads on search results pages at Google (and its affiliates’ search sites) in addition to placing text or display ads on what it refers to as the ‘content network’ – the vast number of private web pages that accept paid advertising in their margins.

AdWords has a range of useful tools for targeting ads to the right market and the right segment. Here is one that is missing:

Adwords should allow advertisers to place ads in the content network based on search phrases used in their current session (or perhaps recent sessions’) history.

Why? The short answer: Integration and synergy.

The long answer, with an example:

Looking for a vet to treat my cat I might search “cat veterinarian Brisbane”. A few local vet clinics are shown in the natural and paid results on Google, and based on that search I might get some ideas about vet clinics I’ll use in the near future.

Even if I make a decision based on my search-based research, during the time that passes between my web search and my cat crouching terrified on a vet’s exam table, I will probably be quite receptive to promotions and branding messages relating to the topic of feline veterinary services.

Imagine a local cat specialist who wants new customers. We’ll call him Fred. Fred has a strong brand identity and one of the key competitive features of his clinic is his attractive and modern veterinary facility. This competitive advantage is related much more clearly in an image ad than in a text ad, but Fred’s clinic can’t use display ads on Google or search affiliates (only text ads are allowed there).

Unfortunately, image ads in the content network are very low-performing compared to text ads – and the content network is somewhat unproven and (in some cases) loosely-targeted as a brand-building tool. On the Google search page, Fred competes head-to-head with his competitors and his key competitive advantage is lost in the medium.

Now – after my recent Google search about cat veterinarians – if the next websites I visit have attractive display ads for Fred’s cat-specialist veterinary clinic, I will be very, very likely to investigate – and I am a perfectly-targeted customer!

How can this synergistic advertising contact happen?

Simple: Google should allow advertisers to run placement ads based on a user’s search history in addition to the other targeting features currently in place.