Google recently started testing the waters with “interest” based advertising in hopes to provide more interesting ads and of course higher CTR (click through rates). Basically, if you like MySpace themes, you can add it to your interests and adds will show up. While I don’t think many people will use this because they see ads as obtrusive or have become “Adsense blind” and it wouldn’t matter to them, I do see the purpose of it. I think this blows away any company that uses “Interest” and “User demo” based advertising as their business model such as these guys.
Privacy issues? Google answers some questions and provides transparency on the Google Blog post.
This kind of tailored advertising does raise questions about user choice and privacy — questions the whole online ad industry has a responsibility to answer. Many companies already provide interest-based advertising and they address these issues in different ways. For our part, we’re launching interest-based advertising with three important features that demonstrate our commitment to transparency and user choice.
Transparency – We already clearly label most of the ads provided by Google on the AdSense partner network and on YouTube. You can click on the labels to get more information about how we serve ads, and the information we use to show you ads. This year we will expand the range of ad formats and publishers that display labels that provide a way to learn more and make choices about Google’s ad serving.
Choice – We have built a tool called Ads Preferences Manager, which lets you view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you.
Control – You can always opt out of the advertising cookie for the AdSense partner network here. To make sure that your opt-out decision is respected (and isn’t deleted if you clear the cookies from your browser), we have designed a plug-in for your browser that maintains your opt-out choice.
My tattoo site sells Baybayin translation so that people can get inked. Summer is the hottest season for tattoos for obvious reasons. Right now, I’m feeling the impact. I estimate translation orders are down about 40% (alsodue to the economy). Traffic is still strong but conversion is lower. Some of my ideas jumpstart the site:
Education – Getting a fresh tattoo in the summer/spring is bad for your skin and tattoo. Sun is the worst enemy for tattoos. I’ll educate my visitors and urge them to get inked in the winter so that the will be fully healed and the ink has settled in the skin by beach time. This is a similar tactic of gyms and diet companies. Work hard during the off-season and relax in the summer.
Create a non seasonal product – The most obvious one. I have a few that I’m developing. It should hit with a bang. More on my strategy later.
During my recent event, my friend who I shared the booth with had a conversation with a gentleman who was from a group of artists. He was mentioning how they wanted to change up their website because people were stealing their tattoo designs. Right now if you right click to save an image, you get some 1997 javascript pop-up that’s supposed to prevent you from using the right click button on your mouse. Any modern browser such as Firefox will allow you to download images.
While I understand the need to protect your work, you need to understand that you don’t own your content – everyone does. What do I mean? Unless your going to keep all your precious work in a closet, someone will be able to copy it and do as they wish with it and you can’t do anything about it. The record companies tried to keep a lock on their data with DRM and failed miserably.
This is especially true if your an online business or you primarily use the web to market you goods. The public will use their brains and technology to take your stuff.
Here are some things you can to do react to this truth:
Watermark your product – stick a graphic overlay with your logo over images
Create a premium product
Give up and give it away for free and hope people will donate
Over the weekend (8/9 – 8/10), I took my online businesses (Baybayin translation/art & clothing) into the real world at the Pistahan Filipino Festival. I had no delusions that I would make a killing. I knew going into the event that my stuff was pretty niche. With that self admission, I was able to make realistic goals. Those were:
Network with similar vendors for my upcoming fashion project
It’s been a while since I sold anything in public. I think the last time was when I was in high school selling baseball cards at hotels. While I like getting out and meeting people, online is much easier.
