Post-modern advertising (or, how we know contextual ads work online)

I had a little post-modern moment visiting Nicholas Carr’s blog lately. Why? The ads, of course.

Here’s the ad. It’s a Google ad. A Google text link ad. And it’s advertising – yes – another text link advertising network.

I recently signed up for Text Link Ads, by the way. And yes, that’s a sponsored link. If you click it and sign up, I get 25 bucks (I think). Don’t feel obligated.

But here’s my point:

When’s the last time you saw a mainstream media ad for a mainstream media advertising company? If you’re like me, it’s been a long, long time.

Why?

You would think, if MSM advertising worked, agencies would be all over it. Turns out, when they put their money where their mouth is, agencies want something a lot more targeted.

Like text link ads? Yup, like text link ads.

Even though they are not free of problems, text link ads are FAR more targeted than your typical TV show audience.

Some company is putting its money on the line for every click … not spreading it out over thousands of potential viewers. Some company is specifically choosing keywords that their ad will pay for … not a made-to-segment TV show that no-one really knows exactly who the audience is on any given night. And some web visitor is reading/watching/creating something online that Google determines is significantly related to those keywords.

The proof? Even advertising companies are advertising now.

At least, the smart technical ones.

[tags] advertising, marketing, google, adsense, adwords, pay per click, contextual ads, text link ads, john koetsier [/tags]