Gmail and the implications for contextual advertising / Search Engine Marketing

There has been much talk about privacy concerns as regards Google's new e-mail service, Gmail, and the contextual advertising that is served to users. This centres on the point that Google will need to 'read' your e-mails to know which ads are relevant to serve.

I think there are some more interesting implications. Specifically, I think it is interesting that in a web-search or web-site world plagued by search engine spamming, affiliates ranking too highly, and any other form of search result skewing that is largely *outside* the direct control of search engines, the world of e-mail is much, much more closed and controllable where it is web-based and provided by the search engine.

The very nature of e-mail as a communications tool means that it is personal and happens amongst a network of interested and inter-related parties. Of course there is e-mail spam but it seems pretty unlikely that Google will allow Adwords to be served into spammers e-mails. By serving contextual advertising into e-mails, rather than websites, there is a higher degree of in-built quality control and relevance - web sites can just sit there and exist, and anyone can stick one up, whereas e-mail communications have a purpose and join interested parties. The content of e-mails via Gmail may belong to the user but effectively Google is using its e-mail users to create targeted content for them and then send their ads on to relevant people. Which is nice.

Furthermore, I would be surprised if Google don't integrate their Orkut (http://www.orkut.com) offering (an "online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends") into the main body of Google soon. And then they know who you are, and how you are valued within your community, and what your e-mails contain... Then, of course, not all e-mailers using Gmail need be perceived as equal - some are more valuable and valued within their community than others. So surely they can charge a premium for ads served in those e-mails? I'm working out my own CPC as we speak...

Hey Ashley,

>There has been much talk about privacy concerns as regards
>Google's new e-mail service, Gmail, and the contextual
>advertising that is served to users. This centres on the
>point that Google will need to 'read' your e-mails to know
>which ads are relevant to serve.

Yuk! What a thought. With all the crap email I get with
offers to enlarge certain parts of my anatomy or deposit
a few million dollars in my bank account... heaven only
knows what kind of ads I'll get served up :-)

I've had a Yahoo! email account for some time and I've
completely tuned out to the ads which are thrust at me
each time I go to compose or read mail.

Contextual advertising may have an edge on just the
spurious bank loans or mortgages I used to get offered
and now ignore with a vengeance. But I think the same
thing will apply to Gmail and contextual if they go
that way.

I log into my email account to write email not look at
ads. So even if they are targeted at me and the community
I'm in, they'll still have to be more interesting than
the very naughty and distracting email I receive!

>Furthermore, I would be surprised if Google don't
>integrate their Orkut (http://www.orkut.com) offering (an
>"online community that connects people through a
>network of trusted friends") into the main body of
>Google soon.

Eric Scmidt has already gone on record to say that
Orkut will be integrated (softly) into Google:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5177233.html

The bigger picture is this. Personalisation is a major
goal for search engines. Much as we refer to a search
engine as a "black box" - in turn, the search engine
sees every user as a "black box" - they know so little
about users.

In order to serve much better results they really need
some relevance feedback. And that doesn't have to be a
vast amount of information: "When you searched for XX
did you mean the XXX version or the XXXX version?"

In that way, the search engine can get accustomed to your
searching habits. Now over at yahoo! they have about 150
million subscribers and MSN has zillions of them. With
these communities, they can move much more quickly into
personalised search. At Yahoo! right now, even if you
simply want to submit a URL for their free crawl you have
to become a subscriber first.

Where does that leave Google? No subscribers, no community
and trailing behind a little this time. So, first comes Orkut and
then comes Gmail.

By the end of the year, all three search giants will have
a very similar model. All with sticky mail and news search
and sports search and general purpose search. All with some
kind of data about the end user "black box".

It will change the whole idea of the "I rank at number one
for keyword x" stuff. Just take a little glimpse of where
they would like search to be positioned with their end user.
You can see it at Amazon (and they have every detail including
your credit card) just by popping something into the basket
and getting "other people who bought, also bought..." or,
"we have recommendations for you." It's all based on your
behaviour and history.

Should we worry about personalised search? Well, you only
need to feed back whatever you feel you want to. And as the
search experience gets better you may give more.

However, it may bring with it the end of search engine
optimisation as we know it (Jim).

You can count your cpc's - but personally, I think I'll go
and take a quick look at the jobs pages :-)