Will the Real Online Demographics Please Stand Up

By Michael Gray
In Advertising, Google, MSN, Media, SEM  

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In the past week Google played catch-up with MSN AdCenter by offering Adwords Targeting based on demographics ( see Google AdWords Help Center: What is demographic site selection? and Targeting as a Strategy). Maybe I spent a little to much time in AOL chat rooms in my youth (yo ASL roomies), but I don’t place a lot of stock in the accuracy of online demographic data.

To be clear if I’m selling air conditioners I’ll definitely want to target Florida residents over Alaskan residents, but going much deeper than that doesn’t seem accurate based on the data. I will admit that I intentionally give the wrong information everywhere I possibly can. It’s a combination of the impish joy of stickin’ it to the man and my paranoia about being tracked. In short I try put out so much conflicting data it’s impossible to separate the truth from the fiction. From a marketing standpoint I want my IP to be large uncategorizable blob of data. I will acknowledge I’m probably not representative of the typical internet user, but I think people are becoming more sensitive about how much information they give out freely, and in some cases telling little white lies.

Personally I think all of this data is really just to attract traditional print and TV advertisers online. By giving these people metrics they are accustomed to working with, you are going to have an easier time getting them to open their wallets. As anyone in sales knows it’s easier to sell someone something if they think they want it, whether it really works or not.

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