Will the Real Online Demographics Please Stand Up
March 14th, 2006 by Michael Gray in Advertising, Google, MSN, Media, SEMIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
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.
Sphere It
March 14th, 2006 at 9:06 am
May the real online demographics please stand up
Please stand up
Please stand up
May the real online demographics please stand up
We want to eat your data
March 14th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
I suspect more people are truthful than you think and given a large enough data set the inaccurate/deceitful stats will get drowned by the representative stats. Remember that we are atypical people. Or so my wife constantly reminds me.
March 14th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
It’s funny conundrum every internet privacy and safety publication online or offline tells you to not give out personal data, yet everyone wants it. I ‘m teaching the kids to not give anything out and when they have to, to lie.
March 15th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Would like to check it out but …
List URLs, Describe topics is available for Germany but there is no equivalent for “Select demographics.”
booo
-tim