Mental Kindling - Scott Hayne

Google is launching a Beta of it’s new AdWords Remarketing service.  In a nutshell it works like this:

1. You visit a site via an AdWords search advertisement (or possibly even visit the site directly)
2. Surf around the site without completing a pre-defined conversion goal (purchasing an item, making a reservation, etc).
3. Via your IP and a cookie placed during that visit - Google will be able to recognize you as you visit other sites on their content network in the future (their content network is huge, you can’t avoid it)
4. Google blasts you with ads related to that conversion/website until you cave in and just go buy the damn thing.

Prior to making this official, I had always understood that simply by installing Google Analytics on your site, they had the capacity to do this and other than their general “don’t be evil” mantra, you had no guarantees they wouldn’t.  As such, I made the recommendation not to use Google Analytics on our corporate site and opted for Omniture SiteCatalyst - in function, a very similar tool, but a paid for service with data ownership.

My worry was that if a user visited our site and say, viewed the cardiology page - then Google decided to start serving them ads related to heart disease - if the user drew the conclusion between their recent visit to our site and this new abundance of oddly topical advertisements - we would look like the bad guys.

Well, it is here and it is hailed as a service, and for the record I have had my first encounter.  Looking for a place to stay near Chicago last week, I checked availability at Harrahs casino hotel in Joliet.  I have seen no less than a dozen banner ads for that casino across half a dozen sites since then - specifically for Harrahs in Joliet…

Don’t be evil, be annoying.