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Google Serves Ads Based on Previous Queries
April 01, 2008
In 2005 (as reported by Search Engine Journal), Google applied for a patent called "Results based personalization of advertisements in a search engine." Part of the patent abstract reads as follows:
The search results are personalized based on a user profile of the user providing the query. The user profile describes interests of the user, and can be derived from a variety of sources, including prior search queries, prior search results, expressed interests, demographic, geographic, psychographic, and activity information.
Until now, I hadn't seen any instances of Adwords being served based on prior queries in the same session. (This doesn't mean it hasn't happened -- only that I haven't seen it.) But recently I've begun to notice it when signed in to my Google account. Each time I've noticed it (it's been hard to reproduce) it typically occurs after several searches for one particular topic, followed by a sudden shift to a query for another topic. For example, here is one recent search pattern:
[laptops]
[laptop repair]
[laptop parts]
[trucks]
Here is the resulting SERP for the [trucks] query. I've compressed the page so you can see both organic and paid results:
Here is the query set for the second example:
[gloves]
[work gloves]
[gardening gloves]
[jersey gloves]
[heavy duty gloves]
[wheelbarrows]
And here are the organic/paid results for [wheelbarrow]:
The second example is admittedly less convincing, because it's plausible that glove retailers could purchase bids for "wheelbarrow" terms. But I was unable to see any "glove" ads in subsequent searches for "wheelbarrow" terms.
This is interesting because query results like this allow the ad to really stick out contextually and give the advertiser the whole stage, so to speak, for a certain term. And even though the user has changed gears and is searching for something new, the "old" vein of queries is certainly still in his or her mind. I would love any feedback about how widespread these results are, CTR data for "residual" query ads, etc.
All posts by Erik Dafforn
posted by Erik Dafforn at April 1, 2008 07:39 AM
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Comments
Nice find, I hadn't seen this below but expected it to happen eventually.
So the question is how can someone take advantage of this knowledge...something to sleep on tonight ;)
Posted by: Phil at April 7, 2008 05:52 PM
I thought i was the only one that notice that. In order to be successful at cost per click, you must understand the formula
Posted by: Tikee Pittman at May 2, 2008 01:23 AM