danielknox.net

Google recently announced it was changing the way ads were selected for placement alongside Gmail messages:

Until now, the ads you’ve seen next to a message were picked based on the content of that message only. For example, if you’re looking at a confirmation email from a hotel in Chicago, you might see ads about flights, restaurants or other things relevant to your trip to Chicago.

But sometimes, the ads related to a particular message aren’t good enough. Rather than show less relevant ads, Gmail can now instantaneously serve ads based on another recent message on the same page of your inbox, helping make the ads more relevant to you. For example, if your friend sends you a message to say happy birthday, but there aren’t any good ads to show related to birthdays, you might see ads related to another message in your inbox instead — like flights to Chicago.

Sounds like a minor change, but essentially they’re moving away from strict contextual advertising towards more behavior-based advertising. Google has clearly observed what is apparent when spending time on many online news sites… strict contextual advertising often just doesn’t work.

I wonder how long before they start taking a similar approach with AdSense ads?