20
January
2005
|
05:13 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Scoop! Google is about to unveil a completely revamped Adwords/Adsense program to counter inroads from competitors such as Kanoodle

by Tom Foremski and Candida Kutz for SiliconValleyWatcher.com


As this is being writtten, about 1800 Google marketing people from its offices around the world are at an internal sales conference at a secret location in San Francisco, being briefed on a completely revamped Google Adwords/Adsense program and other new features.


Adwords and Adsense are what make Google such an incredible cash machine. The Adwords and Adsense programs deliver paid text ad links. Adwords delivers paid text ads to users of its search services and the ads are matched to the search term.


Adsense delivers text ads to readers of a web page and they are matched to the content of a page. Virtually anybody with a web page can become a member of the Adsense network and host Google ads and receive a cut of the ad revenue.


The text ads business is crucial to maintaining Google's pace of growth and its share price, which reflects high expectations for the dominant search giant. But Google offers few tools to advertisers to let them control where their ads appear and on which web sites. Similarly, web site publishers have virtually no control over what types of ads Google sends their way. This has caused some shifting to competitors such as Kanoodle that offer such controls.


That's why the revamped Adwords/Adsense will provide a suite of tools that provide greater control, management and monitoring data to advertisers, to better target their sales messages.


It's interesting to note that executives from Kanoodle hit town earlier this week, right when the secret Google internal unveiling is taking place. I haven't had a chance to ask them about whether they timed it because they knew about the Adwords relaunch or if it was a coincidence.


There are 18 coaches standing by to whisk the visiting Googlers off to Tahoe this weekend. If you are in Tahoe this weekend, look out for them on the slopes and in the bars, especially the bars. If you pick up any juicy tidbits, ping me!


cd2219