New ways to reach the right audience on the Google content network

Reaching the right audience is the goal of every ad campaign. This week we're announcing new capabilities planned for the Google content network that will help you achieve that goal. In addition to matching ads with the topic of a web page through contextual advertising, you will be able to reach users based on their interests, independent of the content they are currently reading.

Over the next few months we'll start offering interest-based advertising to a limited number of advertisers as part of a beta, and expand the offering later in 2009. If you would like to participate in the beta, please fill out this form.

With interest-based advertising, you will be able to reach users based on your past interactions with them, such as their visits to your website. We'll also provide interest categories, such as "sports enthusiasts," so you can reach the audience of your choice. Whether your goal is to drive brand awareness or increase responses to your ads, these capabilities can help expand the success of your campaigns.

Users browsing the web will benefit from the additional relevancy that interest-based ads can provide. And by visiting the new Ads Preferences Manager, users can see what interest categories we think they fall into, or add and remove categories themselves. The Ads Preferences Manager can be found by clicking on most "Ads by Google" links you see on ads throughout the web.

You can read more about how interest-based advertising benefits the online ecosystem and about the new privacy tools developed for this launch in the Official Google Blog and the Google Public Policy Blog. To learn more about the details of interest-based advertising, please visit this AdWords FAQ.

We look forward to providing users with ads more closely tied to their interests and helping you to better reach your campaign goals at scale.

- Aitan Weinberg, Product Manager

[Note: this post has been reprinted from the Inside AdWords Blog]