Cat retirement homes, spam tortilla sandwiches, and the dubious relevancy of Gmail “contextual” ads
I’m a big fan of outsourcing one’s email to Google, and then continuing to use one’s favorite email client. (I’ve never switched away from Eudora.) Accordingly, I rarely use the actual Gmail interface – except when traveling and hence away from my desktop computer.
For the past week I have been on vacation, logging into Gmail a lot. And so I started noticing the contextual ads that appear above the lists of messages. Well, it turns out that – well, on the whole they’re not terribly contextual. Let me explain.
Some ads are just highly generic, most commonly for news headline services and the like. Examples include ads for ESPN, Dictionary.com, the New York Times, Wired, Rotten Tomatoes, the International Herald Tribune, and more. In most cases, these ads link to a specific story that bears no evident relationship to the email up on the screen. These happens most commonly when I’m in my inbox or the like, rather than looking at specific mail, but also have appeared over email on subjects as diverse as consulting session scheduling, cat-sitting, and an invitation to a Microstrategy sales seminar in Hartford, CT.
Some ads obviously are meant to be more contextual, but miss the mark. Typical examples include:
-
Palm-Meow, Inc. – www.palm-meow.com – cat retirement/boarding – Florida Tropical Paradise for Your Cat. This appeared over email that referred to kittens I was seeing (on my trip to Grand Cayman) and elder care issues (in Ohio).
-
Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches – To serve, cut each roll in half and, similarly, Ginger Spam Salad – Serves 1, refrigerate overnight. Each appeared over, you guessed it, my Spam folder. Yum!
-
Cayman Legal Jobs – www.cmlor.com – Specialist Offshore Recruiter Browse Live Jobs. This appeared over an email about scuba diving in the Cayman islands (to Andy Astor of EnterpriseDB).
-
Jobs in the Caribbean – www.CaribbeanJobs.com – Your search ends here. Great Marketing Jobs to be found. This appeared over email from an SAP consulting firm that was spamming an offer of its services, with no Caribbean references.
-
Improve SAP Usability – www.GuiXT.com – Remove unused fields. Combine multiple screens/tabs into one. This appeared over email telling me a former SAP executive had joined Utopia, Inc.
-
HiQube – www.Hiqube.com – Hi-Performance Enterprise Analytic Business Intelligence Software. This appeared over a SQL Server Magazine update email. (Note: Hiqube doesn’t seem to be tied to SQL Server.)
Most of those are worse fits than one would normally see with Google AdWords or AdSense. Others – while still not close enough to the mark to generate much in the way of productive clicks – are at least more in line with what one sees from those programs. Examples of those include:
-
60s Outfits, Wigs & Boots – www.hollywoodcostumesandparty.com – 1000s of 50s-60s-70s Costumes, Go-Go Dresses. This appeared over email advertising MIT Folk Dance club Israeli dancing oldies night.
-
LED street lamps – www.led-uk.com – High power LED street lights save up to 80% on power costs. This appeared over email offering a very different kind of LED lights.
-
1000s of Laptops Cheap – www.USAnotebook.com/Wholesale – Unbeatable Refurbished Laptop Deals Warranty & Fast. This appeared over a newsbrief on the EU’s antitrust action vs. Intel, which mentioned laptops.
And some ads are complete head-scratchers. Two such were:
-
42 Surfboards – www.42surfboards.blogspot.com – Classic Wood Surfboards. Go green. Go wood. Go fast. This appeared over notification that former Computerworld honcho Paul Gillin is now following me on Twitter. Unless it was part of the general beach theme to some of my ads, that juxtaposition makes very little sense.
-
Set Up Your Hedge Fund – www.hedgefundtools.com – We put together your entire fund for you in one month! This was over a company-update email from Bob Potter, CEO of Expressor Software. That email contained no reference to financial services or any other vertical market, and a Google search on expressor software hedge fund reveals no connection between the two concepts.
Oh yes – there were a few actually in-context hits as well.
It’s easy to come up with theories as to why Gmail ad relevancy should be a lot worse than that for AdWords or AdSense. If you search on something, or seek out a web page, you’re making your interests pretty clear. If you’re just receiving and opening email, however, then:
- What you’re looking for may not be so obvious.
- You’re much more likely to not (at the moment) be seeking external information at all.
However – all this is based on just a week of paying attention to the ads. And I haven’t been using the search or filter functionality in Gmail, which might be great clues for additional context.
So what are your experiences? Is anybody seeing Gmail ads that are a lot more relevant that what I’ve been getting? Please share!
Related links
- Eric Hellweg has the opposite opinion to mine, or at least did back in 2004
- Giovanna Wall is morally offended by a Gmail ad misfire
- There are opinions on both sides on Phil Sim’s blog
- Bernard Lunn opines that future email ad context will include the social graph, which he views as a major opportunity
Comments
Leave a Reply