Things are moving very quickly now, in fact I was pleased to learn about these contextual ads from my new friend Cory O’Brien in SF yesterday.
In my latest report “The Future of the Social Web” we pointed that in the near future we’ll start to see web pages dynamically created based on user profile ID in social networks. Essentially, your corporate, media, or ecommerce site could provide contextual media, content, and advertisement based on users’ info before they login.
[In the Future, The Era of Social Context Will Serve Personalized Content, Media, and Ads to Users based on their Social Networking Information]
Here’s an early example of a contextualized advertising campaign from VW (by agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, read more about the modernist campaign) that’s intended to help prospects find the right model based on their preferences. Please note this isn’t yet the full entry into the era of social functionality as users have to manually submit their login info or user name (like this Twitter example below) and just examines recent tweets. When the era of social context matures, it will look beyond just profile info, but also behavioral data, friend data, location, and content analysis of explicit and implicit data.
Type 1: Context Ad based off of opt-in Twitter profile.
Above Ad: Enter your Twitter name to see a product recommendation
Type 2: Contextual Ad based off of Facebook profile.
Corey also pointed me in the direction of a second “Meet the VWs” Facebook app that asks users to opt in to analyze their profile and then recommends products based off simple profile info. Read the pros and cons from the smart folks at the Future of Ads of this Facebook advertising effort.
Above image: Facebook recommended these products to me on the VW fan page
Future Expectations:
Expect social context to impact not just ads, but many websites in the future. Also, expect the accuracy to increase as social and behavioral data starts to merge.
Facebook, Twitter, have a tremendous amount of explicit and more importantly, implicit data that could serve up information about users, yet we should expect years of refinement for these engines to truly be accurate. Interestingly, the Twitter ad suggested I’d like the Jetta, yet the Facebook app suggested a Rabbit and Beetle, which I find funny as I’d never drive a Beetle, that’s really not me at all.
In the future, these ads, media, or recommendations should be more intelligent and also find friends with similar cars, or people with similar traits to me that I don’t know and suggest products. As user ID start to federate and connect with other such as Open ID and Facebook Connect, we should expect a higher degree of accuracy.
Then, users may choose to opt-in to expose parts of their identity as they surf the web on trusted sites to receive a contextual experience. For example, I may trust Amazon, eBay and Google search to expose my identity in exchange for a more personalized experience.
We should also expect a rash of privacy concerns and user backlashes to happen, even if they opt in, we’re just scratching the surface here. I have so much more to write on the topic of social context, but it’s 3am and I need to go back to bed, so I’ll save it for a future blog post.
Key Takeaways
The above ads are simple experiments of how context can be served up through social data Expect this contextual content not to be limited to just ads, but also on media sites, ecommerce, corporate sites, and TV Expect digital content to be contextual –even without express content of the users During the early years, expect privacy concerns to overwhelm brands, causing them to rethink this approach Although it will take years to perfect, expect context to increase CTR, and therefore the cost of ads
What did the Twitter ad and Facebook page recommend to you? Were they accurate recommendations?
I was recommended the VW CC. I’d never heard of it before but now I’m a fan.
Love the way VW has used Twitter and Facebook – very fun, engaging and stylish. Have trouble believing the recommendations are really based on FB profiles and Tweets rather than just being randomly generated but love it anyway.
Your points towards the end about user-backlash and privacy concerns were the most interesting to me.
Right now these interaction exist entirely in the private sector. As governments get more tech-savvy, do you think they will get more intrusive and uses these sorts of information-gathering and experience tailoring systems for their own purposes? Do you think the already are?
I wonder whether sales departments would be able to sell this capability for relatively large sites (in terms of audience) but still well below the scale of eBay, Facebook, etc.? If you have scale and scope, CTR is great; if not and you’re a more traditional CPM model, would this work? I suppose it could be bundled as a value-add with a traditional media buy (i.e. CPM based) to fulfill a direct response or some other objective, but once we start talking about custom pages and content, what kinds of technology and pricing would we need to have in place to deliver advertising in a way that is sufficient to generate enough margin to support professionally developed content?
This is a great idea, hyper-targeted content, ads, etc., but how will the revenue models evolve? Would this necessitate more walled off content, to ensure a stable revenue stream? Would focus shift more toward life time value and a need to “own” visitors long-term? Would users opt for this type of a model if it meant more relevant content and less but more relevant advertising? The question of how to monetize as it is connected with users’ WTP for relevance, control, and convenience will be an interesting one to watch…and participate.
awesome. i can really see myself in that GTI. i think its about time companies start realizing the potential of social media!
sports shoes
Nike Sport Shoes
Women's Nike Sport Shoes
Men's Nike Sport Shoes