It was a surprise to everyone but Google that AdSense ads appearing in RSS feeds were geo-targeted just like site-based AdSense blocks.
Rumors sheeted down like a downpour in the city. Everyone had fled the web for the safety of their blogs and chatrooms, but not me. I was chasing a rumor, and it led me straight to the source, a ClickZ report.
I was less welcome than Mills at the Google Dance, before she and Schmidt made up. There was my window on the world, calls himself Firefox, casting an eye my way. “We read five times you were killfiled, in five different blogs.”
I told Firefox that, as he could see, it was true every time. Putting aside the urge to click him right smack in the top right corner, I pressed Firefox about the rumor: was Google geo-targeting ads in RSS feeds?
The answer came from Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager at Google, who told ClickZ: “AdSense for feeds is part of the Google content network, so if an advertiser’s campaign is opted into the content network, their ads are eligible to show in feeds.”
He also said geo-targeting had been a feature since the launch of AdSense in feeds. They had one up on me at the moment, and I wasn’t happy about it. Firefox seemed to pick up on that, and gave me a little more from ClickZ after the Googler had scrolled away:
Advertisers cannot specifically target RSS ads locally, but regionally or locally targeted ads within Google’s content network could potentially be shown in feeds as well as on Web sites. Both the location of the user and content of the feed are contributing factors to targeting the ads, with the content of the feed being the primary factor in targeting, Ghosemajumder said.
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
