In the US, online advertising spend has tripled over the past five years, due in part to increased targeting capabilities.  Agencies and client-side advertisers have access to a wide array of tools, which allow them to specifically target their chosen demographics in unprecedented ways.  But every advancement comes with its own hiccups and the question of ethics often surmounts.

What would you do if you knew a certain picture would increase your click-through rates twofold?

Or let’s say you are able to figure out the religion of your targets. Do you use it to your advantage?

Has user targeting become the new pop-up?

When advertisers target too specifically, use weird bearded men in financial ads, or introduce interesting interactivity (such as the “tickle the fat kid” ad) … well… it’s just plain creepy. With the media recently focusing its attention on the quality and legitimacy of search results, will we see more efforts to clean up the internet advertising world?  Or, will it just get more interesting?

And, when we say interesting, we mean…

We are introducing a new column to SearchShots, CEO of Google.

All search marketers, at one point or another, become frustrated with a certain feature, or lack thereof, within a search engine. Or, we secretly wish they were CEO at Google so they could innovate the offering themselves. In either case, this forward thinking doesn’t just happen in Google’s 1.9 billion-dollar building. It happens when a person searches but can’t find. It happens when a search marketer wants to innovate their accounts but is limited by the system.

Every bad experience presents two options:

1) Complain and accept.

2) Think of a better way and voice it. Even better, do it!

We like number 2.

But, enough with the introduction. This innovation is for Search Targeting by Category.

Think about a time where your natural inclination when you hit that search bar was to enter a term, such as “tide”, “foundation”, “stains”, and the like. To you, this makes total sense. To the search engines and other outsiders, this is ambiguous.

You see the results and you’re immediately irritated. They’re not even close to what you wanted. The search engines must be crazy. After all, YOU knew exactly what you meant, so why didn’t the engine?!

Bing’s offering has always been positioned around this concept, and it’s become more prevalent over time. According to Bing, queries made on their engine fall under 155 categories, like Music, Consumer Electronics, and Recipes. TechCrunch’s write-up on the Bing Search Summit breaks down what Bing does with these types of insights:

“To best handle these, Bing has developed 400 “unique visual experiences” depending on the search (in other words, photos, images, and links are presented in different ways depending on the content you’re searching for. Microsoft says that in this respect, it does more than their competition (Google).”

So, what if search engines began breaking this behavior down at scale. And, what if they offered search marketers the ability to target certain (relevant) query categories. It helps the consumer with more relevant results and it helps the advertiser with more accurate targeting. When a consumer is searching for solutions to remove the ketchup stain from the burger shop at lunch, they don’t want to see ads speaking to wood stains for their home. Also, search marketers advertising for food stains don’t want to live in the same marketplace as those advertising for floor staining services thanks to the hefty price tag of a click within the latter.

Google Insights for Search already breaks these down, although the accuracy of these categories is uncertain. Google has started combating this with ‘Related Searches’ and ‘Related to’ to encourage searches to dive deeper into their desired result.

It’s very clear that Google and Bing are traveling down this road; however, many of the improvements have been centered on adjusting the look and feel of the SERP. It’s time to take this a step further and offer advertisers an extra layer of targeting and relevancy.

What are your ideas? We love contributing writers .

Google recently announced the ability to target iPads through the AdWords interface. While this development does present additional ways to leverage mobile, it’s important to realize that iPads are included in the “All mobile devices” targeting option in Google along with other high end mobile devices, e.g. iPhones, Android and Palm phones.

If you manage an account that is currently running a mobile campaign on Google with settings that target “All mobile devices,” it may be worth opting out of iPad targeting, specifically. This can be done under the ‘Settings’ tab for any campaign within the AdWords UI. Under the “Networks and devices” sub-header, click “Edit” next to “Devices,” then change targeting to “Target only selected mobile devices” and de-select the iPad as an option.

This adjustment is important for anyone running a click-to-call campaign, since phone calls cannot currently be placed from an iPad.