Google Ad Planner: Viva La Revolution

Yesterday, Google announced Google Ad Planner which is a new service that helps advertisers to buy online media that is targeted to their audience of choice. It is a media buying tool that allows you to search, identify, target, buy and report all through an easy to use online interface.

You may be asking “Isn’t this just an expansion of Google Trends?”

No, the two are related but Google states “Google Trends for Websites is designed for all users. Google Ad Planner is designed for advertisers and agencies, and offers features such as .csv exports, MediaVisor exports, and demographic estimates.”

The tool seems very easy to use and campaigns can be set-up and implemented in minutes. I recall setting up media campaigns in the dot-com era that took weeks to set-up, and even longer to create meaningful reports. Viva La Revolution!

Google is making online media buying more accessible to the common marketer (or marketing agency – cough cough). Setting up a campaign is easy.

First, the advertiser needs to specify the specific demographics and interests of their target market, or search by topic, for relevant web sites to advertise on in Google network of millions of web site advertising partners. The advertiser can then select the web sites that they are interested in advertising on and are then returned detailed aggregated web site statistics. Selections can be modified to meet their needs and then saved into a media plan.

Advertisers that are familiar with using Google Adwords, and more specifically the Google placement targeting feature, will be happy to hear that you can export the list of Web sites from Google Ad Planner, and then import them into Google AdWords using the ultra handy Google AdWords Editor tool.

Google Ad Planner is still in Beta, but if you have a pre-exisitng Google Adwords account that you spend more than $500 a month in, I encourage you to apply for a Google Ad Planner Beta Invitation. If you are not spending $500 a month in Google Adwords, I encourage you to step up and join the revolution.