Let's say you go to Google and search for cat food. You browse various sites that offer different price ranges, flavours, and the full nine yards on every type of cat food imaginable. Interestingly, when you switch to Facebook, you notice something very peculiar. For some mysterious reason, your Facebook ads are full of cat food!

 Now, these ads can appear instantly, or within a day or two, but you'll end up seeing them. How is this possible ... Facebook is spying on you? In a way, yes ... Welcome to the world of personalized internet ads!

Collection of Data

There are four main types of data that provide a great understanding of the likes and preferences that can help make personalized ads. The first type of data is to click stream data.

In personalized ads, the sequence of clicks refers to the registration of the web pages you have visited. This data is collected through the use of a small text file known as a cookie. To give a perspective of what cookies are, it is a text file sent by a website to your computer so that you can track your movements within the pages of the site.

The second type of data that is viable for personalized ads is search data. A 2011 Pew Internet survey showed that 92% of adults on the Internet used the services of search engine giants such as Yahoo and Google. These search giants saw advertising as a profitable avenue, given the amount of data they could collect on such a massive scale.

Search engines can analyze search terms and user habits to place targeted advertising alongside natural search results; they often allow companies to pay them higher among the search results for particular keywords. That's why when you search for "sleeping bags," big outdoor companies tend to appear first, while sleeping bag ads will soon line up on the page margins.

The last two valuable types of data are Purchase Data and Profile Data. Purchase data is used primarily by companies like Amazon, which generally recommend new purchases that are similar to purchases you have made in the past. This is because online stores often use cookies or user registration to track what you buy, and even what you put in your cart and then leave, to personalize your shopping experience. Profile data is generally collected when you create a profile on a social media platform (such as Facebook).

IP Address

The IP part of an IP address stands for Internet Protocol. The address part refers to a unique number linked to all the online activity you do. This is more intuitively understood as the return address of the email you have sent. The first thing to note is that your computer is connected to the Internet in one way or another. Whether you go online to write an email, shop, or chat, your request should be sent to the right destination, and the answers and information you want should be answered directly to you.

IP Targeting

Companies now use a particular method known as IP targeting. IP targeting is a way to provide an online display of ads to a specific consumer of choice without the use of cookies. Each Wi-Fi network you connect to is assigned an "IP address," a numeric code that helps that network communicate with the Internet. With Programmatic IP Targeting, you can send your online advertising to all devices connected to a given network, as long as you have their IP address.

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How does Google search work?


An article by Munna Suprathik