Google+ to boost search ads

Google+ could enhance the value and positioning of Google’s search business, giving the company a complete view of consumer interest, social graph, intent data and conversion data, which will in turn boost advertising, according to Ad Age‘s Dave Williams.

The new social network gives Google an opportunity to build a complete consumer profile, and if Google integrates Google+ with its search business, it will be able to deliver relevant and personal search results and ads, Williams writes.

This is also important because it will allow Google to compete with Bing’s Facebook integration.

However, Williams claims that Google needs to add brand pages if it is to compete with Facebook – giving it a branding engagement platform rather than just a search business, which relies on clicks to measure ROI.

“Once brand pages are launched and populated, the next logical step is to build an ad platform that encourages engagement and incorporates the social graph,” he says. “With this, brands can appeal to consumers by using interest data – the things consumers say they actually like – just as we see on Facebook.”

Williams claims that Google will be able to target ads based on consumer intent data, which will give it a competitive advantage ahead of Facebook.

However, Google needs to ensure users are active and engaged, something which Facebook has achieved – Facebook users spent an average of 375 minutes on the site in May, beating the 231 minutes they spent on Google, according to comScore data. Meanwhile, Twitter has lots of registered users but a small percentage is responsible for the majority of the activity.

There has been lots of discussion around average revenue per user (ARPU) – but Williams says the value of a user is defined by amount of time spent, rather than total number of users – “Without broad and regular participation, scale and frequency (and successful advertising) become impossible.”

Read the full article here.