Marketers rejoice...

Marketers using Google AdWords, rejoice! For ages, many of you have wanted the ability to pick and choose exactly where your ads would show up in Google AdSense contextual network. Now you're getting it.

Beginning today, some Google advertisers will have access to a new tool allowing them to select particular sites. Over the coming weeks, the scope will be expanded until all advertisers have access to the new feature, Google says.

The new tool will allow advertisers to enter the URL of a site they are interested in, then get back a list of similar sites, then let them select exactly the ones they wish to target. A new exclusion tool will also let them "go broad" and take everything, then selectively remove sites they wish to exclude.
...
The new system will work on a cost-per-impression basis, or CPM. Ads in the new system will compete against ads using CPC bidding, with the CPC price being multiplied against the clickthrough rate of those ads to come up with a pseudo-CPM rate to match against.

Huge for contextual advertising. Crap publishers will get lower earnings and strong publishers will be more adequately compensated for thier content.

Trusting advertisers to know where they would like to spend their ad dollars makes the market much more efficient. Good job Google!

The tool which shows related sites might be a handy tool for link builders looking to directly buy links or better understand what Google thinks is related to what.

Incidentally I just bought an airplane ticket for the Stansted ThreadWatch meeting. I will be flying on an AirBus plane, and my Gmail showed me an ad for this site. Figured I should mention when Gmail gets the ads right after I recently gave them a bunch of crap ;)

Here is the Google page describing the new targeting technology.

The new technology does not necissarily require ads to be contextually relevant, but the minimum CPM is $2 per thousand ad impressions.

The Wall Street Journal just reported that DoubleClick was just bought for 1.1 billion, and one has to guess this move by Google will undermine that value a bit.

With this branded advertising move and all of Google's non search offerings Google is more of an advertising company than a search company. Publishers can opt out of the Google branded ads if they do not want Google's ads competing with their own internal branded advertising sales.

Big branded comanies may be more likely to buy these branded ads than they were to bid on keywords.