Google To Stop Reading Emails for Gmail Ads
Have you ever received an email and then noticed a Gmail for the same or similar topic? Scanning Gmail for content and then using the findings to serve ad content is a controversial practice that Google is stopping. Finally! Google scans Gmail users email content and then uses that information to tailor the ad content that is shown to users. These targeted ads appear within Gmail itself as promoted messages.
The decision was made to boost the appeal to business users in order to promote Alphabet’s G Suite products. Google never served Gmail ads in the G Suite (paid) version of Gmail, this practice was only for the free version. However, there was much confusion about the ads and free versus G Suite versions of Gmail. Many G Suite users believed their emails were also scanned for content. Alphabet believes this costs them many corporate clients who are rightfully concerned about online privacy and protecting their corporate secrets.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, decided to pull the email scanning practice. Advertisements will still show inside of free Gmail accounts. These ads, however, will not use scanned content to target audiences. Free Gmail users won’t be ad free though. Instead, Gmail will still show ads using the other data that Google has on you! Google collects data on users such as location data, browsing behavior when logged into Chrome, Behaviors, and interests on YouTube. Much of this data is used by marketers to target advertisements through AdWords.
Google is an innovator in audience development and targeting. Although social media channels like Facebook and Pinterest also offer audience targeting, Alphabet’s products and ad platform (AdWords) is far more advanced.
G Suite has more than 3 million paying companies. Gmail now has more than 1 billion monthly active users. How much revenue loss this will costs Alphabet is unclear, as Google does not break down its numbers for the public.
G Suite has more than 3 million paying companies. Gmail now has more than 1 billion monthly active users. How much revenue loss this will costs Alphabet is unclear, as Google does not breakdown its numbers for the public.
