Google Fiber is getting ready to support Web-style, targeted, local advertising in its Kansas City-area footprint determined in part by viewing history “in the next few weeks,” the company announced Friday in this posting about the project.
The “small trial” will enable ads to be “digitally delivered in real time and can be matched based on geography, the type of program being shown (eg, sports or news), or viewing history,” Google Fiber explained. Customers, it added, can opt out of seeing ads based on viewing history by changing their Fiber TV settings.
Google said the local, targeted ads will appear during typical ad breaks, along with national ads, on linear TV and, in an interesting twist, will be inserted into DVR-recorded programs.
"Like digital ads, advertisers will only pay for ads that have been shown, and can limit the number of times an ad is shown to a given TV,” Google Fiber added. “We're excited to see how this test progresses, and we're looking forward to hearing from local businesses and viewers along the way."
However, "[t]he tracking at this point is pretty unsophisticated," an unnamed source told AdWeek about the initiative.
According to numbers uncovered by MoffetNathanson, Google Fiber ended 2014 with about 27,000 TV subs in Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo.
Google Fiber’s local ad sales effort will compete with local ad avails that are sold by area pay-TV incumbents such as Time Warner Cable and AT&T U-verse.
