Internet Retailer: Google’s AdSense online content ads put to a test

Confirming what some targeting experts suspected, Google's contextual advertising system does not perform as well as traditional search media, according to NewGate Internet. The predictions were based on the idea that people using a search engine are at least temporarily in a mode of behavior that makes them particularly susceptible to sidetracking, distraction and suggestion. Contextual placements, in contrast, tend to appear in front of a more average web user.

Internet Retailer today published results seen from three clients of NewGate Internet, among them two retailers and a manufacturer, that show that the performance on a click-to-conversion rate in comparison to search media was "abysmal."

Interestingly, Google maintains that the NewGate results were merely anomalies. Susan Wojicky, director of Google product management, told Internet Retailer, "We know our customers get qualified leads in search ads, but we’ve found that search and content ads have similar conversion rates."