Google will soon relieve users from one of the most insufferable annoyances, part-and-parcel of online shopping – the pushy reminder ads. Users will be able to silent the ads in the third-party apps and websites that use Google Ads. Further, the search engine giant plans to roll out this feature for Gmail, YouTube and Google Search in the coming months.
How the feature works
Users keep on seeing the ads – typically known as “reminder ads” – of the items that they ordered or browsed in the recent past. Further, these ads are not restricted to a couple of sites, rather they haunt the user on almost every website they land on. Now, such ads can be muted for as much as 90 days.
Reminder ads usually trouble users for a month, so by giving a window of 90 days, Google wants to ensure that users are not troubled at all. The new feature would also allow users to see the advertisers re-marketing to them via Google’s ad network. Based on their preferences, a user can choose to mute the ads and keep others running.
In a blog post, explaining the use of the new feature, Jon Krafcik, a Google products manager for data privacy and transparency, said, “Reminder ads like these can be useful, but if you aren’t shopping for Snow Boot Co.’s boots anymore, then you don’t need a reminder about them. A new control within Ads Settings will enable you to mute Snow Boot Co.’s reminder ads.”
The forceful ads can be muted from the Ads Settings dashboard by tapping the “X” in the Reminder Ads section. The “X” icon is placed next to the listed advertiser. Once the user adjusts the required settings, the reminder ads would be removed from the company’s entire domain, notes VentureBeat.
Reminder ads – not entirely a new feature
Google has had the feature “mute this ad” since 2012. The feature grants users some control over the ads they want to see (or they don’t want to see). Muting “reminder ads” can be seen as an extension to the already existing feature, allowing a user to mute ads that they may have found interesting before, but are not interested in now.
Additionally, Google has also added new tools to the already existing “mute this ad” feature. Now, a user can send feedback from any device, which would then be applied across all their devices, notes VentureBeat.
What it means for advertisers?
Google’s new feature does not come as good news for advertisers. When a user restricts an advertiser under the new tool, he/she is muting all the ads shown by that advertiser rather than a specific ad. However, the restriction is only applicable to the Google Ads, and not on other re-marketing services that an advertiser might be using.
Google stated that it received over 5 billion notices from users who muted the disturbing ads. Based on the feedback received from the “mute this ad” tool, the search giant said that it blocked more than a million ads from its ad network. Now, with the launch of a new feature to mute reminder ads, possibly more ads will be blocked, thus encouraging advertisers (and Google as well) to improve targeting.
