What I'm about to say may surprise you. If you're an old advertising / marketing guy or gal, you'll get my drift immediately. Somehow with all the might that Google has, it just might in fact be a little too tightly focused. Logically I totally get their view on keeping it all relevant and targeted. But you know what, I'm human and so are you and holy cow, we're not built that way. I like being a little untargeted, non relevant at times, and when the good Lord is willing, maybe even spontaneous!

Okay, so here's where I'm going with all this. The internet & Google, more to the point, has truly become the fourth media, after newspaper, radio and television. No question there at all. While I totally appreciate Google's attempt to keep everything focused and relevant on the search engine side, I actually do miss the distractions on the ad side. You know, a billboard that catches your attention and suggests where you might eat lunch. The check out at Wal-Mart or any variety store, with their plethora of useless things to buy on impulse. And yes, we buy billions and billions of dollars worth of things on impulse every single day.

Granted I may still buy the targeted items I see advertised through AdWords on Google, but they have clearly taken all the spontaneous spirit out of my shopping experience. Something the human condition has craved for so very long. God forbid grocery stores were able to completely target you like that. It might work, and I'm sure it would actually. Just dropped in to buy some dog food and as I near the check out, the only things there are Dog Treats, Dog Leashes, Dog Shampoo .. you get my drift. When am I gonna snag that chocolate bar I don't need, but will truly enjoy.

I spent 30 years in media, in radio advertising to be more specific. And I can honestly tell you, that if we priced the sponsorship of the Weather Forecast at $150.00 for 30 seconds of air time, advertisers were lined up to buy it. We did not restrict them by their actual product. It was first come, first served. So the Weather was often brought to you by McDonald's, nothing relevant to the weather at all, they just bought that spot because it had the most listeners in the hour. Seems smart and targeted to a degree.

We have gone from eating at home, to dining in a restaurant, to eating in a fast food establishment, to today, and the drive thru or skid mark lunch as I call it. What's next, the food patch, and I'll never have to stop in at all! Clearly, it's getting a bit too tight don't ya think?!

I really do think that if McDonald's or Wal-Mart or you and I want to advertise anywhere on Google there should be no restriction. The price of the ad's location will determine who ultimately goes where. But let me decide, if I want to be relevant or not!

Yahoo was the giant for many years, got fat I guess and Google just swept in and did so in a big way. In my opinion, there is room here to move this giant called Google, and I think another giant like Yahoo could just be the one to do it. Focus and target and relevant .. sure, let's do all that .. but let's also have some fun too! The Google system itself is a fantastic assortment of algorithms far to complicated to properly understand but then so are we the people. A highly complex assortment of personalities, with needs and wants. A very daunting task to effectively marry the two.

I must admit that I'm even bothering to mention all this because of my long career in the advertising game, and also because of my actual day to day use of the Google Search Engine and also the Google Adwords Program. This much I know from experience, you will lose a great deal of money using Adwords, unless you have done your homework, or at the very least, done some serious reading and use the proper software to assist you. Google doesn't make it easy to advertise there but there are ways to make things work.

You may love and hate Google for a great many reasons, but to be successful with Adwords, Keyword Elite is a great place to start. Oh sure, it may sound like some kind of shameless advertising plug, but it will certainly save you countless hours on the research side, and it will open new doors, as it actually suggests other powerful keywords to consider, that you would not have thought of. And you know what, if you really work at it, you might even get your ad to show up on a completely irrelevant page, bringing me right back to my original story of allowing me to do some impulse buying. If leveraging your time is important to you, I would highly suggest the software route I mentioned.

So maybe the next time I'm on Google searching for my favorite holiday destination, I'll run into your ad selling widgets. It won't be relevant or even targeted, but it'll sure put a huge smile on my face when I see that ad so totally out of place. Long live impulse buying and my right to choose what's relevant or not.