Have you noticed Google are retiring demographic bidding?
Posted in Pay Per Click (PPC) by Rory on 15th of March, 2012
Although it hadn't officially been announced yet, a few dedicated internet marketing analysts noticed that there had been a change to Google's help pages. The change announced that Google would be retiring the Demographic Bidding functionality in the Google AdWords display
network. It is scheduled to be phased out on March 21st. Some have suggested that this has traditionally been an incomplete layer of the AdWords platform, particularly weakened by the fact that it relied on information provided by third party collection service websites. Google have suggested that the removal of the tool is part
of their efforts to simplify the AdWords tool, and they are currently looking for alternative ways to offer demographic bidding and targeting. 
Google have stated that on the 21st of March, the following changes can be seen in AdWords accounts: • All demographic bidding will be removed from all AdWords accounts, and demographic bid multipliers won't be available and will no longer be applied to campaigns that were
using the feature. • Demographic reports will no longer be available on the dimensions tab, although it is possible to save demographic reports for any existing campaigns before the March 21st cut off point. All demographics data will still be available in the demographics panel, and this is to help AdWords account owners decide
if they want to exclude certain demographic groups from their campaign. It has also been suggested that this move could be connected to the recent changes to their privacy policy, which is now unified across all Google services. With Google's network of services growing all the time, it is possible that they could be preparing to
offer demographic bidding solutions based on Google data, rather than the third-party data which is currently used. Are you going to miss the demographic bidding tool on AdWords? If you have any further questions about PPC or digital marketing in general, then please don't hesitate to contact us.
Google have stated that on the 21st of March, the following changes can be seen in AdWords accounts: • All demographic bidding will be removed from all AdWords accounts, and demographic bid multipliers won't be available and will no longer be applied to campaigns that were
using the feature. • Demographic reports will no longer be available on the dimensions tab, although it is possible to save demographic reports for any existing campaigns before the March 21st cut off point. All demographics data will still be available in the demographics panel, and this is to help AdWords account owners decide
if they want to exclude certain demographic groups from their campaign. It has also been suggested that this move could be connected to the recent changes to their privacy policy, which is now unified across all Google services. With Google's network of services growing all the time, it is possible that they could be preparing to
offer demographic bidding solutions based on Google data, rather than the third-party data which is currently used. Are you going to miss the demographic bidding tool on AdWords? If you have any further questions about PPC or digital marketing in general, then please don't hesitate to contact us.