Demo on Google Maps, AdWords Soon?

I’ve always said that once geotargeting improves it becomes demographic targeting. Right now, absent WiFi or cell triangulation, the primary medium for geotargeting is reverse IP lookups, which are often correct but not geographically precise. Improvements are on their way from a variety of sources including 1020/Placecast, Urban Mapping (geomods) and others.

Recently Google made its AdWords geotargeting interface more map-centric and intuitive:

Poking around on Google Maps this past weekend, I discovered that someone had enabled the presentation of demographic data on Google Maps (as a Mapplet). Census/demographic data on maps has long been available for enterprises from a number of companies. And beyond the fact that geotargeting remains imprecise, I’ve never understood why this data isn’t available for AdWords and Panama, for example. (MSFT adCenter, Google and Yahoo offer demo targeting in other ways.)

So take a look and you’ll see the immediate possibilities for transforming geotargeting into demographic targeting.

Age (18-21):

Ethnic group (Asian):

Household size/composition (one woman):

Very interesting in my opinion.

All this assumes that the census data are accurate, but it’s a compelling new wrinkle and step forward for geotargeting if targeting itself can be improved.