Having a browse for a Gaggia Classic Espresso Machine this morning I wanted to see if I could beat the price I found on Amazon.co.uk.  A quick look in Google showed me that Bewleys were advertising in Google Adwords “Gaggia Espresso Machine”.  However, clicking on the advert brings users to a page where they can sign up to the Bewleys online club.  No sign of Gaggia or any other coffee makers for sale.  So I navigated to the Bewleys shop at buy4now.ie and found that there were indeed coffee makers, but nothing by Gaggia.

So I am annoyed after a pointless diversion and Bewleys have paid for an irrelevant visitor who is not going to make a purchase.  Who is running Bewley’s Adwords campaign?

However, the targeted ads may be smarter than I give them credit for.  Because they already seem to know that my demographic are a bit like that little boy plugging the hole in the dam in Holland.  So typical ads aimed at 35 year old females holding back the floodgates of aging are indeed weight loss, fitness equipment, an Bord Bia & make-up adverts.

Facebook Adverts for 35 year old female in Ireland

Out of curiousity, I decided to play around with my profile settings to see how the ads differed for different demographics.  Changing my status to ’single’ and ‘interested in females’ did in fact prompt one email from a friend worried that I had split up with my husband and was ‘trying other things’.  In my new guise as a 25 year old male, the adverts did change.  The focus was on fun, games, gadgets, mortgages although surprisingly I didn’t get any dating adverts during the time I was experimenting with this profile.

Facebook Adverts for 25 yr old male in Ireland

Profiled as a 50 year old woman in Ireland, the unplanned pregnancy advert was indeed ‘a surprise’.  I didn’t think either that the ‘1959′ t-shirt was going to go down a bomb either.

Facebook Adverts for 50 year old female in Ireland

Lastly I decide to profile as a 59 year old single male, interested in females and males.  I got a singles ad, not surprisingly, but the picture was of a 20 something  female.  And I know that YES, many single 59 year old men are interested in this, however it is not in fact what most 59 year old men get!  There is huge scope out there to target ads further, save the 20 year old female for the similarly aged male, and perhaps show adverts with potential dates closer in age?

Facebook adverts for 59 yr old male in Ireland

Advertisers also seem to think that men close to getting their bus passes are very interested in money.  Perhaps this how they hope to woo the 20 year old girls?  Note that of the three money/cash ads, one uses $, one uses £ and only one uses €.  Conclusion: Okay my experiment wasn’t exactly controlled, just a quick look around.  Unsurprisingly some advertisers are doing it pretty well, but there is clearly a lot of room for improvement.