• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, June 21, 2013

Diya Jolly, senior product manager at Google, is speaking about her company's approach to affinity segments.

At the MediaPost Brand Marketers Summit, she says Google believes "audience-based advertising will do for brand marketing online what search has done for direct marketing online."

Brand marketers have loads of challenges, of course, but one is customers are bombarded by messages and information. Another is the traditional purchase funnel doesn't exist anymore with a TV or print ad prompting research with Consumer Reports and then a buy. Instead, people are talking to people and moving in different directions.

Key now is "the ability to understand customers at scale." Google has been developing affinity segments based on lifestyles and interests that help an advertiser with targeting. Examples are outdoor enthusiasts and luxury shoppers.

Google Affinity employs data, predictive algorithms, zero latency, scale and quality control to help attract advertisers to its ad opportunities, including its display network and YouTube.