Category: Google

Google expands data targeting and profiling to provide “more brand lift and brand awareness” for ads

Google’s new “Ad Planner” is just one of a series of tools now emerging which are designed to more precisely track and target consumers for advertising campaigns. Microsoft’s “Engagement” initiative has similar roots. “The focus [of Google Ad Planner] is primarily on creating more brand lift and brand awareness [for advertsiers],” [Wayne Lin, business product manager at Google] told DMNews.” Here’s an excerpt from the article:

The tool lets advertisers match demographics and related searches for a particular site, or aggregate statistics for sites in the advertisers’ buying plan.

“This will expose many more sites that are much deeper into the Web,” Lin said. “It opens up data that wasn’t necessary visible before.”

Lin would not elaborate on specifics of how the data is pulled, but said that Google’s wide reach and powerful analytics would provide information on the long tail of the Web.

Google pushes Plug-in Vehicles while it expands its ad pitching for the auto industry

We are glad Google seriously wants to improve the environment, and sponsored, as its corporate blog noted, this recent two-day conference in Washington, DC. The event was designed to “showcase plug-in electric vehicles and examine how the government can support their widespread adoption.”

But it needs to reconcile this noble cause with its business practices. Here’s an excerpt from Google’s job announcement for “Industry Head-Automotive” (based in the UK):

As a Google Automotive Industry Head, you’ll be working with those who produce, market or sell products or services related to cars, trucks, boats or other transportation vehicles. This includes original equipment manufactures, third-party websites, dealers and after-market parts and accessories companies. This is a highly consultative position that reports directly to the Automotive Industry Leader. You’ll be responsible for presenting the team’s strategy and managing a team of experts to increase sales on a national level. Focusing on building strong relationships at the highest possible level, your goal is to help your automotive clients get as many of their marketable assets online in an affordable and measurable way. You’ll combine exceptional Automotive knowledge, deep industry and marketing agency relationships…to develop and close new business as well as grow existing business.

Responsibilities:

  • Develop the vision and manage the sales/account strategies that will fully unlock the potential in the Automotive sector.
  • Build and maintain relationships with senior-level clients, industry-specific direct advertisers and relevant agency contacts.
  • Educate the Automotive industry and evangelise Google, particularly at targeted events, conferences and media opportunities….
  • Develop a deep understanding of the business needs of Automotive advertisers and insights into consumer behaviour.

Google’s Expanded Ad Targeting: Interactive Video & Rich Media

In May, when Google opened up its content network to other online ad companies, one of them was PointRoll. We think, as the online ad and privacy debate heats up, it’s useful to highlight the PointRoll announcement of its deal with Google:

PointRoll, the leading provider of rich media technology solutions, announced today that the company has joined with Google to enable PointRoll’s advertisers to run rich media ad campaigns across the Google content network, one of the world’s largest advertising networks… PointRoll currently provides its interactive capabilities and engaging brand-building formats to 65% of the Fortune 100, and now its clients can integrate the Google content network into their rich media campaigns…Using PointRoll’s precise targeting technology and measurement capabilities, advertisers are able to reach their desired audience with the most relevant and salient messages, and definitively analyze campaign effectiveness…PointRoll’s sophisticated targeting technologies can now optimize the breadth of Google’s sites and categories, matching advertisers’ messages to the users who find them most relevant…The Google content network joins the more than 3,000 online publishers-including elite sites such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo! and The New York Times-that leverage PointRoll rich media to provide powerful, engaging brand experiences to users.”

Google’s Hispanic Targeting via Search

Every marketer wants to target Hispanics and they are tracking their online behaviors closely. Here’s a view from Google:
Sarah Carberry, team leader at Google, says, “Connect with U.S. Hispanics at the right time and right place when receptivity is at its greatest. The consumer is choosing when to engage with your brand and signals their interest when they search for information on Google or on trusted content sites such as Univision or MySpace en Espanol. You can now tailor messaging to many niche markets, such as U.S. Hispanics, and target them with various ad formats in more places where consumers are throughout the web. This relinquishes marketers from the confines of traditional media where a standard design has been the norm.”

Carberry recommends optimizing on the fly after seeing what keywords, channels and messaging are working best. Also, she says, “take advantage of Google’s geo-targeting capabilities where there are higher concentrations of U.S. Hispanics. With AdWords, you can set your ads to show only to users within a certain radius of your business.”

source: 10 Experts Weigh in on Marketing to U.S. Hispanics. Joe Kotchera. imediaconnection. May 5, 2008

Google/Yahoo! Combine also raises questions about Publicis and WPP deals

Officials need to examine the recent deals made both by Google and Yahoo! with advertising agency powerhouses, Publicis and WPP, respectfully. The Google/Yahoo! combine reduces competition in the online ad sector, and these agreements need to be part of the analysis. Google and Publicis completed their deal last January “based on a shared vision of how new technologies can be used to improve advertising.” Last month, Yahoo! and WPP formed a “multi-year strategic partnership” that is connected to the online ad trading Right Media Exchange.

Search should not be considered a “natural monopoly,” as some cynics suggest. Nor should search by viewed as separate from display; increasingly the two are intertwined. Marketers desire cross-platform strategies. Perhaps that’s one reason Google is hiring cross-platform ad specialists. To quote from a Google job posting: “The Cross Platform Solutions team forms partnerships with advertisers and agencies to build brands online. We strive to deliver the most efficient and effective digital platform upon which the world’s leading brands are built. We connect advertiser’s brand messages to their target audience through innovative, precise and accountable online marketing solutions whose reach can extend around the world.”

It’s hard to keep up with the online ad world, so it’s not surprising that regulators have been slow to address the critical consumer and competition issues. But much is at stake in how diverse and consumer-friendly the new media world will become. That’s why the DoJ and the Hill need to look at these ad agency deals, among other issues we will discuss soon.  Btw, privacy is a serious issue in the deal, no matter how Yahoo! may be spinning it.

Google/Yahoo and the relationship between competition in the digital ad business and content diversity

We have long argued that we must focus on the implications to the funding of digital content diversity as fewer companies dominate the core revenue [monetization] apparatus. Google is in a position to become the primary digital gatekeeper for online/interactive publishing revenues. That’s because how revenues are shared, such as TAC (Traffic Acquisition Costs), is a fundamental economic lifeline for content. That’s especially critical as the old media economy of broadcasting and newspapers continues its meltdown.

We think this excerpt from TechCrunch underscores our view: “On the publisher side things are even worse. Google doesn’t share enough revenue with content sites that show their ads. The only thing keeping them even close to honest is the fact that Yahoo and Microsoft will occasionally compete for those partners. Take that away, and Google will go back to keeping the majority of advertising revenue generated at those sites (their only competition will be other types of advertising, which generate far less revenue). That is a terrible outcome when you look at it from the perspective of the health of the Internet.”

Yahoo opposed Google/DoubleClick Deal a few months ago: Tales of corporate turn-around

via Paidcontent.org. October 15, 2007:

“Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) has made its first public comments on the European Commission’s review of Google’s (NSDQ: GOOG) $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick, and, as you can probably guess, its take is pretty negative. In a submission to the Commission, Yahoo says the purchase, if approved, will mean higher prices for online display ads and less competition in the digital publishing sector. Andrew Cecil, public policy head for Yahoo Europe: “Combining Google’s search business with Doubleclick’s ad technology will strengthen Google’s dominant position in Europe. The competitive landscape for online advertising will be negatively impacted.”

and via Search Engine Watch: “Meanwhile in Europe Yahoo is heading the push with the EU. Yahoo has longer online advertising standing in Europe.
“Combining Google’s search business with DoubleClick’s ad technology will strengthen Google’s dominant position in Europe,” Andrew Cecil, head of public policy for Yahoo! Europe, said in an e-mailed statement today, Bloomberg reported. “The end result will be higher prices for Internet publishers and advertisers and less choice for European consumers.”

Ad Biz Looks Critically at Google/Yahoo! Pairing

Just some excerpts from today’s coverage, to give policymakers and the public a sense of how the 10 year pact is viewed from inside the ad industry.

First, from Ad Age: “Yahoo is outsourcing search monetization to Google in a 10-year deal, the companies officially announced tonight. But advertisers see less competition and higher prices…But the agreement… doesn’t necessarily protect Yahoo from the possibilities that the deal will erode its search business in the long run or make Google an even more dominant player. When Google search ads are mixed in with Yahoo search ads for a particular search query, Google will almost always win the better placement… And if Google consistently wins, marketers may be less inclined to bother using the Yahoo system, instead choosing to put their optimization efforts toward a single system.”

Yahoo, Google Strike a Deal on Paid Search. Abbey Klaassen. Ad Age. June 12, 2008 [sub required]

Online Media Daily: “…some in the industry have questioned whether Yahoo brass thought about the repercussions of the deal in terms of competition and advertiser perception in the mid- to long-term.

“I think the financial rationale is pretty clear,” said Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i. “But $450 million is a lot of money, so it can’t just be all tail terms that Google will be serving. I can’t imagine that there won’t be some very valuable commercial terms in that mix.” Wiener said that if advertisers no longer saw the value in buying keywords directly through Yahoo, then fewer companies would end up using (Yahoo’s Search Advertiser Platform) Panama in the long run.

According to Neeraj Kochhar, vice president/director of SMG Search, there are definite concerns among advertisers. “I don’t see this as a positive move in terms of competitive activity,” Kochhar said.”

Final Microsoft Rebuff Sends Yahoo into Google’s Arms. Tameka Kee. Online Media Daily. June 13, 2008 [reg. required]

Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times has a good blog post on advertising industry concerns about the deal.

From the Los Angeles Times, 6/14/08:  “The consolidation of everything under Google is not good,” said Aimee Reker, global director of search at digital agency MRM Worldwide. “It will aggregate so much power and control in one place that it no longer is an open marketplace.”

Hasn’t Google Heard of Separating Content from Advertising? YouTube Fostering Stealth Infomercials

Google is now permitting creators of YouTube content to sell their own ads (with a split going to Google). But what’s alarming is that some of the videos on YouTube are being produced in cooperation with advertisers, including featuring its products in the program. For example, Advertising Age reports that “Revision3, the online-video-production company…is selling advertising on YouTube, starting with GoDaddy, a sponsor that’s regularly integrated into the content of its shows.” Revision3’s website explains that “it has attracted a wide-range of top advertisers including Sony, Netflix, Dolby, Microsoft, IBM, HP… Verizon and FX Networks. Advertisers enjoy a unique bond with the audience via customized message integration and host mentions that deliver phenomenal results.” Revision3 lists among its “success stories” the following:

“Verizon VCast: As part of its launch of a mobile phone-based streaming video service, Verizon sponsored Diggnation. As part of the sponsorship, the hosts interacted with the VCast service during an episode, and discussed how the service worked and what it did. Awareness skyrocketed. According to Amanda Donelly, the Media Supervisor at Verizon’s agency Moxie Media, the results were “seriously way better than we had ever anticipated”.

Congress, the FCC, FTC, and media reform advocates will need to address the purposeful blurring of content and advertising in online video (broadband and mobile). But industry also must enact meaningful rules regulating such practices. That’s where Google comes in. As the global online advertising market leader, Google needs to set the highest standard for ethical business behavior. Enabling stealth informercials guised as entertainment tarnishes the reputation of YouTube.

source: “YouTube: You Created the Content, Now Sell the Ads.” Abbey Klaassen. Advertising Age. June 9, 2008 [sub required]

IAB’s Lobbying Against Privacy Safeguards: Trade Group Will Add New Members to Help Fight Consumer Protection Legislation

The trade lobbying group Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) plans to add new members to help it generate “grassroots support against proposed legislation in New York and Connecticut that would ban the collection of data about online consumers without a person’s specific consent.” According to ClickZ, the IAB will create a new low-dues membership structure which will enable smaller online advertisers to swell its ranks. What is IAB’s pitch to its prospective members about privacy safeguards offered by state legislators in New York and Connecticut? ClickZ says that “[T]he IAB contends that the proposed measures would have a disproportionate negative impact on small publishers that rely on ad networks to manage advertising sales.”

The IAB’s leadership is off on a irresponsible mission to persuade online marketers and the public that privacy rules would “kill the web.” Such an self-serving view of why privacy rules are required in the age of online marketing will only further diminish the credibility of the IAB.