GoogleClick’s First Product: Google Ad Manager

Thursday, March 13, 2008 By Clay | Comments (0)

Coming off the heels of the DoubleClick acquisition approval, Google has launched their first DoubleClick-enabled product; Google Ad Manager. The free service, currently invite-only, allows publishers to easily manage their ad inventory and better service ads on their site. From the Google site:

“Directed at addressing the ad management and serving needs of publishers with small to medium-sized sales teams, Google Ad Manager is a free, hosted ad and inventory management tool that can help publishers sell, schedule, deliver and measure their directly-sold and network-based ad inventory. Google Ad Manager provides an intuitive and simple user experience with an easy tagging process so publishers can spend more time working with their advertisers and less time on their ad management solution. And, Ad Manager helps publishers maximize their inventory sell-through rates by providing detailed inventory forecasts and tracking at a very granular level.“

This approach is very similar to what Google did with Urchin, taking a relatively expensive and robust service and making it freely available to everyone. At the moment this isn’t the DoubleClick suite but don’t count out an integration of advanced features at some point.

What does this mean for search marketers? I believe the acquisition of DoubleClick and the launch of this product are critical pieces to the next phase of Google’s growth and the evolution of search advertising. If this service is widely adopted, it could serve as a catalyst for more precise targeting and ROI management.

Here are my thoughts on what we could see from this in the next year or so:

• More AdSense Volume: I anticipate a windfall of more AdSense volume as not only will publishers do a better job of managing their ad inventory (there’s a yield optimization feature built in and text links typically outperform banners) the remnant inventory (ad inventory that goes unsold) defaults to Google AdSense. We should also see better targeting as Google can incorporate more data based on the user’s behavior (see below).
• Higher AdSense CPC Prices: It’s very possible that with more efficient ad serving it will cost more to receive impressions from targeted websites and beat out effective banners. Publishers who previously only ran AdSense because they didn’t have the time or resources to implement ad serving technology will now have an easy solution that will allow them to experiment with ads in other formats and from other networks. This could also impact volume (so much for the first bullet).
• Behavioral & Re-Targeting Features: Could Google start charging a premium for visitors who match a specific behavioral profile? Particularly if they can show you that visitor converts at a higher rate? Absolutely. We may not pay a premium but Google will certainly incorporate the behavioral data and publishers will benefit the most. Re-targeting (Ad.com calls it ‘LeadBack‘) will certainly be a hot topic as Google’s in a prime position to show ads based on what the user has searched for in the past. This alone could be the carrot to get publishers to sign-up.
• Personalized Search Ads: Additional behavioral data will enable Google to add more data points to their ad serving algorithm. We should see more personalized search ads that are not only served based on the keyword but also the website the visitor previously visited and/or ad they previously clicked on.

There are certainly more implications, let me know by posting a note in the comments.

Additional Reading:

• Google’s Ad Manager Official Site
• Official Google Blog: Our solutions for ad serving
  
• TechCrunch: Google Enters The Ad Management Game
• Wall Street Journal: Google To Offer New Ad Service For Publishers
• Search Engine Land: Google Ad Manager Targets Medium-Sized Publishers, Seeks Broader AdSense Distribution
• VentureBeat: Google Ad Manager allows direct slaes of ads, Adsense fallback
• Mashable!: New Google App Provides Free Ad AManagement
• The Paradigm Shift: Google Admanager (should be a good discussion)

Google AdManager image copyright Google, Inc.

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