Google launches free publisher adserver
On the day the Google Doubleclick deal goes ahead, we see the launch of Google Ad Manager. Their free ad management tool.
It is unclear at this time if the Google tool will be the new Doubleclick, but the business model approach (buy the company, kill the competition by making it free) has already been demonstrated with acquisitions like Urchin (now Google Analytics). Howeverm we haven't seen such a model on such a big purchase ($3.1 billlion!)
Looking at the sign up page today you can see they aren't actually offering it to everybody yet, you have to be invited or ask to be invited. Looking at the information they wish to have, it seems to be a massive lead generation tool to pick up those smaller sites and networks they don't already have. Note the questions about your site taking advertising from AdSense or other networks.
If we can take the Chinwag discussion lists as any form of benchmark, we can see there is a genuine demand for low cost/free adserving, so the Google opportunity will be welcomed.
The Google/Doubleclick deal has wider implications for the industry which won't be discussed here, but you have to take your hat off to Google. The speed of integration for new products and acquisitions is something to behold, and something Yahoo would do well to emulate.
14 March 2008 by Jamie Riddell
Jamie is a regular writer and commentator in the UK trade press. You can see a list of all his articles here. One of the most experienced and innovative digital media strategists in the UK, jamie runs Digital Tomorrow Today an over the horizon digital consultancy.
Jamie is a regular writer and commentator in the UK trade press. You can see a list of all his articles here. One of the most experienced and innovative digital media strategists in the UK, jamie runs Digital Tomorrow Today an over the horizon digital consultancy.
Comments
My Dear John letter from Google
As a follow up to this post, I just received my email from Google,
"Thanks for your interest in the Google Ad Manager beta launch. We've received your application and will review it as soon as we can. Because we're rolling Ad Manager out in stages, it could be several weeks before you hear from us. We appreciate your patience in the meantime.
If we determine your site is a good fit for our beta launch, we'll contact you with instructions for getting started.
We'll also email you if your site is not a good fit at this time. However, we'll hold your application on file and contact you when we are able to open up Google Ad Manager to more publishers in the future."
Not sure if that will be good news or not...
Waiting, waiting, waiting
Same here, Jamie. Interesting to see what their offering is like. Makes sense for Google to leverage their uber-infrastructure and hoover up ll that unsold inventory for Adwords.
Not sure what this means for the like of OpenAds and some of the other ad-serving firms. Also wonder what the integration with Google Analytics will bring, as well. The mind boggles at the amount of stats they have available, add the data that'll come from ad-serving and that could be a data miners wet dream.