Google Unifies AdWords Campaign Management

[Spiral]

Google Unifies AdWords Campaign Management


by David A. Utter

Keyword, placement ads on content network come together

The search advertising company rolled out a new campaign type for
their advertisers, one that places keyword and placement targeting
in one interface.

Forget the mundane Q2 earnings at Google. The company opened
something new for all of their advertisers across the globe
that should make their advertising even more valuable.

Google announced a single online campaign management interface
for their content network. The interface combines what had been
separate campaign types: keyword-targeted and placement-targeted.

One could match keywords across the network, or aim for discrete
vertical audiences with certain site placements. Google did the
two-great-tastes that taste-great-together move in putting the
two together.

Advertisers get to target a site, and ensure their ads appear
on pages where the right keywords exist. The concept smacks of
improved relevancy, a simple yet deep concept that propelled
Google to billions in market cap, yet one competitors at Yahoo
and elsewhere never truly matched in contextual advertising.

Here's where Google prints more money with the unified campaign
on their content network. Advertisers will be able to bid for
specific sites available on the network.

Some sites within a given niche will be more popular than others.
Competition, particularly among big brand names, drives prices up
for the right destination. Google essentially added something here
to enable those drives.

Earnings for the next two quarters will bear out Google's
strategy. If it really prompts more merciless bidding for the
best properties, we expect Q2's earnings miss to be quickly
forgotten.

Such is true with Google, which reported earnings of $4.63 per
share for Q2 2008. Not bad, except traders expected $4.74.
Punishment was meted out swiftly in after hours trading. At 7:32
am ET, Google's shares had fallen from a previous close of
$533.44 all the way down to $496, a drop of seven percent.

They likely didn't listen, or choose to listen, to Google's
chief economic spinmeister, Hal Varian, on the conference call.
As Techland noted, Varian indicated a couple of reasons why the
Googleplex isn't going to be auctioned off anytime soon.

It seems that in the process of building an excellent search
engine and an absolute money printing advertising business,
Google became a bulwark against adverse economic forces. "As
times get a little uncertain, price sensitive consumers spend
more time searching for deals. We have a bit of the Wal-Mart
effect," Varian said.
Meaning, in Varian's thinking, Google possesses a little
recession resistance in ways that competing companies do not.
He also noted that outside of real estate, all of the sectors
of paid search experienced revenue growth in the quarter.

Varian argues this is due to the accountability of paid search,
and we readily agree that helps. But Google's dominant position
in online advertising, much like the Wal-Mart Varian name-checked
in retail, is the real reason why the money keeps on coming.