Editorial Articles

Advertisers are excited. Facebook, Twitter, performance display and ad exchanges are bringing opportunities to generate demand within these massive new channels. But what strikes me as strange is the timing of this frenzy. It’s not like advertisers haven’t had these capabilities before; it’s just they never chose to capitalise. Was this because it wasn’t the “en vogue” thing to do? Take the Google Content Network. This is arguably the largest performance display network on the planet, yet advertisers have, by and large, chosen to ignore it. So this enormous opportunity already exists, yet it has failed to capture the imagination of advertisers unlike sexier words such as “performance display”. It’s true that there are reasons for this, but crucially, these reasons have now been addressed, meaning the Google Content Network is now in a prime position to be fully exploited and become one of the most used display channels.

One of the main reasons behind its current struggle was the fact that it was dressed up as search (and Google may even themselves admit that this was a mistake). It’s true that you bid for inventory based on keywords, similar to search, but the ads are placed contextually, like some forms of display. What we are left with is a massive opportunity that’s not quite search and not quite display; it has literally fallen down between two stools. This is a problem of responsibility, as display teams don’t have the search skills to optimise in a paid search style. Inversely, search people don’t tend to have the display skills to plan out where to place ads contextually for best return and brand effect. So who is best placed to buy the Google Content Network?

Advertisers often haven’t considered these subtle differences in their planning. It doesn’t take a big leap to understand that an ad placed as the result of a search would convert better than one that tries to distract you when you are reading other content, and advertisers shouldn’t expect it to.

If you separate the Google Content Network’s performance from search and compare it alongside other forms of media buys, such as display, then it often compares very favorably. When it is not classed as search, it changes from being the first item cut within the search budget to being a high performing channel and ultimately a must buy. This simple change in perspective is where a fantastic opportunity lies.

Some may argue that planning is only half the problem and the actual management of the Google Content Network is too labour intensive, as each ad placement is likely to be on a unique website and advertisers are likely to have thousands of placements. With tools now available to streamline this process for them, it eliminates this problem too and that is why I believe that the Google Content Network could be a bit of dark horse in 2010 for those who view it as the performance display channel that it is.

Ed Stevenson
Managing Director Europle
Marin Software