In case you haven’t heard, word on the web is Google is rebranding its ad business. The technology giant announced at the end of June that it would be shaking up its longstanding advertising products. The specific products undergoing these changes are AdWords and DoubleClick by Google.
If your company has a website, you may be wondering – what does this mean for your business? Will it change my search ranking? Will advertising prices go up!?
Google Advertising Crash Course
Google wants to be everywhere with everyone. This is pretty obvious considering their search engine that is so powerful it has become a verb.
In case you’re not familiar with their ad business, the key products behind the scenes are AdWords and DoubleClick by Google.
AdWords was launched in 2000 with a humble beginning of only 350 advertisers. It is Google’s advertising system which allows advertisers to bid on certain keywords in order for their clickable ads to appear in Google’s search results. AdWords was the reason behind digital marketing terms you may have heard such as cost-per-click (CPC) ads and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. CPC refers to the actual price you pay for each click on your ad, which represents an interaction with your company’s product or service offering.
If your company has an optimized website and it has been running search ads using the Google search engine, your site is connected to AdWords. These ads come up on the first page of the search engine after a potential customer enters a query, for example, “what is the best coffee in town?” These paid ads may be either above the organic search results (powered by SEO – contact us for more info on that) or in a banner located to the right of the screen.
DoubleClick by Google refers to the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform, which is an advanced set of advertising tools. AdWords was built by Google, but DoubleClick was actually acquired by Google in 2007. Digital marketers can use a multi-pronged approach to reach customers by using data gathered from both systems, or they may simply choose to use DoubleClick. DoubleClick is in fact much stronger than AdWords and it pushes advertisements across platforms.
Currently, DoubleClick is only available through a license and requires a team of certified experts to manage campaigns. It has 5 interconnected platform components:
- DoubleClick Campaign Manager
Also known as Ad Server. This is the ad-serving platform that delivers ads to your customers and measures online advertising. - DoubleClick Bid Manager
Programmatic bidding platform for bidding on inventory across more than 47 ad marketplaces. - DoubleClick Ad Exchange
The world’s largest ad marketplace for purchasing display, video, mobile, Search and Facebook ad inventory. - DoubleClick Search
Used for purchasing search ads across Google, Yahoo, and Bing. - DoubleClick Creative Solutions
For designing, delivering and measuring rich media (video) ads, interactive and expandable ads.
Why is Google Re-branding?
Google is essentially streamlining their ad offerings.
The core of the products will remain the same. This means, advertisers can still plan and buy their ads in the same way and work with the same tech partners.
The ad products will now be divided into three major brands.
AdWords is becoming Google Ads.
This new brand is where advertisers can buy ads on all Google surfaces, including
search, display ads, YouTube videos, app ads in Google Play, location listings in
Google maps or elsewhere.
For this section, it is not just a name change. Google is also launching “Smart
Campaigns,” which is meant to be the default mode for small business advertisers. It
will allow you to identify actions the company is prioritizing (i.e. store visits,
purchases) then Google Ads will use machine learning to optimize text, images, and
targeting to drive more customer actions.
DoubleClick divides! Welcome to the Google Marketing Platform.
The Google Marketing Platform combines two existing products, DoubleClick Digital Marketing and Google Analytics 360 (analytics tool for marketers). Google has also announced a new edition called Display & Video 360, which combines features from DoubleClick Bid Manager, Campaign Manager, Studio and Audience Center.
The Google Marketing Platform will also introduce a new Integrations Center. This will be a dashboard where marketers can view the different ways they can connect Google tools to better reach their customers.
The new show in town, Google Ad Manager.
This is a platform that combines Google’s monetization tools for publishers. It will report on DoubleClick Ad Exchange and DoubleClick for Publishers. This is something Google has been working on for quite some time (some reports say 3 years!) and it was built due to programmatic ad-buying becoming the typical approach across even more types of advertising. For example, from search ads to video and audio ads.
All of these changes were reportedly driven by advertiser demand for a more seamless, less confusing platform.
What About Me?
These changes will have no immediate impact on your business. It will not alter your search ranking or raise your advertising costs. Google’s rebranding may impact your business over time, but it does not directly affect your company or your website.
Now that we have eased your concerns (and you’ve learned along the way!), see below as we make some educated guesses.
Looking Ahead
So, how exactly could this impact your business in the future? As mentioned, the core offering for Google Advertising will not change, however, this rebranding and recategorizing signals even bigger marketing technology ambitions.
As a brand, you may be paying an agency to handle your digital advertising. This makes sense because digital marketing can be an incredibly complex, constantly evolving landscape.
Due to these changes by Google, brands might not need agencies as much in the future to handle their digital advertising. Brands both big and small will be able to use Google’s vast amount of data to get a full picture of their customers. By combining ads, data and measurement in the new marketing platform, marketing departments may begin to sever or lower agency ties. Of course, there will still be a steep learning curve, but Google is trying to even out the digital playing field.
This rebranding also pushes Google into additional spaces dominated by companies like Adobe and Oracle. For Google, this means they may soon begin competing more heavily as our digital world becomes even more interconnected. For example, Adobe has the Adobe Marketing Cloud, which has similar offerings to Google’s new Ad Manager and the Google Marketing Platform. Until recently, Adobe’s offerings were only competing with Google Analytics. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming years.
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