Google on the State of Online Advertising

I had an opportunity to sit in on a discussion about current trends in online advertising at the Google’s DC office on K Street in mid-September. Here are some of my take-aways from the event. (Needless to say, I don’t agree with every opinion presented here.)

• Currently, the spending on internet advertising is greater than that of cable’s
• Digital video is a much more interactive medium. The nature of the user experience with on demand services allow for more ways to engage the audience
• US lags behind in mobile
  • The US lags behind in mobile technology, sales, advertising, et al.
  • Mobile web is positioning itself to be a new consumer medium
  • Android users are more likely to interact with ads than iOS and Blackberry users

• Peter Greenburg – Head of Google Public Sector’s AdWords arm
  • Google AdWords lend themselves to impression-based advertising
    • No contracts
    • Advertisers pay-per-click, no per impression
    • Allows for conditional advertising
      • i.e. only show my ad from 6am to 6pm when the temp is >50 degrees
• Companies buy AdWords in a victory-based blind auction
  • If I bid $3 and you bid $2, I win the auction but only pay $2
• Google is placing a greater emphasis on geolocation in search result returns and ads
  • Search results and ads now = relevancy X location X et al

• Robin Wheeler – Head of Elections and Issues Advocacy, AOL
  • Consumption of news on the internet (37%) is in line with consumption of news on cable (39%)
  • AOL is unveiling a new ad standard next week at NY AdWeek
    • Think web-based adverts that look and feel like iPad or magazine adverts
    • Gone are the days of simple banner ads, or 250x300s
    • Bigger, bolder ad units
• Don’t get caught up in click-thru rates
  • Upset about 0.1% click-thru? Remember that number in context of total site traffic and total page traffic.
• TV audiences skew older, so in elections, different candidates may try to use different mediums to target different audiences

• Jonah Seiger – Connections Media
  • FB social ads work
    • Seriously
• Facebook pages
  • Facebook lets page owners target ads to the friends of your pages fans
  • i.e., got a page with 50 fans? Well each of those fans might have 500 friends. 50×500 semi-relevant contacts
  • Facebook pages grow organically overtime with little attrition
  • Facebook social ages allow for exponential growth of Facebook page audience
• There’s some debate as to the worth of Facebook fans
• Twitter lets you buy your way into the trending topics
  • Placement (read: eligibility) in trending topics is determined by quality score X trending score
  • Advertisers can also promote tweets or get followers by buying search terms
    • See returns when searching for “HBO”
• The official Twitter mobile apps and the redesigned Twitter.com show early attempts to monetize the service

• Randall Rothenberg, CEO and president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau
  • Users can control the behavior of their Google AdWord experience by configuring the ad preferences in their Google profile
  • Advertisers shouldn’t rely on just one ad network.
    • Don’t rely on just Google AdWords for your outreach
    • If you want to appear on the WSJ, contact the WSJ, not just AdWords