Posts tagged Adwords
Google changes the way it works with agencies
Apr 27th
As the advertising industry has grown and evolved, so too has Google’s relationship with advertising agencies.
The search engine giant has said on its blog that it has made changes to help advertisers with its AdWords platform.
Google is also making it easier for advertisers to find certified agency partners to work with them on digital advertising.
The site is retiring its long-standing Google Advertising Professionals (GAP) program and replacing it with a new Google AdWords Certification program for those managing AdWords accounts on behalf of advertisers.
The new program provides agencies and their employees with more up-to-date, comprehensive, strategy-focused training and certification on the latest tools and best practices for managing AdWords accounts, including:
•New training materials to help agencies better understand recent changes in search marketing and AdWords functionality, available via webinar series, learning center, or on-site training at Google
•More challenging certification exams to test practical application of knowledge and best practices (rather than simple recall of knowledge)
•Advanced-level exams to highlight competency in search, display, reporting and analysis
•A redesigned Certified Partner badge, which includes a “Click to Verify” element so advertisers can view the partner’s profile page for additional information.
Google Certified Partners can opt in to Google Partner Search, an online, searchable directory that helps advertisers identify Certified Partners that meet their criteria.
To show up in advertiser searches through Google Partner Search, agencies must opt in and fill in details about their core attributes and capabilities. Searches can be filtered by location, agency experience within a particular budget range, the types of services provided and the industry verticals an agency serves.
Advertisers can then evaluate the list of Certified Partners that meet their criteria and contact the partners who seem best suited to their needs.
Google has also introduced new pricing.
Google in trouble again. Microsoft dobbed.
Feb 24th
Google yesterday took the wraps off its new publisher-side ad platform, combining its ad and search technologies with DoubleClick’s. Today, it has been met with a frosty reception from the European Commission over several competition complaints from rivals.
Google’s combined DoubleClick and Google Ad Manager product is designed to ease the complexity publishers face in serving ads, managing ad network relationships and maximizing revenue from inventory sold directly and through ad nets or exchanges, says Google’s blog.
New features include an open API that lets publishers tie in third-party applications like forecasting and workflow tools, integration with the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and new yield-optimization features.
But the European Commission is now considering complaints from three online companies regarding Google practices including its search rankings, which could stop the search giant dead in its tracks.
The complaints from UK price comparison site Foundem and French legal search engine ejustice.fr allege that Google’s search algorithm demotes their sites in web search results because they compete with Google.
Microsoft-owned Ciao has also complained to European authorities about Google’s standard terms and conditions, which has led Google to tell some reporters that it believes Microsoft has fuelled the complaint fire.
Google has been plagued by regulatory scrutiny in recent years. Most recently, the US Department of Justice has challenged Google’s settlement with book publishers and authors groups to create an online digital archive. The US Federal Trade Commission is also seeking more information on the competitive impact of its proposed $750 million purchase of mobile advertising company AdMob.
Now, the European Commission has written to Google to find out how its search functions work.
But Google is betting publishers will want the simplicity of a single provider to manage their inventory and provide monetization options through either its AdSense ad network or the DoubleClick exchange.
Google said on its blog, “We see an opportunity to improve ad serving even further by combining Google’s technology and infrastructure with DoubleClick’s display advertising and ad serving experience. Since we acquired DoubleClick in March 2008, our engineering and product teams have been working with online publishers to tackle the obstacles that prevent them from maximizing revenues from their websites.”
Either way you look at it, this is a sign of many more battles to come when it comes to the search giants. But is Google really doing anything wrong? Perhaps its competitors are just jealous…
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