Google completed the $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick yesterday which allows Google to have a much higher stake in other forms of online advertising. They will now offer advertisers and publishers more options than the traditional search and content advertising. Advertisers and publishers have been pushing on Google to increase their display offering for years and now they have acted and will open the display world to their advertisers and publishers.
Google will also now be able to analyze much more user data based on search, email, video usage and display ads and work on targeting better ads to the user. They will also have an affiliate network under their wings that might be able to help spur the struggling Google CPA program.
All in all, Google now has a much larger share in the online world. The question is, will Google now try to become an interactive agency? I do not believe so, but never doubt Google. Instead, they are trying to become the operating system that all online marketers will use to buy, manage, and report online media. They have Google Analytics, Adwords, and now Doubleclick brings display and affiliate channels under the same roof.
One issue with the model is that agencies get discounts through other channels like print and CPM buys direct from sites, which might be a reason that large agencies have tended to shy away from managing large search campaigns for clients. The traditional agency model of media commission is not there since they do not receive a commission break from Google. If Google was to become the operating system for an agency, they must drastically improve their offline offerings, but its hard to bet against their online capabilities currently, and definitely in the future.
Tags: Agency operating System, Doubleclick, Google, online advertising
