Rivals Google and Facebook have created a first-time partnership that will soon allow Google to sell ad space through Facebook’s FBX ad-bidding exchange. In the past, customers buying ad space from Google could purchase space through a wide assortment of advertising platforms, but never before directly through its competitor, FBX.
The new arrangement will remove that barrier, Payam Shodjai, a DoubleClick senior product manager, wrote in an Oct. 18 post on the Google DoubleClick Advertisers Blog.
“Partnership has been key to Google’s success as a rising tide lifts all boats,” wrote Shodjai in the post. “So we’re excited to announce a new way to help our clients succeed by working with Facebook to participate in FBX, their real-time bidding exchange.”
In 2007, Google acquired DoubleClick after making a $3.1 billion bid for the company. The purchase gave digital ad and search leader Google plenty of new firepower, including the ability to serve graphical display ads in addition to the company’s text-based links. DoubleClick’s technology lets advertisers and publishers deliver ads once they have agreed to terms, and provide statistics relating to those ads. The DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) Campaign Manager is a platform that helps advertisers get their messages out in front of consumers and other businesses.
“DoubleClick Bid Manager (formerly Invite Media) has been helping agencies and advertisers buy ad space on sites across the Web for years,” wrote Shodjai. “We help clients access dozens of private and public exchanges in more than 75 countries, and continue to see double-digit quarter-over-quarter growth in spend—last quarter was our biggest ever.”
Google has since been working on new technologies to help advertisers and ad agencies buy ads across all kinds of devices and formats, wrote Shodjai. “But we’re always looking at ways to serve our clients even better—starting in a few months, clients will be able to buy inventory on FBX via DoubleClick Bid Manager. We’re looking forward to continuing our work to help our clients and partners.”
The arrangement essentially gives online advertisers yet another way to cross-sell ads on various ad platforms, which is common in the industry.
A Google spokesman declined to elaborate on the deal when contacted by eWEEK.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Facebook told eWEEK that the company is “happy that Google is joining Facebook Exchange. We think that relevant ads, targeted to the right people, are good for people and businesses.”
Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, told eWEEK that the Google-Facebook ad deal is not a surprise, despite each company’s status as rivals in the ad game.
“DoubleClick is basically an ad aggregator,” said Enderle. “They want to be your supermarket for the placement of ads. They want [advertisers] to come to them for this kind of engagement, and the more properties they can sell, the more money they’re going to make,” earning a percentage on each ad sale.
Nowadays, the success of ad platforms is tied to how they work with other platforms, said Enderle. “You don’t want to block out competitors. You want to make money on every deal, even through your competitors. It’s the nature of this kind of a business.”
Any risk with this latest arrangement, he said, seems to be more on the part of Facebook among the two sides. “Facebook might be concerned because in terms of where the ad placements are, they could turn [customers] away from Facebook” in favor of Google or others.
In September, Google released its latest, updated and expanded version of the DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) Campaign Manager, including several new tools and capabilities for advertisers. The new platform has a more responsive user interface that includes many time-saving features for users, as well as a new trafficking interface that loads up to five times faster than before, as well as ad updates that now go live in only two minutes.
The improved platform also provides a unified user interface and reporting system across DoubleClick Campaign Manager and DoubleClick Bid Manager, which lets users gain access to accurate, de-duplicated conversion data. In addition, now included is seamless support for mobile, HTML5, video and rich media data formats, making it easier to produce, scale and distribute content. Improved reporting capabilities are also included, such as multi-channel funnels that help users better understand customers’ moves from initial interactions to final conversions.