A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

Google’s announcement to purchase DoubleClick helps the company in more ways than one. Google has not had an easy go of it with agencies and advertisers in the display arena. Yahoo! leads in that game by a wide margin.

One of the problems Google had to deal with was their inability to work with third party adservers such as DoubleClick and Mediaplex (ValueClick) to provide independent auditing of their traffic and integrated reporting. Now they will be the industry’s server of choice, making that problem disappear.

Google also stands to benefit from bid auction models DoubleClick has been developing as well as its pending discussions to work with Donovan Data Systems to develop integrated media maintenance systems integrated with ad agency financial systems.

At an staggering purchase price of $3.1 Billion, this will put into play speculation about Aquantive (AQNT), ValueClick (VCLK) and 24/7 (TFSM) as the next in line for buyouts by the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo!.

As a company that has had much difficulty playing in the agency arena, Google, still needs to understand the agency business and must play by agency and advertiser rules if it is to break into the general marketplace beyond search. They have all the right pieces for the puzzle …. they have not yet figured out how to make them fit.

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