Google lobbies brands on consolidated media buying

Google is lobbying advertisers to consolidate their media-buying activity to a single technology platform, arguing they can save up to a third of their time by doing so.

Google

Google commissioned Boston Consulting Group to study 24 digital campaigns, across 15 different ad firms, and has now identified inefficiencies – or 25 “pain points” to online campaign planning.

The study also demonstrates how online campaigns can become up to 33 per cent more effective if advertisers consolidate their cross-channel activity, including search marketing and display advertising, to a single technology platform.

Findings from the study found that advertisers saved an average of 12 per cent of time spent both planning and executing campaigns.

Damian Lawlor, Google managing director of media-buying solutions for northern and central Europe, says the initial inefficiencies of online advertising practice have several causes.

These include the near limitless choice of ad placements, campaign timing and ad formats, plus the host of new intermediaries, such as third-party ad serving technologies.

“There’s a lot of processes that haven’t changed since the old media days. But what’s also happening is a growing complexity in the [media-buying] landscape,” he says.

“Only one-in-five days is spent on ‘quality creative time’. The other four days in five are spent on manual, low-value tasks, such as formatting reports and data entry.”

The online ad giant also claims that migrating online ad planning activities to its DoubleClick service – which lets advertisers plan and track campaigns – can help advertisers achieve these efficiencies.

“This unified platform approach lets machines take the burden and humans to be more creative [and efficient],” argues Lawlor.

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