Brand investment in the digital channel, the move to solution suites and demand for cross-media measurement are the three biggest trends affecting the online advertiser space, said Nikesh Arora, Google’s SVP and Chief Business Officer, during the company’s quarterly results call.
The biggest trend, Arora said, is that “more than at any point in the last decade of online advertising, we’re at the point where major brand advertisers are finally looking to digital media as a central part of their marketing efforts.” For example YouTube, Arora said, which had previously been an “interesting ad buy” had become a “key ad buy” for brands. This is because companies are now seeing the benefit of using the web for brand recognition, rather than to simply enhance the performance of business assets. Arora acknowledged that the ability to provide brand awareness benefits to enterprises wasn’t a capability that existed a few years ago “because the inventory didn’t exist and the demographic tools didn’t exist.”
The second notable trend, Arora said, was enterprise demand for solutions. “Our clients and partners want complete solutions that work across all screens: desktop, mobile, tablet and, in the future, television,” he said. “And also [they want solutions that] work with all kinds of formats, whether they’re search, display or video ads.”
Finally, Arora noted demand for cross-channel analytics related to search advertising. The desired measurement tools assess search across mobile and video as well as offline sales. Measurability, Arora emphasized, is incredibly important in getting brands to invest in new channels. “My experience is that businesses might allocate experimental budgets to new areas, but they invest serious money only when they can measure the results,” said Arora. Toward this end, Arora said that Google is rolling out best-of-breed measurement technologies so clients can determine ROI “whether their goals are online conversions, brand lists, or just the ability to compare offline and online media.”
The past month has seen a flurry of Google activity as the company launched new ad products, such as Customer Surveys, or bolstered existing ones, such as AdWords.
