Our Personal Invitation from Google and Other Google Goings-On Last month, I had the privilege of being invited by Google to participate on an agency panel at their Mountain View, CA campus where we were asked, in short, “How are we doing and what can we do better?” The “Google Adwords Agency Panel,” which was closed to the public, brought seven paid search marketing (aka “Pay-Per-Click” or “PPC”) agencies together with Google Product Managers, engineers, customer service and billing managers and top Google executives, for a daylong forum about the company’s online advertising products. In addition, participating agencies got a sneak preview of some of the upcoming Google products slated for release. Being asked to participate on this elite panel, after about seven years of running Google advertising campaigns, was an enormous validation of my company’s track record, experience, and knowledge.

For any company looking to learn from the success of Google, it’s worth observing that a corporation as large as Google seeks brutally honest suggestions (and criticism) directly from their agency clients. They’ve fostered a corporate culture that’s really driven by open dialogue, internally and externally, and native curiosity – you can tell that everyone at Google has a pressing “need to know” about most anything. Googlers, as they call themselves, are possessed with the need to problem solve, and to have this kind of trait so consistently apparent within an organization is, in my opinion, priceless.

Having this insight might help better explain the never-ending stream of new Google product announcements, acquisitions and partnerships. Make no doubt about it: Google is not satisfied just being the dominant search engine out there; it intends to be a media force, a multi-faceted powerhouse as ever-present as Time Warner or Viacom.

So as I observe Google’s goings-on, where I think it’ll be relevant to CityBizList readers, I’ll share my two cents. For example, only one day after I was the featured presenter at an all day workshop hosted by the Laboratory Product Association in which these marketers struggled to figure out how to close the loop from online initiatives to their customer relations management systems (CRM), Google and Salesforce.com (a leading CRM solution) announced they have formed a global strategic alliance, whereupon Google AdWords will be integrated into the Salesforce.com software. The result of this partnership will basically allow a company to run a pay-per-click campaign whose actionable results will directly add contact information into a company’s Salesforce.com database. For lead generation marketers, this kind of partnership certainly gives Salesforce.com an edge.

I’m also watching what will happen with Google’s acquisition of the online advertising technology company, DoubleClick. After outbidding and incurring (yet again) the wrath of Microsoft, Google bought the company for $3.1 billion dollars. The strategic move now ensures Google dominance in the online display advertising market previously out of their reach, which includes banners, video, and other mediums typically used for brand building. Google now also has all the pieces it needs to fully track and measure a direct response online advertising campaign, from media planning (DoubleClick’s Media Visor) to media buying (DoubleClick’s Advertising Exchange) to display ad serving and tracking (DoubleClick’ DART) to text-based ad serving (Google’s Content Network) to web site analytics (Google Analytics). Couple this with Google’s earlier acquisition of YouTube, and you have just another weapon in Google’s media arsenal.

Further demonstrating its departure from traditional search, Google has rolled out Google Audio (bid-for radio spots) and are testing Google Print (a Priceline.com-like model to offer a set price for a print ad spot). So you have to wonder, what’s next? Google Billboards? Google Milk Carton Advertising? Google Film Product Placement? Coming soon to a blog near you!

Labels: Marketing, technology

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