DoubleClick Tools Down For Most Of Thursday, Ad Serving Unaffected

Google DoubleClick for Publishers, DoubleClick for Advertisers and Dart Sales Manager came to a halt Thursday for many customers who complained the disruption in service would hinder performance. The platforms were down for most of Thursday, complained customers.

"Some of our DoubleClick products experienced issues with their interfaces this afternoon; however, ad serving was not affected," according to a Google spokesperson. "We've resolved the issues and all accounts should be operating normally. We apologize for any inconvenience to those affected."                                             

Google sent a letter to DFP and DSM customers Thursday midday acknowledging that the company knew customers were experiencing issues. "Our engineering teams have identified the root cause and are working to fix the issue," according to the letter.

That didn't pacify publishers with new business unable to get into the system through DSM. "It's unfortunate this has happened in the last few days of the month because everyone is closing out the quarter and getting ready for the next," said one publisher who asked for anonymity.

The publisher recently upgraded to the new tool, which also seems to have lost a few bells and whistles, such as specific conveniences related to reporting. "We run thousand of ads, and it's impossible for us to make sure every ad gets targeted correctly without pulling reports for it," the publisher said. "We rely on reporting to run our business, and it has not been fabulous."

Some publishers have begun migrating to DoubleClick's latest update. Along with problems on the new platforms, those on the legacy system were not able to log in for a good portion of the day, according to one source, who noted: "I believe they are forcing everyone to upgrade to the new system by September."

Aside from the reporting, customers complain about numerous problems since the upgrade, such as a lack of customer support.

The tools, DFP and DSM, resumed normal operation about midafternoon Eastern Time, but the outage also affected DART for Advertisers customers, according to one source, and about 80% of the publisher's clients use DFA.

Long-standing DoubleClick supporters and clients said Google continues to launch many positive tool enhancements, and hope that today's glitch doesn't happen again.

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