Google Offers TV Inventory Via DoubleClick Bid Manager

by Laurie Sullivan , April 24, 2017

As more brands integrate television and video media buys, Google is making traditional TV inventory available to buy programmatically in DoubleClick Bid Manager in the U.S.

Partners supporting the shift include WideOrbit and clypd, along with Google Fiber, the company's broadband service with speeds up to 1,000 Mbps for small businesses. The news -- released Monday from Google at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show -- aims to bridge the gap between TV and digital video, but also search engine marketing and advertising.

Rany Ng, director of product management at Google, wrote in a blog post that "impact-based metrics" in DoubleClick also will give advertisers the ability to measure the lift when someone searches for their brand on Google or YouTube after seeing their TV ad.

By adding programmatic features to traditional TV buying in DoubleClick Bid Manager, Ng says Google is taking the first step to allow advertisers and agencies to manage their video campaigns across digital and linear TV.

Programmatic technology has already automated some manual processes associated with buying digital video. With this integration, Google will extend many of the same workflow improvements to traditional TV.

Perhaps Google is a bit ahead of the curve with this integration. About 64% of advertisers and agencies surveyed in a report from software provider Videology said within three to five years they expect more than half of their TV buying to go through programmatic channels. Some 57% of said they intend to increase their programmatic TV ad buys this year.

Still, the challenge remains in educating marketers on the benefits and options of advanced television, per Videology. More than half of advertisers lack a clear understanding of the difference between programmatic and addressable TV.

programmatic, programmatic tv, search, telecom, television, tv

6 comments about "Google Offers TV Inventory Via DoubleClick Bid Manager".

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, April 24, 2017 at 3:35 p.m.
I wonder how much of the upcoming TV upfront will utilize Google's DoubleClick Bid Manager. My guess is ---zero.
Reply

Benny Radjasa from Armonix Digital, Inc. replied, April 24, 2017 at 7:30 p.m.

Just like adoption of telephone 1877 by the public, which is the same, zero. Yes 1877 seems like such a long time ago, but
we have grown to quickly adopt technology at a much more rapid pace in this age of automation. When there is enough demand for it will be evolution in the market place, regardless of resistance. Testing of concepts is the only way to move forward.

John Grono from GAP Research replied, April 24, 2017 at 8:13 p.m.

Benny, I understand where you are coming from, but I think the analogy is a poor one.

Back in 1877 there was no 'voice communication' market.   The technology didn't exist until the telephone was invented.   There was a consumer need and the telephone was the solution.   For decades demand exceeded supply which is why telephony was (and still is) expensive.

In 2017 there is a 'video advertising market'.   The technology already exists.   There is no consumer need - it is technology doing what has always been done in varying degrees of effectiveness and efficiency for business.   No-one will sit at home and say "gees I'm glad that ad was placed programatically".

But there is a further difference.   A telephone is a commodity.   It is there in the morning and there in the afternoon.   A TV ad is not a commodity.  If the ad in the breakfast show is not sold it can't be held back and sold later.   Selling TV ads is selling time.   While time is infinite, TV spots aren't.   You can't just go to the shop next door and get one, or get one online.   The sellers hold all the inventory.

So the delicious iront is that "When there is enough demand for it" one possibility is that "(there) will be evolution in the market place, regardless of resistance.".   Of course the other very likely possibility is that, as Adam Smith wrote more than a century before the advent of the telephone, as demand exceeds supply that (i) inventory will be held back to accentuate the 'scarcity' of available spots so that (ii) unit costs will escalate in some proportionate way related to scarcity.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

michael Kaushansky from Havas Helia, April 25, 2017 at 6:48 a.m.

I predicted this a while back. I'm betting that Google DCM will develop a Google cross screen GRP and offer it for free via DCM. This will place pressure on the paid services such as Nielsen and ComScore which both require paid subscription services and don't easily translate to activation.

I'm also betting that FB will quickly follow with a FB GRP via its revamped Atlas platform.

John Grono from GAP Research, April 25, 2017 at 7:12 a.m.

If you are correct Michael it will be amazing how much the wheel has turned.

15-20 years ago the digerati dispelled GRPs as food of the dinosaur (TV). Little did they realise that GRPs are not a TV artefact. They are a cornerstone of communications planning. It's just the TV did it better than all the other legacy media.

And yes it will put pressure on Nielsen and comScore, but that will also put pressure on media agencies and advertisers to either go down the cheaper media-owned metrics, or the independent third-party metrics. Much is said about independent, transparent, agnostic measurement. So let's see whether the footsteps follow the proclamations, lest they just end up as hollow rhetoric in the race-to-the-bottom of media costs.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, April 25, 2017 at 7:54 a.m.

Google will have to demonstrate that it has a fully representive sample--of all persons----and that it can supply free but accurate viewer ratings for all types of media, including actual ad schedules used by advertisers---before it even begins to put pressure on Nielsen. That's a very tall order and I doubt that Google has plans to attempt to act as a rating service in the same way that Nielsen functions. For, example, how will Goggle know what ads are running and in what content, outside of its own properties? Is the "user" supposed to supply such data? And how will Google determine what "audience" is delivered by CBS, NBC, ABC, Turner, etc. on platforms such as "linear TV"? It never fails to amaze me that the concept of using GRPs as a simple way to quantify commercail "impressions", rather than citing billions and trillions of "impressions" in the direct marketer mode----is so often misunderstood by the digital types. As for using DCM to buy "TV time", LOL folks---- what "TV time" are we referring to? Digital video ads on YouTube?