• John Battelle's Searchblog, Friday, March 30, 2007 10:30 AM

It's a strange fact of life that Web "frienemy" (yes, we love that word) Google, doesn't accept third-party ad tags. Given the news that competitor Microsoft is considering a bid for the ad-server DoubleClick, which serves graphical CPMs for a huge portion of the ad world, rumors have surfaced that Google is planning to build its own third-party ad server for graphical ads.

As yet, Google's AdWords ads are served to publishers that have to sign up for the Google network, AdSense. Moving into DoubleClick territory, a bulky undertaking for big G, would solve "a BIG problem" writes performance marketing specialist Jeff Molander because "this would allow Google to not only offer conversion tracking but do so cross-platform... It also creates a point of differentiation in the CPA space: Ad targeting." Why? Because Google could cross-reference its search-based targeting with an ad-delivery network to create something truly powerful, whereas Molander doesn't believe DoubleClick's ad targeting extends to its Performics unit, which manages search advertising and behavior targeting for advertisers.

Which beg the questions: Will Google do it? Will Google make it free like Google Analytics? Will it merge with Google Analytics? Will Google swoop in and buy DoubleClick? Battelle seems to think the search giant is definitely up to something.

Read the whole story at John Battelle's Searchblog »