Google announced last week that it is ready to begin its DoubleClick AdExchange. AdAge reports:
The AdExchange works similarly [to how the search market
matches ad buyers and ad impressions in real time], but for display advertising.
It also includes integration with Google's search ad-sales system, with the idea
that it will let search advertisers move money more easily to display and vice
versa. In addition, all of Google's network inventory will be available as part
of the exchange . . .
The exchange draws criticism from advertising leaders for failing to offer quality inventory based in genuine relevance because of a focus on moving ads as part of exchanges with other exchange centers that are already part of the display-advertising marketplace, but where Google's offer differs in the combination of its transparency and scalability.
This combination of offers has always been the advantage of Google's advertising programs--any advertiser who has tested click-based against impression-based programs knows that quality scores and targets require a fine balance and that tinkering with that balance within each program is vital to return on investment.
The criticism, then, that the DoubleClick exchange's weakness is its inability guarantee quality is no different than any criticism that one could make against any Google advertising program. Advertisements ranked by quality scores--indeed, advertisements in any channel--have only ever been as good as the creative and marketing teams behind them. Consumers do not respond to poor-quality ads in any channel. The fact that Google traditionally rewards advertisements that will generate responses because they are constructed well--and that it continues to do so in new mediums--doesn't change that much from the perspective of a consumer market that benefits from additional creative display and more focused and scalable targeting.
In that context, the criticism of "But will it be any good?" seems a bit like it's based in the straw-man and red-herring fallacies, whereby those that have an interest in maintaining premium, static pricing on digital-advertising real estate find it a protective necessity to play only with the major players within a narrow range of price points.
This is where we find the true genius in the new exchange. Before advertisers even begin to consider the elements of paid-search marketing, the core offers on their websites must be relevant, high-quality offers, and organic search concepts, arguably the foundation of search marketing, allow even the minor players to optimize and sustain competitiveness through the idea of the long tail, a frequency-distribution concept that means businesses sell less quantity of more unique unit types. When sites communicate relevance for a specific product, that product gains visibility in search-engine results because it is focused to a specific target's need or needs.
Google's DoubleClick AdExchange allows a similar focused targeting and scalability, only, now, advertisers can marry these benefits with high-impact creative, which has previously been limited to a mostly static, contract marketplace. What this means for advertisers is that the best of all worlds are now coming together, so that the real opportunity of the DoubleClick AdExchange network is exactly that for which some are criticizing it--everyone now has the ability to compete based on merit, as measured by consumer response, across all playing fields, regardless of scale.