Google’s ultimate ads dashboard

This is what an article on MediaPost (my source) talks about. In the article Google’s President of Advertising and Commerce for North America, Tim Armstrong talks about Google’s future Ads Dashboard at the American Association of Advertising Agencies Media Conference. And that’s a cool crowd to talk about what the biggest threat to Agencies will be doing, especially when they really want the agencies on their side … at least until they don’t need them anymore.

What they want to bring out is a kind of dashboard that helps Agencies to plan, buy and manage all their advertising, be it search, display, radio, tv or anything other that comes. The integration helps show agencies how different parts of the mix influence each other. That is actually what GroupM from WPP is working on. Of course Google is saying that they want to help agencies, and GroupM is obviously mostly helping it’s connected agencies. I need to write a bit about GroupM in the future, seems to be an amazing place!

While I do believe that Google has nothing against the agencies because they will not be able to hire enough sales guys to do it alone, they will not be needed in the end. You might need a Creative Agency, but that will be the only ones still making a margin and not being replacable. Now already, the big clients will milk an agency for it’s last cent, knowing exactly what they pay for advertising, and being a hard bargainer. When all the agencies out there use one Dashboard to manage the ads, management, buying, and so on becomes a no brainer. They can only distinguish themselves via being more creative and being more knowledgeable to build a great integrated campaign. Trafficking is an art form (it is what GroupM does) and the thing is that the big publishers will not let a Google rid them of their direct access to the agencies and customers.

But if you will not be able to use Google’s tool to directly bid on big publishers (you might be able to use it to track them due to their Doubleclick ownership, think Doubleclick for Agencies which they already use anyway, now it will be free) where do you book? Google needs somewhere for automatic booking, especially for image ads.

That is really a threat for all the networks forming at the moment. I am talking about an AdJug, AdScale, AdBrite and so on. Either they need to develop an API to hook themselves up to the Google Dashboard, or they will have a real problem. Because Google does need all the same small to mid publishers to fill their booking engine. And with all the Agencies connected, they will be able to pay better. One thing that Google AdSense is missing now is an option to say “only accept ads with CPM over X”, which things like AdScale do. Of course, nobody has yet been able to explain to me how they do it with CPC Ads, but ok, I think it is something Google could do if they do want to reach beyond being the back fill.

Of course continuing down that line of thinking, the next extension then might mean that the big publishers will need to open up for Google’s Dashboard. And then suddenly it is all automated and then you don’t need Agencies anymore. Creative Agencies yes, but that might be it.

Yes, Google does need the agencies, but they will make sure that their tools are so easy that the agencies are easily replaced and ad management is not a margin business … not for anyone but Google that is.

Or it just stays a wining-and-dining business for a long time to come. ;)