Stemato.com - Stephen Tompkins’ Blog

For some time now, I have been wondering if it’s possible to beat Google. During a quick flight from Ft. Lauderdale to JFK, I am going to give you step one in my strategy to beating the 800 lb. gorilla that is Google. Just a quick disclaimer before we get started, this is all completely hypothetical and in my brain and in no way represents my company (Microsoft) or any strategies that I have learned while there.

To beat Google you first have to abandon the notion of taking them on in search because a frontal assault would certainly deplete funds and create mass carnage to your organization.  You can eventually beat them at search but first you need to attack their Achilles’ heel.

What is that you ask?

Display Ads

Forget for a moment that this particular category is losing speed; its future is bright despite recent slowdowns. Growth projections still eclipse newspapers and are beginning to do the same to televisions advertising. Furthermore despite, Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick they still have yet to take a dominant place at the table.

Publisher Side Serving

We are starting to see them dominate the publisher side of this industry but are definitely still beatable. It is going to take a major investment in the resources to completely overhaul the current market products and begin to create a new publisher interface to beat them here. Often the interfaces are older and fail to implement the most recent technologies into them. For instance, advanced reporting techniques provide a great starting point. Integrating a great AJAX-like dashboard to your pub tools might be a great starting point.

Advertiser Side Serving

On this side of the server, the ability to beat Google is possibly at its best. Hovering around 45% market share they have really been unable to distinguish themselves. The same as publisher side holds true here. Advertisers are clamoring for my sophisticated systems that they can show ROI on in more complex ways. Analytics integration, advanced reporting, and user-friendly UI’s all represent important milestones for industry dominance.

At my company (Microsoft’s Atlas), we have introduced some of these products including the much anticipated e-mapping (engagement mapping). I want go too much into it here but click the link its some amazing stuff. I will say that these represent important steps to claiming the next online advertising crown.

Display ads represent the low-hanging fruit in the battle against Google. It is a time sensitive fight though as Google furiously works to integrate Doubleclick’s offerings into its own but its can easily be won.

What would the internet look like without ads? No banners, no search and no rich media to interrupt your surfing experience just plain old experience. At first thought it sounds amazing but looking closer into at this proposition reveals some ugly truths.

1. Most people today go to the internet to research product information. Whether we admit it or not, many of the digital ads we see help us to determine the products we research later to buy. With better targeting think of the possibilities of products you never knew existed that could present themselves to you.
2. Online ads are much less intrusive than TV commercials. The so-called “banner blindness” factor has helped to make them just blend into a page seamlessly. In fact, I photoshopped all ads off a few page only to find there was no real difference in new content space available. In most cases, I felt more content would be even more distracting.
3. If the internet is about discovery then online ads have a spot at the table. What is more about discovery than advertisements? Product A is amazing but without promotion, where does it go?

Can anyone else think of other reasons I may have missed? I would love to hear ideas and feedback on the notion of an internet without ads. What is your scenario?

Many people think targeting is the silver bullet to online advertising. I believe it will be a great step forward for all us industry folks and am excited to get better ads. But my question is, have we made any leeway? My answer is no.

Take for example, my Facebook profile. I can remember last year seeing many ads for young single men. I am not exactly looking for a young single man nor would I be using Facebook to find them if I were a gay man. This ad was so far off the mark I figured Facebook was in its infancy with targeting and reading profiles and forgave them.

But alas! I was wrong. Today, I sign onto Facebook and what do I get. Gutter cleaning in San Francisco or somewhere far from NYC. I guess this could be forgiven since I work for Microsoft (which is somewhat of a western company) but the fact that I am not part of a network out west makes it much harder for me to forgive. I would think geo-targeting on Facebook is the easiest to do. I mean I have enough information on the profile that a mule could figure out where I live.

I am completely lost by this and most targeting. Targeting means giving me things I am interested in more than average. Not something I do not or will not need.Simply taking a singular statement on my profile is not enough. You have to apply algorithms and such to make really give me good ads.

Deep insights about my profile are available and I want targeting to move the ball forward this year. Instead I get gutter cleaners and single available men. I anxiously await a new day in targeting.

Most people are assuming that display ads will take a big hit next year with the economy slowing but few people are predicting it to totally have the bottom fall out. Until now. Recently Gawker chief Nick Denton posted a blog saying that online execs could see declines of 40% next year.

This seems a little ridiculous when you think about it. Here are my reasons why:

1. Economic slowdowns will force marketers to tighten budget and further prove ROI. Internet advertising is best suited for this.
2. Small to mid-size companies have yet to migrate to search and display in large numbers. Local targeting will improve this should send more companies online.
3. Newspaper and magazine money continues to move to the internet further helping it weather this crisis.

Certainly the three listed above will help to keep ads above the norm when it comes to growth into next year but only time will tell.