Google’s experiment with selling and measuring TV ads on the Dish satellite network just got a lot more interesting. A month ago, Google incorporated the ability to buy TV ads into AdWords. Now, it is taking all of that ad impression data and layering it on top of Google Analytics (click on the screen shot above for a larger image). This is very basic and imperfect, but it hints at the future of how advertising will be measured: all in the same place.
Within Google Analytics, which many companies already use as a dashboard to measure their Website traffic and the effectiveness their online Google ad campaigns, it is now possible to also measure the effectiveness of your Google TV ads. It shows you how many times your ad was seen on TV, and overlays that on top of a graph showing how many people visited your Website.
While the two are not always directly correlated, if the point of the TV ads is to drive Website traffic, at least advertisers can now eyeball whether any corresponding spikes occur after they run their TV ads. Google Analytics also displays the cost of the ads, how many times each one played, and calculates a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) so that advertisers can roughly compare the return they get from TV ads versus Web ads.
Google can only place TV ads on Dish boxes at this point, so its reach is limited. But within that sandbox, Google is showing the way that advertising ought to be measured.
Now, imagine seeing radio, print, and other forms of advertising as well side by side with Web and TV and you get a sense of where Google wants to go with all of this. If advertisers can truly get to the point where they can measure all of their ad campaigns across all media in one place, then they will shift those advertising dollars to the most efficient place. And that may not be the Web in all cases. But if Google can place ads anywhere and collect better data on their relative effectiveness than anyone else, it really won’t care.
This will just giive more ammunitition to “OMG Google is gonna take over the world and screw everyone” guys.
I am not convinced how much of a value this addition is going to be as its basically estimation. How accurate an estimation it is? We will just have to wait and watch out for buyer feedbacks to know.
It seems like google has been doing everything lately:
http://www.cong...t=Congoo+Search
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A really good move from Google, they just keep getting bigger and bigger. With their $2000 tv ad promotion, more companies will get familiar with the system and might move a big % of their $ from web to tv very quickly.
If nothing drastic is done shortly from Msft, Yhoo and al., Google will dominate the market in every branch of advertising sooner than expected.
newsendorser you can do better than that. Your URL is embedded beneath your name. Just be interesting, add a little pizzaz to the convos or say something insightful. Begging for help makes you look sad and weak. Give back to techcrunch and maybe Mike will feature you. I hate spam.
Please filter out comment spam!
This is my question to techcrunch.
I use to work for a dish company (late last year) and I know that we nor any of our other dish competitor could tell how many people where watching/listening to a station.
So how can GOOGLE? come on, of course they are going to say to a user that their ads are working, due to:
1. More money for google
2. Advertisers are sometimes stupid
3. Google Open? – where is the software or docs telling us how they track these videos.
At the end of the day this seems to me that google thinks that web dev and people that work in dish industry are stupid.
Really…
Now a head at Optus Australia told me that if i was to launch a radio or TV network on a satellite I would not know who or when any one is watching.
So how does google do this?
This is a BIG/HUGE claim by google and I don’t and wont until google releases data/docs on how they do this.
Also one last thing I have to point out. WHAT DISH NETWORK!!!
We are not told in your story.
So google better release data or more people may start thinking the way i am.
I’m wondering how the end result looks like. Are these the contextual ads that are showing up on tv? tv is not web browser and there isn’t any text on the screen, unless maybe on cnn or bloomberg.
How can the adsense text inventory be fit for the web AND TV? i don’t get it. is it tailored in any way i cannot visualize right now?
Will you shut your garbage spewing mouth already newsendorser, you imbecile of human flesh and waste of air. You spineless bastard child. You disgust me, your smell disgust me, why don’t you go away you untrained mamal, you.
google always has the great ideas
An interesting point here is the number of set top boxes they sample. They are sampling over 7 million boxes is increments of seconds.
It makes AC Nielsen’s 3000 boxes and diaries into a joke. In point of fact the top 100 channels on ACN are ranked differently by Google. Smaller channels have a much greater weight, as it overcomes the bias of ACN towards large networks and against smaller channels (lets face it the bills are paid by the large networks).
What is also interesting is that you can get data where your viewers are coming from and where they are going, as well as a wealth of other information on viewing patterns.
The data is addressable down to the zip code. Its scrubbed so no one knows specific viewer patterns.
Its going to be much more disruptive than the established networks understand.
Google is always looking out for the coming years and ad revenue,
With
“Satellite HD subscribers will penetrate 65.7 percent of U.S. multichannel households by 2012, up from 18.8 percent in 2007.”
There is always a growth potential, Let’s see if Yahoo or other small players come into the play.. That was a really good idea by google..
Cheers, Nag
@ Russell, Here in the US, one of the satellite providers is named “DISH Network”. Also, do you believe Google would risk their reputation with the big advertisers for short-term revenue? We’re talking about a publicly traded company, not a start-up. Go do a search for the press release announcing the deal b/w Google and Echostar.
cool. but HOW?
google learns to watch TV?
@ russel
i remember many years ago that one of the people in a marketing research company told me that they can know how many people are watching a specific TV channel (programs..etc) by connecting some servers to the telephone line of many houses. they can get the information by doing so .. i wasn’t convinced about this and don’t know how true is it .
google analytics is good. Now if you are using adwords that is very expensive. I dont know if it is even worth it when certain ads cost the advertiser $2 per click.. so 50 visits is a $100.. and if you get one customer out that hundred its not much at all.. Wonder what the prices are for tv ads and whether they make a lame campaign for you or you could actually upload a commercial
@ NAG ” Let’s see if Yahoo or other small players come into the play.. That was a really good idea by google..
Cheers, Nag”
WTF? are you serious.. small players. man dont talk ever again
@russel
What is up today with all the challenged people. One thinks yahoo! is a small company another thinks that waves cannot be captured.. oh where yall came from > florida?
I’m waiting for Google to create a tool that actually lets you measure how much revenue those ads generate for the companies. I know most people go out of their way to avoid actually watching TV ads. And even if I do watch them… I’m not about to buy puppy chow, since I don’t have a dog. If those companies expended even 1% of their marketing on better market targeting (link to ebooks version), they would be much, much better off…
Once GOOG allows marketers–especially direct marketers–to bring in a time-series dependent variable (e.g., weekly sales data), then companies can start to have a better understanding of how all marketing channels drive sales. Some refer to this as the Holy Grail of marketing: measuring everything.
GOOG’s obviously well-positioned to do this in:
* Radio (dMarc acquisition)
* TV (Dish Network)
* Online display ads (DoubleClick)
* outdoor advertising (they’ve filed some patents in this area)
The analytics behind optimizing marketing mix not trivial because things like weather can play a huge factor in driving sales…there was a NYT article a few days ago that talked about the internal team that measures this kind of stuff for GOOG’s own revenue.
if anyone uses comcast cable now, you know that they already have 2 way communication with their cable boxes. if you ever have issues, they can check stats and turn the boxes on/off remotely. i believe that the infrastructure is already there to measure what people watch as well as which commercials are shown. i’m really surprised comcast hasn’t started publishing their “most watched shows” index – something that they could build using their own user data. measuring commercials on these new smart boxes is really a logical next step.
Ok i am still searching but this is what i have found out from this site http://www.huli...ertising-system
I see that google is NOT going with the channels but they are going with the satellite company, Echostar.
It seems members have to be on Echostar user, and both echostart and google are still NOT saying how they have the technology to do this.
I quote”Google will have access to a portion of DISH Network’s advertising inventory…”
So all we are told is that google will have access to these “portion of DISH Network’s advertising inventory”… This does not tell us the keyword needed, “Servers”?
They do say Portion. You must like that word GOOGLE! if you think about it, google is really being sneaky, they are saying what will convince basic users, and advertising agents who are not tech savvy.
So in away they are saying we give you this service but we wont say how we get this data.
Oh and read this closely
* Terms: Promotional credit valid only for Google TV Ads customers with active AdWords accounts who have created and successfully run a Google TV Ads campaign. Ad must air on TV through Google TV Ads by July 31, 2008. Advertisers will be charged for TV advertising and receive the promotional credit for the amount of the cost of creative – up to $2,000 – after the campaign has been active for at least 4 weeks with a minimum average budget of $2,000 per week. Credits will be applied to existing balance accrued; any credit issued that results in a negative balance must be used by September 30, 2008. Unused credits will be removed from your account after this date, and will not be refunded. Advertisers who use the Ad Creation Marketplace will be charged separately by the specialist for creation of the TV Ad. Issuance of promotional credit is subject to ad approval, and acceptance of the Google AdWords Program standard terms and conditions. The promotional credit is non-transferable and may not be sold or bartered. Offer may be revoked at any time for any reason by Google Inc. One promotional credit per customer regardless of the number of campaigns or ads run. Offer valid only for advertisers in the U.S. and Canada. Offer expires July 31, 2008.
Dont get it well here is the line take a closer look
Unused credits will be removed from your account after this date, and will not be refunded.
Now thats getting around the law…
@Russell, You seem to really be taking this personally.
Just because they do not publish detailed specs of their implementation for everyone to see, doesn’t mean it is vaporware. I guarantee you the marketers are being provided more info, and are not as stupid as you think..
Also, those are “promotional credits”, in other words FREE. So, the fact that they expire is not disingenuous as nobody paid for them in the first place.
I love the appeal of this for the masses, but really it just seems like a spreadsheet that notes the media buy based on fixed as opposed to dynamic response data. Direct mail, radio and newspaper can also be captured this way and my agency already does this. With direct mail, we go in after the fact and plug the response in. The unique part of this concept is tracking the response, which besides web traffic, this really doesn’t do. As I stated, however, they’re doing a good job of presenting it in a dashboard which is helpful for advertisers and gets them to look at everything from a higher level.
That’s great Dan, but you have specific access to your customer’s sales data in order to the analysis your talking about. A given advertiser could export the TV-ad and website response data and overlay it with sales data in order to get a better understanding of ROI for their ad-spend.
wait til they mash up google health and google ads and tv habits and google finance and and and lol you will definitely know your momma been watching you
I think this is a awesome concept and will take off! Who hasnt asked themselves as a business owner, how can I advertise on this show and how much does it cost? With a system like adwords for tv it takes away alot of middle men and allows instant access to world wide distribution. Lets just hope new media embraces it cause google could take their cake as well..
There is an open source software, built with lots of APIs and plugin architecture. They say they aim to be an alternative at Google Analytics (it’s not there yet of course, but looks good)
http://piwik.org
Good point, Frank. Thanks. I’m a big believer in Google and use their tools religiously. Trying to find an application in the immediate term for my clients. I suppose it will just keep snowballing as the data aggregates?
I’m a believer in Google as well but I do have to say that they are over their heads when it comes to GTV. They presented GTV to my agency and they really need to get some seasoned sales people. With all due respect, you can’t expected A+ students (ie. geeks) to be able to sell TV Ad time. They have no personality, the presentation was extremely boring and confusing.
Heck – they don’t even need outside sales people to sell their services. People like us will simply “search” them out!
Re: “Now, imagine seeing radio, print, and other forms of advertising as well side by side with Web and TV and you get a sense of where Google wants to go with all of this.”
Google is already providing the same type of reports for radio. . . . You can see it right in your screenshot as “Audio Campaigns”.
Re: “Now, imagine seeing radio, print, and other forms of advertising as well side by side with Web and TV and you get a sense of where Google wants to go with all of this.”
Google already provides similar reports for radio. . . . It’s right there in your screenshot under “Audio Campaigns”.
An online ad agency called spotrunner.com has been doing this for awhile guys — coordinating local TV spots, search engine marketing, radio and outdoor advertising under one roof for a low cost and providing the tracking results. 30 second spots are like $499 (25% of what google charges), the quality is awesome, and we don’t have to lift a finger. They do more than just allow you access to the results, too. You have your own account manager who monitors the effectiveness of your ad, swaps out keywords that aren’t working on the search side and focuses on the ones that are. Plus they throw in a bunch of consulting that helps us covert the leads we get which is cool. Don’t get me wrong, the tools google provides is great. We’d just rather work with a third-party for the placement and tracking than do it ourselves with big brother!
I make tv spots for a living. I also am one of 19 tv production companies that are available and recommended for businesses that would like to do tv…but don’t have a spot. If you buy a spot for $499 you are getting stock footage…stock spot…it might work for local spots…but when you compete with national advertisers for eyeballs…do you really want to be laughed at…when your spot isn’t suppose to be funny. Oh…and buy the way…That $2000 dollar thing that google is offering is not the total amount paid to the production companies…so far i have gotten 12 bid requests…i am doing three… and none are below 5K. Now…i have worked a long time with ad agencies….and most small businesses don’t want to put down 25k to put an agency on retainer… This is a great way for small businesses to market their websites and see if TV works for them. I got involved over a year ago…it has moved very slowly…top 100 adwords advertisers first…they didn’t need tv commercials made…but the next 25000 do…and i’m not sure…but i think there is something like 2.5 million adwords customers. I think i’ve said enough…i am really excited about this…It is a wonderful thing for my biz…www.no-fat.com
smile, Jonathan
The reason i am so hard on google is the following
1. They are a company i personally dont like and they seem not to like me, My website can show ads from google and when asking them they say you dont fit our profile.
2. Google is buying everything but not improving the software they have made like Google Groups, Orkut, Jaiku and so on.
Also why go with TV, when internet radio could use the help from Google or an advertising platform.