Google takes hold of Performics with DoubleClick acquisition
For $3.1 billion, Google acquired advertising solutions provider DoubleClick. Google has been stirring the online advertisng pot for a while now and coming up with various concoctions— while all the while getting closer to near absolute control of worldwide online advertising [well, it looks like Google is out to control not just the online ad scenario but any known form of advertising — albeit, leveraging the Internet to do so].
Organizing the world’s information is the company’s stated goal, but everything the company seems to be announcing these days seems to be about getting control of the advertising options available when presenting that information.
Just a month ago, Google had announced its plans to enter the PPA market; with the DoubleClick acquisition, Google may have made further headway into the affiliate marketing space since the former’s affiliate marketing unit “Performics” is part of the deal. What exactly Google does with Performics will be very interesting.
Will there be a conflict of interest now between between different units of the same company? Google is known to be pretty hard with affiliate marketers, who have found it pretty challenging with their search engine marketing efforts on Google [both organic and paid]. Will this change ? Obviously, we can expect Google to say that everything is controlled by their powerful algorithms and everybody gets equal treatment—- but can everybody continue to buy into that without any doubts whatsoever?
Another thing to look out for in the next few weeks and months is the moves by Yahoo & Microsoft and what they do with some of the other big ad networks. We can be pretty certain those two companies will not surrender in the battle for advertising supremacy without a decent fight—- though from the look of it, there seems to be only one winner.
