From a high level, Google’s advertising business is built on top of two primary data assets – the explicit search queries that its users type into its search engine and cookies of users that it leverages to target non-search advertising (e.g, display ads). However, when comparing Google with Facebook as an Advertiser, the obvious questions that comes to ones mind are – Isn’t Facebook’s still relatively new people-based targeting approach superior to Google’s predominantly cookie based approach? And, as a result, won’t Google lose share – both in eCPMs and in use of its adtech – to Facebook over time? Given that Google has been innovating in its ad platform for longer and advertisers have been optimizing their campaigns for longer, doesn’t Facebook have more upside relative to Google from innovating and optimizing its ad campaign targeting and measurement platform capabilities?
What Digital Marketing Agencies have to Say ?
In this people vs. cookie debate, data points from ad campaigns and third parties suggest that the people-based approach does out-perform cookie-based approaches. Facebook’s Atlas has presented data that cookie-based campaigns overstated the audience reach by 26%, understated frequency by 41%, and overstated conversions by 21%. This makes sense as identity- or profile-based targeting does a more accurate job of targeting people rather than devices, as people-based models tend to allow for greater audience segmentation, and as cookie-based profiles are at greater risk of deletion and data leakage.
Google is not sitting idle. For instance, the company is promoting the use of its Chrome browser both of desktop and mobile, which enables the use of cookies on mobile operating systems and enables Google to track and target cross platform and of course on Mobile Force use of Google Account log-in within both owned and partner apps and sites, which will better enable them to track and target users across devices and thus has managed to remain competitive with Facebook in the log-in space.
In attempting to consider what is at stake for Google in the event Facebook is able to leverage its people-based data and platform, Google is not sitting idle and has the assets and potential to respond to and address these new opportunities in ad targeting, and the transition, if any, by advertiser and agency customers is likely to be a relatively longer process than what we’re accustomed to with typical Internet ad spend as these customers have spent a lot of money and time standardizing on Google stack for many years.
Google is now going to face heavy advertising issues due to ad blocks and all annd on other hand facebook is beathing them via no ad strategy.
Obviously !While google won’t go away from the internet the internet itself has undergone huge changes recently. Most users are concerned with a few applications and do not require google to aid them. People will directly go to instagram/twitter to see what the Kardashians are up to. Earlier one might have to google their name and then visit the Vogue website to read about children being named after directions. They don’t have twitch or instagram. Their major revenue stream is being threatened. Youtube is a mess. iPhones are doing well.
It’s hard not turning into a BALD dinosaur.