Google Beats Microsoft in Race for DoubleClick

Let’s look at the background behind Eric Schmidt’s “most compelling argument:” DoubleClick basically established the Web advertising industry, long before Google entered the scene. It created the standard for click-through advertising, whose original metrics included cost per “impression” (CPM, a term borrowed from print advertising) and its interactive successor, cost-per-click (CPC).

In recent years, DoubleClick actively explored methods to achieve more reliable metrics than CPC. In 2005, the company established a concept called the Performics 50 index – a kind of benchmark which companies could use to judge the standard rates for relevance-based CPC, or what they would generally pay for an ordinary keyword campaign. The index would help tell businesses whether investing in a campaign based on a certain set of keywords is more or less valuable to them than the average campaign. The formula for the index takes the 50 most stable campaigns among those which DoubleClick manages through its Performics service, then totals the cost of all the 50 campaigns based on CPC, and divides that sum by the number of keywords in the clients’ collective budgets.

As a result, Performics 50 generated a concept called cost-per-keyword (CPK) – what an advertiser actually pays to reserve a keyword in an average campaign. In the fourth quarter of last year, the CPK index rose from the previous quarter’s $35.37 to a high of $54.14, an indication that online ad campaigns became 53% more effective over the holidays.

When a DoubleClick or Performics client measures its CPK against the P50 index, it’s determining its campaign’s relative worth and stability – a very valuable metric. In such campaigns, DoubleClick may serve as the ad broker, but Google’s AdSense may serve as the ad distribution system. In this instance, the two companies aren’t really competitors.

Now, go back to what Schmidt said: Google’s most compelling reason for acquiring DoubleClick, he said, was the opportunity to combine tools and metrics for display advertising (CPC) as well as Google’s more search-centric ads, into a single console. Indeed, that does sound attractive. But that contrasts with what Schmidt said later about the impressiveness of DoubleClick’s management team – one of the few comments actually made during the entire conference about DoubleClick’s workforce, even though its CEO, David Rosenblatt, was present for the conference.

So what did Rosenblatt think the value of the merger was? “Speaking from DoubleClick’s point of view,” he said, “our focus on customers and their requirements remains completely unchanged, except to the extent that, by virtue of this deal, we’re able to bring to bear Google’s resources and R&D capabilities, which we think will result in better products and better services. And I think Google realizes, as much as anyone, that most of the value of this business lies in our customer relationships and our employees, and both of those are high priorities.” So Rosenblatt made it clear – if he hadn’t prior to the conference call – that he wants his part of the business to remain intact.

“In addition to continuing the core business,” Rosenblatt continued, “this transaction allows us to bring capabilities to our customers that we couldn’t have before, like some of the best monetization tools on the Internet. We think the combination will provide lots of value to customers, and it’s something that we couldn’t have done as an independent company.”

So DoubleClick’s #1 and #2 concerns may be Google’s #2 and #1 concerns, respectively – which may not be a perfect fit after all, but perhaps a fit nonetheless.

But as far as the goal of integrating tools was concerned, Google president Sergey Brin made clear – in typical, reliable Sergey fashion – that the two companies hadn’t actually broached that topic just yet. At one point, Brin was asked whether information from search results will be made available to advertisers directly, as part of the unified metrics Schmidt discussed. “Obviously, we’re separate companies now, so we don’t have the opportunity to discuss [that sort of topic] now,” Brin responded.

Brin then took that opportunity to take another stab at one of Google’s perennial, more philosophical goals: “Overall, we care very much about end user privacy. That’s really going to take the number one priority when we contemplate new kinds of advertising products...There are quite a few challenges with such a plan, with respect to how we feel about privacy.”

At another point, Brin was faced with having to answer a question on a very sticky topic that the other executives may not have considered – especially since they didn’t speak up. Performics’ current clients, stated a J. P. Morgan analyst, include Yahoo and Microsoft. Does that change now?

A pregnant pause followed, during which Schmidt prompted anyone to please answer. “That’s exactly a complication that you recognize,” Brin finally chimed in. “It’s one that we’ve also discussed,” he added, slightly under his breath. “Unfortunately, with the overall size of this deal and the rest of the DoubleClick business that we’ve been really focusing on, I don’t think we have a concrete plan to share with you today. I think we’ll have to figure that out after the transaction closes.”

Which, as was said earlier, could be late in this year. So to summarize, Google’s and DoubleClick’s technologies will be compatible and unified, except where they can’t be. DoubleClick’s management and employees will be integrated into the new company, except for those who may not be. DoubleClick’s customers are considered of prime importance, except for a certain number whose fate as clients awaits the end of the merger. It’s a done deal, except for the deliberations over technologies and metrics, the decisions about who will serve where, the little business over what to do with DoubleClick’s little business, and a bit of paperwork with the FTC. Other than that, it’s worth $3.1 billion in cash. That’s a lot of investment for something so indefinite.