Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Google Owns Advertisers

A study by William Blair and Company and AdGooroo quantifies Google's stranglehold on search marketing. Ninety percent of search advertisers work with Google, while Yahoo and MSN have the remaining 10 percent of advertisers. But half of Yahoo and MSN's advertisers also work with Google.

This is analogous to PC market, where Microsoft has approximately 85-90 percent or so of all desktop OS shipments, with Apple and Linux fighting over the scraps. Just as MS is under more intense scrutiny for potential anti-trust infraction, so is Google closely watched because of its ability to change the market at will.

The report (Google is a client of William Blair) says the number of advertisers is outpacing industry growth, so the "long tail" is getting longer as more niche players fight for obscure keywords.

If you want to participate in search marketing, you'll have to contend with Google. Search marketing isn't the entire online advertising universe, so companies who want to avoid Google can utilize display advertising, etc to achieve their marketing goals.

Posted By John Gartner at 01:55 PM
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