Today, Google reported its Q1 2011 earnings and though Wall Street may have been disappointed as GOOG stock fell 5%, the company still reported $8.08 in earnings per share (or $2.3 billion in profit!). Revenues were up 27% to $8.58 billion in Q1. Read the release. And, get the earnings slides (PDF).
The company’s earnings conference call yielded one revelation on the display front as SVP of ads Susan Wojcicki participated. First, she covered the previously-announced Media Ads units which will work within search and will be served by Google on behalf of movie advertisers initially. Then, she said Google “launched Google Display Network Reserve last quarter which gives advertisers the opportunity to buy premium inventory on a guaranteed basis. It’s how brand advertisers are telling us they want to buy inventory.”
Reserved? Guaranteed?!! Also, didn’t agencies tell you they wanted “guaranteed”, Google? -Nope.
Google continues to take steps toward going direct to the marketer and is now moving to automate the futures/reserved buying process. Why wouldn’t they?
Consequently, agency disintermediation takes another step forward, too.
Get the Q1 2011 earnings call transcript from Seeking Alpha when available. And, the webcast should be available on the Google IR YouTube website shortly.
By John Ebbert
