Google Earns Billions In Q3, Big Mobile Revs; 24/7 Talking Premium Inventory; IBM's CMO Study

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Google Prints Money In Q3

Another quarter, another pile of cash and better-than-Wall-Street-expected earnings. Google reported that Q3 2010 earnings as the company made $7.51 billion ex-TAC (traffic acquisition costs) and net income was $2.73 billion. Take that to the bank! In fact, the company reported that it had $42.6 billion in cash at the end of September – enough to buy 6 or 7 start-up, ad tech ecosystems. Read the release. And, get the earnings slides (PDF). According to ClickZ’s Zach Rodgers, Google CEO Larry Page said on the earnings call, “Google is on track to earn $2.5 billion this year in mobile ad sales (…) That growth is led by mobile search activity, with mobile display ads a lesser factor.” Read more. The webcast replay of the earnings conference call will be available on Google’s IR website on YouTube. Citi analyst Mark Mahaney gave investors his early thoughts on the results: “Positive First Pass – Results benefited from higher than expected FX benefit, higher than expected Interest & Other Income, and a slightly lower than expected tax rate, but this was a clean beat. And fundamental trends were robust – which should be a positive read-thru to the rest of the Internet Ecosystem. Key questions include how much of the upside from Mobile, Display Ad Network, and YouTube.”

Make Mine A Private Auction

24/7 Real Media announced a new product expanding its Open AdSteram platform called “24/7 Connect.” The WPP Group-owned ad technology company hopes to gain and/or maintain access to big “premium” publisher inventory with a solution that sounds private marketplace/exchange-like. From the release, 24/7 describes the Connect offering: “On the sell-side, publishers gain a single point solution for campaign and deal management, with seamless ad management integration through Open AdStream, an intuitive user interface and no retagging necessary. On the buy-side, agencies and advertisers gain full-service access to premium publisher inventory and audiences.” Read more.

More RTB Numbers

As part of its Ad Revenue Conference, sell-side platform PubMatic sponsored a new study by IDC which said, “Real-Time Bidding (RTB) will amount to $6.47 billion in ad spend by 2015 in the U.S. and major markets in Western Europe.” That’s almost equal to Google’s Q3 2011 revenues. The whole report is available here (pay with some PII). And, grab a few more data nuggets from the press release here.

What The CMO Thinks

Agency types… IBM’s in your kitchen. But you knew that – right? Check out the new 2011 Global CMO Study from IBM – exec summary here (PDF). As the company’s research unit explains, “We conducted face-to-face interviews with 1,734 CMOs, spanning 19 industries and 64 countries, to find out what they are doing to help their enterprises cope with the fundamental shifts transforming business and the world.” And the thing that troubles the CMO the most according to Big Blue? Big data! Get it. (Pay with a wad of PII).

Aegis Acquiring

Aegis may be in the market for digital agency acquisitions after selling its Synovate research firm to Ipsos. MediaPost’s Steve McClellan reports, “Aegis said it would go into further detail about its acquisition strategy during a day-long meeting with investors and analysts set for Nov. 2.” Read more.

Can You Measure Engagement? Please?

AdKeeper’s MaryAnn Bekkedahl summarizes a panel on the future of online advertising from last week’s Advertising Week in New York City. Among the participants according to Bekkedahl was JetBlue’s SVP of marketing and commercial strategy, Martin St. George who “emphasized that as standard display advertising effectiveness rates continue to drop, online brands like JetBlue must focus more dollars on rich media and interactive ads in order to create consumer engagement. It will be a change of pace, but a needed one.” Read more.

If Caller ID Says Heidrick & Struggles…

All Things D’s Kara Swisher reports that the exec search firm Heidrick & Struggles has been contracted to find Yahoo! a CEO. Read a bit more. Reuters picks up All Things D’s baton and reports that Aol CEO Tim Armstrong is still trying to put together a deal for Yahoo! and is attempting to convince Aol shareholders its a good idea that includes $1.5 billion in cost savings. Reuters adds: “He is pushing the notion that a combination with Yahoo would appease ad agencies looking for more efficient buys with a bigger audience.” Audience, baby. Read more.

Google+ Search – And Display

Google+ Search was announced a few weeks ago and now you can search for the most +1’d posts by accessing your Google+ profile – the search form is at the top. The implication is clear if Google can get the +1 button to take off: sites with pages with the most +1s will be higher in the curated, +1 search engine result pages.. and the increased traffic should drive display pricing for ads on those pages. Search Engine Land shows an example of how it works and the latest update to its functionality with hashtag support. Search engine retargeting + Google+ + display = a potential top-to-bottom purchase funnel machine.

But Wait. There’s More!