What’s this?
Have the two rivals made up or established some form of detente?
Google now lists Right Media on the approved list for global ad servers through Google Certified Networks. That’s new.
And it means that if you’re using Right Media to serve your display ads or serve ads on behalf of clients, you can now buy across Google AdSense and DoubleClick Ad Exchange.
See it here under “Vendors list for Google-certfied networks (Global)” – and then at the very bottom “Yield Manager / Right Media (Yahoo!)”:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=94149
Both sides are relatively mum on the new update, but a Yahoo! spokesperson offered:
“Yahoo! is committed to providing advertisers with technology that seamlessly expands their access to inventory. We are happy to continue those efforts by allowing Yahoo!’s Yield Manager to serve ads on the Google Display Network, as well as provide additional channels for members of Right Media through the partnership.”
Kumbayah?
So are Yahoo! and Google “partnering up”? Too early to say.
Questions come to mind on how Yahoo! Right Media advertisers will be managed by Google. And then don’t forget, Google’s Invite Media is buying on behalf of advertisers through Right Media Exchange.
Last November, it is alleged by some that [updated 7/22] AppNexus clients who were buying through Google were turned off temporarily as Google appparently sought more transparency into who the advertisers were that were buying through AppNexus. The timing was right around the busy holiday shopping season, too, leaving some to surmise Google was trying to hurt AppNexus and its investor, Microsoft.
Google is all about the transparency as it appears to be creating a direct path to the advertiser – better to control ad spend dollars, after all, by having a direct relationship. The same could be said on the sell-side!
It could also be argued that this is what everyone in the ad ecosystem is trying to do to a certain degree – target the advertiser. But when you’re the big dawg, you get advantage over others by sheer scale and then pricing power. And when you bite… OUCH!
UPDATED – 7/22: A Google spokesperson offers the following response to this article:
“AdExchanger always has interesting theories. But sometimes a spade is just a spade. We’re constantly looking to update and expand the list of partners that are certified to serve ads on the Google Display Network in order to best serve our advertiser and publisher partners. We have a fundamentally open strategy, subject to things to protect users and publishers – such as malware and privacy safeguards, etc. We’re happy to now include Right Media’s Yield Manager on that (long) list. No chanting circles.”
UPDATED – 7/22: AdExchanger update:
“I have reviewed and updated the above article to reflect that some of what I had written is not proven. Apologies to those who were affected.”
By John Ebbert
