The Justice Department filed a doomed case against Google in the antitrust lawsuit’s closing argument.
Search Engine Managing Editor Danny Goodwin highlighted some of the damaging evidence, including how Google has increased costs for advertisers, in How Google Hurts Search Advertisers in 20 slides.
In light of the revelations, I reached out to search marketers to get their views on Google Ads to gauge the current level of trust. Spoiler alert: It’s not good.
Clearly, trust is a major issue, and in the court of public opinion among advertisers, Google has already been found guilty.
Here’s what advertisers told Search Engine Land:
Manipulation and deceptive practices
Sarah Stemen (Paid Search Specialist and Founder):
“Their willingness to rewrite help desk documents frankly feels shocking after these revelations.” “It appears that Google is trying to hide the mechanics of a potential first-price auction rather than ensuring a truly fair second-price system.”
Boris Beceric (Google Ads consultant and coach):
“The only one who benefits from randomization is Google.” “Google is a monopoly that is collecting awards without telling advertisers.”
Dids Reeve (Specialist in autonomous means of payment):
“The paper says that randomization is code for ‘we can deviate from the regular auction algorithm to make more money.'” And that if advertisers perceive that Google is “randomized,” it would be bad enough that they want to cover up the done”.
Chris Ridley (Payment manager, Evolved):
“The latest news about Google randomizing the top two ad positions in the hope that advertisers will raise their bids is a sign that Google is willing to rewrite the rulebook for advertising on its platform”.
Robert Brady (Founder and PPC Expert):
“Exact match goes by the name ‘exact,’ but the behavior of the match type is not exact. They keep the name because it gives advertisers a false sense of accuracy.” “Randomization in this context is used in the same way. The layperson would infer that it meant that the behavior was truly random (not influenced by predictable factors), so Google deflects scrutiny when a full analysis shows that the their “randomization” showed a clear preference in favor of Google.”
Amy Hebdon (Google Ads conversion expert):
“With RGSP, Google is holding advertisers to false explanations of the changes, trying to convince us that this lack of transparency is for our benefit.”
Google’s priority of profit over equity
Jyll Saskin Wales (Google Ads Coach):
“However, reading Google’s internal commentary on the practice, it is clear that the motivations for randomization were not noble.”
Charlie Brennand (Consultant and founder of PPC):
“Google will never put the needs of advertisers before their need to increase profits.”
Hebdon added:
“Using ad ranking and a second-price auction, Google already had a system in place that prioritized quality and user experience while setting a fair price for advertisers. Where is the flaw in this model, in addition to the fact that Google was not extracting the maximum possible revenue?”
Julie Friedman Bacchini (Founder of NeptuneMoon):
“My main takeaway from this is that these exposures show that Google Ads is absolutely doing what’s best for Google Ads in the first place.”
Nick Handley (Head of Payment Media Performance in Impression):
“Google has a monopoly in the search space and until another player challenges Google, I think we’ll continue to see these types of tactics to increase revenue to continue Google putting stakeholders above customers.”
Trust in Google is collapsing fast
Kirk Williams (Founder of Zato):
“But I can say that these [evidence brought up against Google] continuously demonstrate the problem Google has right now: trust.” “Google has an optics problem right now, and these documents are helping to erode, rather than build, trust.”
Stemen added:
“It challenges the very foundation of trust and transparency that is essential to a healthy digital advertising ecosystem.” “It begs the question: What else have they not been transparent about?”
Reeve added:
“It makes me feel like the PPC community and their customers are being manipulated as well.”
Ridley added:
“We, as advertisers, should not take anything we know about how ad auctions work at face value, even if it’s within the Google Ads Help Center.”
Brennand added:
“Now with the data released from the court case, we can see that we have been manipulated, and in fact, not even our counterparts at Google know what Google is doing.”
Handley added:
“Given the recent DOJ vs. Google trial, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to trust Google and the recommendations it provides.”
Impact on advertisers and customers
Gales added:
“The people who should be most angry about this are the major customers of Google, the Amazons and Temus and Expedia of the world, who spend millions a year on Google Ads only to be punished for their investment being ‘haphazardly’ in the drop”.
Brennand added:
“If this has only appeared now, it begs the question of how many other harmful changes have occurred under the radar that we didn’t know about.”
Handley added:
“This raises an interesting question, how should we trust the recommendations of our representatives? If they are as in the dark as we are, surely some of their ideas are harmful to advertisers.”
Perception of (in)equity of ad auctions
Williams added:
“When users think an auction is more about competition and less about manipulation by the auctioneer and then learn it’s the other way around, that leads to a lack of trust.”
Gales added:
“I support the principle of randomization, as it seems to support the same principle as quality level: those with the deepest pockets won’t hoard all the clicks, and the most important thing is to give the user what they want : the best results.”
Ridley added:
“For years, Google has been telling advertisers through its Google Ads help articles that Ad Rank determines “whether your ads are eligible to show, and if so, where page your ads (if any) are displayed in relation to other advertisers”. ads”. They even go so far as to provide six factors that contribute to calculating your ad rank and have published and regularly updated several Google-hosted articles that duplicate the concept that “Your ad’s position on the page is determined by your the ad.”
Other reactions of shock and disappointment
Stemen added:
“However, to find statements like ‘this gives us the freedom to set prices’ in official court documents is a real blow.”
Reeve added:
“It’s quite shocking to see in black and white the cynical way that individuals at Google have discussed how they manipulate and distort the definitions and settings of Google Ads metrics.”
Bacchini added:
“Advertisers and PPC professionals have long suspected some of these things, but seeing them in these documents is still surprising.”
Why we care: The breakdown of the relationship between Google and advertisers may start with trust, but it goes beyond that. It becomes more difficult or impossible to trust the advice of advertising representatives, having seen Google prioritize revenue over equity through manipulative practices. That means advertisers have an even harder job of making sure they’re not just throwing ad budget down the drain, but actually getting incremental conversions from their ad spend.
Dig deeper. Has Google Ads lost all credibility? Why an advertiser says it’s time to go
[ad_2]
Source link
