Google’s Data Exchange Play

The move is significant in that for Google it would represent another piece in an end-to-end display ad infrastructure Google has built up since acquiring DoubleClick. The separation of data from the ad impression means that its trading is vitally important to the targeted ad system working. Having already built up an exchange for ad impressions in real-time, a complementary platform for data would make sense.

Google is moving into the territory of third-party data vendors, like Exelate and BlueKai, but the company’s ambitions will probably not stop there. Google’s intentions may be to effect a search marketing ecosystem which will create new models of online targeting, leveraging the company’s nearly unparalleled consumer data stores to optimize creative, content-rich display, such as in Google’s deal with Heineken that employs rich media ads with search marketing while incorporating social data.

“Search advertising, of course, has helped our clients immeasurably: it’s effective, measurable and incredibly relevant. It’s also a model that we are continuing to invest in and innovate,” said Neal Mohan, the creator of Google’s display strategy in a recent Digiday interview. “Clearly, relationships are becoming a more and more important signal online as well, both on the content and the ads side. We recently rolled out our +1 button that allows users to recommend both search results and ads to their friends; I predict we’ll see more innovation across the industry in this area.”

Google is currently leading in search advertising and with the potential addition of a consumer data marketplace, Google’s DoubleClick publisher clients will be able to broker ad and data inventory on a single platform.

Google’s arsenal will include a major player in nearly every aspect of the ad ecosystem, with DoubleClick, AdMeld, Invite Media and Teracent offering products for most categories of display and ad exchange. Vendors such as BlueKai may end up having to connect with Google’s data stores on very different terms than they do today, as Google may now be poised to become the leading supplier of aggregated consumer data, on and offline.