Google and Facebook Together at Last

Posted on by Zach Billings
Categories: Google Tagged: ,

We’ve waited for a long time, but it’s finally here: the meeting of the digital giants. Until now, these two juggernauts have maneuvered around each other, never committing themselves to a union, but finally, we have Facebook and Google working together in digital marketing bliss.

Kind of.

Google announced that its DoubleClick Bid Manager will offer Facebook ad inventory. In case you don’t speak digital marketing, what this means is that you can use the Google Big Manager to place bids on Facebook advertisement spots.

It’s a win for both parties. Google remains competitive in the paid ad space by offering the very trendy (and profitable) Facebook advertising spots. Facebook gets the advertisers who work through Google, increasing their total volume and likely increasing their adspace bids.

According to Cassandra Caswell-Stirling, Campaign Manager for Display Media:

“Because the Newsfeed ads, while unloved by many Facebook users, are performing so well for many of our advertisers, advertising on the FBX will become a main staple of future media proposals and Google needs to be a part of that to remain competitive.”

As far as what this says about Google’s growth strategy, David Carrillo, Manager of Earned Media, added:

“It’s less about competing with vendors or agencies and more about positioning itself to remain the central cog in the marketing wheel. Google doesn’t want to spend time or resources chasing projects with limited revenue upside. They have a dominant position in search, have a robust footprint in display via the GDN, and practically own the video market in YouTube, but there’s this gaping hole in its repertoire for social. Not being in the Facebook eco-system is almost akin to not being in the Internet at the moment, and that is something Google can’t afford to continue any longer.”

We don’t know the full scope of how the DoubleClick ads will rollout on Facebook, but we’re hopeful that we won’t have to wait too long to find out. Both companies seem eager to get the partnership moving, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was live by the end of the year.