Current Events: Google, Competition, and Your PPC Campaign

Google In Court – Implications for PPC Campaigns

Google is now, quite possibly, synonymous with the concept of the internet and cloud-based apps. Providing much more than search, Google equips users with a full quiver of useful functions that replicate programs like Microsoft Word and Excel, and offers many cloud-based tools to business owners and project managers. Not the least among them are applications like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Ads.

This piece covers the implications of the current case making its way through the U.S. courts in terms of the digital marketing and advertising space, and what this means for the brands and businesses funding PPC and Paid Social Media campaigns.

Speaking from a digital marketing analyst perspective having certifications in Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads, I can attest to the usefulness (and coolness) of these apps. Despite this platform winning a lion’s share of hearts and minds, there is a catch that has been playing itself out in court this year. While we consider Google’s ever-growing utility, U.S. and European courts are interpreting the tech company’s scale as being on the tipping point of monopoly.

 Reuters reports the argument stems from Google’s ability to dominate specific advertising playing fields that carry information to the tune of 150,000 online ad sales per second. That’s about 6,000,000 ad sales in just the time it has taken you to read this blog post so far. Basically, the tech giant is on trial for having control over both the competitors and customers in the digital advertising stage.

This trial isn’t the first time Google’s been to court this year for alleged monopolistic practices. As of September 18th, Google avoided a hefty fine in European court against anti-trust accusations. In August of this year, a federal judge ruled that Google’s search function was an illegal monopoly, but Google’s ad tech was unscathed by the outcome in this case.

Moving forward with the current case, the court is likely to hear arguments from Google’s counsel that the tech giant should not have to apologize for its size, nor that it should have to placate competitors. One possible outcome if the court sides with the prosecution is that Google may have to lob off Google Ads Manager from the trunk of the search giant’s tree.

A World Without Google Ads Manager?

Ad sales are a major contributor to Google’s revenue. In 2023, advertising alone was responsible for 78% of Alphabet’s (parent company of Google) earnings. A world without Google Ads Manager could have big consequences for the digital marketing landscape, as that 78% of market share is ripe with millions of dollars of advertising budgets that are still looking to be spent. With ad sales that big of a revenue stream, it’s unlikely Google would let Ads Manager, or some similar function, go without a fight. Couple that with a drop in Google’s search engine share (to a still high 91% in June of 2024), and we may see some strategic changes coming from Google to reclaim lost ground and preserve current services.

The bottom line, though, is that while Google is in relatively hot water, there is no reason to pull content from Google Ads yet. The traffic remains astoundingly high on this platform and this case implicating Ads Manager still has lengths to go in court. A well-conceived marketing strategy would still put eggs in multiple baskets, however, to be most effective. We’ll cover some of those other baskets in the next section.

Sizing Up the Digital Marketing Competition

When thinking about Google’s competition, it may be hard to readily name them. The alternatives are a mixed bag. Some are relatively tried and true, others are relatively new, like:

·         Bing: Google’s largest competitor at 3.4% of the market – also supported by a large rival tech company, Microsoft.

·         DuckDuckGo: Reserves 2% of the market – DuckDuckGo does not store user information, so what it offers in privacy it lacks in personalization.

·         YouChat: AI search assistant that resembles more of a search engine than ChatGPT.

·         Arc Search: AI assisted search for modern operating systems – this search engine does not support older devices.

·         Brave Search: Privacy focused, no tracking – users can customize what they wish to include or exclude from search results.

Social Media and Digital Marketing

Likely some of the strongest competitors for paid advertising placement are the major social media platforms of Tik Tok and Meta. Tik Tok claims a 38% share of searches for information, which is a tangible affront to Google’s dominance for search. However, Tik Tok cannot display content that exists outside of Tik Tok like a search engine could, and brands are further limited by the need to post videos regularly to establish and build an audience. Though a sizeable foe, perhaps the best way to crack Tik Tok is to approach it from the strategic perspective of an influencer rather than a PPC campaign manager.

Meta on the other hand, is much more conducive to PPC campaigns. Meta earned $132 billion in ad spend in 2023. Not as much as Google, but a substantial chunk of the overall market gets diverted to Meta’s platforms. Paid Social campaign managers will appreciate the affordability of bids relative to Google Ads Manager. Additionally, 1.2 billion people search for goods on Facebook Marketplace each month, which splits the global searches on Google by a large amount.

Where Should I Place My Ads?

The whole point of spending the valuable time and hard-earned money on ads in a PPC campaign is for current and future audience members to see them and make your desired conversion. Based on the extremely high percentage of market share captured by Google, Google Ads is a highly recommended place to focus at least a portion of advertising budgets. Google offers brands the bulk of online search engine traffic with software accoutrements like Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager to make a satisfyingly complete group of tools to track ROI. Even if the court orders Google to divest part of its digital advertising software, Google itself would still likely be a prime location to place ads, whatever that will look like.

Meta’s social media platforms of Facebook and Instagram are also valuable for brands to dedicate ad spend on. The number of users of Meta’s platforms are in the billions, so there are plenty of audiences to reach. Additionally, advertising on Meta is cost effective relative to Google, and comes with supportive analytic software of its own for data-driven analysis of the ROI.

Google’s competition mentioned earlier in this post, like Bing and DuckDuckGo, may be compelling to use to try to reach new audiences, but there are some salient points that may discourage brands from wholly using these platforms. The single-digit market share for most of the competition just doesn’t justify spending ad budgets where traffic doesn’t exist. Another aspect to consider is that some don’t register IP addresses or other forms of data to use to generate analytical conclusions with. Basically, it would be very hard to tell if you are seeing the kind of return you need to justify your PPC campaign.

Your Next PPC Campaign

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