Google Unveils Integrated Digital Marketing Management Platform

The importance of organizing and integrating a company's digital marketing strategies for easier management, ROI analysis and improvement is repeated advice in online articles on digital marketing.  Google appears to be making this a click easier with its unveiling of “DoubleClick Digital Marketing.”  

The platform brings together all aspects of digital advertising channels into one integrated super channel for advertisers to better manage and control ad campaigns.  It includes the following components:

• Ad server to manage directly bought ad space (DoubleClick Digital Marketing Manager)
• Bid manager to automate the purchase of ad space and targeting of those ads (DoubleClick Bid Manager)
• A search management platform to manage search campaigns across search engines (DoubleClick Search)
• "Media rich" ad creation tools (DoubleClick Studio)
• Ad campaign and website traffic reports (Google Analytics)

According to Google, combining these marketing tools in one integrated platform will save companies time and money, allow for better understanding of which digital marketing choices are most effective.  The tool does not appear to include marketing channels such as non-ad Email and non-ad social Media  marketing activities. 

This sounds like a logical next step in Google's world domination, er…I mean ad product development efforts, but it seems like it raises questions of monopoly and perhaps conflict of interest, for the online search and advertising-based company that has been acquiring, on average, more than one company per week since 2010.    After all, if Google owns the search results page and the software/applications used to manage ads and many media properties that search results are filtered through (YouTube, MetaWeb, etc.), and a large percentage of online ads pace and adwords..is it really to be trusted for organizing and analyzing advertising and search results for companies?  Advertisers don't seem concerned, but perhaps the European Commission and/or Google’s integrated digital marketing management competitors like AppNexus and Adobe will be.  The Commission's preliminary antitrust investigation findings cite concerns that Google hinders competition through activities including quasi-exclusivity agreements with Google Ads partner sites; making it difficult for AdWords customers to port their ad campaigns to rival services; and that Google may be giving its own services preferential treatment over rivals'.

It remains to be seen if Google’s new DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform, will be the 900 pound gorilla in the integrated digital marketing management and how its jump in the pool will rock the competition.