April 04, 2007 | Wednesday

Google muddies the TV ad waters

By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Marketing |News |Online Sales |Search Engines |Google

In the US, Google is getting into the TV ad business in a most curious way. The search giant will create a system to buy and monitor ad purchases on behalf of satellite TV operator Echostar. Google has been dipping its toes into the offline ad water for some time, but what surprised me about this venture is how Google seems to sell short the measurability of online search engine marketing by claiming that its system for Echostar can also measure the effectiveness of TV ads.

While Google may be able to give good statistics on how many people have viewed an ad, unlike with its online ad sales, it won’t be in a position to give advertisers a good idea of how well their ads are turning into sales, the true measure of an ad’s performance.

When it comes to measurability and gauging effectiveness, search engine marketing still cannot be beat - whether Google seems to have momentarily forgotten that or not.