Google buys DoubleClick for 3.1 Billion
April 14, 2007 | Comments (3) | Filed under: Advertising
After tons of speculation that Microsoft or Yahoo was going to pick up rival ad network DoubleClick, it seems Google was the only company willing to do what was needed to get the deal done. Today, Google announced that it has purchased DoubleClick for 3.1 Billion dollars, almost double what they paid just last year for YouTube. This is a huge acquisition for Google who’s been trying to get a foothold into display ads and expand outside of its already dominant contextual ads business. DoubleClick was arguably the leader in this arena. The biggest benefit to Google with this purchase is the substantial portfolio of existing customers that come along with the deal. DoubleClick has cultivated many relationships with huge online businesses and Google will immediately jump right into the game as a result. It probably doesn’t hurt that they took the company away from Microsoft and Yahoo in the process as well 
What will this mean for all of us trying to make money online? Well, for starters the introduction of this new avenue for advertising may open a whole new suite of options for web publishers. For months Google has been testing new options for directly competing with services like CommissionJunction or AdBrite to offer advertising on a pay-per-action model rather than a pay-per-click one. DoubleClick might just give them a massive shot in the arm of businesses to get these new tools off and running.
In addition, they also improve their status substantially in the eyes of big companies who previously thought that contextual ads were low quality. DoubleClick gives Google the tools it needs to really support these huge businesses and really put a stranglehold on the online advertising front from all directions. Will that translate to more adverstising revenue coming to small publishers? I guess we’ll have to wait for Google to detail its big plans.
Interesting news though. What do you guys think of this deal? I can’t imagine Google did this for the tools that DoubleClick has, it must have been for the clients and to stop Microsoft. What’s 3.1 Billion to stop a competitor? Apparently nothing for Google!
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3 people have left comments
It’s astounding the prices that these things sell for! Each company acquires another, and before we know it, it will all be one company…sort of like AT&T, splitting then buying things back!
Google is definitely the king of the web now. Even Yahoo, Microsoft and AT&T are starting a campaign to push regulators to examine the $3.2 billion purchase of DoubleClick.
I can’t believe all the companies that are starting the campaign against Google for this purchase. I guess, what else can they do really? Seems like every one of the sore losers in the acquisition are going to try and make the government help them out…
Will be interesting to see if any of them succeed.