Google Budget Optimizer: Good for You or Good for Google?
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Written By Reprise Media | April 7, 2005 | Share This
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Yesterday we saw a surprising statistic about the Google vs. Overture marketshare. Having long thought the two ran side by side (outside the contextual component), this article (registration required) suggests Google accounts for nearly twice the search budgets that Overture does.
After reading about Google’s Budget Optimizer this disparity makes a whole lot of sense. The Budget Optimizer is just one more entry in a long line of esoteric, black-box solutions and network management features designed to encourage advertisers to spend more money.
Google’s description of the tool claims:
“The Budget Optimizer helps you reach your target spend every month without requiring a lot of work on your part. You can save time, eliminate the guesswork related to setting your CPCs, and enhance your return on investment.”
As if your target spend has anything to do with your return on investment. Gross revenues maybe, but ROI? Not so fast…
The Budget Optimizer won’t help you attain or hold specific rankings on prioritized keywords and it won’t help you direct disproportionate shares of your spend towards the top-performing keywords. In other words, it won’t help you spend your money where your money is best spent. Rather, it’ll help you receive the highest number of clicks possible within your budget and spend your full budget.
Frankly, we’re having trouble understanding how a serious advertiser would value this service, outside the fabled ‘Brewster’s Millions’ clause (which incidentally hasn’t been seen in action since 1985).
Randy Schwartz is Director of Strategic Development at Reprise Media.
Topics: Google |