Get the Download on What the Google Monopoly Ruling Means for Search

Google Monopoly, What it Means & The Future of Search

Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that Google violated antitrust laws in a landmark case that the Department of Justice brought against the tech giant. Today we are going to explore what this means for advertisers. Any company that spends money on Google Ads should look into some of the details of the case, but since they can be so technical, we’re going to dedicate this blog to walking you through a few of the major points that we feel every advertiser should know.

4 Points of the Ruling & What It Means for Marketers

Point 1: Networks

When advertising with all search engines — Google, Microsoft Ads, Yahoo!, as well as partners like Meta or LinkedIn — advertisers can choose to advertise on Google.com directly and/or on their search networks. Both Microsoft and Google allow this functionality, even if advertisers are not aware of this setting. It’s common for both companies to make the network the default setting on a new account. This allows a new advertiser to show ads on network partners, as well as Google.com or Bing.com directly. They do this to allow maximum reach for clients who are using the same keywords to search for products and services on other websites.

• DOJ POV: Google was getting a large portion of its volume of clicks from outside of Google.com (that is, through their search or network partners) — which many advertisers may not have even been aware of. They may have thought that it was all coming from Google properties.

• MindgruveMacarta POV: For years, we have analyzed the difference in performance from clicks on search partners compared to Google. We measure everything from the cost of the click, the cost of the lead, and how the lead performed (that is, whether it converted into a sale) for our clients. We have consistently seen search partner traffic underperform, so we tend to turn this option off for the majority of our clients.

Point 2: Profitability

Part of being a monopoly is that customers do not have a choice or the choice they have is not a comparable product. During this case, there was testimony from large clients like JP Morgan Chase and Home Depot about their inability to shift spend to the competing platform by Microsoft. Microsoft’s engine, Bing, was unable to handle the volume from these clients at near the same efficiency. As a result, large clients were “forced” to use Google or risk losing customers.

• DOJ POV: Part of the discovery in this case highlighted how large clients like Home Depot and JPMorgan Chase couldn’t shift their spend from Google to Microsoft Ads because Google’s platform is built to scale more efficiently than Microsoft’s.

• MindgruveMacarta POV: We have seen the limitations that advertising on Bing poses across all of the clients we work for. Our challenges with Microsoft Ads primarily relate to the quality of traffic and the platform’s ability to reach a wider audience, which effectively reinforces the recent ruling: Clients find that they must be on Google or they’ll miss out on new customers.

Point 3: Google isn’t dominant in non-search or non-text ads (images)

Google knew that their business model wasn’t as dominant in capturing traffic in non-search or non-text ad formats. Think social (like the marketing that appears on Meta) or display (like platforms such as The Trade Desk, which serve non-text-based ads). As a result, Google focused on securing their authority in the search world. Their methods of holding that market captive is what’s at issue in the recent ruling.

• DOJ POV: Because Google became the default search engine on devices and browsers, they also became the default text ad platform (for Apple phones or Safari) to limit Microsoft’s growth and subdue their competition. In 2022, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, paid Apple $20 billion annually to be Safari’s default search engine. 

• MindgruveMacarta POV: When it comes to which media we’ll run for our clients, we’re agnostic. We recommend whatever’s in the best interest of our client. We also make sure they are reaching customers through all aspects of the buying journey, which means leveraging social platforms, display platforms, endemic platforms, CTV, radio, and more. The key is making sure to measure performance with our analytics team on how each media channel drives lasting results. 

Point 4: Google hid or made things difficult

For years, Google has slowly been removing different metrics that we, as advertisers, found useful, mostly under the guide that those metrics weren’t useful or necessary. An example of this: Average ad position. 

Regular advertisers used to be able to see what the average position was and we’d make adjustments accordingly. We didn’t want to be too high (and therefore paying too much) or too low (missing out on opportunities). In one sense, Google is correct in that generating the appropriate ROAS or target CPL matters more than metrics relating to the average position of an ad. This week’s ruling, however, provided some clarity into Google’s thinking behind its decision to remove or obfuscate metrics.

• DOJ POV: The ruling asserted that Google’s monopolistic power allowed it to increase text ad prices without any competitive constraint. Effectively, it could make auction adjustments without having to consider the pricing of Microsoft Ads or any other rival. Google has long operated within a supracompetitive market that it dominated. As such, the ruling found, it only worried about bad publicity — which it avoided through upping its prices so secretively and incrementally that many advertisers didn’t even realize that Google was responsible for the shift into unsustainable costs.

• MindgruveMacarta POV: As metrics disappeared, our teams focused on what mattered for our clients — the bottom line. Regardless of what we could or couldn’t see, the goal was always to maximize the investment that was entrusted to us. We constructed accounts that delivered the maximum ROAS, target CPL, or desired lead volume within the correct geographic area. The key to consistently delivering these goals for clients resulted from partnering with analytics — something that cannot be done when the different specialties within a media team are siloed. 

What does this ruling mean for the future of search?

Rest assured, Google is still going to be operating as a search engine, and a powerful one. But we could see some game-changing possible outcomes from this case:

• Google may provide more transparency into performance — restoring some of the metrics, such as average position, that were previously available to advertisers.

• When the EU ruled against Google in Shopping, Google was forced to open up their shopping functionality to competitors and reduce CPC costs. A similar approach could be taken with search following this case.

• Google may be forced to renegotiate deals, like the $20-billion-a-year one they have with Apple, that make it easier for customers to switch from the default search. Data may have to be shared differently than it is today. If this ruling holds, this feature of the case is likely to be one of the biggest changes that it causes.

Immediate Next Steps to Protect Your Search Investment

If you are spending money on Google Ads or Microsoft Ads right now, this is a great time to conduct an audit. Evaluate each campaign to make sure it’s meeting or exceeding the goals you’ve set. As the case has outlined, Google made changes that some advertisers may not be aware of that are costing them their hard-earned money.

Additional sources on the case details:

• Google has an illegal monopoly
• Google’s illegal search monopoly
• Google Antitrust Case
• Google is official a monopoly

Want to ask a question or learn more? Get in touch with us today.

MindgruveMacarta Lands on the Inc. 5000 List for Seven Consecutive Years

MindgruveMacarta has once again been recognized on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list, “America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies.” This marks the seventh consecutive year for Mindgruve and the fourth consecutive year for Macarta to achieve this distinguished honor. This dual recognition highlights our continued commitment to innovation, excellence, and growth within the marketing and advertising industry. MindgruveMacarta is recognized alongside brands like Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, and more. 

The recent merger between the two companies brings together two of the fastest-growing agencies in the U.S. to unite their award-winning expertise in performance marketing, retail media, and analytics into a seamless, integrated offering. With more than 300 employees across seven offices in San Diego, Denver, Mexico City, São Paulo, Amsterdam, Madrid, and London, MindgruveMacarta is now one of the top independent, performance marketing and retail media agencies in the world. 

“It’s an honor to be recognized by Inc. Magazine, especially during this transformational moment for us,” said Chad Robley, Chairman and CEO of the combined agency. “As MindgruveMacarta, we are well positioned to attract ambitious global brands seeking a fully integrated, omni-channel approach to performance marketing, retail media, and advanced analytics.”

MindgruveMacarta will now bring together industry expertise in consumer, CPG, B2B, healthcare, financial services, and technology sectors as well as deep platform experience in Google, Meta, Linkedin, Amazon, Walmart and Mercado Libre.

“Our merger with Mindgruve amplifies our capabilities, giving clients access to the most advanced media mix modeling, cross-platform attribution and in-depth data science,” said Mike Hodges, CEO of Macarta, who will become President of MindgruveMacarta. “MindgruveMacarta being named to the Inc. 5000 list is a clear indication of our team’s dedication and the successful results we’ve achieved for our clients.”

As MindgruveMacarta continues to grow and evolve, our team is driven by one common purpose — accelerating business growth through data-driven marketing, creative, and commerce.Want to ask a question or learn more? Get in touch with us today.

Google’s Decision to Retain Third-Party Cookies: What It Means for Marketers

Google’s news headlines have been dominated by a federal judge’s ruling on antitrust violations lately. But the tech giant has also made waves by announcing it no longer plans to deprecate third-party cookies in its Chrome web browser.

Third-Party Cookies & Privacy Concerns

Third-party cookies are among the most fundamental components for advertisers to track and isolate web users across the internet to serve more personalized ads based on individual behaviors or attributes. However, this level of user tracking has long raised privacy concerns from NGOs and governments alike on regional, national and global scales. Industry titans like Apple and Mozilla had more proactively implemented third-party cookie deprecation and options for users to opt out of this type of personal tracking and data sharing. In turn, this pushed companies like Google and Meta to respond in kind despite the awareness that it could diminish their annual ad-supported revenues.

Stakeholder Concerns Over Deprecating Third-Party Cookies

Google had publicly planned to deprecate third-party cookies since 2020. But significant pressures from stakeholders with conflicting opinions and interests led to multiple delays in Google’s timeline to implement the deprecation in full (most recently announcing a delay into 2025). 

On one side, Google shareholders, advertisers and publishers working with Google had concerns about the detrimental impact these changes could have on annual revenues, leading Google to implement small-scale tests across portions of their Chrome users to better understand the impact on advertising. Co-participants in these tests like Criteo noted these tests pointed to a potential average revenue loss of 60% for publishers.

On another side, trade groups, regulators and Google competitors shared concerns about risks associated with third-party cookie tracking alternatives, like Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox, and the potential for an unequal playing field. In place of third-party cookies tied to individuals, Google’s alternative plan has been to control access to their user-level data in what’s often described as a “walled garden.” Marketers would still gain access to Google targeting data allowing for personalized advertising, but only for cohorts or groups of people with similar attributes as opposed to individual users. This solution, however, has raised antitrust concerns as the deprecation of third-party cookies would have an outsized impact on smaller industry competitors who lack the advantages Google has within their massive walled gardens of user data. Essentially, Google would still benefit from their owned user data while deprecating or disabling the ability of their smaller cookie-reliant competitors to access the same type of information at an equally granular level. Additional risks revolve around the fact that Google would have significant control over how cohorts are defined and what attributes would be made available to other companies, undercutting the ability of small and large companies alike to develop their own audience definitions and cohorts.

What Retaining Third-Party Cookies Means for Marketers & Chrome Users

With so many competing perspectives on how Google should best navigate these changes, Google ultimately decided to end its plans for third-party cookie deprecation while still proceeding with its Privacy Sandbox solution. While this benefits publishers and advertisers within the Google ecosystem in the near term, many questions about how Google will proceed in the coming years are unanswered. Google has stated they will work to provide Chrome users greater control over which aspects of their data are shared and how they are tracked, and many analysts predict that could still seriously limit the prevalence of third-party cookies. Significant data loss would still occur if a significant amount of Chrome users elected to opt-out of this type of tracking and/or data sharing–if Apple’s iOS opt-in experience is at all similar to what Google may implement, it’s worth noting that only 24% of US iOS app users elected to opt-in to tracking in 2023.

While it’s likely Chrome users will soon gain more readily available controls over how they’re tracked and how their data is shared — as Google continues to build traction towards their Privacy Sandbox solutions — the only certain thing is the fact that any subsequent changes to Google’s publishing and advertising environments will continue to create seismic ripples in the digital media ecosystem for years to come, and Google decision to reverse the phase-out of 3rd party cookies in Chrome in no way alleviates the importance of advertisers and publishers alike to better prepare themselves for these implications. 

Want to ask a question or learn more? Get in touch with us today.

Navigating the Narrow Straits of Retail Media Creative

Imagine this: A vibrant, innovative skincare brand known for its quirky, bold advertising campaigns finds itself at the threshold of a major retail media platform. Eager to make a splash in a new market, the brand prepares to unleash its latest campaign, filled with the same humor and creativity that has become its signature. But as they ready their launch, they hit a wall — not of ideas, but of rules. The platform’s guidelines encourage a more streamlined approach, which can challenge brands to adapt their vibrant essence within these boundaries, often resulting in a more simplified version of their advertisements.

This isn’t just a challenge — it’s a clear example of how retail media’s regulated environment can sometimes limit the flexibility brands are used to. In a space where the rules often favor consistency, finding ways to maintain creative flair can require new approaches.

The Rise of Retail Media

Retail media has ascended rapidly, evolving from a niche advertising avenue to a cornerstone of modern marketing strategies. This transformation was fueled by the digital revolution, which shifted consumer shopping habits online and into the arms of major retail platforms, like Amazon Marketplace. Retail media networks allow brands to advertise directly within these platforms, targeting consumers at the point of purchase with unprecedented precision. This model not only capitalizes on the high traffic these retail sites command but also leverages detailed consumer data for highly targeted advertising.

However, this rise comes with a caveat. Unlike the direct-to-consumer (DTC) shopping experience on a brand’s website — which offers full control over messaging, aesthetics, and customer experience — retail media operates within a more constrained environment. With a DTC approach, brands thrive on the principles of creativity and personal connection, enabling unique narratives that resonate deeply with their audience. This freedom to experiment and directly engage with consumers is different from the more structured environment of retail media advertising, where consistency and efficiency are key. While DTC channels allow for direct and intimate connections with audiences, retail media offers a unique opportunity to reach consumers at critical points in their purchasing journey, even if it requires working within certain creative frameworks.

Identifying Boundaries of Creativity

Retail media platforms, with their vast reach and efficiency, often have guidelines that shape how brands express their creativity. These rules, which include specific ad formats, color usage, and content guidelines, are intended to create a cohesive user experience across the platform. While they may require brands to adjust their approach, they also present an opportunity to find new ways to creatively convey a brand’s identity within these frameworks.

While these guidelines can sometimes lead to more consistent messaging across the platform, they may also challenge brands to find ways to stand out within a shared creative space. As companies navigate similar creative frameworks, it can be harder to maintain the distinct voices and aesthetics that help differentiate them. However, by thoughtfully adapting their strategies, brands can continue to express their unique identities and connect with consumers, even in a more standardized environment. Differentiation remains essential, and finding creative solutions within these boundaries can help brands continue to thrive.

The Double-Edged Sword of Compliance

Adhering to retail media guidelines is a double-edged sword. On one side, compliance ensures that a brand’s advertisements are spread across high-traffic platforms, tapping into a vast pool of potential customers at a critical point in their purchasing journey. This alignment with platform standards can enhance ad performance, as it leverages the platform’s optimized user experience and targeting capabilities, potentially leading to increased visibility and sales.

On the flip side, there is the potential for creative dilution and a subtle shift in brand identity. As brands adapt to the standards of retail media platforms, some of the unique elements that define their visual and communicative style may evolve. This adaptation can sometimes blur the lines between brand personalities, making it more challenging for consumers to immediately recognize and connect with specific brands. Over time, this could result in ads feeling more similar across various brands, making it even more important to find creative ways to stand out in a competitive marketplace.

Creative Strategies Within Constraints

Navigating the tightrope of creativity within the constraints of retail media requires a blend of innovation, strategy, and a deep understanding of what makes your brand unique. Here are actionable strategies to help brands maintain their creative edge without stepping outside the bounds of retail media norms.

• Leverage visual storytelling: Within the confines of standardized formats, use high-quality, visually compelling images that tell a story at a glance. Innovative use of colors, textures, and composition can convey brand personality and values, even in a small space.

• Focus on copywriting excellence: Every word must pack a punch when space is limited. Use concise, impactful copy that reflects your brand’s voice. Clever use of language can differentiate your brand and engage customers in a meaningful way.

• Personalize your approach: Use the platform’s targeting capabilities to tailor your creative messages to specific audiences. Personalized ads can stand out by speaking directly to the needs, interests, and emotions of individual consumers.

• Experiment within guidelines: Test different creative approaches within the platform’s guidelines to see what resonates with your audience. A/B testing can help identify which elements of your creative strategy are most effective.

Conclusion

In the competitive landscape of retail media, creativity isn’t just an asset — it’s a necessity for brands aiming to build and sustain a strong presence. The constraints imposed by retail media platforms should not be seen as barriers but as opportunities to innovate within a framework. The ability to adapt and inject creativity into every campaign is paramount. Brands that do this successfully not only stand out but also forge deeper connections with their audience, turning potential limitations into a showcase of their ingenuity and resilience.Want to ask a question or learn more? Get in touch with us today.