Alphabet Inc.’s Google has tweaked its advertising auctions to ensure it meets revenue targets, sometimes increasing ad prices by as much as 5%, an executive for the company testified Monday at a federal antitrust trial.
Jerry Dischler, vice president for Google’s advertising products, said the company frequently makes changes to the auctions it uses to sell search ads – the text and shopping promotions that appear at the top of a results page in response to user queries. Those changes can involve increasing the cost of ads or minimum spending on an ad, known as the reserve pricing, he said. Even when those “tunings” impact ad prices, Google typically doesn’t tell advertisers, Dischler testified.
About two-thirds, more than 60%, of Google’s total revenue comes from search ads, Dischler said, and in 2020 that amounted to more than $100 billion. Every year since 2012, the company’s search ad revenue growth has been in the “high teens,” according to documents shown by the Justice Department Monday. The exact numbers were redacted.
In response to questions by DOJ lawyer David Dahlquist, Dischler acknowledged that he said in a sworn 2020 interview that some of the auction changes led to 5% increases for the typical advertiser. He also said that it was “possible” that some changes led to price increases of as much as 10% for some queries.
But Dischler said Monday he believes most advertisers would move to rivals like Meta Platforms Inc. or ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok if Google tried to increase prices by 15%.Dischler acknowledged, however, that he didn’t have any reason to believe that even with a 15% increase Google wouldn’t keep enough advertisers so that the company’s revenue still rose.
One change that increased Google’s revenue, known as RGSP, switched the auction so the runner-up was given the top advertiser slot and the actual winner the second spot, according to Dischler. Oftentimes major advertisers like Amazon.com Inc. or Booking Holdings Inc. win any ad auctions where they bid and take the top slot, Dischler said.Dischler said he didn’t know if the change led advertisers to place higher bids, but it increased Google’s revenue.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Verizon executive testifies Google search always pre-installed on mobile phonesThe U.S. Justice Department on Monday questioned a Verizon executive about the company's decision to always pre-install Google's Chrome browser with Google search on its mobile phones, as the government sought to show that Alphabet's Google broke antitrust law to maintain its dominance in online search. Brian Higgins, a 28-year Verizon veteran who was on a team from 2017 to 2023 that struck deals with Google to pick software to preload onto the carrier's phones, testified in a federal court in Washington: 'To the best of my knowledge, I believe it is pre-installed all the time.' The government argues Google's $10 billion in payments annually to mobile carriers and others helped the California-based tech giant win powerful default positions on smartphones and elsewhere, which fed data into other lucrative parts of its business, such as online advertising.
Read more »
Russian missiles hit agriculture facility in Odesa - Ukraine's Air Force(Reuters) - Russia launched a combined drone and missile attack on Ukraine early on Sunday, targeting chiefly the southern parts of the Odesa region ...
Read more »
Russia says it hit armoured vehicle repair plant in Ukraine's Kharkiv(Reuters) - Russia has carried out a missile strike on a plant in the northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv where armoured vehicles for Ukraine's ...
Read more »
Russian missiles hit agriculture facility in Odesa says Ukraine’s Air ForceRussia launched six Iranian-made Shahed drones and 10 cruise missiles, targeting southern Odesa and hitting an agriculture facility. Ukraine’s forces destroyed six drones and six missiles before they hit their target
Read more »
Ukraine farm worker killed when tractor hit mineKYIV (Reuters) - One farm worker died and another was injured on Sunday in Ukraine's southern Kherson region after their tractor hit a mine while ...
Read more »
ChatGPT expects XRP’s price to hit $2-$3 by the end of 2023I asked ChatGPT to predict the average price of XRP by the end of 2023. The bot predicted it to hit $2-$3.
Read more »