GOOGLE Radio Ad Buying Service

Any of you sales and media buyer types have an opinion on this? I talked to an Atlanta carpet guy today who says he's buying prime spots for ridiculously low rates on mainline Atlanta stations through google. It seems you can actually bid on the price you want to pay for a spot. (And I'm not talking about buying a spot on crappy AMs after sundown)...not quite dollar-hollers, but my source says its not too far off...basically, its buying unsold inventory at the last second.

Someone set me straight...what am I missing here?

I don't know if true or not, but it wouldn't surprise me. Corporate radio cleaned (most cases) out the highest paid and most creative not just in on air talent but also in sales. Wall Streeters understand numbers only, so they did not understand the value of keeping individuals who can operate on the side of psychological selling and psychological inventory control. They replaced them with people they do understand, other number crunchers. Result, poor on air quality making listenership numbers slide leading to the new sales teams not having a clue how to handle it. They allow clients/agencies to beat them up and revenue slides. Wall Streeters panic, demand money on the books, managers start treating inventory like empty air plane seats, "get SOMETHING for it", revenue gets worse, clients/agencies know how to work the psychology and sweat them for even more. Meanwhile the on air gets more drab and depressed, managers have no money to promote and radio quits delivering results (also a function of the general economy and the sales teams are certainly clueless on dealing with this compounding) and so clients/agencies are almost demanding to be paid to place ads on station. So the numbers gurus go to their last play, auction it off on e-bay along with your ex-grandmother-in-laws collection of lace hankies from the Hoover years.

Does this explanation make sense troone?

As someone who once board opped at a station where the google spots played I can tell you that from all I heard and experienced I didn't like it.
The spots can't moved at all and if you have a host that is habitually late to breaks you had to do some juggling with spots and having to make sure your other spots didn't play out of day part along with the google ones which if they did play out of day part or should I call it "hour part" because if a spot was schedculed for8-9 am and played at 9:00 and 10 seconds it was considered out of daypart and needed a make good.
Also, from what I heard any make good spots had to be made good 3-1 so for every one spot played out of daypart google was owed 3 make goods.
True some vigilence on the part of the board op, producer & host would avoid that problem but why even accept terms like that?
Are you really getting the rates you want? Are you really having to plug promos & PSA's into areas where you're not selling?
Seems like a losing proposition to me.

Are they taking on new stations? I heard everything was on hold.

It’s true. I sold for a station in Jacksonville Fl that used Google’s service. The deal is Google can log on the server and look your unsold inventory and buy everything at a low ball rate. No lower than policital. My station claimed they wouldn’t sell to local accounts or agencies. Ya right they lie.

Radio is struggling. And the time is closer than you know when all agency buys will be made on the internet without the service of an AE. Get it they won’t pay you commission!

There were a few of our reps selling on Ebay! The days of self service are here.

Even if this were to take off, advertisers will always need that production value. Google can't produce the commercial for them. Well, I should not say can't. I suppose they could. This still leaves a value to some at the station level.

The industry is changing and the best way to stay competitive and employed is to change with it. Learn about how its changing and how your going to profit from it.

I agree that you must change with the constant changes but not all changes will be good/profitable or last very long. The internet is a tool, if you let the tool use you then you are just plain stupid or extremely lazy. Either way you don't want to offer your inventory up for bid in a sliding economy.

Definitely a losing proposition but that's probably why the "pretend broadcasters" like it. Hope they all use it NOW so they'll hit CHAPTER 7 more quickly.

Stewy said:

I agree that you must change with the constant changes but not all changes will be good/profitable or last very long. The internet is a tool, if you let the tool use you then you are just plain stupid or extremely lazy. Either way you don't want to offer your inventory up for bid in a sliding economy.

Definitely a losing proposition but that's probably why the "pretend broadcasters" like it. Hope they all use it NOW so they'll hit CHAPTER 7 more quickly.

Click to expand...

Uh? Let me get this straight.

You now have a chance to SELL your UN-sold inventory. This is a bad thing?
If you utilize it and place more money on the books, you'll hit CHAPTER 7?

Consumers are now use to going to any site and buying on line, why not this industry?

I'm studid and lazy? ???

The point (against Google Radio in this case) might be the devaluing of your product. Once you start discounting you open quite the can 'o worms. Imagine your local or national clients seeing that you are letting spots go for a dollar a holler. How much longer do you think they will pay the rate you've been charging them all these years?

tcsnrayp said:

The point (against Google Radio in this case) might be the devaluing of your product. Once you start discounting you open quite the can 'o worms. Imagine your local or national clients seeing that you are letting spots go for a dollar a holler. How much longer do you think they will pay the rate you've been charging them all these years?

Click to expand...

You bring up a good point. Need to strike a balance, knowing Google Radio ain't going away.

It's new technology, but lowballing isn't new, even having companies come in and scarf up your unsold industry (those cheese-nip safety campaigns for example, although they charge buku bucks).

I was told that Google wanted a ten thousand dollar up-front payment from a station to join the Google network. Plus you had to switch to the Scott automation.

Radio has become a commodity. It never was, but now it is. Bla, bla, bla, it’s all the same..

Similar products like beans, and coffee and the only thing that separates them is price.
How low will you go?

I don't think the top stations are a buck a cluck. Many of Google's stations are rimshots and county stations. But the better stations are on Bid4Spots, which isn't quite as bad.

Here in Palm Springs we got the Scott automation system when Scott still owned it a while back. When Google took over we started running the spots. It has been all good for us. Dollars coming in from spots that otherwise would have been PSA's.

SALESGUY2000 said:

There were a few of our reps selling on Ebay! The days of self service are here.

Click to expand...

So how is iit working for them?

Just read in radio and records today Google is ending this service.

12 In a Row said:

tcsnrayp said:

The point (against Google Radio in this case) might be the devaluing of your product. Once you start discounting you open quite the can 'o worms. Imagine your local or national clients seeing that you are letting spots go for a dollar a holler. How much longer do you think they will pay the rate you've been charging them all these years?

Click to expand...

You bring up a good point. Need to strike a balance, knowing Google Radio ain't going away.

Click to expand...

Well, Google selling radio ads is done, as of today - see a story here on radio info as well as on allaccess...

As for how it had worked previously - it was relatively simple...Since google bought scott studios, the had the ability to see what avails were not being used by station inventory - and then they would fill it with ad's sold to googles national clients...it was a win/win to a certain degree, but back in 2005 at the stations I worked for wayyyyyyy up north, it was a nighmare for my traffic person reconciling what google spots aired, etc.

The stations I worked for back then paid for the scott studios by airing google spots - it took about a year to pay off, but in the end, it was worth it - and after it was paid off, then there was additional revenue for avails that weren't being sold anyway.

I know some programming people who would disagree that getting Scott was worth anything... cash or barter don't matter when the product is not suited for the job.

radiopropd said:

12 In a Row said:

tcsnrayp said:

The point (against Google Radio in this case) might be the devaluing of your product. Once you start discounting you open quite the can 'o worms. Imagine your local or national clients seeing that you are letting spots go for a dollar a holler. How much longer do you think they will pay the rate you've been charging them all these years?

Click to expand...

You bring up a good point. Need to strike a balance, knowing Google Radio ain't going away.

Click to expand...

Well, Google selling radio ads is done, as of today - see a story here on radio info as well as on allaccess...

As for how it had worked previously - it was relatively simple...Since google bought scott studios, the had the ability to see what avails were not being used by station inventory - and then they would fill it with ad's sold to googles national clients...it was a win/win to a certain degree, but back in 2005 at the stations I worked for wayyyyyyy up north, it was a nighmare for my traffic person reconciling what google spots aired, etc.

The stations I worked for back then paid for the scott studios by airing google spots - it took about a year to pay off, but in the end, it was worth it - and after it was paid off, then there was additional revenue for avails that weren't being sold anyway.

Click to expand...