Nichols said Wpromote allocates 40-60% of clients’ media budgets to lower-funnel Pmax campaigns.
A Google spokesperson told ADWEEK: “We have and will continue to increase transparency for Performance Max advertisers in privacy-safe ways. Our current reporting helps advertisers understand their ad placements and optimize performance based on actionable data.”
So Google is increasing transparency in some ways, but will it actually give up the suggested placement and performance data?
Arielle Garcia, chief operating officer, Check My Ads, notes that more transparency could be possible: “In both trials, we’ve seen Google seemingly, begrudgingly, crack open the black box a little bit—that trend is only going to continue. It’s not like we’re seeing the antitrust scrutiny wane at all.”
Google said at the time that it would appeal the remedies.
Since then, it looks like Google has been trying to dilute the impacts of the trial. This month, it reportedly pushed the DOJ to rescind breaking up the company.
“As we’ve publicly said, we’re concerned that the current proposals would harm the American economy and national security,” Google communications manager Peter Schottenfels said in a statement.
According to all three sources, there’s no technical barrier preventing Google from offering granular reporting across its platforms.
But regardless of whether Google can (or wants to) be more transparent with its data or not, the more practical question is whether buyers can receive this level of detail, given that only a select few buyers would have the resources and the time to make sense of the something like the much-requested URL-level reporting, according to an article from Digiday.
“It’s a lot of data for advertisers to discern through,” Fulginiti said. This added granularity means advertisers face extra work—and more time spent analyzing information to make informed decisions, according to Nichols.
“That’s not the point,” counters Garcia. “This is about the powerlessness of advertisers when they don’t have that access. It’s their spend, data, and prerogative to use it as they see fit”.
What exactly has been making advertisers feel powerless?
Advertisers, when buying across Pmax and all Google platforms, still lack access to key elements like log-level data and full-page URL-level data in Ads Data Hub. URL-level data is a hot topic lately following Adalytics‘ research finding global brands such as Sony and PepsiCo may have inadvertently funded child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online.
In Pmax reports, a category labeled ‘Total Other’ lumps ad delivery across Gmail, YouTube, Discovery, and other inventory outside of Google’s O&O into a single line item. This often outperforms the placements that they can see across display, video, and app campaigns, which has vexed advertisers.
Google previously withheld placement reporting for its Search Partner Network (GSP)—ads that run across hundreds of non-Google websites—but began offering that data last year.
Still, Pmax reports don’t break down placement across GSP, Google Video Partners (GVP), or the Google Display Network (GDN), all of which extend Google’s ad reach beyond Google-owned platforms. This means advertisers have to manually visit each non-Google O&O to identify the types of placement and get its performance, said Garcia.
