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Only 200 Advertisers Sign on for Google TV Ads

posted on January 30, 2008


It’s been a long time since I’ve linked to Valleywag–I figure there are only so many romance gossip stories our readers can take–but they’ve redeemed themselves with news that Google TV Ads has only managed to attract 200 clients.

During a PR pitch to New York ad agencies this week, Long Ellis of Google revealed the astonishingly low number.

While even Google Radio has about 1,600 advertisers, Google TV advertising currently counts around 200. Why so low? Don’t be fooled by the brand name. Google TV advertising isn’t much of an innovation yet.

I wonder if the reason is as Valleywag suggests–performance based TV advertising already exists, so Google TV isn’t a huge innovation–or if it’s because the TV industry really doesn’t want Google muscling their way in and bringing down the costs of television advertising.


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  • Janet Meiners

    Andy,
    Thanks for the stats straight from Google. That is pretty poor performance. You’d think they’d market Google TV more aggressively, perhaps with Google TV, Radio, or Print ads. Or through partnerships with agencies. They seem to assume everyone is online.

    I’m trying to find out how long has Google TV been out of invite-only beta.

    I’m curious how their newspaper ads, Google Print, are doing. They seem to be putting a lot of effort into it (with Google ad bar codes) when reports are that it’s not going that well either. I wonder how the numbers compare to Google TV and Google Radio.

    -Janet

  • http://www.marketingpilgrim.com Andy Beal

    @Janet – I think Google’s recent partnerships suggest that its trying hard to push Google TV. They almost have to make it work, otherwise Wall Street will sense that Google will only ever be a one-trick pony.

  • http://www.practicalcogitators.com Tim Madel

    I think the real reason TV ads haven’t taken off yet is because ads are only available on dish Network. I don’t know the penetration numbers, but I think it is somewhere around 13 million households.

    Because the ads will appear nationally, I think is a huge disadvantage for Google. A natural target for all of Google marketing efforts (search, content, print and radio) is the local market. Having a product that is national in scope is dis-congruous. Especially when competing against cable systems who can offer highly targeted TV ads and have a local sales force to hammer the point home.

  • http://www.newhomessection.com Jayson

    Tim,

    I agree – I think they’d do better focusing on local television. There aren’t too many companies actively looking for new ad agencies that advertise nationally.

    200 is awful. I can’t believe Google couldn’t drum up more business than that.

  • http://www.jordankasteler.com/utah-seo-pro-blog/ Utah SEO

    Ya, 200 is unbelievably low. Google is not really synonymous with traditional media though so that should be interesting to see where that goes.

  • http://www.greatpriceshere.com Nicole

    TV Ads does not seem a likely growth point for a company like google. I still do not get how they are planning to put the system to work. Just 200 signups further proves people aren’t very comfortable with the idea.

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