A conversation with Google Audio's Jim Woods
Jim Woods, Director of Product Management for Google Audio, gave us an update of where they are with the product and the beta test. Woods started and ran Harris's Radio and Broadcast Business Unit for about 10 years. He joined Google last summer and for the last six months was running the broadcaster facing portion of the business-the automation platforms formerly known as Scott Studios and Computer Concepts Maestro. His responsibility is all of the product management for the audio portion of Google.
We asked: What are some of the most recent developments you can talk about regarding getting the system in more markets and more radio groups?
We on the advertiser-facing side are in an advanced beta stage. We have a kind of a controlled launch, if you will, as we go through the beta portion of introducing the product. We're adding more and more advertisers every week to that program and it continues to meet our expectations. We are very, very happy with the progress.
As with anything new we iterate, we expose the product to advertisers and get a little smarter everyday. Make some changes and continue to expand that footprint. Ads are actually connecting over 900 broadcasters at this point. So we are placing spots everyday with our network. So we do have active campaigns--advertisers placing and developing campaigns and placing orders and we are delivering to our partner stations.
We continue to be very focused on as I call it the "big idea" around bringing new advertisers to the table for radio. Google has an extensive number of relationships with hundreds of thousands of advertisers and most of them do not participate in radio today. So as we provide an interface for them to start to advertise with radio, we believe we can bring a lot of those advertisers to the radio industry. That continues to be our focus.
What markets are you in right now--the top 50, top 10, top 25?
It's across the entire spectrum of markets. I can't tell you that it's all top 25, or all top 50. We are in the first market and we are in some of the very smallest markets, so those 900 stations are spread across over 200 markets.
One of the things that your competitors keep harping on is that you take 50% of the revenue in any ad deal. Is that true?
We have a variety of different deals with different broadcasters. The specifics of the deals are confidential.
A lot of people say you have to install a box at the station to make Google Audio work. Is that true?
Actually that's a misconception that we probably ought to clear up. You do not need to install a box to connect to AdSense for Audio. As we have evolved, originally it required you to be running either the SS32 or Maestro Program Automation System. That's not true today and that will continue to change. Today we integrate with several automation systems and come NAB we hope to be announcing others. Our public position has always been we're agnostic to the delivery system. I've been focused on just a couple here initially but we'll ultimately integrate with the automation systems that our customers need us to integrate with. The software that we provide it's free so becoming an affiliate for instance for AdSense for Audio has no cost to the broadcaster and can actually be installed and provisioned literally in minutes. We've had stations that have signed up and been providing inventory literally within an hour.
Is there anything else you wanted to say?
Google Audio Ads is an online interface that allows you to design and develop your whole campaign and book the campaign all through this interface. We have the online sales initiative and we also have a direct initiative that is out calling on Google's larger advertisers. In both of those cases, in particular people who haven't advertised on radio before, may not have creative, may not have typically dealt with getting creative done for spots.
So we've actually created the Ad Creation Marketplace and we have quite a few voice over production talents available through the marketplace. So as the advertiser is building their campaign, at the appropriate time we ask if they have creative. If they don't we ask if they want to go to the creative marketplace where they can then fill out a questionnaire and provide all the salient points around their product or service and then submit that to the marketplace and then actually get bids back to produce the spot.
That's all done automatically. Then when the creative comes back and the advertiser approves the creative, it's automatically uploaded and attached to that campaign and then shipped out to the affiliates to be run as part of the campaign.
That whole process is automated. The actual placement of the spot is automated. We do all of the reconciliation on the backend as well. When the campaign is placed it's a completely automated process-a complete closed loop back for the advertiser. The broadcaster really doesn't have to worry about trafficking and scheduling. They simply make spots available to Google and then we handle everything after that. The broadcasters' manual intervention, if you will, into the process is zero.
A partial list of agencies/advertisers and broadcasters currently working with Google Audio:
Broadcasters
- Emmis Communications
- Nassau Broadcasting Partners
- Max Media
- Triad Broadcasting
- Inner City Broadcasting
Advertisers/agencies
- GotVMail Communications
- Floorone.com
- Carat Fusion
- Legacy Parenting (The Total Transformation)
- Rainmakers
