Ever since Google (ticker: GOOG) whiffed on its second-quarter earnings, fans and critics alike have been entertaining this critical question.
Critics such as Barron’s Roundtable member Fred Hickey are convinced that not even GOOG can avoid the impact of the credit mess that has rocked financial markets and prompted the Fed to slash the fed-funds rate by a half point. In a recent edition of his newsletter, High Tech Investor, Hickey wrote that Google’s advertising revenues are likely to take a hit next quarter and beyond.
On the other hand, a number of brokerage analysts have taken a close look at the issue and have run to Google’s defense. Jeff Lindsay of Bernstein Research recently estimated that Google’s cash flows would dip only 10% in an unlikely “worst case” scenario, and he thinks the shares could climb to 625. The stock closed Friday just above 560.
Then, there’s the horse’s mouth. Late last week, Google executives told reporters in New York that mortgage-related advertisers are indeed cutting their budgets, but they aren’t expected to reduce spending on Google search ads. According to Reuters, Jon Kaplan, director of financial-services advertising at Google, declared: “People are cutting their budgets but [Web] search is not the first thing, it’s the last thing.”
That comment is reminiscent of the ruminations heard before the dot-com implosion. But Google is simply arguing that its search is so effective and efficient that advertisers may cut print, broadcast and even other Internet spending, but not their placements with Google. It’s fair to assume that Yahoo! (YHOO) and AOL are likely to feel even more pain from the mortgage meltdown because they rely more on banner ads than Google, which has revolutionized revenue generation on the Web with its “paid search” technology.
“Every single day that somebody is looking for a mortgage…these campaigns from these financial customers are on 24-7, 365 days a year,” says Tim Armstrong, president of Google’s advertising division in North America. “So our ecosystem actually mimics what the GDP looks like.”
Granted, with a $174.8 billion market cap that dwarfs the GDP of many sovereign nations, Google might think it mirrors the U.S. economy. But that doesn’t explain how Google has managed to protect a big piece of a smaller pie, says a money manager at a major East Coast hedge fund. “It is inconceivable that mortgage-related advertising revenue isn’t shrinking,” the manager says.
Who knows what’s what, but consider this:
According to the fund manager’s back-of-the envelope estimates, it could be costing some major lenders who spend millions on paid-search more than $10,000 for every lead that results in a closed loan — an expensive marketing program. “The math doesn’t work,” he insists.
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing
Patrick Hake says:
Recently a large local broker in Sacramento announced that they were not going to extend their multi-million dollar contract with the Sacramento Bee, so they can focus on the internet advertising.
I have no doubt that they will be focusing a large percentage of that budget towards pay-per-click advertising, with the vast majority going to Google.
Over the next few years I am sure that advertising budgets will shrink, but I am also sure that a large part of the remaining pie will shift to Google.
September 22, 2007 — 2:31 pm
Thomas Johnson says:
I don’t know how much the “evil empire”
spends on print, but a 66% reduction is a big number.
http://www.realblogging.com/trend-master/realogy-reduces-newspaper-ad-spend
I wonder how much of that budget was used to buy into Yahoo, which was an exclusive Prudential feed. I liked the phrase “ink to links”
September 22, 2007 — 7:56 pm