Google's control of the ad stack isn't optimal, but when DoubleClick's reliability fails Web publishers' dependence on the search giant becomes all too apparent. On Tuesday, DoubleClick was hit with an outage that slowed Web pages and hit publishers' display ad revenue. Don't cry for Google though. Google's workaround advice to publishers was basically to limit tracking and divert marketing to text ads. Gee thanks. More than a few ad campaigns were simply shut down. This outage started at 8 a.m. PDT and stretched into the evening. It's still not totally clear what caused this "unexpected behavior." On Twitter, a few marketers noted that the ad agencies and marketers were less than pleased. But no one was asking for make goods...yet. As these ad campaigns around the Web had to be paused, it became clear that enterprises need to demand more transparency from DoubleClick. Here's why: Google ultimately said it resolved its DoubleClick issues with the following update: The problem with DoubleClick Search should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better. Due to a bug in DoubleClick, we were unable to track and record some ad impressions, clicks and conversions for a period on March 13th (EDT). Some redirects also did not work as intended. For customers who link their DoubleClick and Google Analytics (or Google Analytics 360) accounts, impacted events may not have been recorded. To mitigate the issue, we briefly paused conversion tracking and automated bidding on DoubleClick Search, and some bidding on DoubleClick Bid Manager. We have fixed the bug and will continue to monitor over the coming days. Marketers need to be asking about DoubleClick's system reliability. After all, it has been a rough month for DoubleClick for Publishers. Consider that DoubleClick for Publishers has had service issues the following days, according to Google's ad status dashboard: These service issues are unacceptable coming from a company that runs on Google Cloud Platform and pitches enterprises on redundancy and reliability. Of course, Google has some time to resolve its DoubleClick service problems. Where are marketers going to go?
Following five service disruptions in the space of two weeks, the dependence of marketers on Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers has been sorely highlighted. A number of ad campaigns were shut down during the most recent outage, which ran from morning to evening, causing pages to slow and affecting ad revenue. As DoubleClick is the prevalent display ad-serving platform, many publishers are reliant on it because they have no alternative options. Google said that the bug responsible has now been fixed.