The Big Story: Google’s On First

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The Big Story is a podcast featuring a roundtable of AdExchanger editors talking about the biggest stories from the past week. It is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts.

Online advertising grew up around the second-price auction, where the winning bidder pays the second-highest bid.

It’s great for buyers because they have the opportunity to pay less. But the ad industry has gradually moved to a first-price auction format, in large part because participants distrusted the auctioneer – in many cases, that was Google.

Last week, Google said it would move to a first-price auction for publishers using Google Ad Manager (nee DoubleClick for Publishers and AdX).

Simple, right?

Except it’s not.

Google’s shift to first price will have reverberations through the industry – it’s just that nobody agrees on what they are.

This week, on “The Big Story,” the AdExchanger team describes why Google found it necessary to move to a first-price auction setup in the first place, and parses through some of the predictions around what will happen afterward.

Trying to understand Google’s maneuvering here is like coming into the final season of “Game of Thrones” without ever having watched an episode. Join us for a quick recap (of Google’s first-price auction situation, not the HBO show) that’ll bring you up to speed.

This post was syndicated from Ad Exchanger.