Well, Google and ScoMo have been at each other’s throat for some time but this has taken it to a whole other level. In response to the Federal Government’s proposed media code, that would require the tech giant to pay local news media companies for their product, Google is threatening to end the relationship between ScoMo (and Australia) and their search engine for good.
This is something that hasn’t been seen since 2010 when the tech giant ended it’s relationship with China over cyber attacks that originated from within the country.
For the millions of businesses around Australia that rely on Google Ads to get the majority of their new business enquiries, what does this mean? In short, it poses a significant short term risk. The obvious removal of their Ads would create an immediate downturn in leads which means less opportunities, sales and (the big one) revenue. Scary!
So what do we do about it? The search traffic won’t stop. People will adjust the way they look for things they need (Cafe’s, reviews, businesses, information for school projects etc) and digital marketers will need to be at ahead of that change to make sure their customers have as minimal an impact as possible. Search engines like Bing, Ask and DuckDuckGo will probably take up most of the slack from Google. It may mean you need to spread your advertising budget across multiple platforms to capture where the users go, if Google leaves.
You could look at Social Media to take up some of the slack, but unless the likes of Facebook, TikTok or LinkedIn change their platforms, they are not a directory service as Google has become for businesses, so they work differently in the way you interact with them.
A the end of the day people won’t stop searching, so the need will still be there, it may just be a little harder to serve ads to everyone in one place. But that may also open up the opportunity for better targeting, cheaper costs and a more open advertising platform. Everything has a silver lining and we all (Marketers) love a good challenge!
Article for reference – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-25/google-may-pull-search-engine-from-australia-what-happens-next/13086712?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=abc_news_web