• by Michael McLaren , Op-Ed Contributor, December 17, 2020

This week we’ll look at two tech behemoths featuring heavily in the news: Google and Facebook. 

Earlier this month, we saw a slight increase in intent data among brands for “DoubleClick search (DS).” We witnessed a more dramatic surge last week, coinciding with news of the FTC’s lawsuit against Google for monopolizing the online ad market.

There’s a reason why marketers continue to invest heavily in search: Capturing search intent in 2020 has helped panicked marketers discover new audiences and fine-tune their messaging to align with behavior.

Google is the unequivocal leader in this space, and its DoubleClick Search product (rebranded as Google Search Ads 360) unveiled valuable features to help marketers automate and optimize their search spend, as well as better align search strategies to media spend on other Google-owned properties.

These platform additions have undoubtedly reinforced Google’s dominance over other players. 

While last week’s data showed an uptick in intent around “social activation,” “Facebook mobile ads” didn’t appear to factor into the equation.

Brands’ intent around the term peaked in mid- to late-October and fell after the election. One could conclude that interest in Facebook ads coincided with heavy election ad spend, and waning interest has to do with a general trend of advertisers’ reallocation of media budget to other popular social platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat.

eMarketer forecasts that Facebook mobile ad revenues will grow, but at a slower rate than in previous years. 

B2B marketers in particular shouldn’t discount Facebook. According to the same eMarketer study, Millennials and Gen X-ers comprise the largest share of users on the platform.

Millennials in particular are becoming a dominant force in B2B decision-making, as many are assuming leadership positions.

It’s worth remembering that the oldest Millennials turn 40 next year. Facebook mobile ads are arguably one of the most, if not the most effective avenue for reaching users, for 67% accessed the platform exclusively from their phones in 2020.