Google’s Search Trial and New Marketer Trend Commentary
Madison and Wall: Saturday Summary for September 6, 2025
On this week’s M&W Podcast we review our work of the week. Separately, on Agency Business, Fusion Front Media’s Olivia Morley and I interview LERMA/’s Pedro Lerma
Weekly Work:
An Interview With Nick Jezarian
Google Search Ruling: Observations
More Context:
We haven’t spent too much time studying the US government’s anti-trust case focused on Google’s search business – relative to, say, the ad tech anti-trust case – because the possible outcomes were too varied to practically analyze beyond wild speculation and because the outcomes were unlikely to impact the shape of the industry as we saw it.
In the end, the ruling’s primary restrictions prohibiting exclusivity and requirement to share some data with prospective competitors won’t have much of an impact on the business. Arguably, one of the biggest unappreciated advantages has been its capacity to service millions of smaller advertisers and the process-based incumbency that Google has on that front. For many – and perhaps most – of those advertisers, budgets might be split between Meta and Google. Manufacturers among them probably include Amazon, too. Even Microsoft’s Bing, for as big as it is as a search engine relative to the newer AI upstarts, struggles to capture any spending from the vast majority of search advertisers.
The future is more uncertain depending on the actions of Google’s AI-focused competitors, which was a large part of what underpinned the ruling. Consequently, while the base case for expectations should be relatively status quo with ongoing growth that probably mirrors the overall advertising industry’s, there will always be risks without ongoing investment, evolution to Google’s search offering and its commercial strategies, too.