Google Commission Woes In Sweden, Australia

Over the past few months, Google’s been trying to reduce or eliminate
commission on its ad products in countries where they are offered (North
America, notably, has never had them). Now there are some news reports that the
plans aren’t well received Down Under and in Sweden.

Sveriges Annonsörer och Mediebyråer manar till Google-bojkott from Dagens
Media covers briefly what Mikkel deMib
Svendsen tells me is a recount of Sweden’s major media organization calling
for a boycott of AdWords through the end of the year, because of changes to
commissions.

Despite the call for boycott,

Sveriges Mediebyråers vd kritisk till Google-event seems to cover how some
major ad agencies still have no problems buying and boozing it up at a recent
Google event. I say "seems" since my Swedish is limited to "thank you" and some
of the numbers up to ten.
Systran helped, but the translations were still pretty poor.

The changes in Sweden are part of a move Google
announced
last year September in Europe. Some UK agencies have
pushed back,
but by and large, it seems the commission change hasn’t seriously hurt the
company, unless that fourth quarter drop was more related to upset advertising
agencies than the long UK holiday period that got

some of the blame. I also keep hearing whispered rumors that some ad
agencies have deals excluding them from the cutbacks. Just rumors, nothing
confirmed.

What’s good for Europe is good for Australia. That seems to be the Google
thinking.
Google to rewrite rules for media buyers: no more commissions from the
Sydney Morning Herald covers how Google will end 10 percent commission paid
there as of August 1. Not everyone is upset, however, as the article covers.

And what’s good for Europe and Australia isn’t good for China. I covered
earlier the
irony of how Google is trying to disentangle itself from commissions in some
countries where they were offered to gain a foothold, only to do the same to
gain ground in China. Then again, despite commissions, we’ve also blogged how
not all the SEM firms in China seem to feel happy:
Chinese SEMs
Accuse Google & Baidu Of Stealing Clients.

By the way, it’s not just Google doing the commission pushback thing.
Yahoo to Reduces
U.K. Agency Search Ad Commissions from last month covers Yahoo also making
similar moves.