Google attempt to corner the ad planning market

Google has yet another new tool - one that will make it easier for marketers to pick the best Web sites for their online ads. But will it prove competitive enough?

The tool, called appropriately enough, the "Ad Planner," was first reported about by The New York Times on Monday. The tool is aimed at advertising agencies', media planners and people whose job is to decide where to place ads - either their own, or their clients.

Google wants to make it easier for marketers to pick appropriate websites. Ad Planner works on demographics. Marketers feed Ad Planner the target audience's demographics and in return get a list of sites that are more likely to fit that demographic - making their ads more effective.

"You can drill down further to get more detail like demographics and related searches for a particular site, or you can get aggregate statistics for the sites you've added to your media plan," reads the official blog posting about the tool.

Versatile and exportable, Ad Planner data can be exported as .csv files to spreadsheet applications or to Google's own DoubleClick MediaVisor ad campaign management tool.

If you're interest in using the new tool now though, you'll have to submit a request to Google for it.

Ad Planner is one of a line of tools Google is rolling out. Last week, Google announced a similar service called Google . Google Trends is designed for Web sites that have more of a general audience.

With the appearance of Ad Planner and Google Trends, speculation abounds around the idea that Google is moving into the Web measurement market. If they are indeed planning to join that market they'll be competing against companies like comScore, Nielsen Online, Hitwise and Quantcast.

It's a reasonable progression, said industry analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. The development of Ad Planner is a natural step in Google's efforts to provide more tools and services to its advertisers.

"It's an evolutionary thing. It's Google bringing more targeting capabilities and more information to marketers and media buyers," Sterling said.

Ad Planner seems particularly structured to help Google expand from a core base of search engine advertisers to a more diverse, branded market, he said.

The announcement of the new tool isn't a surprise to everyone. For IDC analyst Karsten Weide, the Ad Planner announcement is to be expected.

Weide said big online ad companies like Google and Yahoo have failed to provide their clients with comprehensive suites of complementary ad services in the past. There hasn't been any application or tool for things like media planning, ad creation and ad testing, he said.

Tools like Ad Planner are an attempt -- in this case by Google -- to fill that gap, he said. "This is one step from Google to provide one piece of the puzzle to clients, in media planning."

Google will be competing against companies like Quantcast in this market. Unlike Google, Quantcast's audience discovery platform is "collaborative and open." That puts publishers and marketers in control of their audiences and data, unlike Ad Planner.

"Of course, Google controls an extensive data platform -- and the market must ask the question if this new product is simply intended to help Google sell inventory and a broader set of controlled services," Quantcast CEO Konrad Feldman said in a statement about the announcement.

ComScore, another company in this market, saw its shares tumble almost 23 percent to $21.45 on Tuesday. That fall is expected to be a Wall Street reaction influenced by Google's announcement. No other comment by Google officials was available.