Economy

Bloomberg Campaign Buys Ads Above Bloomberg News Google Search

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: December 28, 2019 8:15 am

People who go to Google and put in the search term “Bloomberg” in the hope of finding either the Bloomberg news site or the corporate site for the trading terminal and information company will find an ad above the listings. It is for the Bloomberg presidential campaign website, Mike Bloomberg 2020 | We’re All In This Together‎. It is a way for the campaign to take advantage of the Bloomberg search term, which brings back 300 million results.

It is impossible to know what the Bloomberg campaign pays for the ad, which is a typical, paid search text link that Google sells next to its normal, unpaid search results. The ad format is what brings Google the vast majority of its revenue. Based on Bloomberg’s huge advertising investment in his run for president, the figure hardly matters. Bloomberg has spent more than $100 million on advertising so far. That figure is expected to rise sharply between now and “Super Tuesday” on March 3. Fourteen states hold their primaries that day. Bloomberg, if elected, almost certainly would be the wealthiest man in history to hold the office.

Bloomberg hopes that the delegates he picks up that day will catapult him near the lead of those running for the nomination. According to NPR, Bloomberg also has hired over 200 staff members to work in 22 states. He knows he has a very limited time to push aside candidates who, in some cases, have been campaigning for almost a year.

One has to wonder what the staff at Bloomberg, particularly the news service, think about the Google search ad tactic. Bloomberg already has told them they cannot do investigative reporting about him.

The Bloomberg search term is not the only one that the Bloomberg campaign uses to get traffic to his presidential website. A search for “Bloomberg news cannot write about Bloomberg” brings results that run below a link to the paid presidential campaign site as well.