Book review: Yield (by Ari Paparo)

In April, Google was found in violation of sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by federal judge Leonie Brinkema, who noted that the company “willfully [acquired] and [maintained] monopoly power in the open web display publisher ad server market and the open web display ad exchange market.” To many participants in that market, this development was likely interpreted as a long-awaited denouement of Google’s scandalous reign as the principal force in open web display advertising — the operator of the infrastructure with which every participant was compelled to engage. Monopoly accusations had been leveled at Google over its operating practices in the open web for years; this judgment was almost certainly seen not just as validation of those beliefs by the people who held them, but as frustratingly overdue.

Yield, a new book by Ari Paparo, documents Google’s growth in the open web display market, starting with its acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007 and ending with Judge Brinkema’s decision nearly 20 years later. But while Google is the primary subject of the book, its scope is much broader. Fundamentally, from my reading, Yield is a history of modern direct response digital advertising as recounted by a person who not only witnessed its development firsthand but also played a meaningful role in it. While the book is extensively documented, it reads fluidly, and the connections and dependencies between various events are presented coherently and with an obviousness that could only be conjured by someone who lived through them. With Yield, the reader is presented with a meticulously researched and cited story about the cast of characters that brought modern programmatic advertising to life in a manner that flows like an oral history. Reading the book feels akin to eavesdropping on former colleagues telling war stories over drinks.

To that end, Yield is less a book about Google than a book about the market that Google would ultimately (and, per the outcome of its antitrust trial, illegitimately) dominate. Obviously Google plays a central and prominent role in the history of open web display advertising, but the broad aperture of the book makes for a compelling read. The advent of behaviorally targeted, programmatic advertising represented a momentous leap of innovation that unlocked untold economic value. Applying it to the open web was a natural fit.

But there existed natural flaws in the open web advertising business model, and engagement in the open web ultimately gave way to social media’s walled gardens, to apps, to retail media, to the logged-in web and the digital subscription economy, and other closed advertising platforms like CTV. In combination, these advertising channels capture nearly all of the growth in digital advertising. I’ve chronicled the decline in Google’s Network business — its revenue segment that includes the infrastructure applied to “the open web display publisher ad server market and the open-web display ad exchange market” — for some time, and my analysis of Alphabet’s Q4 2024 earnings is even cited in the book. Yield captures the natural and unavoidable boundary on the open web’s commercial opportunity:

Web advertising works but in many ways was never a great business. One just has to remember how fast Google Search or Facebook advertising grew from nothing to be the two largest advertising businesses in the world. Traditional web display had all the advantages on paper but never experienced that kind of sustained growth. The web was backed by hundred-year-old media companies, with all the best advertiser relationships, with great brands, editorial capabilities, and sales relationships, yet the business is much smaller and less attractive than what was built by the technology-first West Coast companies.

That depiction provides necessary context for — but certainly doesn’t excuse — Google’s actions in this market. While Google’s Search and YouTube businesses, which monetize the company’s owned-and-operated inventory, soar to ever-new heights, its Network business is mired in a systemic decline, having seen revenues shrink on a year-over-year basis for twelve consecutive quarters. Yield tells the story of the origins of modern digital advertising, but it also provides a chronology for the specific segment, open web display advertising, that reached its natural commercial limit. It’s against that backdrop that some subset of product managers and engineers within Google engaged in increasingly devious and reckless behavior to fortify their advantage.

Those behaviors mostly take the form of complex and nuanced changes to auction mechanics. Paparo does a commendable job of threading the needle between providing just enough detail to explain these dense topics without bogging the reader down in a tedious slog. It’s a challenge that most people who comment on digital advertising face; Yield manages to deliver a complete yet accessible narrative that expands its audience beyond digital advertising practitioners. Yield is an important and valuable book, both as an elucidating primer on the underlying mechanics of digital advertising and as a history of modern digital advertising itself.

Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance (Amazon)
Ari Paparo
Arlington, VA: Amplify Publishing, 2025. 395 pp. $32.00 (hardcover). ISBN 979-8891386174.