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Tim Armstrong, Google's president of advertising and commerce in North America, says the search giant's forays into selling ads in print, radio and television have shown that marketers would be keen to use a joint system that lets them better manage ad inventory.

"We're intent on bringing more and more scale to the digital dashboard space," he says. "There's a high level of interest and a high level of work that needs to be done. We're very early stage on connecting those businesses. I think this is a two, three, five-year product

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that we're going to work on."

Google believes its purchase of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion will solidify its position in the online graphical display advertising market, improving its capabilities in tracking the response to ads.

Armstrong described the deal as a way for Google to bridge the market between advertisers who buy commercial space and the publishers who sell that inventory.

"DoubleClick is one piece of it," he says. "We think the deal should close. We think our competitors have been able to close their deals. Outside of that deal, there are also other opportunities for us to work in that space with other companies."

"We're exploring the ability to basically work with multiple companies in that space."

The European Commission has opened an in-depth review of the DoubleClick purchase to determine whether it makes Google too dominant a force in online advertising. US lawmakers have also urged closer scrutiny of the deal.