This article is sponsored by HUMAN.
To Whom it May Concern:
First of all, let us say that we’re big fans of your work. That thing you did earlier this spring with the WandaVision ending? Awesome. And we’re still talking about Orange is the New Black, and that’s been over for ages (at least in TV terms, that is). So, know that this comes from a place of love.
But we wanted to ask if you could, y’know, help us out a little bit here. As cool as CTV has turned out to be for TV watching, it came up so fast that it’s been hard at times to keep it safe from sophisticated bots for the ad folks that help to power it.
Just a few weeks ago, we released research on one of the most complex CTV botnet operations us mortals have ever uncovered: PARETO. The botnet used phones to masquerade as CTV devices to fake ad views and verification signals. And this wasn’t some small operation, this was a million nodes registering more than 650 million bid requests every day.
And then just over a year ago, there was the ICEBUCKET situation. That one was even bigger than PARETO (three times bigger to be exact). At its peak, it accounted for almost 28% of all the CTV traffic measured by HUMAN.
Lots of devilish behavior from the non-divine, huh?
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Third-party cookies may be on the way out in Chrome, but that doesn’t mean the end of data-driven advertising.
There are still many other types of audience data that marketers will have at their disposal, including identity graphs and consented third-party data, household-level data, second-party data, contextual data, cohorts and, of course, first-party data, including login data.
Marketers now have the complex task of figuring out how these components fit into a sound identity strategy, said Adam Broitman, an associate partner focused on digital marketing at McKinsey & Company.
“In the near-term, the cookieless world will be complex,” Broitman said. “Advertisers will have to test many solutions.”
Many solutions, indeed. Sometimes it feels as if there’s a new purported cookieless solution born every minute (and maybe a sucker, too).
Here’s a cheat sheet for the six primary types of targeting data marketers will need to get comfortable with before third-party cookies go away for good.
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“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Today’s column is written by Seraj Bharwani, Chief Strategy Officer at AcuityAds.
There is no shortage of advice on alternatives to third-party cookies these days. The most frequently cited advice goes something like, if you can't use third-party cookies, then acquire your own first-party data. Problem solved. That is easier said than done.
For starters, it is one thing for Nike to build its own consumer-facing, online business and acquire first-party data through direct-to-consumer (DTC) relationships; it's another for Philadelphia Cream Cheese to do the same. Nike has tremendous expertise in the sports and fitness category and has plenty of related content that could help improve a consumer’s daily workout routine. A relationship with Nike brand is worth sharing personal information in exchange for relevant content and new product offers. I am not so sure I need such a relationship with Philly Cream Cheese.
To actively engage consumers and build DTC relationships at scale, brands typically need extensive investments in content, solutions, and services. Travel, hospitality, and retail brands have made substantial investments in loyalty programs over the past two decades to enroll frequent users/buyers of their products and services.
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Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Tim’s Turn
Apple CEO Tim Cook will soon testify in the company’s lawsuit with Epic Games. Epic sued after its hugely popular game Fortnite was kicked out of the App Store last year for flouting Apple’s 30% cut of in-game revenues. Epic claimed that Apple runs its store as an illegal monopoly, since iOS devices don’t allow alternative payment systems. Cook will push back against antitrust claims that could threaten to unravel Apple’s control over App Store monetization. Apple’s Services business, the revenue it makes by collecting a portion of in-app purchases and subscriptions, generated almost $54 billion last year. The Wall Street Journal reports that Cook’s testimony is likely to be the most detailed public discussion he’s had about Apple’s mobile strategy. Cook has been preparing for the trial, including hours of practice rounds with former prosecutors chosen to simulate the witness stand, and is expected to take the stand later this week or early next.
Spring Cleaning
Major agency holding companies are ramping up their data offerings and adopting clean room technologies, as digital advertising transitions from third-party cookies to first-party data. Omnicom announced on Monday that it is partnering with InfoSum to expand the first-party data management capabilities of its analytics division, Annalect. Read the release. Annalect will gain access to data sources that can be combined with first-party data from individual clients, Variety reports. The addition of an independent clean room provider with InfoSum means Omnicom clients can connect first-party data with media, measurement and commerce platforms, without tripping any privacy policies. Annalect will also integrate InfoSum into Omni, Omnicom’s insights platform, so that agency clients can use InfoSum’s data collaboration as an alternative to other data-sharing tools. Omnicom clients can use InfoSum to take in data, to build consumer targeting parameters and to measure campaign performance.
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AT&T dropped a bombshell on Sunday when it announced it would combine the media assets of WarnerMedia with Discovery Inc. to create a new publicly traded company, unwinding the telco’s big bet on its acquisition of Time Warner in 2018.
The deal, however, does not include the sale of Xandr, the ad tech division formerly known as AppNexus that it had acquired three years ago and merged with WarnerMedia last year. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The deal is expected to close next year and would combine WarnerMedia’s premium entertainment, sports and news assets – including HBO Max – with Discovery's vast content library as well as the recently launched Discovery Plus. The result would be a standalone entertainment company that will fuel both companies’ direct-to-consumer streaming ambitions. The new company, which has yet to be given a name, is expected to generate about $52 billion in revenue in 2023.
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“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Today’s column is written by Brian Chap, founder of Tech Recipes.
“Today’s innovation is tomorrow’s tradition.”
~Lidia Bastianich
By now, you should understand how to handle the complexity of in-housing, and how to use the six pillars of transformation for a successful transition.
In this article you’ll learn how to develop structures around accountability and governance to reduce human error and maximize productivity. If done correctly, advertisers can realize a significant improvement in ROI
Before we get into it, it’s important to remember that in-housing doesn’t always have to mean 100% brand control. Many advertisers have built hybrid models that transition strategy while enhancing the planning and buying relationship with the agency.
Define the necessary roles
Large organizations, with more than 250 employees, need these three roles to solidify an in-house foundation:
- Media Lead: Oversees the strategy, scales investment and serves as an escalation point.
- Measurement Lead: Maintains analytics framework, manages benchmarks and promotes effectiveness and ROI.
- Audience Science Lead: Defines data strategy, builds segments and deploys across all channels.
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Just before launching its Discovery+ streaming service in January, Discovery recruited a new sales leader to evangelize its advanced TV ads.
Jim Keller joined Discovery in December as EVP of digital ad sales and advanced advertising after spending time at NBCUniversal, MTV and – most recently – Hulu.
“Anything delivered over an IP address, whether it’s streaming or in an app or on site or social, is my responsibility,” Keller said. He also covers advanced TV, from dynamic ad insertion to partnerships with On Addressability or Open AP – anything that’s bringing data to enhance linear ads.
Keller talked to AdExchanger about Discovery’s offering, what buyers are asking for in this pre-upfront cycle, and what programmatic means to Discovery.
AdExchanger: What does identity look like on Discovery+?
JIM KELLER: It’s really about the Discovery Digital suite of assets. We have a lot of customer information from HGTV’s Smart Home and Dream Home contests, which are site-driven offerings.
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Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
You Got Probed
The Irish aren’t so lucky, at least not for Facebook, which could lose its ability to transfer data from the European Union to the US. On Friday, Ireland’s High Court issued a ruling that allows the country’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) to continue with an investigation that might put the kibosh on transatlantic data transfers, Reuters reports. In August, the DPC, which is Facebook’s lead regulator in the EU, launched an inquiry and issued a provisional order which found that Facebook’s main mechanism for transferring data to the US “cannot be used in practice.” Facebook challenged the legitimacy of the inquiry overall and of the finding in particular, claiming that they could lead to “devastating” and “irreversible” consequences for its business, which relies heavily on processing user data to serve targeted ads. The High Court was not swayed. Welp.
Start Me Up
Holdcos – hold onto your hats. The rise of digital platforms has “shattered the media ecosystem and paved the way for new firms,” Patrick Coffee writes at Business Insider. New agencies and networks, such as Jellyfish, You & Mr Jones, Dept, S4 Capital, Known and Plan A, are threatening the established agency names of Madison Avenue. Although holding companies, such as WPP, Omnicom and Publicis, still control mammoth brand budgets, newcomers are not only competing, they’re winning business. The rise of Google, Facebook and Amazon has enabled agencies to run campaigns with leaner operations, diluting the power historically wielded by the big guys. The pandemic only accelerated this trend as advertisers cut spending. On paper, the new kids on the block “look very appealing and relevant,” says Chris Sahota, CEO of M&A advisory firm Ciesco and a former IPG exec.
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Before co-founding high-end vintage furniture marketplace Chairish with her husband Gregg in 2013, Anna Brockway wouldn’t think twice about earmarking millions of dollars for a Super Bowl commercial.
That’s because Brockway was a top marketing executive at Levi’s for seven years.
But as a startup entrepreneur, she said that performance marketing felt like the “the more responsible approach" because it’s targeted and attributable.
After closing a $33 million Series B fund raise last year, though, Chairish conducted its first extensive brand study – and the findings made clear that it was time to re-embrace branding.
“The people who know us, love us – and have off-the-charts affinity,” Brockway said. “But our awareness was low.”
In March, Chairish, which does roughly $130 million in sales a year, launched a mass marketing campaign across streaming TV and display, and even created its own Chairish branded print magazine.
“We realized that we had the beginnings of a great brand,” Brockway said. “But we needed to scale beyond our cult status.”
Brockway spoke with AdExchanger.
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"The Sell Sider" is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community.
Today's column is written by Jeffrey Turner, director of digital ad operations at The Washington Post.
Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat are among the highest grossing companies in digital media, earning billions as users scroll through an endless feed of content. Advertising revenue rewards attention. As users scroll more and consume less, ad dollars are increasingly allocated to content discovery over content consumption.
This issue, which puts pressure on the monetization of original news journalism, is exacerbated by an advertiser practice known as “brand safety” - blocking news content deemed to be unsafe. Just a few years ago, more than 90% of all publisher impressions were deemed “safe” for advertising, according to a 2017 media quality report by IAS. Today, that metric has diminished to all-time lows; brand safety now costs publishers nearly $3 billion annually.
However, the solution to news advertising is not through advances in advertiser tools to better circumvent news. Rather, the solution lies in a publisher’s ability to help brands determine the context of the article they are advertising on and customize the ad to that context.
Publishers need to reinvent the value of their advertising teams, in order to help brands navigate the news cycle.
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