Meet The Experts
Reuters has another groundbreaking scoop on Meta’s scam advertising economy. Internal documents estimate more than $3 billion in 2024 spent by Chinese advertisers on scams or other illicit and banned ads. That’s about a fifth of Meta’s ad revenue from China.
The documents show the number was cut in half over the course of the year, but the team responsible for those changes was disassembled.
Last month, Reuters reported that about a tenth of Meta’s entire revenue last year came from such scams or illicit ad spend. Meta blocked relatively few advertisers who perpetrated scams, but it did charge many scammer accounts higher ad pricing floors.
Another interesting note – for marketers to learn from and for social media users to be wary of – is that scammers tend to be very good at using different parts of a platform together.
Meta scammers, for instance, are adept at luring Facebook users to WhatsApp groups where they pose as investment advisors, say.
Similarly, Google scammers are great at cross-leveraging Google Search, Gmail, Google Merchant Center and other parts of the Googleverse into one effective scam marketing funnel.
Getting Prompt Results
Every once in a while, a little window offers a peek into an otherwise opaque black box – and right now, that window is peering into AI prompt data.
Analytics and marketing intelligence firms like Profound, Semrush and Similarweb are developing new tools for publishers to track how AI systems refer to their content.
But until AI platforms and tech companies publicly share this AI data themselves, “the methodology is always going to be questionable,” Lily Ray, VP of SEO strategy and research at performance marketing agency Amsive, told Digiday.
Most of the analytics firms use APIs to mimic prompts and assess the results, or buy clickstream data from a Chrome extension.
And since AI responds to individualized queries, rather than specific keywords like in SEO, these firms aren’t seeking out results for a specific prompt. “There’s no value in that,” according to Semrush President Eugene Levin.
Instead, they aggregate prompts to create broad categories and see what shows up in the results. Semrush is also developing a tool that shows how many site visits were influenced by AI platforms.
Hopefully, the results are enough to help publishers understand what drives consumers to click a link. Because the publishers getting the most traffic are the ones who have the most leverage in striking a deal with the AI companies.
Reliable Service
Telco conquest marketing is officially getting out of hand.
The category already exists deep in the borderlands of acceptability, as The Wall Street Journal reports. There is a rich history of wireless providers making claims about their rivals’ services, to be disputed by the National Advertising Division (the NAD, a division of the BBB National Programs).
A recent escalation started with a Verizon “Bring Your Bill” campaign asking T-Mobile and AT&T customers to bring a bill and receive a counter-offer. T-Mobile responded in kind with an “Easy Switch” campaign asking Verizon or AT&T customers to provide password and login info to receive personalized competitive offers.
This jockeying for customers “kicked off a technical cat-and-mouse game” in which AT&T tried to block T-Mobile’s software.
Now, AT&T is suing T-Mobile to forbid the practice and delete all data collected. A recent ad produced by AT&T takes the meta-competition even further, featuring Luke Wilson reading a newspaper headlined “T-MOBILE MOST CHALLENGED FOR DECEPTIVE ADS.”
T-Mobile said the AT&T ad is deceptive.
AT&T was forced to pull the ad, though, because an NAD policy forbids “using the ad-challenge process itself for promotional purposes.”
But Wait! There’s More
Programmatic agency execs speak out on CTV transparency. [Digiday]
New CBS News lead Bari Weiss’ highly publicized town hall with Charlie Kirk’s widow mainly featured ads from small direct-response advertisers, suggesting the network’s big-ticket brand partners are wary of its new content direction. [Variety]
Brian Lawlor, President of Scripps Sports, says some NHL and NBA teams have been able to offset their lost local TV carriage revenue with ads after joining Scripps’ Ion national sports network. But he says ad revenue has no hope of matching carriage fees for NFL and MLB teams. [Sports Business Journal]
Hollywood has very complicated feelings about generative AI. [Bloomberg]
Private equity finds a new source of profit: volunteer fire departments. [NYT]
You’re Hired!
AppLovin hires Sam Appelbaum as director of its ecommerce business. [LinkedIn]
Jeff Fagel joins JamLoop as chief marketing officer. [LinkedIn]
