The Long-Tail And Shorts Of It
Google is pruning its garden walls a bit: Advertisers can now buy YouTube Shorts ads alongside open web inventory.
Google Marketing Platform unveiled its new Unified Vertical Video strategy at Programmatic IO in New York City on Monday. This new approach integrates YouTube Shorts supply with open web placements and enables both inventory types to be purchased via Google’s DV360 DSP.
Previously, advertisers could only buy YouTube Shorts inventory via Google Ads using Demand Gen (which combines inventory across Google properties) and PMax (Google’s black-boxy optimization engine), writes sell-side consultant Scott Messer in a LinkedIn post. Previously, they could only buy open web ads via Google AdX or other SSPs.
But giving buyers one way to buy across YouTube Shorts and third-party publishers in DV360 should help extend a portion of walled garden video budgets to the open web, according to Messer.
Google’s Gemini AI will handle resizing ad creative for different video formats. Gemini will also be handling campaign optimization, or how budget gets allocated across Shorts and non-Shorts inventory.
The House Always Wins
One powerful thing about the major ad platforms (Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta, particularly) is their media empires.
The most-watched show ever on Amazon Prime, for instance, is “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” Amazon spent hundreds of millions of dollars to produce the series, promoted it heavily on all owned channels and forced it into the top spot despite being, frankly, sort of a dud.
Apple is one of the most creative house advertisers. It upsells Apple products inside software update tabs and within the device settings.
Or try a Google search for “download Bing.” You’ll likely see a sponsored Microsoft Bing Chrome extension plug-in, rather than Bing. Search Bing for a “Chrome download” and you’ll see an updated download for Bing itself.
Meta has put on a show with its self-promotion of Muse, the new personal agent with a cutesy Labubu-type mascot, in Facebook and Instagram feeds. And Muse actually lags the early adoption of Threads (Meta’s Twitter clone), which was derided at the time for its inorganic growth.
Meta can’t snap and make anything popular. (Metaverse, anyone?)
But it can snap and reach practically any metric it wants in terms of app-based, logged-in scale.
Sequential AI-ability
Meta’s Muse agent is out and already acting in unanticipated ways – like sending Facebook Marketplace buyers to someone’s address.
Having a stranger show up demanding your old furniture is disturbing enough. But Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok poses a more dire hypothetical, reports Business Insider: Could AI agents trigger a run on banks?
Imagine someone directs their AI assistant to optimize their finances. And the agent moves their money from a checking or savings account to a higher yield bank, Slok theorizes. With thousands of AI agents doing the same thing, the bank could exceed its capacity.
This scenario can also be extrapolated out into the ad tech world. After all, Meta’s automated ad platform routinely experiences issues with ad delivery and budget pacing. (Glitchmas, anyone?) Its chatbot AI has been supremely unhelpful in resolving all issues.
People talk about having a “human in the loop” to approve of AI-based ad creative and optimization.
But the most important thing a human in the loop can do is disapprove.
Will Muse disapprove of Meta’s ad platform mishaps?
But Wait! There’s More!
Does it make sense to build an AdSense for agents? [Tipsheet]
Why trusting AI agents can be dangerous. Case in point: Meta’s Muse. [Android Authority]
YouTube, TikTok, Meta and X are all refusing to run ads for a new Elon Musk documentary, with the platforms citing policies that prohibit political advertising. [The Hollywood Reporter]
A journalist deliberately bet like a problem gambler. DraftKings made him a VIP. [ProPublica]
Republicans have spent more than $60 million to air 190 different TV ad spots about transgender policy this year. [CNN]
The Trump administration is airing political ads that claim to be “paid for by the U.S. government” – but is that even legal? [Forbes]
OpenAI has paused testing on its most powerful agents after wide-scale security incidents when AI software hacked outside systems and evaded detection. [Wired]
AgenticAdvertising.org, the trade group behind the Ad Context Protocol, has announced its first board. Benjamin Masse, chief product officer at Triton Digital and EVP of the iHeart Technology Solutions Group, is its first president. [Marketing Brew]
You’re Hired!
Will Hanschell, CEO of Pencil, is appointed group CTO of Pencil’s parent company, Brandtech. [release]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
