AOL On The Merger; Microsoft Still In Ad Biz

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

AOL On Parade

AOL Platforms CTO Seth Demsey opens up to Business Insider on the Verizon-AOL merger, and claims the value’s in registered and verified data. “We are an ads company, we already have some of that,” he said. “You can imagine what that looks like when put together.” That said, Demsey called the addition of Verizon’s user data incremental, not game-changing. “Not to say that scaled data isn’t exciting – it is … but there’s a lot on the table.” Added to the pile is Microsoft’s display ads business, which AOL is in the process of absorbing in a single gulp. Read more.

Microsoft Still Kicking?

Speaking of Microsoft, the company’s chief envisioning officer, Dave Coplin, strikes down assumptions that the company is pivoting away from the advertising and marketing tech. “We are very firmly in both of those worlds,” Coplin told The Drum at the Jellyfish Digital Journey’s event in Brighton, England. “Whether you are in marketing or advertising or health; it doesn’t matter,” he added. “If you can use our technology to get a better result then we’ve done our job.” But after offloading its advertising business to AOL, it’s unclear what Microsoft’s reimagined advertising strategy will look like. Read on.

Agencies Doldrums, Cont.

Stocks from Publicis, Omnicom, Interpublic and WPP are all down in the second quarter, and Interpublic in particular has taken a blow, tumbling more than 10%, The Wall Street Journal observes. But! While the agency-client discourse has been dominated by the interconnected issues of rebates and widespread agency reviews, it’s important to bear in mind that all four market leaders are expected to post modest organic revenue gains this quarter. All will become clear once the tens of billions up for grabs in the current pitchapalooza involving 20-plus global advertisers find a home. The WSJ has more.

Fraud In The USA

According to native ad firm MGID, the US is the global leader in fraudulent traffic. MGID compiled data based on analysis of more than 30 million invalid clicks worldwide and found that the US accounted for 26% of fraudulent traffic running through MGID’s ad network (the UK accounted for 19%). “The US market is the most lucrative one due to higher CPMs and online advertising spendings which leads to the development of the most sophisticated robotic traffic pretending to be human,” explained MGID CEO Sergey Denisenko. Read the release.

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