Atlas To Facebook; Contextual Context

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Report: Atlas To Facebook

The eagle has landed – almost. Microsoft is announcing the sale of its Atlas ad server to Facebook as early as next week says Ad Age’s Jason Del Ray. He writes, “The acquisition price is not known, but is expected to be less than $100 million, based on prior bids for Atlas, which have been in the $30 to $50 million range.The acquisition would be the surest sign yet that Facebook has designs on becoming an even bigger player in advertising than it currently is now.” Pivotal’s Brian Wieser wades in with analysis, “The news should be viewed positively, and suggests that Facebook will pursue an ad network, allowing advertisers to reach audiences using Facebook-based targeting criteria across the web. It also increases Facebook’s self-dependence around online advertising infrastructure, in a sector where Google has become dominant.” Atlas is not the strategic centerpiece it once was. Is this just a test kitchen for bigger “meals” down the road for FB? Full-funnel attribution Facebook-style, here we come!

Facebook Appvertising ROI

Measuring post-install ROI is a big problem for mobile app developers — and one Nanigans aims to alleviate with a new tracking product geared to Facebook mobile campaigns. Press release. COO Marc Grabowski tells AdWeek, “We can look at different interest-level targeting, action spec targeting, what Facebook apps people have taken part in or interacted with and overlay that information with performance behavior to give a level of granularity you can’t get anywhere else.” App developers Fab, TinyCo and Wooga are onboard. More.

Contextual Context

On Marketing Land, Danny Sullivan says that in a new marketing campaign, Microsoft is trying to position its Outlook.com email offering as privacy-sensitive versus Google Gmail which allows for contextual ads cued by keywords in a user’s email. Read more. Ironically, the same Google tech that provides contextual targeting in Gmail, is providing contextual targeting on Yahoo now. Has the Microsoft world just gotten a wee bit smaller? The challenges around search monetization with Yahoo-Bing haven’t helped.

Creative Media Practice

On Digiday, Jack Marshall reports on the creative-agency-growing-a-media-practice phenomenon. He notes, “AKQA’s media practice, for example, is now over 100 people strong, having doubled in size in the last two years. It might not be working with the global 100 media spenders, but smaller clients are increasingly looking for everything under one roof when it comes to digital, the agency says.” Read more.

More Context

CEO Ben Fischman of shopping site Rue La La told the throngs at Business Insider’s Social Commerce conference that yes, Facebook ads work. BI’s Laura Stampler quotes Fischman, “Display ads on Facebook … has been effective (…) I think Facebook advertising, as long as it’s contextually relevant, works.” Read more.

Big Data Winners And Losers

The shrinking cost — if not the complexity — of gathering “Big Data” can make it seem that all boats in the ad tech sea are rising as a result. But Simulmedia CEO Dave Morgan, writing in Mediapost, takes a closer look at the space and finds that the benefits are not being won across the board, even if the process of data managing and data mining has become more democratized. “I believe that the spoils will go to those who can move past basic data analysis and convert it into predictable business outcomes,” Morgan says. “The future will reward those who can convert data into foresight and take bold, market-changing actions. Read more.

Lost In Translation

Although emerging markets lag North America and Europe in terms of richness of audience data to be gathered and analyzed, brands that do take a chance on being first are likely to be rewarded, says Zedo social media director Francine Hardway, writing in iMediaConnection. While heaping praise on analytics provider Proximic for using “pattern proximity” and for ignoring semantic approaches. In other words, looking patterns of pageviews helps avoid the data from getting lost in translation, Hardway says that analyzing a full webpage can bring better results and reduce the chances of an embarrassment like the realization Chevy had when introducing its Nova to Spanish-speaking countries (“No va” means “no go.”). Read more.

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