Dunnhumby May Buy Sociomantic; Facebook Rolls Out Video Ads

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Rumor: Dunnhumby Buying Sociomantic

Business Insider’s Nicholas Carlson says that retargeter/DSP/(acronym here) Sociomantic is being acquired by Dunnhumby, a subsidiary of British retailer Tesco, for $175 million-$200 million – though Carlson says the deal isn’t finalized. Read more. If true, this could be about closing the loop between online and offline data in order to improve targeting of consumers with display ads and the like. In October, Sociomantic issued a release about improving its CRM capabilities.

Facebook Video, Finally

Facebook announced long ago that it would introduce video ads and, according to a blog post, that vision has finally come to fruition. The social site is using Targeted Gross Ratings points for delivery, Nielsen OCR for measurement and Ace Metrix to vet the videos for quality so users aren’t bombarded by irrelevant ads. The videos will autoplay without sound, but if clicked on by the user the video expands and sound starts playing. Read the post. And more from Inside Facebook.

iAd Update

Apple appears to have included a new functionality in iOS 7.1 that helps app developers measure the effectiveness of its iAd platform. The new functionality is not mentioned in Apple’s “What’s New in iOS” summary, but the new API code indicates a change, said HasOffers, which flagged the update. “Based on our interpretation, we believe this method will provide insight into whether a user engaged (impression or click) with an ad from iAd, in specific, prior to installing the app,” writes HasOffers in a blog post. No word yet from Apple confirming the change. Read the post.

Extending Experience

Twitter continues to take baby steps with its Promoted Accounts products. TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden reports that Twitter will be inserting a “Promoted Tweet” in your Desktop timeline soon. She writes, “It’s part of Twitter’s bigger push to have more parity between the mobile and desktop experiences – a theme that has also been highlighted with redesigns on the desktop to look more like the mobile product.” Read more.

Loosening The Grip

Emarketer sees the mobile freight train headed Google’s way and that its search revenues will take a hit in the future as users move from desktop to mobile. In a blog post, eMarketer says, “Desktop search ad spending will drop $1.4 billion this year, a decrease of 9.4% from 2013, while mobile search will increase 82.3% year over year.” Read more. This is the same challenge all publishers have with monetizing in mobile. It’s not like the old days of the desktop.

But Wait. There’s More!