The ANA Wags Its Finger At Facebook; Facebook Shifts Atlas To Its Measurement Division

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Bob & Goliath

The ANA is wagging its finger at Facebook after the social platform’s recent measurement mishap [AdExchanger coverage]. CEO Bob Liodice released a statement on Thursday calling for the Media Ratings Council to audit Facebook’s metrics. “With more than $6 billion of marketers’ media being directed to Facebook, we believe that it is time for them – and other such major media players – to be audited and accredited,” Liodice wrote. “That is the standard of accepted practice that marketers and agencies have relied on for decades.” In other words, “you ain’t special.” The ANA said marketers should only use measurement vendors accredited by the MRC, and that viewability measurements employed by digital media companies should not be “used for the purposes of conducting outside commerce.” Update: Facebook said in a statement, “We are currently in dialogue with the ANA about how we can work more closely together. Trust and transparency with our partners are paramount to the operation of our company. Our focus has always been on driving business results for our clients, and we strongly believe in third-party verification. We have a history of working with industry leaders including Nielsen, Moat, and comScore – and we continue to explore more partnerships.”

Atlas, Shrugged

Facebook’s Atlas, an ad tech business it bought from Microsoft in 2013, is being shifted from the company’s ad tech division into its measurement division, reports Lara O’Reilly for Business Insider. Facebook bought Atlas before shifting away from the display ad-buying business Atlas grew up with, and “the restructure is a recognition of how Facebook’s use of Atlas has dramatically changed.” But Atlas has been slowly transitioning into an attribution tool since last year. Erik Johnson, Facebook’s head of Atlas, told AdExchanger the business was refocusing from ad buying to attribution-level insight reporting – comparing its Facebook impact to what Adometry did for Google. More.

Along For The Ride

Don’t sleep on Uber as the next marketing platform giant. Every dollar Uber can squeeze out of marketers helps it undercut the prices of competitors like Lyft. It’s a strategy that takes after Amazon, which opted for the long road to profitability but throttled retailers by driving paid media and search revenue back into lower ecommerce margins. On Thursday Uber unveiled a partnership with the location analytics firm Yext that lets retailers integrate Uber into their apps, sites or emails, reports Adweek’s Lauren Johnson. People pay for the ride (though there’s a clear application for retailers to discount trips), but brands or retailers can also then serve targeted ads to the traveler. More.

Listen Up

Spotify is in talks to buy SoundCloud. SoundCloud has been valued at $700 million, but the price tag isn’t set. As competition in the music-streaming space heats up, the two European leaders may join forces to fend off Silicon Valley heavyweights. “The big question for the streaming market is whether you can be a standalone company in a category when you have companies like Amazon and Apple looking at music as a loss leader, just to sell more iPhones or Echo speakers,” says Niklas Zennstrom, co-founder of Skype and Rdio, to the Financial Times. SoundCloud’s community of 200 million artists and 135 million tracks would also boost the prospects for Spotify’s anticipated IPO next year. More.

But Wait, There’s More!