AT&T Offers Discount To Track Users; TellApart Is Profitable

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“Will Be Tracked For Discount”

AT&T is willing to trade tracking privileges for service discounts, according to Forbes, as it brings its Google Fiber-like service to Austin, Texas. Users get a 30% discount for allowing AT&T to track them through “AT&T Internet Preferences.” Here’s how they present this offer to customers: “If you are exploring a new home appliance at one retailer, you may be presented with similar appliance options from other retailers. You might receive these offers or ads online, via email or through direct mail.” Read more.

Retargeting Profit

Ecommerce retargeter TellApart is profitable and growing, according to a video interview on TechCrunch. CEO and co-founder Josh McFarland lets a few numbers out of the bag, saying his company has a run rate of $100 million per year. Read it. TechCrunch points out the company has not taken any funding in two years. TellApart’s competitive set includes the now-public Criteo and ValueClick’s Dotomi unit.

Surveying Retargeting

Marketing Land and Survey Monkey partnered on a 400-person survey about consumers’ awareness of retargeting. One question asked: “How concerned are you that retailers can show you ads for their products after you have visited their websites?” The results: “Very concerned 18.87%; Somewhat concerned 34.80%; Neither concerned, nor unconcerned 29.4%; Somewhat unconcerned 6.86%; Very unconcerned 10.05%.” These are always hard surveys to do depending on how you ask the questions, but some interesting results. Read ‘em.

Potent IPO Predictions

In Digiday, Bazaarvoice EVP (and former Googler/AppNexuser) Ari Paparo takes apart the ad-tech space and reviews potential winners, losers and also-rans in the initial public offering race. Paparo’s predictive powers proved presciently potent in 2013. What’s he thinking about in 2014? Read the predictions.

Video Accountability

BrightRoll announced a strategic agreement through which it will integrate Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings into the BrightRoll console, a UI for “planning, executing and optimizing digital video advertising.” The OCR package measures viewer exposure to ad campaigns across screens. Read the press release.

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Daily News Roundup

Anthropic’s Vending Machine Goes Rogue; OpenAI Won’t Take Its Medicine

Charting Video

Forrester Research spent five years tracking online video and finally published two reports, according to a blog post, one focusing on the US and Canada, and the other on Europe. Among the positives, publishers are innovative, creative and focused on experiences that work for consumers and advertisers. The negatives are mostly on the advertiser side and include such things as a lack of understanding of the nuances of online audiences and too much repetition of the same ad. Read more.

TV Shift

The push and pull continues over the value of a time-shifted TV ad, AdAge reporter Jeanine Poggi notes in covering the UBS media and communications conference. Network CEOs have resisted discounts for ads time-shifted more than three days, as some advertisers want. They prefer a seven-day window. “What’s the difference if you watch it in five days or six days from now, versus three days from now?” said CBS CEO Les Moonves. Also: The US TV ad market is soft this quarter. Ad Age story.

Shopping Funds

Shopify has raised $100 million, bringing its valuation to $1 billion, according to The New York Times. The ecommerce company represents 80,000 stores, most on behalf of small businesses, but its vision for the future is much larger. “We want to go from being an ecommerce company to a commerce company,” said Harley Finkelstein, Shopify’s chief platform officer. “That’s the vision. Sell anything, anywhere, anytime.” Read more.

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