Home Ad Exchange News Let’s Just Watch Something Already; Have We Reached Peak Newsletter?

Let’s Just Watch Something Already; Have We Reached Peak Newsletter?

SHARE:
Comic: Fragmentation+

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

Going Nowhere FAST

Streaming TV services want people to pick a show already. Too often, viewers peruse a streaming app for a bit and never actually settle on a show, then try another app. 

It’s an underappreciated linear advantage that something is always up and running when the television turns on. 

“Everyone needs a FAST platform,” Kelly Metz, Omnicom’s managing director for advanced TV activation, tells Marketing Brew. “There needs to be an equivalent to broadcast in the streaming world.”

FAST stands for “free ad-supported streaming,” and the value prop is that FAST networks just play like a TV channel, as opposed to on-demand content. Someone who browses a carousel of assorted programs under a Netflix “reality show” category, for instance, may never be inspired to click. But if a channel with preprogrammed reality shows came on to start, they may have happily stuck with the selection. Or, at least, that’s the idea. 

As Netflix and apps like Disney+ and HBO Max add advertising, there will be a stronger effort to speed-load channels or programs to get that sweet, sweet ad load, rather than let users browse and potentially exit. 

Dead Letters

Is the newsletter bubble ready to burst?

Legacy news publishers and startups alike invested big in newsletters as a subscription driver. And newsletters did prove to be a valuable source of first-party data and recurring revenue.

But the “peak newsletter” moment may have passed, writes The New York Times.

Subscribe

AdExchanger Daily

Get our editors’ roundup delivered to your inbox every weekday.

For example, The Atlantic is rethinking its newsletter program, which incentivized new subscriber sign-ups with writer bonuses. Under that program, newsletter writers earned a base pay of $100,000, with a chance to quadruple that if they converted 14,500 subscribers. The Atlantic scaled back the program as it reassesses how likely readers are to maintain subscriptions.

Meanwhile, Meta shut down its Bulletin newsletter service earlier this month. And Substack, the category leader, is cutting the upfront payments it used to lure writers. 

But the newsletter isn’t dead just yet. Mailgun, an email delivery service, says digital publishers have quadrupled sending volume over the past two years. But, as the volume of newsletters goes up … quality does what? 

Think Inside The Box

A class-action lawsuit in the UK is targeting Amazon’s Buy Box product placements.

The suit claims Amazon uses a “secretive and self-favoring algorithm” for the Buy Box, Bloomberg reports. The Amazon Buy Box drives serious purchase traffic to private-label brands and has an inscrutable methodology for who gets the coveted placement.  

From Amazon’s perspective, the algorithmic approach is important. Brands can’t buy the spot, so, ostensibly, it’s a better actual fit for shoppers. 

The suit is also one of the first in a potential deluge of British class-action trials against US Big Tech. Class-action suits are common in America, but not so much in Europe. At least one European plaintiff even tried to bring a class-action GDPR suit in a US court, because class-action laws are stronger in America. (It was tossed by the judge.)

The UK is making its class-action laws more like America’s, where a company can sue on  behalf of, say, an entire mobile service provider’s subscription base if the company is taking advantage of them. (Ever gotten a letter or email informing you that you’re entitled to, like, a 16-cent settlement from a case you weren’t aware of?) 

But Wait, There’s More!

Here is how much TikTok, Meta and other social platforms are paying creators. [Digiday]

Figma CEO Dylan Field on why he sold to Adobe. [TechCrunch]

TikTok’s secret plans for an online shopping empire in the US. [Semafor]

Snap plunges more than 25% on third-quarter revenue miss. [CNBC]

The South Korean super app Kakao went down this weekend, and it put life on halt. [NYT]

Must Read

The Trade Desk Maintains Its High Growth Rate And Touts New Channels

“It’s hard not to be bullish about CTV when it’s both our largest channel and our fastest growing,” said The Trade Desk Founder and CEO Green during the company’s earnings report on Thursday.

After The Election, News Corp Has Harsh Words For Advertisers Who Avoided News

News Corp’s chief exec blasted “the blatant biases of ad agencies and ad associations,” which are “boycotting certain media properties” due to “personal political prejudices.”

LiveRamp Outperforms On Earnings And Lays Out Its Data Network Ambitions

LiveRamp reported an unexpected boost to Q3 revenue, from $160 million last year to $185 million in 2024, during its quarterly call with investors on Wednesday.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters
Google in the antitrust crosshairs (Law concept. Single line draw design. Full length animation illustration. High quality 4k footage)

Google And The DOJ Recap Their Cases In The Countdown To Closing Arguments

If you’re trying to read more than 1,000 pages of legal documents about the US v. Google ad tech antitrust case on Election Day, you’ve come to the right place.

NYT’s Ad And Subscription Revenue Surge As WaPo Flails

While WaPo recently lost 250,000 subscribers due to concerns over its journalistic independence, NYT added 260,000 subscriptions in Q3 thanks largely to the popularity of its non-news offerings.

Mark Proulx, global director of media quality & responsibility, Kenvue

How Kenvue Avoided $3 Million In Wasted Media Spend

Stop thinking about brand safety verification as “insurance” – a way to avoid undesirable content – and start thinking about it as an opportunity to build positive brand associations, says Kenvue’s Mark Proulx.