Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Rage Against The ML
Google and Meta are all-in on machine-learning-based ad products that assign creative and optimization controls to the platform. But tools like Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns have been rushed onstage – and they’re not ready for primetime.
PMax and ASC, as they’re known, outperform human ad buyers on conversion optimizations and have become immense spending channels.
So from the platform perspective, they’re doing great. Which explains why Google and Meta are so gung-ho.
But the trade-off comes with account services.
Facebook has suffered massive glitches in campaigns in recent months, which stem from its algorithmic shopping products. Those platform errors are exacerbated by the disappearance of real account service.
Google, meanwhile, has a conversational AI pilot to handle customer queries, but specialist agencies and advertisers have been raising alarms about Google making consequential conversion-tracking changes in accounts with no oversight or communication to clients.
But neither Google nor Meta appear to be paying enough attention to advertiser concerns about machine learning products. Maybe that’s because they fired the humans who would have received the furious customer emails and replaced them with chatbots.
The Search For Tok
You’ve probably heard by now that the youngs use TikTok instead of Google for their searches.
Now TikTok is testing a new search feature, Insider reports. And it’s, uh, an integration with Google.
Some queries entered into the TikTok app will prompt users to search for the same keyword on Google. Doing so will open an in-app browser window displaying the Google results within TikTok.
The partnership does not include ad units at this time, according to TikTok, and a Google spokesperson declined to comment on any financial agreement between the two companies.
This isn’t TikTok’s first search integration, though. It began adding information from Wikipedia and IMDB to search results earlier this year.
But the Google integration comes at an interesting time. Google is in the midst of defending itself in an historic antitrust case about its (alleged) dominance over online searches and how Google Search benefits products like YouTube.
Part of Google’s defense is to point to emerging competition like TikTok. But as this partnership shows, even its fiercest competition can’t help but rely on Google’s services.
Sip On This
As subscription fatigue sets in, all sorts of services are rediscovering the value of the bundle.
Walmart+, the retailer’s subscription program and rival to Amazon Prime, now offers Paramount+. Disney+ and Uber One, the ride-share app’s subscription offering, recently announced a promotional bundle for both services.
The odd ones out are news companies, which need the help and are willing to cut major promotional deals. But news pubs also come with heavy baggage. If Walmart bundled The New York Times, for instance, or even a less politically fraught publication like USA Today, it would face inevitable blowback from certain customers.
This is all a lead-in to yesterday’s announcement that the Panera Bread Unlimited Sip Club, which surely you know is its subscription offering, will include six months of free access to The Washington Post. (WaPo, after it was acquired by Jeff Bezos, was briefly bundled with Prime, but it wasn’t a good look to give an obvious boost to Bezos’ side project.)
Long story short: Big ups to Panera for having the courage to bundle the news and for giving its subscription service a proper name, instead of Panera+.
But Wait, There’s More!
The Justice Department restricts public access to Google communications provided as evidence in the search giant’s federal antitrust trial. [Bloomberg]
Snapchat+, the app’s paid subscription, has 5 million subs and is halfway to its goal. [Insider]
Fast-food apps are competing with delivery apps for first-party customer data. [Mobile Dev Memo]
Magnite announces CTV integrations with The Trade Desk and Yahoo. [release]
You’re Hired!
Genius Sports appoints former MediaMath CTO Manny Puentes as GM for advertising. [release]
Gene Burrus, former director of global competition at Spotify, joins the Movement for an Open Web as director of US operations. [release]
