Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
ATT Impact Deferred
Anyone looking for evidence of harm to mobile app giants by Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency move last quarter may well come up empty. Digital advertising is outgrowing other media channels and will likely continue doing so. “The permeable advantage of digital ads should shine through as new pockets of ad spend (travel & experiences, financial services, and B2B) replace spend from verticals with softening user interest (retail, media & games),” according to a Bernstein analyst note published by CNBC. The mobile ad platforms most vulnerable to ATT (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snap and the like) are also likely to surf overall ad growth, so it will be hard to credibly point to any painful losses. “Given the ad sector tailwinds, it’s likely that the IDFA revenue pressures get lost in the wash.”
The Push To Get Jabbed
Public health departments with multimillion dollar budgets are doing their best to get the word out about vaccines. The CDC spent an estimated $9 million in June to target younger demographics with emoji-filled ads, according to data from ad intelligence platform Pathmatics. The California Department of Health spent $4 million in its effort to reach non-English-speaking families and urge them to get vaccinated. And the US Department of Health spent $7 million on ads since June, dividing its budgets between vaccination reminders and anti-vaping messages. Another target of pro-vaccination messaging is Black Americans. The Ad Council released a short documentary earlier this month that addresses vaccine mistrust stemming from racist medical research, like the Tuskegee Syphilis study.
Algo Metrics
What does TikTok consider the most important signals that a user is engaged and wants to see more of a certain kind of content? The Wall Street Journal probed the TikTok algorithm by creating dozens of bot accounts with specific interests to see how long and what actions prompted certain topics and videos to appear in the feed. The clearest indications seem to be when someone rewatches a video or pauses a scroll to return to a video. More so than video completion rates, hashtags or demographic data, videos that get users to interrupt mid-scroll and linger over a video is a sign that (a) this user wants to see more of this kind of content, and (b) this could be a video that’s ready for primetime on the algorithmic feed. It’s an interesting look at how user engagement is scored when advertisers and ad metrics are not part of the equation. If your campaign scores well on metrics like video completions, viewability or contextual tags, the truest sign that the ad grabs people’s attention is whether it interrupted the page scroll.
But Wait, There’s More!
Epic Games acquires Sketchfab 3D tech startup. [release]
Twitter beat expectations in Q2, with 74% revenue growth year over year. [CNBC]
Publicis Groupe SA also had a strong Q2 with a 17% increase in revenue. [WSJ]
Facebook and Twitter launched respective brand safety audits with the Media Ratings Council. [Digiday]
Peloton started its first ad campaign since a product recall earlier this year. [The Drum]
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) introduced The Health Misinformation Act that seeks to remove Section 230 protections for social media platforms that distribute misinformation. [TechCrunch]
The Network Advertising Initiative launched a tool for consumers to opt out of ad targeting based on hashed emails. [MediaPost]
You’re Hired
NBCUniversal hired John Lee as chief data officer. [MediaPost]
Sabio hired Tim Russell as SVP of Sales. [release]
JPMorgan Chase hired Carla Hassan as CMO. [Adweek]
Criteo hired Joshua Koran as EVP, data and policy, and Karsten Rieke, senior director, product management for identity and privacy. [release]
You & Mr Jones hired Jess Nachtigall and Rachel Adams as associate partner and director of media services, respectively. [CampaignUS]
