Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
FTC Cop Likes Ad Personalization
Ad Age’s Edmund Lee interviews David Vladeck, who is described as “the man who in many ways is in charge of policing the internet for the Federal Trade Commission.” Apparently, the FTC internet cop likes the data-driven world of the Internet as he tells Lee, “My kids are on Facebook. I do go online, of course. I do some online shopping, and actually I don’t enable the do-not-track browsers. I sort of like the personalization. I like that I don’t have to go back and reset things.” OMG. Read more.
RTB And Efficient Auctions
AppNexus CTO Mike Nolet returns to his “Mike On Ads” personal blog and delivers a compelling, nuts-and-bolts post on real-time bidded display auctions through ad exchanges and SSPs. He notes that aggressive floor prices set by publishers, who are looking to protect their direct sales channels, could result in missing out on ROI and response-driven dollars. Nolet sees the need for better tools for publishers in the auction: “In the end it comes down to information and controls. Publishers need to understand the market mechanics and the yield that they can derive from their inventory. At the moment I’m not aware of any major marketplace providers that supply this type of information.” Read it.
Ad Exchanges Are De-Humanizing
Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy and Linda Wooley of the Direct Marketing Association participated in a debate over the weekend on C-SPAN’s 4-part Communicators series focusing on online data collection and consumer privacy. In the interview, Chester says, “Today, part of the system includes auctioning us off in real-time on these online ad exchanges – a process I find de-humanizing frankly. In other words, when they place a cookie on your web browser, they know what you’re interested in and they get other information and add to that. And, they auction the right to target you – even when you’re on the street – when you’re near one location versus another. Do we really want a system like that?” See it. Chester’s ad exchange clip begins at 26:27.
What Is A Retargeted Click Worth?
-That’s the question Brent Halliburton is asking on his Cogmap blog which follows up on Alan Pearlstein’s recent piece on AdExchanger.com. Halliburtons says, “Are the CPCs that people are paying for retargeting campaigns greater or less than the appropriate proportional value that should be attributed to a retargeting impression?” Answer him here.
Will Oracle Buy Some Ad Tech
Oracle may be edging closer to acquisitions in the ad technology space if the tea leaves of recent comments by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison are to be believed. Bloomberg News quotes the CEO, “Oracle also plans to buy more makers of software focused on certain industries, Ellison said. By zeroing in on specific areas, the company aims to stand out from rivals such as SAP AG. ‘We want to play in every important industry,’ he said.” A DSP, ad network, data exchange….? Read more.
Burke Is New NBCU Chief
The mainstream media world is abuzz with news of Jeff Zucker’s replacement. It’s Steve Burke according to The Wrap which adds that The “Comcast chief operating officer and a onetime executive star at Disney, will become CEO of NBC Universal once federal regulators approve the cable TV giant’s $30-billion proposal to control the content company.” Read more.
Online GRPs Coming Soon
Nielsen is rolling out a gross ratings point system for online advertising. The Wall Street Journal’s Suzanne Vranica writes, “As with TV ratings, the new service requires the participation of media outlets, in this case Web portals and other sites. So far, the media-measurement firm has lined up Facebook Inc. as a participant, according to people familiar with the matter. Other websites are expected to join as it moves out of the testing phase.” Read more.
Looking At Venture “Audiences”
The audience-segmentation mantra has come to the start-up capital world as angel investor and Hunch CEO Chris Dixon discusses the “audiences” of venture. Dixon writes, “Some of this segmentation has been by industry (IT, cleantech, health care) and subindustry (iPhone apps, financial tech, etc). But more pronounced, especially lately, has been the segmentation by company stage. Today at least four distinct types of venture financing ‘products’ have become popular.” Read ’em.
Vibrant Media Thinking IPO
Ad Age profiles Vibrant Media and its IPO aspirations as Deric Emry, a partner at Vibrant’s principal backer, ABS Capital Partner, said “[Vibrant Media] is already profitable, and they’ve got a lot of options open to them, including going on the public markets.” Emry also pointed to the hiring of a new experienced CFO (Jeffrey Babka) as a key to getting to the public offering: “The bankers can’t babysit like they did years ago.” Read more. Vibrant’s annual revenue is around $100 million according to Ad Age.
Innovid Raises $4 Million
Video advertising technology company Innovid (AdExchanger.com Q&A) announced that it has raised $4 million to support its platform which includes a pre-roll technology called iRoll. According to TechCrunch, investors included “Genesis Partners and T-Venture, the venture capital company of Deutsche Telekom. This brings the startup’s total funding to $7.1 million.” Read more.
Ad Verification Is An Industry Issue
E.J. Hilbert, president of online intelligence at Epic Media, takes issue with coverage of DoubleVerify’s recent compliance study and says the industry needs to start working together. “One of the first steps that must occur to gain positive progress on any issue, be it a squabble between siblings or a systemic issue within an industry, is you must first clearly define the problem and standardize the language around it.” Read his ideas.
