Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Google Reports Q4 And Talks Display
Google reported its q4 2009 earnings after the market closed yesterday and though the company made an impressive profit, it wasn’t as much as some expected. Paul Kedrosky posts JP Morgan’s thoughts on the results on his blog including: “EBITDA margin came in at 63.1%. This was well ahead of our expectation for 61.9%.” Among the quotes from the call, Google execs said:
- “Display we have talked about before and is now a huge opportunity for Google.”
- “AdSense revenue was up 21% year-over-year to $2 billion driven primarily by solid performance in ad sense for search, strength in ad sense for content and growth in our display initiatives.”
- “DoubleClick [Ad Exchange] is now fully integrated and display is ramping nicely.”
- “If you shift to emerging markets we are very happy with our performance. In most of these markets we see very clear effects of underlying economic expansion again as well as the accelerating adoption of both search and online display advertising.”
- “Brand marketers continue to better understand the online display format and incorporate that into their campaigns.”
- “The ad exchange which we launched in Q3 continues to show good progress and is increasingly becoming an important part of display consistent with we believe most of the top networks are now signed onto the exchange.”
You can listen to the earnings call on YouTube here. See the IR press release. Finally, read the full transcript of the call on Seeking Alpha.
AudienceScience Reports, Too
It’s ANOTHER “earnings release” from a private company as behavioral ad network, AudienceScience, said in a release that it “experienced 69 percent continuing operations revenue growth in 2009, with technology services revenue growth of over 48 percent and media revenue growth of over 76 percent.” Read more.
Facebook Pulls Back From Microsoft
Bloomberg is reporting that it’s moving away from it’s advertising deal with Facebook as Dina Bass and Brian Womack report “Facebook stopped using Microsoft this month to sell graphical banner ads in some international markets. It also may drop those ads in the U.S.” according to an interview with Robin Domeniconi, VP of sales at Microsoft. Read more.
Greg Yardley analyzes the recent purchase of Ghostery by Scott Meyer’s Better Advertising. Yardley thinks that the combination has a chance to play an important part in the ecosystem depending on how things come out: “Together, Better Advertising+Ghostery can act as a direct conduit between the end users and the online advertising industry – connecting the acted upon and the actors.” Read it.
2010: Personalized Advertising
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Daily Roundup
Former Microsoft Labs maven Greg Linden says its never to late for more 2010 predictions and offers his in question format. Linden speaks to the converted when he writes, “Will 2010 be the year of personalized advertising, where ads no longer are matched to content, but to people? Will it become expected that advertising is relevant and useful to you? Will this make advertising less annoying? Or will it make it more intrusive and abusive?” Read more.
InterCLICK Gets DoubleVerified
Are you an ad network that sick of seeing agencies pass their DoubleVerify or other verification company tags to you? Maybe you need to get in the food chain? InterCLICK has and announced that it will use/resell DoubleVerify’s BrandShield product. Read the release.
Morals And DSPs
Tom Hespos challenges the industry in his iMedia piece on whether it should “it should support buyer-side audience development platforms” and asks, “Is it morally correct for agencies to be opaque with publishers and/or clients as to how they’re leveraging data?” Hespos is definitely on the traditional side of agency as pure “agents” of their clients. Read the piece.
AdMob Rocketing
Jay Yarow shares Google/AdMob’s smartphone data on The Business Insider. Among the findings: fast moving, month-over-month growth: “Mobile ad network AdMob had its biggest month ever in December, delivering 11.5 billion ad requests, an increase of 1.73 billion from the month prior.” Read more and see the chart. Need still more mobile? Apple may break with Nokia as it circles the wagons in preparation for mobile wars. Read VentureBeat.
IAB Takes Show On Road
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced its taking its “Case Study” show on the road to San Francisco, Dallas and Chicago as “the event series is comprised exclusively of case studies from the best in interactive marketing.” Sign up here (be ready to spend coin).
Decoupling Media Is Good For Display
ClickZ’s Tessa Wegert is looking for local advertising to break-out in 2010 since “advancements in display ad technology have allowed marketers to create local campaigns that are no longer tied to local media buys. Read more predictions.
UK Digital Agencies Pump
New Media Age reports that digital agency income grew an impressive 18% in 2009 according to a new study. NMA adds, “Steak Media, iCrossing and Pod1’s income grew by more than 50%, while the largest fall was for Agency.com, whose profits dropped by 25.8% owing to a major cut in client spend.” Read it.
Real Estate For Startups
Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures offers his real estate tips for startups on his “Continuations” blog. His final tip: “Don’t ever sign anything but a short-term lease without talking to your board members. This will easily be your single biggest fixed expense and you want to make sure everyone is on board.” Read them all.
Social Landing Pages Suck
RAMP Digital’s Jonathan Mendex looks at how social media sites that are using the “check-in” model are missing good landing pages. Mendez states, “The landing pages provide no value to the referrer. Yet, the landing page is the spot where the triangulation of goals must align. The whole value chain for this product converges at the landing page.” Read more.
Self-Regulation Systems Proposals
Kate Kaye of ClickZ says that six, count ’em SIX companies have proposed self-regulatory, third-party systems which will monitor compliance to online advertising guidelines. The IAB, Direct Marketing Association, 4As, and ANA “with oversight from the Better Business Bureau’s advertising review body, will choose which proposal or proposals fit the bill,” says Kaye. Read it.
