Home Ad Exchange News Direct Response Budgets To The Rescue; Verizon Media Adds Native To DSP

Direct Response Budgets To The Rescue; Verizon Media Adds Native To DSP

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

DR FTW

Brands are pulling back, but direct response marketers are making up some of the loss. Facebook, Google and Snap called out DR advertisers as a bright spot during Q1 earnings, while brand advertising declined. The roughly $40 billion app-install market was “likely the most material contributor this quarter” to social media ad spend, according to Morgan Stanley analysts. Facebook is seeing a tailwind from long-tail ecommerce and gaming brands, while YouTube is boosting Google’s DR business with app download ads, CNBC reports. Only Twitter seems to be struggling for traction with DR brands.

Omnichannel DSP

Verizon consolidated more of its ad tech and digital media into a single DSP platform, with the integration of native advertising. Unified planning, media-buying and measurement across channels, with the help of first-party data, is the “DSP 2.0” model driving the market right now, Verizon Media Chief Business Officer Iván Markman told AdExchanger in an email. In December 2019, Verizon Media added digital out-of-home to its unified DSP offering, which included CTV and streaming audio. “As the customer evolves, they’re going to require more from their DSP,” Markman said. “Those who have these capabilities in house will be the ones who end up on top.”

I CANNot Even

ICANN, the nonprofit that oversees the internet’s domain naming system, blocked the sale of the “.org” registry to a private equity firm called Ethos Capital. Ethos made a $1.1 billion bid for the registry late last year. ICANN’s main contention is that Ethos would transition the Public Interest Registry, which operates the .org domain, from nonprofit to a for-profit business. And Ethos planned to load the PIR with $360 million in debt – PIR generated $95 million in fees from .org sites in 2018, but most of that went back in grants to nonprofits, whereas the Ethos plan would be for the group to pay off the loan to finance its own acquisition. ICANN also dinged Ethos on its nontransparency, since the firm wouldn’t disclose its investors.

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