YouTube Gets The Most TV Budget; Location Is Ready For A Comeback

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Mountains And Molehills

YouTube remains the only digital platform stealing significant TV budgets, but its budgets are still just an insignificant fraction of overall TV, Mike Shields writes for The Wall Street Journal. Advertisers are wary of digital video prices (YouTube CPMs run between $15 and $20), and remain unconvinced of the reach and impact. Digital analytics has fueled a revolution in how data is used across channels – but there are not many cracks in the TV dam. “Few advertisers have subscribed to the idea that their budgets are fully fluid,” said Dave Campanelli, SVP and director of national broadcast at Horizon Media. More.

Approaching Location

Location-based services have been hamstrung by imprecise targeting and low-quality data [AdExchanger coverage]. But with the hardware and software improving every day, location is poised for a surge. As eMarketer has shown, apps for mapping, directions, location recommendations and especially the weather are more likely to secure a user opt-in for tracking. Which is why companies like Foursquare and Yelp are discovering value in being the antennae for platforms like Twitter or Instagram, where most users don’t turn on location tagging.

New Media

“The concern is always commoditization,” says Harvard Business School professor Andrei Hagiu about publishers’ common fears when joining a platform like Facebook. Distinguishing yourself as a media brand is much more difficult. They’re Facebook users, not your readers, and they’ll be on to the next post in a minute. Users jump from one pub to the other with little differentiation – oh, and by the way, so do the advertisers. Read the rest of Hagiu’s Q&A with The New York Times.

100% Ad-Supported

When Snapchat was hacking its first trails into the monetization jungle, it experimented with paid services like “Unlimited Replays,” which let users access seen and deleted messages for a $0.99 fee, and a “Lens Store” that charged users for graphics and stickers. Snapchat shuttered the Lens Store in January, and Unlimited Replays went the way of the dodo as of last Friday. This means Snapchat no longer has in-app consumer monetization, and is now an entirely ad-supported model.

The Hand That Feeds

Bloomberg covers a report from ecommerce operations firm Skubana which says Amazon has “slept quietly as it retained data about other sellers’ successes.” The ecommerce titan is amping up its AmazonBasics product lines – which replicate high performers on the platform where trademarks aren’t infringed – and is emerging as a best-seller in multiple categories, from batteries to consumer tech gear. Retailers like Nordstrom and Gap used to be prized Amazon partners, but now many generic clothing product searches go to one of Amazon’s seven relatively obscure brands. More.

But Wait, There’s More!