Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Amazon Prime(s) Its SSP Play
Based on its job listings, Amazon is getting ready to launch a supply-side platform.
The company has 11 open job listings on a “PubTech team” tasked with building “the new Amazon Ads Supply Side Platform,” Insider reports.
The openings include software engineering and product management roles focused on creating new video, audio and display ad experiences and cultivating deals between advertisers and media owners. The listings mention designing ad products for Amazon’s own media offerings, including Twitch, FireTV and Freevee.
This wouldn’t be Amazon’s first foray into the sell side. It’s already got Amazon Publisher Services and a pixel network. But those operate independently of Amazon Ads and are actually housed within AWS.
The new PubTech team, however, is positioned as part of Amazon Ads and seems to represent a more proactive effort by Amazon to compete with independent SSPs. The move would also make Amazon more competitive with Google’s end-to-end advertising platform.
Amazon already has a DSP (the one-time Sizmek biz), but its efforts to build a full-stack ad tech platform could be met with the same antitrust scrutiny as Google’s ad business.
Winning In CTV? Prove It
Ad tech businesses, especially public ones, banked on the secular tailwind of CTV growth – and it’s a compelling sell. Ad dollars will inevitably follow viewers to streaming media, the budgets are net-new for programmatic, and even a sliver of the CTV market would guarantee happy shareholders. Right?
Buuuuuut … Wall Street’s patience is wearing thin, Digiday reports.
For those who follow ad tech earnings every quarter, Q2 2023 marked a lower ebb of CTV sales.
The Trade Desk and others faced critical questions from investors about whether their relatively high margins can hold up on CTV. (The Trade Desk’s average overall take rate is 20%, whereas software for TV ad buying usually takes a low single-digit cut.)
Execs can only oversell their CTV growth for so long without disclosing revenue. The Trade Desk could ice this counter-narrative by breaking out CTV revenue – but only if that number is impressive.
Years ago, early in the CTV hype cycle, TTD would report around 1,000% annual growth for CTV – which was actually evidence of a low reference point. TTD has since stopped breaking out the percent of growth.
Going Somewhere?
Lyft introduced new ad formats and targeting options last week.
It will target ads based on a user’s ride history and/or destination, The Wall Street Journal reports. If someone goes to a movie theater, for example, Lyft can target film trailer ads.
Uber launched an advertising business last year, too. But Lyft took a more cautious approach with in-house segments for targeting specific high-traffic locations, like airports or sport stadiums, to allow targeting but without user-level personalization.
Uber allows targeting for practically any destination an ad buyer can geofence. Want to target regional malls or even a direct competitor’s retail locations? Sure. Want to reach people going to the Hamptons during the summer? OK.
But Uber just announced its first profitable quarter as a public company, which CEO Dara Khosrowshahi credited to ad revenue growth. So long as Uber isn’t punished by consumers or regulators, Lyft’s reticence will feel like a self-inflicted loss.
Lyft is taking a different page from Uber’s book, though. The next ad trick Lyft will lift from Uber: more video inventory. In-app video ads will come to Lyft this year, alongside an expansion of DOOH-enabled video ad screens on bikeshare stations.
But Wait, There’s More!
MediaMath founder Joe Zawadzki looks to raise at least $10 million to help buy back the bankrupt DSP he founded. [Insider]
Cannes Lions parent company Ascential acquires content and comms advisory firm Contagious Communications. [MediaPost]
Instagram now lets users add music to posts, Meta’s latest TikTok copycat move. [TechCrunch]
Google activates Privacy Sandbox APIs across at least one-third of Chrome traffic. [post]
Data intelligence startup Tracer raises $18 million. [TechCrunch]
