Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Vizu Raises $6 Million+
Down economy? Not so much in the ad tech world. Fresh from its AdExchanger.com Q&A, online ad effectiveness firm Vizu announced it has raised $6.75 million from a group of investors including “iNovia Captial and Greycroft Partners with participation from existing investors including Draper Fisher Jurventson and Esther Dyson.” Read the release.
Unraveling Privacy Concerns
In his Imedia Connection article, Jeff Hirsch of Audience Science says that its time for action in regards to educating the consumer about behavioral advertising. Hirsch offers a few suggestions on how to communicate with the consumer including: “Make it easy to understand. Consider your audience and don’t use jargon or reference stats that are not mainstream measurements. If it looks like Sanskrit and needs translation, your efforts will be wasted.” Read the article.
Aggregation Walls
Google Senior Business Product Manager, Josh Cohen, outlines changes on the way Google will index news sites in the future on the Google news blog. Mashable’s Ben Parr sees this as a direct result of pressure by Rupert Murdoch as the changes effectively give less access to paid or subscription news sites than before. Visit the Google news blog. Then, read Mashable.
London Calling
It’s the American DSP invasion! In a less-than-140-character press release, Invite Media announced through its Twitter account that its opening a London office effective January 1, 2010 and promised more details to come. Read the tweet.
Going To Bat For Behavioral
“In comments filed with the Federal Trade Commission,” the newspaper industry is stepping up to the plate in an effort to convince lawmakers that behavioral advertising is not only good for consumers who receive better, more targeted advertising, but it’s also a welcome new source of revenue for the beleaguered and bedraggled newspaper industry. MediaPost’s Wendy Davis has more.
SERP Ad Imbalance?
On the Clickable blog, Tony Soric looks at a new display ad format called “Product Listings” from Google which allows retailers to show multiple images of their products in paid search listings. Soric writes, “During my search query tests I continuously observed major retailers dominating the Product Listing ads space (Target, Sears, etc.)” and adds later “My fear is that the program will continue to be dominated by big-box entities whose primary concern is top-line growth, not the small business owner who relies on net-profits simply to remain in business.” Read more.
Making Display Like Search
ClickZ’s and WebAdvantage.net’s Hollis Thomases looks at “Improving the Performance of Display Advertising” with Permuto and its CEO Shaukut Shamim, and Media6Degrees. Shaukut discusses how his display ad optimization company is driven by the performance standard of search. Media6 CEO Tom Phillips adds that his company’s solution is for “those who don’t necessarily fall into the top five “winning” positions on the SERP.” Read about it.
The Display Frontier
In a MediaPost article, Paul Knegten gets exchange-y and contemplates ROI through display advertising saying, “Whether you choose to call them pork bellies or diamonds, impressions are commodities that carry with them the same properties of their counterparts on the trading floor.” Read more.
Fee TV
Google is busy in TV says MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka as Big G looks to leverage YouTube and charge consumers $1.99 for full-length, commercial-free episodes of the latest Ugly Betty, House or any other program a broadcast network is willing to offer – the day after it airs. Interesting. And, before you know it, Google IS the network. Read it.
Mobile Future In Asia
Stephanie Mehta writes on Fortune’s Brainstorm: Tech blog that agencies and advertisers openly envy the mobile infrastructure and opportunity in Asia. Taking part in a recent Fortune conference panel called “Monetizing the Mobile Landscape,” Nick Brien, president and CEO of IPG’s Mediabrands, takes it a step further in regards to countries like Korea and Japan. Brien says, “The future is here. And it is there.” Read the article.
Nielsen On ROAS
Chang Park of Nielsen’s China office takes the podium on the Nielsen blog and gives a bucket of tips on how marketers can maximize returns on their ad budgets including “Invest in consumers with premium gift packs.” Now there’s a novel idea for a display advertising startup – embedded premium gift packs. Read more.
Black Friday Stats
Search engine marketing (SEM) management company, Efficient Frontier, unveils a heartwarming comparison between 2009 and 2008 Black Fridays along key performance metrics (and presumably from their SEM client base) – and everything is coming up black! Spend is up 12%, CPC’s are down and impression levels are almost double what they were a year ago. Read more on the EF blog.
When Product Forgets Marketing
Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital reprises a theme from the First Round website which discusses the red flag of “virality.” Kopelman suggests that often a young startup will build a fancy new product without considering a coherent sales and marketing strategy – and will later try to “bolt on viral.” Ix-nay says Kopelman. A virality strategy starts at the beginning of product development. Read it.
Down Under Debate
Publishers and ad networks are to blame! That’s the accusation made on media site, Mumbrella (which covers the media biz in the Australian region). Down under, like everywhere else, some view the devaluation of online inventory directly tied to ad networks who aggregate remnant publisher inventory. Stuart Pike, Nielsen’s APAC research director tell Mumbrella that “as an industry ‘we are failing to communicate’ the value of the online medium as effectively ‘as our counterparts in television.'” Read more if you dare.
