Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Has Lifetime Value Timed Out?
It was the best of LTV, it was the worst of LTV.
In mobile marketing, lifetime value (LTV) has long been considered a key metric for many data-savvy marketers. But times are changing, writes Eric Seufert at Mobile Dev Memo.
Seufert calls LTV “an anachronism on mobile.”
Rather than thinking about monetization on the basis of some abstract “lifetime,” Seufert argues that it’s time to “approach growth from the opposite perspective,” as in focusing on the optimal way to structure cash flows to support business growth.
With LTV, advertisers value audiences based on a potential lifetime revenue estimate that often doesn’t reflect reality. (Anyone attempting to qualify the value of customer engagement at some nebulous point multiple years in the future is building a castle out of hopes and rainbows.) Advertisers should instead prioritize “payback windows,” Seufert argues. In other words, how long it took for this or that cohort of ad audiences to pay back, so to speak, the brand’s investment in marketing.
Any cash-constrained business that tries to bank on 18 months of LTV accrual – especially in a down market – to achieve profitable marketing returns is playing a losing game. “Advertisers are better served focusing on month-to-month cash generation than the hypothetical LTVs of users acquired today,” according to Seufert.
The Supply Path Less Traveled
Buyers are gunning for more transparency into their CTV buys, and they’re turning to SPO to do it.
But they want more than just transparency into the inventory their ads run against. They want to know where the programmatic supply is coming from, Alex Stone, Horizon Media’s VP of advanced video, tells Digiday.
Buyers also chafe at having to pay an ad tech tax to a bunch of middlemen.
This week, Horizon Media announced a partnership with Magnite to make the SSP its preferred partner for programmatic guaranteed and CTV PMP buys.
Programmatic is a neat solution for CTV because buyers can manage campaigns across networks in one place, which helps mitigate fragmentation, Stone says. (Problem is, buyers still have to work with all the walled gardens directly, which sort of refragments the picture, so to speak.)
But supply path optimization brings media transparency and cost efficiency, both of which ad tech vendors and programmers need to provide if they’re going to convince more big brands to spend programmatically on CTV.
Leaked And Lauded
Nielsen wants to regain its lost MRC accreditation, but the MRC isn’t ready to give it back yet.
Over the weekend, Ad Age obtained a letter to Nielsen clients from the Media Rating Council confirming that Nielsen’s MRC accreditation status remains suspended.
Nielsen lost its MRC seal for local and national measurement last year after miscounting audiences during the pandemic.
The timing isn’t great for Nielsen, which remains heads down developing its new cross-platform measurement solution, Nielsen ONE. The MRC’s decision not to restore Nielsen’s stamp of approval keeps the scrutiny on Nielsen at a moment when the company would prefer some time out of the spotlight to make sure ONE actually works.
But it wasn’t the MRC’s plan to name and shame.
“It is profoundly disappointing that someone has shared a confidential document that presents only one side of the story,” David Gunzerath, SVP and associate director at the MRC, said in a statement. “Nielsen has made significant progress on most of the issues that led to that suspension.”
And, to be fair, Nielsen keeps on chugging along. Amazon Prime, Netflix and Roku have all tapped Nielsen as the default ratings provider for their respective ad businesses – and those are big wins as the world moves from linear to streaming.
But Wait, There’s More!
Why Anheuser-Busch prefers PMPs to programmatic guaranteed deals for streaming ads. [Digiday]
A Russian software company called Pushwoosh disguised itself as American and found its way into US Army and CDC apps. [Reuters]
Streaming stats, year-end edition. [Marketing Brew]
Twitter’s advertiser exodus continues, despite outreach from Elon Musk. [WSJ]
You’re Hired!
NextRoll promotes industry vet Roli Saxena to CEO. [release]
Timberland taps former Estée Lauder exec Ezra Martin as VP of marketing. [Footwear News]
Droga5 names two chief strategy officers: Colleen Leddy and Harry Román-Torres. [Ad Age]
