Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
CMax, LOL
Criteo reported earnings on Wednesday. It wasn’t a blockbuster – gross revenue ticked down from $495 million in Q2 2022 to $469 million this year – but Criteo clawed back to about even in terms of profitability after dipping into the red the past year.
Criteo is all-in on commerce media, and especially Commerce Max, a machine learning-based ad-buying product that has been in testing since last year, and is scheduled for as general release in Q3.
If that sounds like Google’s Performance Max, you’re right. Criteo CFO Sarah Glickman made the point pretty clearly, at one point referring to it as “CMax” three times in quick succession.
This is particularly funny since Microsoft Advertising recently released an ads beta product that explicitly imitates Google PMax … that Microsoft also calls PMax.
On another Google front, Criteo hopes its first-mover status in the Chrome Privacy Sandbox will finally pay off by helping it separate from the ad tech pack in terms of addressability.
Criteo’s Privacy Sandbox commitment is “incredibly well resourced,” product chief Todd Parsons tells investors.
It has invested heavily in Privacy Sandbox development. It needs Chrome to get a move on and make good, in a sense, by holding down the line (this time) on third-party deprecation.
Creator Incubator
YouTube is desperately trying to poach more influencers from TikTok.
Shorts – YouTube’s copycat version of TikTok videos – is about to look a lot more like its competition, The Verge reports.
As of this week, Shorts will let creators record videos alongside other clips, which is basically TikTok’s Duet feature with a different name (Collab). Duet’s popularity with users is why advertisers like it, too.
YouTube is also making it easier for users to repurpose content from horizontal videos into vertical Shorts. Plus, YouTube is experimenting with putting live video previews into Shorts feeds. When viewers watch these live videos, they can also see a feed of other livestreams and chatting features. It emulates TikTok livestreams, which creators use to reach more viewers and sometimes sell products.
YouTube also expects live Shorts will attract more creators by giving them a way to grow their audience by reaching more people at once. Will it work? Time will tell.
Storm Clouds
Right now, there are tons of cool generative AI or “large language model” machine learning startups. Some are for B2B cases, or analytics; others save time for agencies and creatives; and then there’s generative AI product placement for video creators.
It’s all very interesting and seems to be practically free to test everywhere.
Or, at least, there’s little sense of how much prices for data consumption will ramp up as cloud companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google and VC investors stop fronting investments in a high-growth category.
Microsoft’s recent earnings had a $10.7 billion tab for capital expenditures, its highest ever, The Information reports. Buried in there, like a little bandwidth-eating engine, are AI and ChatGPT costs.
Marketers and merchants will be testing generative AI chatbots or dynamic creative in ads and product pages. And those tests will often come back to a license for ChatGPT or another Amazon or Google-backed AI product.
This is the early stages of LLMs, like when Uber and Lyft were super-cheap, courtesy of VC backers. At some point, probably sooner rather than later, the clouds will stop eating the costs.
But Wait, There’s More!
How to launch a consumer app. [Mobile Dev Memo]
Google Search’s generative experience is testing links in AI-generated answers. [Search Engine Land]
How Google, Meta and Snap’s battle with TikTok in short-form video is playing out. [Digiday]
You’re Hired!
Blackbird.AI appoints Dan Lowden as chief marketing officer. [release]
Andrew Rutlege joins Emodo as chief revenue officer. [release]
