SAP's Cloud Prospects; On Fraud

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Start of the SAP Marketing Cloud?

SAP may be moving closer to constructing its very own marketing cloud with a planned acquisition of SeeWhy, a real-time ecommerce targeting and email personalization startup that’s complementary to SAP’s commerce technology platform, hybris. SAP’s CMO recently told AdExchanger that SAP has plans to be a “big part” of how advertising “feels.” Although other marketing cloud competitors like Oracle, Adobe and Salesforce.com may be farther along their respective paths, SeeWhy’s Core platform foreseeably extends SAP’s hooks with a 30-partner strong email, Web, ad, analytics and ecommerce partner ecosystem. Read the release.

GroupM Viewability

GroupM’s Rob Norman and Ari Bluman unite for a blog post originally published on Jack Myers’ MediaBizBloggers that looks at fraud, viewability and a new related standard set by the MRC. The two writers come to two conclusions: “There are several technology vendors who cover a significant amount of available display inventory who have the technology deployed to meet this standard. We have negotiated preferred partnerships with them for our clients’ benefit.” Read the other on LinkedIn.

Platform Funds

Joe Marchese’s True[X] – formerly SocialVibe – has dipped into the VC cash register for another $6 million, according to TechCrunch. The goal of the new funds is for sales and marketing associated with attracting big publishers to its ad platform. TechCrunch paraphrases Marchese on the company’s search for the holy grail: “The goal is to move the industry away from the ‘willfully negligent packaging and repackaging of worthless impressions,’ so he’s specifically looking for publishers who ‘favor quality over volume.’” Need more? Read the AdExchanger article on True[X] from January.

The War On Tracking

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris called on websites to disclose online tracking, with the introduction of a set of guidelines on Wednesday. The guidelines are meant as a point of reference to help companies comply with the a new state privacy law that was enacted Jan. 1. The guidelines are not mandatory, but provide best practices for compliance with the new law. Most significantly, the guidelines ask that all sites state in plain language whether or not they’re tracking visitors. The NYT has the story.

Europe Mobile Ads

The IAB Europe released results from a new study that show mobile ads are on the move. According to a release, “Mobile has taken double-digit display market share for the first time, accounting for 11.5% with a growth rate of 128.5% compared with 2012. Online video advertising also showed strong growth, increasing by 45.4% in 2013, to nearly €1.19bn. This is the first time in Europe that online video has crossed the €1 billion mark.” Read more.

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Why Meta Doesn’t Mind A Scam; Working Backwards into AI Prompts

Video Automation

Video advertising platform provider SpotXchange reported a 145% overall revenue increase year over year for 2014’s first quarter. Following the company’s dealt with NDN last year, SpotXchange has recently signed deals with publishers such as Hearst Digital, Meredith Video Studios, Zynga, The Atlantic and Billboard. In the past several quarters, SpotXchange has signed upwards of 80 SSP partners and more than 30 DSP, with the aim of “empowering publishers to meet advertisers’ growing appetite for new programmatic channels.” The company reported a programmatic spend increase of 350% YoY. Read the earnings report.

Bitly Taps Execs

Bitly made public two notable hires on Wednesday. Joining the URL-shortening service as the first VP of sales is Jason Swetnam, former Oracle and Eloqua sales leader. Vivin Williams, former ShareThis, Yahoo and Microsoft produce lead, joins Bitly as vice president of product. Read the press release.

Mobile Ad Strategy

In light of projected increases in mobile ad spend this year, discussions surrounding the market heated up during the Mobile Media Upfront this week. A group of panelists agreed that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all have strong, if different, mobile ad strengths. “Twitter Promoted Tweets can be aligned with whatever the objective or goal is,” remarked Cheng, VP for mobile strategy and solutions at M&C Saatchi Mobile. “But what’s really interesting, different than Facebook, is that Twitter doesn’t really have much audience-interest targeting—[it’s] more about the behavioral targeting based on what people are tweeting. That’s pretty powerful to start profiling out what type of user they are, for example, with TV ads.” Read more at Adweek.

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