Facebook Bags Hashtags; AdRoll Buys Data Miner

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Facebook Bags Hashtags

Facebook is co-opting some of Twitter’s real-time cred with the addition of hashtag support for users and brands. In a blog post, it suggests marketers can stop worrying about going “all in” with Twitter when launching hashtag-based campaigns in their billboard or TV creative: ”If you are already using hashtags in an advertising campaign through other channels, you can amplify these campaigns by including your hashtags in Facebook advertising.” Read it. Long-term, the hashtag idea could serve as the foundation of an exchange linking ads to trending ideas or big news. Read AdExchanger’s recent speculations.

AdRoll Buys Data Miner

Retargeter AdRoll has snatched up two-man data-crunching firm Bitdeli. Bitdeli was created by two brothers, Jyri and Ville Tuulos, to support custom analytics. Ville built framework and Jyri is the design guy. Founded last year, “Bitdeli quickly signed up hundreds of developers onto the platform, and is processing hundreds of millions of events in real time. The challenges of crunching, analyzing, and presenting these massive data sets are similar to that of the retargeting space,” says a press release. AdRoll blog.

Another Publisher Goes Native

If you had any doubt that native advertising was really happening, think again. The Washington Post is joining the long list of other publishers taking on this ad format. Their ads are called “Sponsored Views” and, according to AllThingsD, they are positioned at the very bottom of the page. Read more.

Flite Takes Off

Real-time ad company Flite raised $9 million from Iris Capital. Part of the deal includes VivaKi’s use of the technology across Publicis Groupe’s agencies, according to a press release. Recent acquisitions of similar companies were quite bullish (Buddy Media for $745m and Vitrue for $300m). Flite is in an even better strategic position in the market of paid media publishing. “This market is still in its infancy, with potential to be massive,” said Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer of VivaKi. Read more.

What Is Your Info Worth?

The NSA data collection scandal has a lot of people in a tizzy, but what about advertisers who do the same thing for profit? The Financial Times took the trouble to break out just how much money your data is worth, unveiling the financial side of data collection. The minimum per person is around $0.0005, but that number goes all the way up to $0.001 for income and shopping histories. Furthermore, although health information is supposed to be protected, companies get around that by saying their data is from patients themselves and not a larger database. Read more.

iAd Opens Up

Apple is opening up their iAd platform to smaller developers with the iAd Workbench platform, lowering the purchase minimum to $50 rather than the cool million it was reportedly charging big brands a few years ago. According to GigaOM, the ads are in banner format and appear at the top of apps, giving developers multiple targeting and pricing options. Read more.

Digital Cars

The automotive industry is expected to be the second biggest spender in online advertising by 2015, according to eMarketer. Also, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association, dealers have increased their digital ad spending from 5.0% in 2002 to 26.5% in 2012. It seems the auto industry has used digital advertising to change consumer habits from the traditional purchase funnel to a more cyclical process, a trend which was explored in a report from 2012 done by Google, Compete and R.L. Polk. Read more.

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