Google's Programmatic Spend; Facebook's CPC Metric Changes

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Google’s Dog Food

In a new post on its Think With Google site, Google describes its adoption of programmatic for its own marketing efforts. According to digital media manager Brendan Starr, “Our goal for 2014 was to buy 60% of our worldwide brand display marketing programmatically across all channels. We surpassed that goal, with programmatic accounting for 73% of our spend.” An ongoing campaign for the Google Search App reached 30% more people three times more frequently with a 30% lower eCPM compared to 2013. Read on.

Facebook’s CPC Switch-Up

Facebook is adopting a new method for measuring clicks as part of its latest API release. Previously, Facebook measured likes, comments and shares to determine CPC, but as of Wednesday, only clicks on websites and apps count. In a blog post, Facebook says the update is designed to “provide measurement that’s more closely aligned with how advertisers are bidding.” And, once adopted, “Advertisers who care about link clicks are likely to see better return on advertising spend, since they’ll be paying for only the most valuable outcome.” Read on.

Sony Plugs Into Latin America

Sony Pictures Television will acquire a majority stake in IMS Internet Media Services, a Latin American digital ad sales and buying firm. Headquartered in Miami, IMS has struck commercial partnerships with firms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Spotify, iAds and Foursquare. Andy Kaplan, president of worldwide networks for Sony Pictures Television, said the company “will integrate practices and intelligence with our networks and ad sales teams in the region and globally, making this an excellent extension of our current business.” Read the release.

Times Doubles Down On Content Studio

The New York Times is extending its T Brand Studio content marketing division overseas. A team of four in London will pioneer the unit, focusing on video. “We would love to have a nine-figure content marketing business and international will play a key role in that,” said Sebastian Tomich, SVP of advertising innovations for the NYT. To date, the 37-strong US T Brand Studio team has created 70 campaigns for 60 clients. The Guardian has more.

Breaking Into TV

While digital publishers and ad firms have long fought for TV budgets, broadcasters may soon be courting the tech world. Though game makers like Machine Zone, Supercell and King have largely relied on digital advertising, Machine Zone saw profitable ROI from its Super Bowl ad featuring Kate Upton in Game of War: Fire Age. Simulmedia’s founder, Dave Morgan, sees this trend piggybacking on the increased ability to target and sharpen TV buys like brands do in digital, as well as a saturation of the inventory apps have mostly limited themselves to (aka Mobile Facebook placements). A new Simulmedia offering called SimulX aims to seize this opportunity. Read on at Re/code.

#HBD #2

One day after launching what TechCrunch reporter Josh Constine called a blatant grab for users’ DOB data, Twitter celebrated a milestone of its own. Wednesday marked one year since the launch of its mobile app promotion offering. To mark the occasion, Twitter began the rollout of three beta products for global advertisers that will be available in the coming months: video app cards, cost-per-install bidding and so-called “optimized bidding,” which “allows app install advertisers to optimize their bids according to install, while still paying by app click,” according to Twitter product marketing manager Sherene Arjani. More via Twitter’s ad blog. Twitter is finding DM religion.

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