CMOs React To Facebook Pitch; Native Ads FTW

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Facebook’s Pitch

WSJ gives the feature treatment to Facebook’s courtship of global ad clients. Shayndi Raice notes that at one meeting of its client council, CMOs harangued CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “As the ad types peppered the young chief executive officer with questions, a theme emerged. If they committed to spending big bucks with Facebook, how could they be assured a return on their investment?” Zuck’s response: “That’s a great question and we should probably have an answer to that, shouldn’t we?” Read it (subscription).

About About.com

On Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Keep Holdings CEO Scott Kurnit talks about About – About.com, and who should buy it. Does he says Answers.com run by his former colleague Peter Horan? Not explicitly but it seems he’s in favor of that type of acquisition: “About’s been sold three times.. lots of people have looked at it over the years. (…) About.com helped the NY Times through its cash crunch. I’d like the brand to be independent.” He thinks the platform has a better chance to thrive outside the publicly-traded realm. See the video.

Native Ads Emerge

On his personal blog, Activate co-founder Anil Dash argues that it’s time to stop publishing web pages. He says, “The vast majority of advertising online is dependent on a page-view model that users have overwhelmingly decided to abandon. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and others will succeed by making in-stream advertisements that fit in with the native content of their networks. Meanwhile, page-based sites are cramming every corner and bit of white space on their sites with ads that only ever decrease in effectiveness until they are made even larger and more intrusive every few years.” He says to start publishing streams, instead. “Native advertising” gathers momentum. Read the post.

Adding Apps

Aggregate Knowledge is adding its AK App to the AppNexus App Marketplace according to a release. The release explains the analytics-driven app: “AK App will make it easy to append AK’s click and impression pixels, enabling holistic campaign measurement and analytics via the AK Media Intelligence Platform directly from within the AppNexus user interface.” Read more. If you’re AppNexus, beyond the addition of a partner which makes your platform more robust, the free publicity that partners generate is an extra benefit. Google and Facebook enjoy similar mojo.

Video RTB

Video demand-side platform Tube Mogul has published its Q2 2012 Research Report which leverages the data and spend pulsing through its DSP. Here’s a tidbit: “CPMs for pre-roll video ads grew at a rate of 2.5% per month in the first half of 2012, peaking at $9.93 in June.” Get all the bits (PDF).

Ad Spend Slows

In a note to investors, Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser is “revising expectations for ad-supported media downward. What seemed an improving environment in 1Q12 now appears to have been a ‘false dawn’: 2Q12 turned out to be in line with trends observed during late 2011, growing by only 1.3%.” Wieser says that U.S. advertising will experience 1.4% growth vs. 2.3% previously – and this will impact digital, too. But, he sees positive territory ahead for companies such as Google and Facebook. Meanwhile, Yahoo is another story: “Yahoo will be directly affected at an operating level because it is almost entirely exposed to the worsening national digital media sector. The company’s valuation would not be meaningfully affected because so little of its value lies in core operations, and any negative assessment would not be enough to affect the stock we believe.” Oof. Punch to the gut.

Retargeting Survival Guide

Done badly, retargeting can be plain irritating to consumers. In his ClickZ column, Tim Nichols offers tips for “staying friends” with your prospects. Among the lessons: “When a potential consumer turns into an active buyer, give them a little bit of a break before you display additional banner ads.” Read it.

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