Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Network To Get Work
Being called an “ad network” is a major slur for ad tech companies. It implies arbitrage and obfuscation.
The Trade Desk and Google butted heads in 2019 over the designation of Google’s exchange bidding (now called Open Bidding) as a network intermediary (which it is, to be fair) when Google sold those impressions through direct publisher integrations.
The latest examples of platforms stepping in and grabbing control come in the form of Google’s Performance Max, Meta’s Advantage Shopping Campaigns and TikTok’s new Smart Performance Campaigns. These products put inventory and campaign control in the hands of the platform.
“Ad Networks using 1P [i.e., “first-party data”] are the only thing that can really drive conversions (however you define them) in digital,” writes ad tech vet Jonathan Mendez.
The hammer will fall on companies that rely on third-party data. Which means ad tech. Meanwhile, first-party data-based ad networks will thrive. Ad tech vendors can blame Apple, but whose fault is it, really?
“Anyone deeply involved knows it is far worse than anyone has let on,” according to Mendez. “[Ad tech] is an industry where there are two companies worth a combined $3B whose sole use case is to prove your ads are actually being sold the way they were bought.”
He’s talking about DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, of course.
They Came To Play
The Word(le) on the street is that the Gray Lady’s investment in gaming is paying off, Digiday reports.
Nabbing Wordle last January led to a subscription boost, nudging The New York Times closer to its target of 15 million subscribers by 2027. The popular word game has also helped NYT reach a pool of younger, more diverse and more global potential subscribers.
The Games section currently has “over one million subscribers,” according to Jonathan Knight, head of games at the Times. Not bad, considering the publisher closed out 2022 with 9.6 million paying subscribers total.
Many players bundle their Games subscriptions with other NYT titles, which is all part of the master plan. More bundles mean higher average revenue per subscriber.
All of the NYT games are once-daily puzzles, such as Sudoku and The Crossword, which foster habit formation and a sense of community, Knight says.
Games also cost next to nothing to make, especially compared to the news.
The Times’s next play is to make its games more competitive, progressive and achievement-oriented, Knight tells Digiday. Gamifying games!
Retailing Off
Retailers have flooded the market with new ad platform products. Best Buy Ads? Sure. The Macy’s Media Network? OK. Did you hear about 7-Eleven’s Gulp Media? If you say so.
But the pendulum may be starting to swing away from the “everything is an ad network” trend.
Just one year after debuting its retail media net (called GPS Media), Gap has quietly dissolved the division (or “paused” it, as the company puts it), Insider reports. Gap is shifting its investments to supply-chain solutions and custom clothing programs.
Gap never made a ton of sense as a candidate for retail media. It carries Gap clothing, not like Macy’s or Walmart, which auction off space to many fashion brands.
Insider – and other outlets and analysts – project that retail media will hit $45 billion this year (for $0 not so long ago) en route to $100 billion. The size of the opportunity makes it seem like any chain can get a small slice of that lucrative pie. However, of the $45 billion retail ad market this year, Amazon makes about $40 billion.
There really isn’t that much room for growth unless retailers can make a compelling case for differentiated media or attribution.
But Wait, There’s More!
A TikTok ban won’t save Snap from its slump. [Bloomberg]
Toolkits: As publishers grow their subscription revenue, editorial staffers want their share. [blog]
Google’s and Microsoft’s respective chatbots are already citing one another in a misinformation shit show. [The Verge]
Some YouTube creators are discovering that their content is being used as ads without their permission. [Insider]
Salesforce announces an integration with Google Merchant Center. [release]
More people are using buy now, pay later amid economic concerns, according to Adobe Analytics. [Forbes]
Instagram finds space for yet more ads in search results and via so-called “reminder ads.” [9to5Mac]
You’re Hired!
The Ironman Group hires Marieka Barnard as CMO. [release]
Adform adds Annabelle Dudman as SVP of commercial excellence and Paul Confrey as VP of global agency partnerships. [release]
