Home Ad Exchange News Digitas Exec Baba Shetty Is Starting A Research Firm; Small Pubs Struggle With Bad Traffic

Digitas Exec Baba Shetty Is Starting A Research Firm; Small Pubs Struggle With Bad Traffic

SHARE:

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

Programmatic Adviser For Hire

DigitasLBi Chief Media Officer Baba Shetty will leave his role to start his own research and advisory firm, Invisible Science. The company will be a subscription-based membership service that helps clients sift through the more than 3,500 vendors in today’s ad tech marketplace to find the technology that best serves their needs. “It’s all around a sense of confusion and anxiety about, are we getting the intersection of marketing and technology right?” Shetty told Adweek. “What we are trying to do is create indispensable guidance for the modern marketer.” More. Related in AdExchanger: A Marketer’s Guide To Ad Tech Consultants.

Bad Traffic Vs. “Sourced” Traffic

Not all sourced traffic is bad, but most bad traffic is sourced. Where does that leave the legitimate indie publishers who rely on networks that help build their audiences? Modern Farmer is a respected pub with a small but valuable readership, and Vice’s digital ad network is “literally an extension of our sales team,” Modern Farmer CRO Jane Wladar tells Ad Age’s Jeremy Barr. It’s just one of many new publishers that have become casualties in the war on bad traffic. More.

Bot Craze

Chat bots have better retention and reach with consumers because they integrate on the platforms users already have and use, rather than requiring an install. For brands, bots are an increasingly enticing way to drive commerce through messaging platforms like Facebook’s Messenger, Kik and other environments. “All current directories are owned by the platforms themselves, having one central place not owned by the platform just made sense,” said Botlist co-creator Ben Tossell. “People can find all types of bots across a variety of platforms.” More.

Just A Bug?

Fraudulent advertisers continue to use big ad platforms as a jumping-off point. Last week we noted a BuzzFeed exposé that detailed how purveyors of knockoff apparel have brazenly used Facebook ads to commit fraud. On Friday, Kenny Jacobs, CMO of the European airline Ryanair, attacked Google in a Guardian column, alleging the search giant has promoted scammy booking services (who pay) to the top of the page. Twitter has also fallen prey to a new loophole where junk services piggyback on legitimate influencers to push their own links.  

But Wait, There’s More!

You’re Hired!

Tagged in:

Must Read

SQREEM Touts The Large Behavioral Model – Not The LLM – As The Winning Predictive Engine

Rather than relying on machine learning, SQREEM uses a mathematical AI model to track how systems change over time and predict audience behavior.

Comic: Game Over?

The Google Antitrust Remedies Are Too Little, Too Late – But Publishers Will Take What They Can Get

Given how much the market has changed since the Google trial began, and the wiggle room in the ruling itself, publishers aren’t expecting much relief from the court’s behavioral remedies.

Comic: "Deal ID, please."

Can Sell-Side Curation Solve The Cookieless Audience Problem For Advertisers?

Indie agency KWG says sell-side curation can target more high-performing inventory with better match rates and lower data fees than buy-side curation.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Infillion Acquires Foursquare, Adding More Location Data To Its Ever-Growing Ad Tech Stack

Infillion checked in with its latest acquisition on Friday: Foursquare. Apparently, if there’s a strategically interesting or distressed ad tech asset on the market, Infillion will find it.

HBO MAX’s Reddit Account Was Compromised And Used For Ad Fraud

A week ago, HBO MAX had its verified Reddit account overrun by a hacker group, which eluded notice for two days while it ran 108 different ad permutations targeting an unknown number of Redditors.

Gaming Wants To Prove It’s Just Like Other Media Channels – While Also Owning How It’s Different

Adapting other channels’ strategies might be what gaming platforms need to do to get advertisers comfortable spending more. Leaning into gaming’s differentiators will come later, after bigger budgets arrive.