eBay's Back In The Data Game; Ad Tech Economics

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

eBay’s Back

eBay is back in the data game, more than two years after ending its agreements with third-party data licensing companies. Brands can now access shopper data from eBay in order to segment audiences and target ads when not on eBay, similar to a recent move by Amazon. An eBay spokesperson tells AdWeek, “We’ve recently introduced new capabilities to deliver more relevant, highly targeted digital advertising content to buyers both on and off the eBay platform on behalf of third parties, consistent with our privacy policy.” The company also recently hired Glenn Fishback, previously a Turn sales exec. Read more.

Complexity And Economics

Audience Science research guru Michael Greene believes the problem in digital ads isn’t too much complexity; it’s “broken economics” that start with the marketer. He writes in Digiday, “For many of the biggest sources of waste in digital advertising today – from bot traffic to frequency overload – [the] advertisers are the only ones capable of enforcing rules across all publisher and inventory sources.” Read the rest.

Apple Owns The ID

Apple is putting the kibosh on third-party tools that let users recommend other apps, reports PocketGamer.biz’s Keith Andrew. An app developer told PocketGamer.biz that Apple rejected his app discovery tool and was informed that apps including “filtering, bookmarking, searching, or sharing recommendations” for other apps will be rejected from the App Store. “I think they [Apple] aim to be the only provider of recommendations for apps, along with being the distributor,” speculated the app developer. Read more.

Display Defeats SEM

Search Engine Land’s David Rodnitzky pitted Google’s AdWords against the Google Display Network; when it comes to better targeting results, it’s GDN’s programmatic display by a “hair.” The key is using these tools in concert, as Rodnitzky concludes: “The best result for almost any campaign is to max out SEM to capture folks in the last stages of purchasing, but to also identify targeting upstream opportunities on GDN and programmatic display to fuel additional demand.” Read the rest.

NewFronts: Great Parties, Meh On Programming

Now that the Digital NewFronts are over, will TV dollars be moved to digital as a result? That’s what AdAge’s Michael Learmonth wondered as he reviewed a research note from Pivotal analyst Brian Wieser, who said, “If anything, a buyer reacting to inflated network-TV pricing is more likely to shift a budget toward lower-cost cable inventory.” Read more.

ePrize Shopping Spree Continues

Less than two years since beginning its shopping spree, sweepstakes content company ePrize has acquired its fifth company, Promotions.com, which uses sponsored contests and tactics designed to promise greater “engagement” between marketers and consumers. “With all the clutter in the market, it can be overwhelming when brands seek a partner to help drive digital engagement,” said Matt Wise, CEO of ePrize. Read the release.

Consumer Insight

Programmatic marketing company DataXu has published a new industry report, the Consumer Index, featuring online shopping data gleaned from its marketing platform. Sample findings include that “automotive consumers are more likely to shop for media, entertainment and health products” and “online retail buyers are more likely to eat organic foods.” Read the release here and download the report here.

Social Circular

Remember when Gannett bought Facebook ads player Blinq Media last year? Well, it looks like the two are now making beautiful music – er, social ad circulars together. Writing in his Screenwerk blog, Greg Sterling presents a Facebook case study for an office supply retailer that boosted NYC in-store sales by 3.2%. The effort combined ShopLocal’s circular data with geotargeting on Facebook: “Ad creatives (product images) were changed, based on user profiles and expressed interests. Basically this online-to-offline (including mobile) Facebook campaign had sent people into the store to buy.” More.

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