Condé Nast Building More Robust Audiences; Dave Helmreich Is LiveIntent's New COO

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Data-Driven Content

Condé Nast is opening a new group, Spire, which will match the pub’s 1 trillion unique monthly data points with purchase insights from 1010data, owned by an affiliate of Advance Publications, Condé Nast’s parent company. The data will be used to inform audience segments and develop custom content for specific audiences. “This unique combination of our extensive first-party data and 1010data’s purchase data gives us the ability to optimize campaigns in real time and on a highly personalized level,” said Fred Santarpia, Condé Nast’s chief digital officer. More at Adweek.

COOkie

LiveIntent on Monday announced it had scooped up Dave Helmreich as its next COO. Helmreich was most recently the chief executive at Audience Partners, and before that ran Neustar’s media and advertising business. LiveIntent hopes to channel his expertise in media and audience targeting into the company’s push to cement email’s position “as the universal identifier it has become,” with nonhuman-based signifiers, such as cookies or device IDs, losing their sheen. Read the release.

The Hand That Feeds

For years publishers sacrificed performance in favor of data and revenue. As a result, Google AMP and Facebook Instant Articles essentially took over web publishing. But this new dynamic raises serious ethical questions for news media, writes Bloomberg reporter Michael Keller in a Medium post. Some data-driven or interactive stories, for instance, “ask readers questions about themselves and use that data to personalize the resulting narrative,” which could theoretically end up in an advertising profile or third-party data set if platforms host the content. After the Newtown shooting, Keller wrote an interactive article gathering reader perspectives on gun control. Does Facebook own that now?

Music To Agency Ears

Spotify’s debut at Cannes this week is a signal to major holding companies that it’s getting serious about its ad biz, writes Mike Shields at The Wall Street Journal. The audio streaming company is adding new products – including its own ad server and native audio ads – as well as staff and vendor partners to make its ad-supported offer as strong as its freemium model. “They offer two very viable, meaningful revenue streams and we are doubling down on both,” said Jeff Levick, Spotify’s CRO. Spotify has 100 million active monthly users, only 30 million of whom are paid subscribers, and has seen ad revenue double year over year for the past two years. More.

Haunted

Facebook doesn’t have much mobile/social competition – except for Snapchat. After creating two failed rival apps (and with rumored plans for another), Facebook’s most recent product launches have taken cues from its fast-growing competitor, including private photo messaging on Moments and doodles and filters on Facebook Live. Facebook may have more users across its properties, but Snapchat has higher engagement, with 60% of daily users uploading personal items every day. In comparison, Facebook only sees a 20% daily participation rate on Instagram. But Snapchat, which projects $350 million in revenue this year, has a ways to go before it catches up with Facebook, which, analysts say, will earn $2 billion to $3 billion in revenue this year from Instagram alone. More at Fast Company.

Old News

Late-night cable buys from political advertisers jumped from 1,802 at this point in 2012 to 31,091 through June, writes Kate Kaye at Ad Age. “Traditional gut-driven TV buying is going away” as DC embraces a world where you can target beyond just hitting the news in any given city. And it isn’t just fringe late-night shows. “Daytime buys among campaigns and their PACs more than doubled from 319,267 units to 756,913.” The new battle cry: first-party and party first. More.

But Wait, There’s More!