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General Admission
Dollar General is one of many retail chains to launch an ad platform business. And the Dollar General Media Network (DGMN), as it’s known, just added a new partner last week: Meta.
The Meta ad platform can now attribute sales to Dollar General, though no information is returned at the user level. Conversions are reported in anonymous batches of at least 100 people, Ad Age reports.
A partnership with Meta makes sense for DGMN, because Meta has scale, expertise – and a high level of desperation to acquire credit card attribution data.
In late 2018, for example, Facebook removed 5,000 ad targeting options, including income-based targeting. Meta currently uses public information such as average household earnings by ZIP code to approximate income levels.
Which is to say Dollar General could be a useful proxy for down-market or rural campaigns, once Facebook’s bread and butter. Meta could put the data to use for brands that wouldn’t think of or have a reason to try DGMN.
But that’s only if Dollar General ever makes its purchase data available to Meta to optimize with as it sees fit. For now, the ability to use its purchase data to attribute Meta inventory is a service offered via DGMN only.
Rising From The Shambles Of SVB
Chaos reigned briefly last month after the sudden implosion of Silicon Valley Bank. But the ad industry may have learned some lasting lessons, Digiday reports.
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SVB account holders were insured. The ones who lost money were investors in the bank. But one harsh truth for many tech companies that banked with SVB is that, when panic set in, liquid cash ran dry. This was especially true for programmatic tech, because money passes through ad tech vendors very quickly and sometimes vendors carry debt, because advertisers don’t pay promptly but publishers must be paid promptly.
So, why was SVB a teachable moment?
Ad industry execs are now trying to ensure they won’t be left in the lurch down the line by diversifying their holdings so as to have cash on hand somewhere.
Meanwhile, publishers are scrutinizing their ad tech partners to make sure they’ll be dependable when it’s time to pay up.
When a big ad tech player goes belly up, like what happened with Sizmek or EMX, publishers can be on the hook. Sequential liability means vendors can legally require publishers to return payments for campaigns if those vendors were never paid to begin with.
Ouch.
American As Apple Pie
TikTok is stuck in a chicken-or-the-egg situation when it comes to the US launch of TikTok Shop, its on-platform shopping service.
American merchants and product makers are focused primarily on brick-and-mortar business expansion right now, The Information reports. On top of that, they’re hesitant to commit to TikTok when the app is at risk of a federal ban.
Mind you, plenty of manufacturers and sellers are still eager to sign up for the US TikTok Shop. Foreign merchants are keen to ply their wares to an American audience. But, for now at least, only American merchants are allowed to sell to US-based TikTok users.
Yet, as of March, fewer than 100 total merchants were plugged into the US TikTok Shop. Woof.
PacSun and e.l.f. Cosmetics are two national brands in the mix.
Restricting merchants to American-only for the launch does improve TikTok Shop’s pitch to US merchants … but only theoretically, it seems. As very few merchants appear to be signing up, why bother?
But Wait, There’s More!
Roku maintains a commanding lead in North American programmatic CTV traffic, as per a Pixalate study. [TV Tech]
YouTube gives Premium subscribers higher-quality video than everyone else. [The Verge]
Despite interest and avowals, diverse-owned media is still a tiny, slow-growing fraction of spend. [MediaPost]
Audiobook sellers use AI generators to narrate titles with the voices of dead celebrities. [WSJ]
Wrapmate has completed a strategic majority investment in rideshare advertising company Wrapify, a startup that pays drivers to wrap their car in ads and helps advertisers measure the results. [release]
