iAd Gets A Haircut; NAI Releases Ad Network Report; Omnicom Shows Profit, Aims At Digital

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Haircut For iAd

In Ad Age, Kunur Patel writes that the iAd costs are being slashed again – now you can have your very own iAd running through the iPhone and Ipad for the starting cost of $100,000 – was $1 million. Patel adds, “In addition, app developers will receive 70% of ad revenues from iAds running on their apps, vs. their previous 60% cut. The extra money will compensate for lower ad rates and serve as added incentive for developers to build businesses on Apple devices…” Marketshare wars! Read more including the end of some wacky CPC+CPM combo pricing for the iAd.

Ad Network Report

The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) released its annual compliance study yesterday and if visits to the NAI opt-out website are any indication, online behavioral advertising is garnering a lot of interest – traffic more than doubled to 6 million unique visits in 2011. Adweek’s Katy Bachmann notes that this report marks a “coming-out party” for NAI chief Marc Groman who used to work as the FTC’s chief privacy officer. Download it (PDF).

Game Ads

Boo-coo ad dollars are floating around in the world of online casual games. Zynga knows first-hand. According to the now-public company, Zynga reported that in Q4 2011 it had “Advertising revenue of $74.5 million, an increase of 226% on a year-over-year basis.” That’s about 25% of Zynga’s overall revenue of $306 million in Q4. Read the release. Can they continue to scale ad budgets through engagement ads such as those provided by companies like SocialVibe, was SV Network (AdExchanger Q&A from 2010)?

Agency Holding Profits

Agency holding company Omnicom reported its Q4 2011 results and thing appear headed in the right direction as earnings grew 10% and revenue increased 7.4% to $3.85 billion. Read the release (PDF). On the earnings call, CEO John Wren spoke about digital: “We continue to pursue a multipronged strategy built around the core idea that all of our agencies must have strong digital capabilities to compete in the future. As a result, we are helping in pushing our agencies, where needed, to continue to accelerate the expansion of their digital expertise. We’re also consolidating our expertise and knowledge in technology where appropriate.” Read the call intro’s transcript on TheStreet.com.

Creepless In Seattle

Targeting wireless carriers and media companies, a new Seattle-based company, NFluence, hopes to reach consumers with better deals than what they might get through, say, retargeting. Xconomy explains the the company’s mobile app strategy: “NFluence bets that by letting consumers build an anonymous profile that they can control and perfect by ranking offerings and brands, they’ll actually get better offers that are less creepy and more relevant.” Read about less creep. Oh, and NFluence just got a few million to fund the enterprise. Ad tech funding continues. Mobile remains red hot.

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CAPTCHA The Bag

Fast Company spreads the love of CAPTCHA advertising to the masses in a quick feature article that highlights how CAPTCHA will go beyond reading some squiggly or distressed series of characters. See how it works with a bag of branded dog food now…

Loyalty Counts

Bloomberg says that Amazon Prime subscribers, which get free shipping for a year in exchange for a flat annual fee, may not be as numerous as previously thought by analysts – around 4 million currently rather than the 10 million analyst number. Read it. Not sure that discrepancy is a big deal as Amazon seems to be an unstoppable force. But, check this out on why other retailers should be worried about Prime and still more “Showrooming” in-store. An ecommerce software supplier tells Bloomberg, “A Prime customer is much more likely to start and end a search and purchase on Amazon without bothering to check other channels,’ (…) The subscribers spend three to four times more than regular customers.” Consequently, retargeting and trade (or co-op) dollars pulsing through a site like Amazon become much more effective, too.

Billions Not Millions

In a piece titled “What Kind Of Crazy Person Decides A $20 Million Business Isn’t Good Enough?” on The Business Insider, Yext CEO Howard Lerman answers the title’s question as he discusses his company’s decision to continue but not wildy pursue Yext’s pay-per-call business. Instead, Yext opted for the data-driven listing biz with billions in potential revenue. Read it. Yext’s VC are likely very happy with this decision.

Mixing Attribution

Is there a difference between media mix and attribution modeling? Some scoff and say “no,” it’s all the same ball of digital wax. Others… VisualIQ appears to be in the “other” camp as the company announced in a release, its “TrueAttribution 2.0” product it claims “combines media mix modeling and attribution management in a single, hosted software solution.” From here, and paraphrasing the VisualIQ view, if attribution covers a single channel and all the points that a customer travels along the funnel, media mix covers how various media channels work together to engage the consumer and figure out what mix of channels works most efficiently for the marketer. Oh, the data….

Marketing Media

Yieldex CEO Andy Nibley explores big brands as media owner in a think piece on Wired. Half-way through, he tips his hat to the untapped ad potential for branded ecommerce sites: “It would be foolhardy to think that advertising revenue on e-commerce sites would replace the product revenue any time soon. But accepting advertising would provide these sites with another revenue stream and one with very high margins. Read it.

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