Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Social Ad Biz Buzz
Social Vibe (AdExchanger.com Q&A) announced that it has raised $20 million ($32 million total to-date) more in venture funding led by new investor, Norwest Venture Partners. According to the release, “The company plans to use the growth capital to accelerate global adoption of its brand engagement advertising platform” as it looks to exploit the social ad network business.
Studying Email Addresses
TechCrunch takes a look at what it says is a new Rapleaf case study which offers insights on the grocery shopping differences between Microsoft and Google employees as the data company matched company email addresses to a loyalty cards aggregator’s database. TechCrunch says its a creepy study. Rapleaf says Googlers buy more fruit and veggies. Read more.
Google Adds The “i”
It’s the “New in-ads notice label and icon” from Google. Better known as the self-regulation icon behavioral “i” icon, Google provides examples of the implementation of the new functionality that will ultimately allow users to opt-out from cookie tracking if they wish. Read more on the Inside AdSense blog. Google’s Katrina Kurnit writes, “Our tests of this new icon and label showed that they should not have any effect on ad performance.”
ClickZ’s Kate Kaye follows up on the Google icon news to say that Yahoo! also has plans to incorporate the DAA’s “i” icon. And she notes that TrustE which is also offering its own “i” icon services which “may not satisfy some who would like all data trackers blocked.” A TrustE spokesperson tells Kaye, “While consumers can change the settings to alter which firms are allowed and which are blocked, only sophisticated people with knowledge of which domains are actually associated with third parties will be able to do that.” Read more.
More Attribution Talk
Jason Heller, CEO of consulting firm AGILITI, looks at attribution modeling in the e-Commerce space in an article on MediaPost. He says, “Somehow attribution reporting is still the exception and not the rule, even among fairly large retailers and direct marketers who pride themselves on the mastery of measurement and the understanding of customer behavior.” Read more about the exceptions and the rules.
Targeting Travelers
eMarketer says that mobile is an important place to be in order to target consumers researching travel. From the article, “eMarketer estimates that nearly 25 million US mobile users will research travel information on their mobile devices before making a trip this year. Nearly 12 million will use the mobile channel to book their plans. The vast majority of both groups will be made up of smartphone users.” Read more and get graphs.
Owning The Data
Covario’s Craig Macdonald says that owning marketing performance data is essential in a company blog post. He writes, “In the bowels of Donovan, MediaPlex, Doubleclick, and Atlas licensing agreements there exists a contractual clause that provides the contract holder with the exclusive rights to access and use advertising spending and performance data, (… and) the key intellectual property around what makes online and offline work for an advertiser – is not owned by the advertiser. Why is this an issue?” Read more.
Canada Eyes Do-Not-Track
In Canada, the Do-Not-Track conversation in the U.S. has caught the attention of the Canadian news media, as CBC’s Dan Misener begins his DNT explanatory article, “Almost everywhere you go online, you’re being watched. From news sites (like this one) to Facebook and YouTube, your online behaviour is being tracked, often without your knowledge or consent.” ACanadian governmental official tells the CBC that they’re watching the U.S. DNT proceedings “with interest.” Read more.
Displaying Search Insights
Hollis Thomases looks at how the insights derived from search data can inform display advertising buying on ClickZ. She identifies keywords and referral URLs as the beginning of the research for insights. Thomases also recommends leveraging the crowd with such tools as “LinkedIn Signal.” She writes, “Signal is a recently launched LinkedIn feature that functions very similarly to a Facebook or Twitter stream in that it shows you a stream of updates from other LinkedIn users. Signal has extensive filtering options, such as by company name, location, or industry, that enable you to create a very focused stream.” Read more.
Pickin’ From The Data Tree
TRAFFIQ released its own version of Terence Kawaja’s ecosystem map – but for data – as the company announced The Data Tree – “a guide for TRAFFIQ clients to determine what 3rd party data partners to use, and how to apply that segmentation data through the TRAFFIQ platform.” Read the release. Download the Data Tree PDF.
Refining Geo-Targeting
Google is refining its geotargeting for AdWords users as Google’s Lisa Shieh writes, “With the existing location targeting in AdWords, you can only specify the location you wish to target, Chicago. However, your ad might be shown not only to people in Chicago, but also to people elsewhere in the US whose searches include one of your keywords along with the word ‘Chicago.'” I didn’t know that. Now it works like it should. Read more.
Beat Downs Are Good
Adotas’ Gavin Dunaway interviews former Goldman-Sachs-employee-turned-entrepreneur Antonio Garcia-Martinez of SEM tools provider AdGrok. In answering a question about his quant days at the investment bank, Garcia-Martinez tells Dunaway, “I am very much a failed scientist. And I suspect that won’t change any time soon. Failure early in life is good though, just like getting beaten up is.” Read more.
Engineering Vs. Liberal Arts
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have been arguing through the press on what’s the best form of education when entering the collegiate ranks and considering a career as a tech entrepreneur: engineering or liberal arts. Bill thinks engineering. Steve thinks liberal arts. And on TechCrunch and The New York Times, entrepreneur and college professor Vivek Wadhwa says they’re both right. Read more.
But Wait. There’s More!
- Aggregate Knowledge DMP Integrates TARGUSinfo AdAdvisor Data and Services to Offer a Scalable and Privacy-Compliant Solution for Audience Engagement – press release
- Marin Software Announces New Offering Designed for Mid-Market Paid Search Advertisers – press release
