Hidden Ads; Wrangling Devices

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

Hidden Ads

Botnets get all the glory when it comes to ad fraud, but there’s plenty of malfeasance to go around. Consider “ad hiding,” where ad traders load many ads (most of them unviewable) into a single ad slot – sometimes on premium sites – and then resell them through (what else?) RTB exchanges. Spider.io examines this in a new disclosure: “Whilst notably smaller than the botnet problem introduced last month, ad hiding does affect at least 2% of the inventory we are tracking through display ad exchanges and so it is significant. Ad hiding is an interesting type of fraud because the ad impressions are being served to real people (as opposed to bots).” More.

Wrangling Devices

WSJ surveys players in the mobile and multi-device tracking arena. Expedia, the lone brand quoted, gives Drawbridge’s device technology a cautious endorsement. VP Jeff Warren says, “We have seen a direct positive relationship between spending on app downloads and someone consummating a transaction. Technologies like Drawbridge give me a bit of a prayer but it is still early days.” Read more. CNBC followed up on this theme yesterday with a video feature of its own with Tapad CEO Are Traasdahl. See it here.

War Of The SSP Releases

On Monday, sell-side platform (SSP) PubMatic sent out their “momentum” press release. Yesterday, it was SSP Rubicon Project’s turn. From the release: “For the six months ending March 31, 2013, Rubicon Project gained more than 200 new publishers and 100 new buyer channels that use the REVV Platform for display and mobile advertising.” Read more.

Will CMOs Disrupt the Future?

Over on All Things D, Russell Glass, CEO of B2B marketing company Bizo, talks about the revolution among CMOs to introduce more data-driven automation to reach customers: “The incentives for marketers to realize the holy grail of right message, right place and right time are clearly in place. So what’s getting in the way of all this progress from happening immediately? Two big areas have slowed progress: Integration of data across multiple systems in the enterprise, and privacy.” Read more.

‘Non’ To Yahoo

The French government has killed Yahoo’s attempt to take a $200 million majority stake in the so-called “YouTube of France” video site Dailymotion, reported TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden. The opposition occurred because “Dailymotion is considered a marquee company in France’s technology industry,” a source told TechCrunch. “Hence, [French Minister Arnaud] Montebourg, didn’t want to let it go to the Americans.” Read more.

Money Grows On Skytree

Skytree has received funding for its promise to “disrupt” the Big Data space. The San Jose analytics company has some big-name backers behind its $18 million first round, including Scott McNealy, co-founder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems. “The best team wins,” said Martin Hack, president, CEO and co-founder of Skytree. “The new financing will help us to aggressively grow our engineering and sales efforts in response to the expanding demand for our product.” Read the release.

Hulu Says Fewer Ads, Higher Engagement

Online video joint venture Hulu cited comScore figures touting the site as number one in engagement, compared to other ad-supported web outlets. That’s generally thanks to the long-form viewing that Hulu affords, but the company also pointed to its decision not to feature TV-like ad loads, despite past resistance from backers like News Corp., which has attempted to persuade Hulu to double its ad load to be equal to TV stations. “Our reasonable ad load drives the highest recall and awareness for brands, which results in higher effectiveness for the video ads,” said Acting CEO Andy Forssell in an official blog post. Read the rest.

Note: I wrote a post about this earlier today: Twitter Opens Self-Serve Ads

Twitter’s self-serve ad platform is now available to all users in the US. “Over the past year we’ve listened carefully to feedback from the thousands of businesses and individuals who’ve had access to the self-serve tool, and made enhancements based on their suggestions, including more targeting and reporting in the UI,” writes Ravi Narasimhan, revenue product manager at Twitter, in a blog post.

Shazam! Yahoo’s Riley Is CEO

Another rumor bites the dust: former Yahoo Rich Riley, who had been with the portal for 13 years before he left last June, was the subject of speculation a few weeks ago when many thought he would become the next CEO of display ad retargeting firm Criteo. Not even close. Audio discovery app Shazam has announced Riley as its new CEO. Previous chief Andrew Fisher is now executive chairman. He said, “Whilst Rich will run our business, I will now spend more time focusing on our corporate development and future strategy, including our ambitions to deliver a successful IPO for our shareholders as we look to become an increasingly important part of people’s everyday lives.” Read the release.

You’re Hired!