Pirating Ads; Optimistic Yandex

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

Ads Against Pirates

A new initiative in the UK is repurposing digital display ads for an innovative take on cyber law enforcement, according to TechCrunch. Dubbed “Operation Creative,” and managed by the City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, the initiative targets websites that illegally stream pirated or copyright infringing material, replacing banner ads on those pages with a hard-edged warning from law officials. “This website had been reported to the police,” the banner ads read. “Please close the browser page containing this website.” For the time being, these spots will appear exclusively in the UK. Read more. And visit the City of London police.

Russian Display

Although Russian search provider Yandex beat out estimated earnings and revenue, display advertising suffered in 2014’s second quarter. Down 6% from Q2 in 2013, Yandex attributed the decline to less revenue generated from company-owned websites. However, during the earnings call Tuesday morning, Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh was optimistic about the profits driven by advertising overall. “Our core text-based advertising business drove strong financial results with solid growth in advertisers and paid clicks,” Volozh told investors. “The acquisition of Auto.ru, announced earlier this month, is a strong move into classifieds which is one of the fastest growing segments of online advertising…” Read the release.

Social Metrics Mature

Social media metrics are evolving, writes Digiday’s John McDermott. Graduating from “likes” and “followers,” marketers are turning instead to purchase intent, click-throughs, sales and brand lift, in search of hard social metrics. “Likes and followers, that’s kind of the thing of the past,” said MRY CEO Matt Britton. “Its value is diminished, and brand marketers are having a hard time connecting it with their business metrics.” The shift is not exclusive to Facebook, Britton added, decreasing organic reach on Twitters is also causing a rift in the social metrics matrix. Read on at Digiday.

Tactical Training

In an attempt to stay one step ahead of industry trends, The Drum says that MediaCom and Google are partnering for global staff training on wearables and mobile marketing. The training program might preempt the cementing of the wearable tech biz, but it bolsters training in the now-established mobile arena. “Mobile is becoming more pervasive in digital disciplines,” said Ben Phillips, global head of mobile for MediaCom. “It’s important to have an educated perspective on the benefits and how to integrate mobile into an overall media plan. Wearable technology will be part of the training process, while we focus on the foundations of mobile advertising, search and analytics…” Read more.

Retargeting Redux

A recent study by AdRoll drills down into Facebook retargeting, and unearths some useful stats for those marketers keeping a close eye on mobile marketing. According to AdRoll’s findings, CPM pricing for in-feed ad impressions is 57% less expensive than in-feed impressions on desktop. In addition to being less expensive, in-feed ads impressions on mobile drive a 10% higher CTR than those on desktop. Who would have thought? Read the report in full at AdRoll.