eMarketer Ups Programmatic; FB Ads

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

eMarketer Ups Programmatic

Programmatic buying continues its upward trend, with eMarketer revising its estimate from $3.34 billion in RTB spending in 2013 to $3.37 billion. MAGNA GLOBAL expects $3.9 billion in RTB ad spending this year, the highest of all firms eMarketer measured. Improvements in quality and adoption among publishers as well as buyers has led to huge gains for programmatic. Read more.

FB Ads

Adweek offers a short burst on whether Facebook is putting too many ads on its site. A 66% increase in revenue for FB is one side of the story. An anonymous agency exec offers another side: “[Teens are] interested in what friends are sharing. They’re not interested in what brands are sharing.” Read it. But on GigaOm, advertisers appreciate Facebook’s “walled garden” and lack of advertising fraud compared to other inventory sources. Read more from Jeff John Roberts.

The New News

Led by CEO Jonah Peretti (who will appear at Industry Preview 2014), BuzzFeed is navigating the stormy publisher seas trying to create a new business model that has some singing its praises, and leaving others with a bad taste. The Independent provides a featurey look as the company blurs, or reimagines, the lines between advertiser and publisher, making sponsored content almost indistinguishable from regular content. Read more.

Man Vs. Machine

PrecisionDemand set out to prove that machine buys are smarter than human buys, and according to its results, that may be true. Ad Age published some of the numbers, including a campaign that had 4,000 more subscribers than a previous one that used traditional buying methods. According to the report, “The amount of viewing behavior increases 800 fold from 25,000 to 20 million persons.” This opens up more inventory to advertisers and better matches people to shows they may not have thought to watch before. Read more.

Creative Data

Data and creativity will work together in advertising, says Neustar exec Paul McLenaghan. He writes on iMedia Connection, “Think of it as creativity enabled by science.” Creativity is empowered by transparency and efficiency, not lost because of it. Read more. A mantra that many creative agencies need to embrace.

TV Is Dying

On Business Insider, Jim Edwards cobbles together a group of nice charts and data that he says shows the “cord is being cut” and traditional television is dying. A ratings decline is one indicator, says Edwards, who adds, “We’re at the beginning of a major historical shift from watching TV to watching video — including TV shows and movies — on the Internet or on mobile devices. … Nearly 5 million cable TV subscribers have gone elsewhere in the last five years. The number of cable TV-only subscribers remaining could sink below 40 million later this year, according to this data from ISI Group, an equity research firm.” Read more.

Photo Lift

Instagram ads are new, but on the surface they seem to be working. According to Digiday and analytics firm Nitrogram, Michael Kors experienced a 370% increase in followers, and other brands such as Lexus have seen similar positive results. What’s next for Instagram is figuring out ROI for brands and better targeting options. Read more.

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