The global ad market is set to grow even faster than forecasted. Why? It’s the duopoly, folks. In a report released Monday, IPG-owned Magna Global significantly revised its global ad market growth projection from 5.2% to 6.4%, which translates to $551 billion in global ad spend. In Q1, Google and Facebook’s collective ad revenue increased […]
Mazel tov, it’s a merger. On Tuesday, Judge Richard Leon gave his blessing to AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. The judgment capped five weeks of testimony, six weeks of deliberation and a fair amount of nail-biting in executive suites from Dallas to New York City. But now that the deal is finally sealed, […]
In late April, Google said it would limit the portability of the DoubleClick ID outside of its ad server DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM), effectively killing independent attribution (at least to the extent that it was possible). Marketers who want access to the DoubleClick ID, which ties together data across Google’s properties, will have to use it […]
Although Facebook’s stock has mostly recovered from its Cambridge Analytica lows, stockholders are unamused by the rocky ride. “Scandal is not good for the company’s bottom line,” said one investor Thursday during Facebook’s 2018 annual shareholder meeting. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has become quite good at acknowledging the scandals over the past year or so. “The […]
The potential of programmatic audio has caught the interest of advertising’s behemoth. Google said Wednesday it had launched the ability to buy programmatic audio ads through its demand-side platform (DSP) DoubleClick Bid Manager. Programmatic audio is still a new market, but it’s growing quickly. Spotify launched the capability in 2016, and on its Q1 2018 […]
Dentsu Aegis Network said Tuesday it has added Index Exchange as a tech partner for its people-based marketing initiative, M1. M1 typically targets precise audiences. The Index Exchange wrapper will find more of those needles in the haystack. Publishers already using the Index Exchange wrapper must sign a contract with Dentsu Aegis Network before tapping […]
Hulu told advertisers at its upfront on Wednesday that it’s reached the 20-million-subscriber mark. While 20 million subscribers is a lot smaller than rivals Netflix (125 million subs) and Amazon Prime (100 million subs), Hulu is ad-supported and only in the US. Ad-supported subscribers are up 40% this year to 40 million viewers, said Hulu’s […]
Google’s decision last Friday to limit portability of the DoubleClick ID outside of Google’s ecosystem was done in the name of consumer privacy. But the change will also stunt advertisers’ ability to do cross-platform reach and frequency measurement – unless they’re using Google’s Ads Data Hub. While agency execs support changes to protect consumer privacy, […]
“This has been an intense year – I can’t believe we’re only four months in.” Mark Zuckerberg kicked off Facebook’s F8 developers conference in San Jose on Tuesday with a joke, and he got a few chuckles from the gathered crowd of 5,000 developers. Facebook’s recent crackdown on API access and data flows in response to […]
Snap’s hotly contested app redesign had a material negative impact on revenue, the company said in its Q1 earnings report Tuesday. Revenues for the quarter were up 54% year over year to roughly $231 million, but sequentially, they were down 19%, “primarily due to seasonality and our redesign,” the company said in its earnings release. […]
Google is making it more difficult for advertisers to have an independent view of the data generated from ad buys in its ecosystem. In a note to partners sent Friday and obtained by AdExchanger, Google said it will no longer let buyers use the DoubleClick ID when leveraging its data transfer service. The service allows […]
Facebook might be weathering more headwinds than you can shake a stick at right now, but that didn’t stop it from posting gangbuster earnings on Wednesday. Revenue for the quarter clocked in at $11.97 billion, up 49% year over year – beating the Street’s estimate of $11.41 billion. Click here to read the release. Proof […]
Twitter was the comeback kid in Q1. The company experienced its second consecutive quarter of profitability, with 21% YoY revenue growth to $665 million – $575 million of it thanks to advertising. Growth would have been higher – around 27% this quarter – if not for the headwind still blowing from the direction of the now fully […]
Although a handful of advertisers have suspended their Facebook campaigns in the wake of the platform’s ongoing data scandal, most are staying the course. “Both advertisers and developers are very understanding about having some features removed that they were using,” said Mark Rabkin, Facebook’s VP of ads and business platform, who took the reins from […]
Most consumers are only just learning about the inner workings of the ad-supported internet – and they don’t like what they see. David Fischer, Facebook’s VP of business and marketing partnerships, understands their frustration. “A lot of the discomfort people have is when they feel like they don’t actually know what’s going on with the ad […]
Behind the Cambridge Analytica headlines, Facebook on Thursday completed the first phase of its ongoing three-part MRC audit. Phase one was an inspection of served display impressions in the news feed on Facebook and Instagram across desktop, mobile web and in-app. Before the Cambridge Analytica data-sharing scandal broke, Facebook was being pushed to be more open […]
A blog post by Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer on Wednesday detailed restrictions on data access for a number of its APIs, including events, groups and pages. Read it. (The blog also revealed in that post that Cambridge Analytica had harvested 87 million profiles, rather than 50 million, as was originally widely reported.) Developer […]
Facebook’s announcement Wednesday that it would ban third-party data partners from directly targeting on its platform hit ad buyers hard. Previously, buyers could directly apply third-party data segments to their targeting on Facebook through suppliers like Acxiom, Oracle and Experian to enrich Facebook’s data with offline segments. Now, marketers using segments from third-party data brokers […]
Facebook is going to stop allowing third-party data providers from offering targeting directly on its platform. The move is a direct reaction to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In the past, advertisers could use a feature called partner categories to supplement the targeting they do on Facebook with data from brokers, such as recent purchases or […]
The almighty duopoly is losing share – but just a little bit. Google and Facebook will take a 56.8% share of US digital ad spend this year, down from 58.5% in 2017, according to a report published by eMarketer on Monday. The report also predicted the duopoly’s share of new digital ad dollars entering the […]
Facebook is running out of eyes to blacken in the wake of revelations over the weekend that Trump-affiliated data firm Cambridge Analytica harvested information from 50 million Facebook accounts without permission. But as long as ads continue to perform on Facebook, the scandals won’t lead advertisers to pull back their spend. “We may see individuals […]
Did Facebook’s algorithm force the Clinton campaign to pay more for ads than the Trump outfit during the 2016 US presidential election? That’s fake news, said Facebook, which provided a rare public statement on the dynamics of its ads auction on Tuesday after claims of discriminatory pricing. Senior Facebook exec Andrew Bosworth disclosed on Twitter […]
With additional reporting by Alison Weissbrot. Sizable brands and top-tier publishers can use their clout to pressure media platforms into sharing more measurement data – but what are advertisers actually getting? Just enough to keep them spending, said Chris Kane, founder of programmatic consultancy Jounce Media. “Walled gardens will do the minimum acceptable thing so […]
Facebook is doing some early spring cleaning in Ads Manager, the tool advertisers use to create, manage and track campaigns. Starting Thursday, it will begin labeling whether metrics are estimated and start marking metrics that are still being tested. The goal is to give advertisers more insight into how metrics are calculated. Knowing when metrics […]
Publishers, prepare yourselves for another Facebook organic reach reality check. Starting Monday, Facebook will finally begin measuring organic page reach the same way it measures paid ad reach: based on viewable impressions. This is only a reporting change and unrelated to how organic distribution works on Facebook. Facebook started alerting publishers in early February, but […]
Google will turn on its built-in Chrome ad blocker on Feb. 15, meaning ad tech companies must hustle to get their products in compliance as publishers fear lost revenue. Beginning that day, Chrome will begin auto-blocking ad formats that obstruct access to content. Chrome has more than 62% of the mobile browser market share and […]
Snap finally snapped out of its earnings slump on Tuesday as it beat analyst expectations for both revenue and daily active user growth. Revenue in 2017 reached $825 million, a 104% increase from the year before, while 2017 Q4 revenue grew 72% to roughly $286 million, topping analysts’ quarterly estimates of $253 million. “Our business […]
Alphabet posted revenues of $32.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, up 24% compared to the same period last year. The earnings showed a spike in traffic acquisition costs [TAC] as Google paid more to publishers in its Google Network Members’ properties revenue segment. The segment also includes revenue from Google’s DoubleClick Bid Manager, […]
Traffic is down at Facebook. It’s a new look for the platform, which has done almost nothing but grow quarter over quarter and year over year. Changes to Facebook’s news feed algorithm deprioritizing viral video in Q4 reduced time spent on the platform by around 50 million hours a day. Daily active users in the […]
Twitter is a company that always seems on the verge of flight. The potential is there, but the question remains: Will the platform ever be able to fulfill it? Instability in Twitter’s C-suite doesn’t help. On Tuesday, COO Anthony Noto – second in command to Jack Dorsey – became the most recent top Twitter exec to fly […]
