New Gateways
On Wednesday, Meta quietly launched a product called Signals Gateway.
“In a constantly changing landscape, the most reliable data to power your business is your own,” the product page declares.
What the heck does that mean? Well, for all intents and purposes, Signals Gateway is a customer data platform, although Meta describes it as “an easy, low-cost, all-in-one solution.”
AWS and Google – not to mention Snowflake and Databricks – have all created their own off-the-shelf versions of CDPs, which in turn has put pressure on CDP category players to justify their cost as a point solution.
In January, mParticle, a CDP category pioneer, was acquired by Rokt for $300 million, and two other standalone CDP startups – Lytics and ActionIQ – were bought over the past couple of months. Last year, CDP BlueConic acquired the CDP-ish first-party data platform Jebbit, and back in 2020, Twilio snapped up Segment.
“Nowadays, everyone’s a CDP,” Michael Katz, mParticle’s co-founder and CEO, told AdExchanger after selling to Rokt. The real CDPs have to get “closer to the value creation layer,” Katz says.
Which is to say, CDPs are being kludged together with businesses that monetize via ads.
Taking Advantage
Although Meta was quiet about Signals Gateway, it was louder about recent new changes to its Advantage+ platform for advertisers.
That’s probably because all the updates have something to do with AI, which “continues to be top of mind for everyone at Meta,” Garrick Tiplady, Meta’s global head of mid-market, told press during a stream on Thursday.
In addition to streamlining Advantage+ campaign setups, Meta is also introducing a tool that uses AI to optimize toward high-quality leads and also expanding what it calls “opportunity scores,” which offer recommendations to improve ad performance on Meta.
In a nutshell, Meta is going all in on automated ad products, which might set off an alarm bell for marketers who remember the unexplained bug that caused Advantage+ to massively overspend on campaigns last year. Not to mention that some manual targeting capabilities for catalog ads are reportedly being phased out, according to Emarketer.
Regardless, Meta is confident that the performance will speak for itself.
According to VP of Product Krassimir Karamfilov, early tests of the Advantage+ updates led to a 5% median decrease in cost per result, 10% lower cost per qualified lead and 14% lower cost per lead.
Chain Gang
DeepSee.io recently exposed an ad-supported piracy network hosting copyrighted comics. Now, armed with supply-chain data provided by DSPs, it’s naming which sellers and resellers it found monetizing the stolen content.
The piracy network is operated by Nakamas Web SL, a company based in Spain. The domains in its shifting roster are able to monetize due to lax vetting by resellers and SSPs, according to DeepSee CEO Rocky Moss.
Since 2024, Netpub and BidGear were the direct sellers most often associated with Nakamas Web domains, while Infolinks and Xapads were common middlemen. However, Infolinks recently cut off Nakamas’ access, Moss notes.
Still, Nakamas Web has been in action for years, and major SSPs have traded this inventory at various times.
For example, Netpub’s website touts its partnership with Criteo. DeepSee found that Criteo’s Commerce Grid SSP is the most common final seller of Nakamas Web inventory via its connection to Netpub.
Other SSPs implicated include Magnite, OpenX, AppNexus and FreeWheel, via seller connections to Seedtag, Adagio, R2B2 and more.
Plus, some pub tech providers associated with Nakamas Web, like BidGear and PurpleAds, have been named in previous piracy research.
Moss called out many of these companies on LinkedIn, imploring them to clean up their supply chains.
But Wait! There’s More
Last thing about Meta, promise: It’s also being sued by a former employee for an alleged “toxic pattern of silencing women.” [Business Insider]
Trump’s new attorney general has instructed the DOJ to criminally investigate companies that still have DEI policies. [Slate]
Trump, Elon Musk and conservative media are trying to make government agencies paying for news subscriptions into a scandal. It’s already resulted in the federal government promising to cancel $8 million in Politico subscriptions. [CNN]
US immigration is gaming Google search results by updating old ICE press releases to create a mirage of recent mass deportations. [The Guardian]
You’re Hired
Purpose Worldwide appoints Hollis Guerra as president and names Louis Jones, Jeff Hirsch and Molly Wood to its advisory board. [release]
