Pix(el) Or It Didn’t Happen
OpenAI is joining the likes of Meta and Google with its own tracking pixel.
The pixel is already live for testing among some advertisers in the ChatGPT ad pilot, an anonymous exec tells Digiday.
Last week, OpenAI launched an ad manager, and click- and conversion-based campaigns appear to be the next items up its sleeve, based on snippets of code within.
Meanwhile, it looks like the pixel, which was also uncovered via someone examining OpenAI’s code rather than being announced publicly, will track actions, including registration, order and lead completion, as well as when a user creates a subscription or views a page.
OpenAI is rapidly building out its ad infrastructure, but whether AI search will become a truly competitive channel remains to be seen. Many queries have no commercial intent.
For example, as Digiday points out, while finding people who are using ChatGPT to “compare SUVs, plan a trip or find the best protein powder is a performance advertiser’s dream,” it’s less compelling to a brand to get in front of someone who’s asking the AI to patch code or analyze a spreadsheet.
Still, a conversion tracking pixel would be a “welcome development” for advertisers trying to understand and optimize their spend within ChatGPT, says Ashley Fletcher, CMO of AI search platform Adthena.
Baby’s First Boycott
Rage, rage against the death of the platform credit card loophole.
Hundreds of Amazon sellers, organized by the ecommerce community and info resource Million Dollar Sellers (MDS), boycotted the Amazon Ad platform on Wednesday, CNBC reports.
“Sellers have complained for years, but this feels different,” says MDS Co-Founder Eugene Khayman. “The reason is simple: This is no longer just about irritation. It is about cash extraction.”
One big frustration is a new (and supposedly temporary) 3.5% fuel surcharge on fulfillment services, which takes effect starting on April 17. Multiple sellers told CNBC that they’d have to raise their prices in response.
But the biggest frustration is the loss of credit card payments. Some small businesses “live off their credit card points” from Amazon ad campaigns, Khayman says.
“The majority of sellers, it’s, you know, husband and wife teams,” he says, “one employee, one assistant, kind of a thing where they get 3% cash back on their ad spend, which is probably their third-largest expense.”
Amazon also recently instituted a change called DD+7, which withholds payments for seven days after deliveries. Sellers face additional fees on one side and much longer gaps between payouts on the other, leading to a painful cash-flow crunch that’s much worse than any individual problem seems from the outside.
Put A CAPI On It
DirecTV is the latest streamer to jump on the CAPI bandwagon.
Timed for the upfront season, DirecTV Advertising announced an integration with LiveRamp’s Conversions API Hub, which helps advertisers connect streaming impressions to business outcomes.
Schmancy partnership and product announcements are par for the course in the lead-up to upfronts. But CAPIs are an especially hot topic right now. Just this week, Paramount announced a new ad performance product that will soon include (you guessed it) a CAPI.
CAPIs have become a must-have for digital ad platforms, from Meta, which unveiled an upgrade to its CAPI this week, to every other social channel, including LinkedIn.
But CAPIs are still relatively new to streaming TV, where measuring performance is complex and time-consuming. CAPI launches have been ramping up, though, as streaming platforms are under increasing pressure to prove performance to marketers who themselves must justify every dollar of media spend to skeptical and penny-pinching CFOs and CEOs. Netflix has a CAPI now and so does Roku.
Will CAPIs give these streamers a leg up in the fight for ad dollars this upfront season? We’ll know soon. Upfronts are just a few short weeks away, and AdExchanger will be on the ground.
But Wait! There’s More!
Digital ad revenue is set to hit $300 billion in 2025, according to the IAB, driven largely by social media and digital video. [release]
Condé Nast is shuttering Self after 47 years, and will fold its wellness coverage into the Allure and Glamour brands. The company also plans to shut down some international editions of Wired and Glamour. [The Wrap]
Thomson Reuters shareholders are demanding that the company’s board of directors investigate whether its sale of personal user data to ICE contributed to human rights violations. [404 Media]
Drawing on her own recent wedding planning experience, tech reporter Samantha Cole details how social media’s “wedding planning algorithm” perfected the art of making women feel “weird, broke and ugly.” [404 Media]
Mediaite suspended founding editor Colby Hall after several errors were uncovered in his One Sheet newsletter’s summaries of stories by other news outlets that appear to be the result of AI hallucinations. [Status]
Programmatic platform Brkthru has acquired programmatic media provider Gigawatt Media. [release]
You’re Hired!
Digital advertising OS Fluency hires Eric Picard as SVP of product. [release]
Samba TV appoints Kelly Barrett as SVP and global head of product management. [release]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
