Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
The DSP Podium
Amazon’s ad business is to the moon. But its third-party DSP hasn’t achieved the same acceleration. The company is pushing to become a ubiquitous buy-side tool alongside Google Display & Video 360 and The Trade Desk’s DSPs, Digiday reports.
With a thriving business from sellers who use its search-based sponsored listings, for years chasing off-platform revenue felt like a distraction. Now, Amazon needs more supply options and non-endemic advertisers that don’t sell much or at all on the marketplace.
Advertisers grumble that the Amazon DSP is “lacking in measurement capabilities and limited in the range of inventory it offers for purchase,” according to Digiday.
The Amazon media empire is pretty vast, so the knock on its limited inventory is a sign of how tough it is for non-Google platforms to offer everything in one place at scale.
“There’s clear desire for a number three in the market,” says Matt Prohaska, CEO of Prohaska Consulting.
Although everyone else in the DSP market would say there’s a desire for a number four.
The Up And Up
Expect an uptick in US ad spend this year. The ad economy will grow 5.6% in 2024, writes forecaster Brian Wieser at Madison and Wall, up from 5.2% in his previous prediction.
And Wieser’s forecast doesn’t count the political advertising windfall this year.
“The stronger-than-expected economy is a factor in the upgrade,” he says. But other factors support digital advertising growth.
Digital-native marketers are more “ad-intense” than traditional counterparts. Ecommerce brands and marketplaces, for instance, spend four times more on advertising as a percent of overall sales compared to brick-and-mortar companies. (Ecommerce businesses pay rent to Google, Amazon and/or Meta, whereas legacy brands pay retailers for shelf space.)
These high-intensity advertisers are “growing faster than everyone else,” Wieser says. Case in point: Commerce media will reach $82 billion in ad revenue in 2028.
Wieser says that despite the overall tailwinds for data-driven online advertising, lower consumer and advertiser trust in the open web will limit ad growth. Aside from the dot-com websites, that includes non-walled-garden CTV streamers like Tubi and Pluto, as well as channels like digital audio and digital out-of-home.
Probing Questions
The European Commission has outlined five investigations into Big Tech companies under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), CNBC reports.
The Commission announced these probes just days after Google, Apple and Meta made lengthy presentations about their DMA compliance plans. Clearly, those plans left something to be desired.
Two of the probes center on Google and Apple and whether their anti-steering policies block app developers from informing users about cheaper options that aren’t subject to app store fees.
A third probe focuses on the ease with which Apple allows users to uninstall default apps and use alternative web browsers and search engines.
The fourth probe centers on Google’s Search business and whether its search results unfairly preference Google services over competitors.
And the fifth probe will dig into Meta’s ad-free subscription model for European users. At issue is whether compelling users to pay for an ad-free experience or agree to allow their data to be collected for advertising purposes violates the spirit of the DMA.
The Commission plans to complete these investigations within the next 12 months. Companies face potential fines of 10% of total global revenue if they’re found noncompliant.
But Wait, There’s More!
One Netflix co-CEO embodies Hollywood’s obsession with talent and creative; the other brings data-obsessed product development. Can it work? [WSJ]
CrowdTangle’s former CEO has questions about Meta’s decision to close the research tool in an election year. [FastCo]
Political ad spend is nearly triple what it was in 2016. [eMarketer]
Comcast plans to incorporate iSpot’s national TV ratings within its ad buying platform, AudienceXpress. [release]
Tesla is running paid Facebook ads. [tweet, h/t Michael J. Miraflor] CEO Elon Musk previously refused to advertise the car brand before caving last year. Tesla also started running ads on X earlier this year after Musk told advertisers wary of the platform’s brand safety to “Go f— themselves.”
