Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Small Advertisers Need Love, Too
MiQ is acquiring Pathlabs, an ad platform for independent agencies doing performance marketing, including for connected TV. Many of these indie agencies represent small or local businesses.
The tech acquisition marks the latest in a recent spurt of ad tech M&A. In the past two months, Seedtag acquired Beachfront and Madhive bought Frequence, to name a couple.
There has also been greater interest in ad tech built for small and local businesses.
That’s partly because SMB advertisers are an entrée to CTV. Platforms are creating easy, affordable streaming campaigns for businesses that otherwise couldn’t afford TV.
Paramount just launched a self-serve ad platform, and Tatari rolled out an AI-based TV campaign planner, while NBCUniversal is making Olympics ad inventory available programmatically for the first time.
In every case, the goal is to woo advertisers who have been hesitant to try TV advertising over cost concerns.
Social Ladders
Even fairly large and popular social platforms – Pinterest, LinkedIn and TikTok, for instance – will not be a part of every advertiser’s go-to toolkit, like Google and the Meta apps. But that means there are many media plans out there that could include Pinterest or LinkedIn, but advertisers never think to try.
One way platforms are getting their supply into the media plans (if not the hearts and minds) of new advertiser accounts is by relying on publishers and content creators to sell ads for their own inventory, with a rev-share cut going to the platform, The Information reports.
Pinterest is testing a program for publishers to sell ads on their own Pinterest pages. The media companies do the work and expose new advertisers to Pinterest.
LinkedIn has a beta program called LinkedIn Wire that lets publishers sell ads in front of videos they publish on LinkedIn. And TikTok is discussing deals with digital media companies to jointly sell custom video ads, sources say.
There are real costs, though. Publishers receive a rev-share for selling ads on platforms like Pinterest, compared to keeping the whole margin for ads on their owned-and-operated sites. It also offers publishers ad credits to test the product, which it sweetens with other incentives and managed services.
Super Dooper
The Super Bowl had great ratings this year. Which was, counterintuitively, sort of a concern for Super Bowl advertisers, Ad Age reports.
Prices were going up even when ratings dipped the year before. So a record-breaking broadcast likely meant a big price jump in 2025.
Except, not so fast. Sources say the prices for the Super Bowl this year remain steady at about $7 million per commercial.
Don’t get it twisted: That’s a lot for 30 seconds of air time. But it is notable that TV commercial price rates may have finally petered out.
The trend is long past due. TV ad prices have gone up steadily, even as broadcasters report quarter after quarter of linear TV subscriber losses.
“There is a value ceiling for the most expensive unit cost we’re ever going to pay [for the Super Bowl] – there’s only so much higher it could reasonably go,” one media buyer tells Ad Age.
But Wait, There’s More!
Google’s reversal on cookies has the industry preparing for battle over phrasing of a prompt to users. [WSJ]
Should web browsers be regulated? [Digiday]
Nielsen’s lawsuit against TVision is dismissed, supposedly following an agreement that the defendant would stop using technology patented by Nielsen. [MediaPost]
