Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Fertile Ground For Disagreement
Fertility companies are having their ads blocked on Google, TikTok and Meta, Forbes reports.
Advertisers say political polarization around women’s health care causes platforms to be overly cautious. Platforms often restrict ads even when they don’t violate the letter of their ad policies.
Take Hertility, a startup that offers at-home hormone tests for women whose ads have been blocked on TikTok. A TikTok spokesperson cited the platform’s policies against advertising fertility treatments and IVF care. Yet Hertility doesn’t offer either, and TikTok’s policy doesn’t explicitly prohibit mentioning them.
Meta used to block Hertility’s ads until it updated its policy last year to allow ads for women’s sexual health services – but only if targeted to over-18 audiences and if the ads emphasize health rather than pleasure. That update followed a 2022 report by the Center for Intimacy Justice, which found Meta restricted ads for women’s health but allowed ads for men’s health products related to erectile dysfunction and increasing sexual endurance. The FTC is investigating this disparity.
Meanwhile, Google has been blocking ads from AIVF, a company that helps patients plan IVF treatments. Although IVF is not a form of birth control, ads related to IVF fall into Google’s “birth control” category – which has harsh restrictions in certain countries. Google also prevents brands that advertise fertility services from using some of its ad customization tools.
Digital Dark Age
Contrary to popular belief, the “Dark Ages” weren’t actually a time of stalled cultural progress. The term exists because surviving historical records from that period weren’t available when the term was coined.
In other words, it was “dark” because we didn’t (and still don’t) have a lot of contemporary information about what everyday life was like back then.
Writing for Business Insider, Adam Rogers argues the web is on a similar trajectory.
In the short term, Google is getting rid of its library of URL-shortened links. It’s hardly the end of the world, but it is part of a broader trend for open web content. And the gradual dissolution of the open web and its archives can have serious consequences down the line.
Think of all the platforms that rely on third-party databases for file storage and documentation or the affiliate publishers that relied on Google’s link-shortener. And what about creatives who can’t point to past examples of their work because it’s no longer publicly available?
It’s easy to make fun of CEOs who still print out their emails. But that paper trail might be the only record left standing if a business fails. Without it, Roger writes, “you lose the memory of everything those deceased companies labored for.”
The Everybusiness
Taboola is launching a generative AI chat assistant that simplifies campaign setup and makes it easier to onboard small-business advertisers. It’s a smart plan. SMBs form the backbone of the biggest ad platforms in the world: Google, Meta and, to a lesser extent, Amazon.
The product, called Abby, is designed for lay people who don’t have the time or resources to grapple with intimidating ad metrics and marketing jargon, Business Insider reports. Business owners tell Abby their KPI – site visits, for example, or some other type of conversion – and the platform handles campaign ops.
The tool was built using OpenAI’s GPT-4o and with data inputs from Taboola ad campaigns.
But now Taboola has to convince SMBs to use Abby. And that’ll be a big challenge.
Practically every SMB in America uses Google and Meta as a baseline part of their existence, and millions of advertisers already use their respective AI products. Winning share from Performance Max and Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns won’t be easy.
But Wait, There’s More!
A Q&A with Home Depot’s retail media VP, Melanie Babcock. [Multichannel Marketer]
Americans don’t trust the news. [Gallup]
Google has completely rebuilt its Shopping platform to include AI recommendations. [Search Engine Journal]
Ed Zitron’s plea to tech journalists: Stop covering Zuckerberg, Musk and Altman so much. [Where’s Your Ed At]
You’re Hired
Horizon Media names Gene Turner as president and global chief client officer and promotes Dave Campanelli to president of global investment. [MediaPost]
MGID appoints Alex Distadio as regional head of publisher acquisition for the Americas and Ela Krief as global head of account management. [release]
Podcasting platform Libsyn brings on Brendan Monaghan as its new CEO. [release]
