Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Black Boxes All The Way Down
Unsurprisingly, Google’s first AI-generated creative, which forms custom imagery and copywriting by prompt, was built into Performance Max, Google’s AI-operated advertising product.
In a way, creative generation is the black box inside the black box of campaign optimization, writes Eric Seufert at Mobile Dev Memo. Generative AI “aggrandizes (Google’s) influence beyond the sphere of the ad platform and into the product being advertised itself.”
Black-box ad buying favors the platform primarily by spending all the advertiser’s money all the time. Over a campaign, PMax prioritizes hitting the advertiser’s goals while spending the entire budget, whereas a human operator is more inclined to halt a campaign if ROAS fades.
But AI creative steps on the toes of real branding. Google-created copy and search metadata might include a rival’s product line, for instance, or tags that don’t work for the brand (like a plant-based manufacturer with meat tags). Those might work to increase conversions while being unpalatable to the marketer.
Currently, advertisers must choose AI-generated creative for campaigns. However, as Seufert notes, “the direction of travel with these tools is that they, too, will obviously be fully automated at some point.”
Pub Crawl
There’s light at the end of the tunnel for publishers. But don’t put those sunglasses on just yet.
The New York Times reported 6% annual ad revenue growth, driven by demand for its first-party data-enriched and premium display inventory.
It’s NYT’s second consecutive quarter of 6% growth after an ad revenue decline of 8.5% in Q1 and a flat Q4. However, while advertiser demand is encouraging, NYT president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien emphasized that there are still “near-term ad market headwinds” to contend with. Demand for podcast ads remains soft, added EVP and CFO Will Bardeen.
Subscriptions remain NYT’s bread and butter, growing 15.7% and totaling $282.2 million, compared to $75 million in advertising.
Meanwhile, IAC’s Dotdash Meredith slowed its digital revenue bleeding, with online revenue down 4% YOY to $212 million (compared to a 10% drop last quarter).
The ad market is soft, writes Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel in his investors’ letter. But performance marketing demand increased 22%, and the publisher believes its contextual targeting solution – which has been used in 80 campaigns since it launched in May – can capitalize on that demand.
Come At Me, YouTube
YouTube’s rules against ad blockers, meet EU privacy regs.
Ad blockers violate YouTube’s terms of service, and YouTube has been more aggressive in quashing them lately.
Last month, YouTube rolled out a feature requiring users to either permit ads to be passed through the blocker or subscribe to YouTube Premium.
Thousands of users uninstalled their ad blockers and hunted for new ones that YouTube couldn’t identify. But the jury’s still out on whether more people signed up for Premium.
Now, EU privacy proponents are up in arms, The Verge reports. Privacy expert Alexander Hanff filed a complaint against YouTube with the Irish Data Protection Commission, arguing that YouTube’s ad blocker detection scripts flout the EU’s ePrivacy Directive.
“If YouTube continues to think they can get away with deploying spyware to our devices, I will bring them down,” Hanff says.
But Wait, There’s More!
How SaaS startups can compete in a bundled world. [The Information]
Leaked numbers show YouTube TV is the fastest-growing Google product, as the company makes big bets in streaming. [Insider]
Omnicom Precision Marketing Group is merging the Organic and Barefoot agencies. [Ad Age]
Creators have mixed feelings about TikTok’s new monetization program. [TechCrunch]
You’re Hired!
NBCUniversal poaches Roku’s Alison Levin to be its president of advertising and partnerships and promotes Karen Kovacs to president of client partnerships. [Ad Age]
Rachana Kedilaya joins eyeo as VP, Strategy, Operations & Corp Dev. [release]
Fubo hires Dina Roman as SVP of global advertising sales. [NextTV]
