Platforms

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…  

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Since You Asked … When the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) asked what tech companies thought of Apple, Meta happily chimed in.  Meta, which has lost billions of dollars due to Apple’s new tracking prompt, says its ability to innovate has been […]

CTV is a no-brainer for political advertising today – viewership is up, it costs less, there’s more ad inventory, it’s addressable and it allows incremental reach on top of linear spend, writes Iván Markman, Yahoo’s chief business officer. The sooner political campaigns get serious about CTV, the sooner they can gain valuable insights about what their video strategy needs to look like in the future.

The advertising industry is taking a few hits these days. Legislators are looking hard at treating ad platforms like utilities. Nefarious state actors have hacked our political discourse and even our understanding of facts. But this isn’t the first time the ad industry is facing choppy waters. The ad world is in desperate need of a new position: the Chief Morality Officer, writes Marilois Snowman, CEO and founder of Mediastruction.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Oh, Snap Snap warned investors this week that it will miss its one-month-old revenue target, tumbling shares by more than 40% in what may be a harbinger for the industry, CNBC reports.  “Since we issued guidance on April 21, 2022, the macroeconomic environment has […]

The IAB’s Podcast Upfronts in May touted advancements in dynamic ad insertion, measurement and attribution and brand safety and suitability, as well as the rise of podcast networks. But ad agencies say the technology powering podcast-based marketing is not sufficiently developed to deliver what advertisers need to effectively target impressions and measure campaign effectiveness. And they believe the industry should do more to address brand safety concerns around podcast content.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Vibe Wars TikTok has launched an ad product called Branded Mission, which identifies potential influencers and puts paid media behind content even if it isn’t part of a campaign.  “Turn top-performing videos into ads,” is how TikTok puts it in a release. […]

Independent record label EMPIRE is well aware of the crossover appeal between video games and certain subgenres of music, including rap. So the label recently partnered with in-game ad platform Anzu to promote Babyface Ray’s new album, “FACE,” among young male rap fans in targeted geographic locations.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Four-Minute Mile Details of the new Disney+ ad-supported tier are leaking as Disney lays the groundwork for its upfronts sales pitch.  For one thing, Disney+ will carry about four minutes of commercials per hour, with zero ads for preschooler-aged accounts, The Wall […]

A rose by any name will smell as sweet, sure. But attribution by any name doesn’t work the same. Call it what you want, the problem of channel-based incremental testing is important. Measured raised $21 million last week, as it expands in the post-attribution attribution category, alongside other startups like Triple Whale, which raised $24 million a month ago, and Northbeam.

SmileDirectClub was “born in the classic digital DR space during the Facebook heyday when that channel was super effective,” CMO John Sheldon tells AdExchanger. “Since then, we’ve focused on diversifying our spend to mitigate risk, but also as a way to chase performance across multiple platforms.”

A rundown on the state of TikTok’s ad platform, including its attribution woes. (But you’d be crazy not to advertise there.) And location-data-related privacy issues that will crop up should Roe v. Wade be overturned.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Titans Are Tired So many entertainment hubs – Netflix, Amazon Prime and Freevee, Paramount+ and sister app Pluto TV, Apple TV+, HBO Max, Discovery+ and the Disney triumvirate of Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+ – so little time. Which means there just isn’t […]

Seven months ago, TikTok surpassed one billion worldwide users, breaking into a club that previously consisted only of Google and Facebook apps. Since then, TikTok has been on a massive ad platform expansion campaign as it tries to both follow in the footsteps of apps like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and differentiate itself from the old guard of the billion-strong walled gardens.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Shipshape Shop Late last year, Shopify began testing a prospecting product called Shopify Audiences, and it just graduated to a general release.  The product uses Shopify’s “unique perspective on purchasing intent from supporting merchants and their buyers,” according to a release. That’s hardly […]

Podcast ad revenue in the US cracked $1 billion for the first time last year, due in large part to the rise of dynamic ad insertion (DAI). At $1.4 billion – up 72% from roughly $840 million in 2020 – podcasting is now one of the fastest-growing digital media channels, and it’s growing twice as fast as the internet advertising market as a whole, according to a report on podcast ad revenue released by the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers on Monday.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Path Less Traveled More publishers have signed up for OpenPath, The Trade Desk’s direct buy-to-sell-side integration. Since launching in February, TTD says it’s “registered interest” (interesting turn of phrase) in OpenPath from more than 100 publishers.  The latest crop to, uh, register […]

If you were at the Twitter NewFronts presentation on Wednesday evening in New York City and played a drinking game that required you to take a sip every time a Twitter executive said “Elon” or “Musk” … then you would have been stone-cold sober by the end of it.

Elon Musk has expressed that his goal for Twitter is to create a safe platform for free speech that supports a democratic civilization. However, what does that really mean for Twitter’s advertisers and users, and how do we get there? It comes down to two factors, writes Sarah Rose, the SVP of international digital advertising at IPG’s Kinesso.

It’s not surprising that AppTrackingTransparency and the end of third-party cookies on Chrome didn’t come up during the razzle-dazzle of Meta’s NewFronts debut this week. But advertisers have been asking about both a lot, especially for brands focused on commerce.

Without an easy interface for clicking through to purchase, audio and video ads have, until recently, been best suited to upper-funnel brand-awareness campaigns rather than direct response. But now, tried-and-true technologies like retargeted display ads and QR codes are making audio and video formats more actionable.

Facebook marketer Rok Hladnik awoke last Thursday to discover that more than half of the 140 Facebook ad accounts he operates had been randomly turned off. The week before, the campaigns were overspending in the wee hours of the morning, when they should have been dormant. 2021 was the year of the cicada swarms in the US. But the bugs have come for the metaverse this year, apparently.

Many businesses seek to use trends as springboards to meaningful connections with consumers. This sounds logical in our trend-driven world, but the danger of chasing a fad by mistake looms large. And it threatens to reduce a brand’s hard work to rubble, says Paige Leidig, CMO, NetBase Quid.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ad tech industry took steps to freeze Russian-owned media companies out of the advertising ecosystem. But programmatic technology continues to be used by parties on both sides of the conflict as a platform to conduct psychological warfare.

TikTok has become accustomed to Facebook and Instagram stealing its cool new features and video formats. So, it’s a refreshing change to see TikTok pilfer one of Meta’s innovations. Starting Thursday, advertisers can add first-party cookies to the TikTok site conversion pixel. TikTok also instituted a straight-up requirement that advertisers collect and pass along third-party cookies.

Twitter’s ad prospects just got even more dicey with news that Elon Musk will buy the platform. Plus, quantifying ad tech’s carbon footprint.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. An Influx Of In-Ear Influencer Inventory Outside of hard news and true crime, podcasting has come to be dominated by influencers. Advertisers are increasingly trying to capitalize on internet celebrities’ and reality TV stars’ massive followings through the tried-and-true podcast marketing method of […]

Signal loss – and dealing with it – was a big theme during Meta’s first quarter earnings call on Wednesday. Mark Zuckerberg referred to signal loss due to Apple’s privacy changes as a “meaningful headwind.”

Publishers that pack their ad servers with hundreds of thousands of line items can go ahead and clear them out: Google Ad Manager is building a connection to Prebid to better support header bidding

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Take It To The Max Google has introduced a new targeting parameter for Performance Max campaigns. Soon, all advertisers will be able to use “customer acquisition goals” to guide their campaigns.  Performance Max is less than two years old, but it’s already taking […]