forbes

Google has to hand over some of its AI features to competitors; when LLMs will (or won’t) be critical; and publishers are productizing GEO offerings.

CTV, like digital display before it, is facing fraud and mislabeled information. The prevailing advice for advertisers is to go directly to the networks and streaming platforms. However, buying direct comes with a fraud risk itself.

Sports betting comes under fire over dubious ad claims and problematic targeting; Forbes says Google’s SEO crackdown on affiliate marketing caused it to cut freelancers; and SCOTUS takes on the TikTok case.

Paramount is the latest entertainment studio headed for a showdown with Nielsen. Plus, Forbes seems to have been rebuked by Google Search.

As we lean heavily on AI tools to enhance content efficiency, we may have reached a tipping point where we are creating more content in service of media algorithms, rather than for the benefit of consumers and brands.

The FTC’s got a new report on the data collection practices of large social media and video platforms. Plus, Amazon has its own “Shark Tank.”

Publishers trafficking in pirated movies, TV shows and games sold programmatic ads alongside this stolen content, while using domain cloaking to obscure the “cashout sites” where the ads actually ran.

Many brand operators feel like they need good general guidelines for attribution. Plus, what’s stepping retail media standardization?

Ad quality issues are widespread, even on legitimate websites. But today, advertisers have more control over what goes into programmatic’s mixed bag. 

Pivoting to a “premium internet” is like avoiding the parts of town that have been blighted by illicit activity. The only real solution to MFA is for the dollars to dry up.

In today’s newsletter: How the Amazon-TripleLift deal illustrates retail media’s need for standardization; legacy publishing brands persist as investors extract value from their name recognition; and mortgage lenders get caught sharing data with Meta.

The practice involves monetizing resold subdomains jammed with recycled MFA articles produced by notorious content farms.

Buyers could solve many of the issues they have with the open web by focusing less on viewability and clicks and more on driving performance outcomes, says Goodway Group director of strategic partnerships Andrea Kwiatek.

In today’s newsletter: Ad blocking is getting integrated into web browsers; why Reddit needs to diversify its advertiser base; and how big media’s affiliate marketing tactics crowd specialist publishers out of search.

Why does MFA continue to thrive? MFA monetization benefits everyone in the ad tech ecosystem that collects a revenue share. That includes both SSPs and DSPs.

Industry experts weigh in on Forbes’s MFA subdomain and why ad verification tools still regularly fail to flag some instances of alleged SIVT.

Garcia made waves last year when she publicly resigned her role as UM Worldwide’s chief privacy and responsibility officer.

URLs and domains – even those of big-name publisher brands – cannot be trusted in isolation. Buyers need to look at page-level data, too.

In today’s newsletter: Adalytics reveals Forbes was running a separate MFA sub-domain; The New York Times seeks to use attention benchmarking to validate its premium publisher status; and Google is reportedly looking to buy HubSpot.

In today’s newsletter: Criteo’s investors clamor for a sale; the FTC fines VPN provider Avast for deceptive data practices; air quality-focused site HouseFresh laments the state of online search.

For the most part, metaverse early adopters say they’re just exploring the possibilities rather than trying to really demonstrate ROI. And while hugely popular online games like Roblox and Fortnite are lumped in with metaverse platforms, they’re really Web 2.0 gaming without the decentralized interoperability promised by Web 3.0 and blockchain technology. The few actual metaverse environments in market, such as Decentraland and The Sandbox, don’t offer the audience reach advertisers crave.

Foundry, formerly known as IDG Communications, wants to shed its old identity and build a new reputation not as a digital publisher but as a provider of data and marketing tech, according to Foundry President Kumaran Ramanathan. Ramanathan spoke to AdExchanger about why Foundry walked away from open-web programmatic, how it’s fusing its first-party data with a marketing and data tech stack and its M&A ambitions.

The market is not being kind to digital media companies. The nearly 40% drop in BuzzFeed’s stock price on Monday and the decline of its valuation from $1.5 billion when it went public in December to roughly $300 million now is no doubt causing other digital-native publishers to rethink their IPO plans. But any doom and gloom about the long-term viability of digital publishers in public markets is likely overblown.

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 […]

Mergers and acquisitions, the industry’s slow-motion pivot away from third-party data and the expansion of commerce-based business dominated the headlines for media and sell-side ad tech in 2021. What does the industry predict for 2022? More of the same as these trends continue to play out in the year ahead. First-party first In 2022 and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Publisher Action  Forbes is jumping on the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) bandwagon as a route to go public, CNBC reports. The business publisher announced plans to IPO at a $630 million value. The cash infusion will help Forbes’s “digital transformation,” and CEO Mike […]

What kind of stories do people in market for a luxury SUV read? Forbes is answering that question using data, not a gut feeling, so brands can buy sponsorships and branded content based on what resonates with an audience. That question was once impossible to answer. Publishers would know, for instance, if readers indexed highly […]

Integrated sales teams are in vogue. Print sellers usually handle digital these days, and IO-focused digital sellers pitch in on programmatic. But Forbes, which integrated its sales team in 2009, switched back to separate lanes for separate mediums at the beginning of this year. “All of this was motivated by what we were seeing when […]

LinkedIn is no Facebook, but it is a growing source of referral traffic for publishers. And as it turns to sponsored updates for more of its revenue, LinkedIn is encouraging users to spend more time scrolling through the feed – a move that will only benefit publishers posting content in that feed. Forbes, Bloomberg and […]

For three trends affecting publishers today – native advertising, outside investments and ad blocking – Forbes has been ahead of the curve. Forbes first launched BrandVoice in 2010, a time when only BuzzFeed and Huffington Post had notable sponsored content programs. It sold a majority stake in the company to Hong Kong-based investors in 2014, […]