Technology

Gathering information from industry insiders is a critical part of the CMA’s evaluation process, says Chris Jenkins, director of the its Digital Markets Unit.

In today’s newsletter: Criteo gets MRC accredited for display impressions and click metrics; Google Analytics and Google Ads now use the same definition for “conversions”; and how marketing mutated the beverage aisle.

The vast majority of advertisers who buy ads in video games (91%) no longer consider gaming to be an experimental media channel. But ad spend in games still lags behind audience engagement.

The third-party cookie actually stymied the development of digital advertising. Here’s what the cookie got wrong and what its inheritors need to get right.

In today’s newsletter: Brands risk having their organic sales counted as paid conversion conversions on multiple platforms; Facebook’s Project Ghostbusters spied on Snap, YouTube and Amazon; and DTC brands bow out of brick-and-mortar.

On Tuesday, iHeartMedia-owned Triton Digital acquired AI brand safety and suitability startup Sounder in a bid to improve its programmatic chops.

To fill in the gaps left by third-party data loss, Adobe has added a data collaboration product to its Real-Time CDP that lets advertisers match their data to a partner’s to create lookalike audiences, target ads or attribute campaigns.

In today’s newsletter: Amazon’s DSP doesn’t compare to Google’s and TTD’s; US ad spend looks strong this year; European Commission will investigate Google, Apple and Meta under the EU’s DMA.

The CMO role has evolved “driven by the customer insight and customer data we have as marketers,” says Verizon Business Chief Product & Marketing Officer Iris Meijer.

If interoperability, scale and privacy are the goals, how can publishers build a data culture that sets them up for success?

More granular video classifications are replacing outstream video, but the move may devalue some inventory. Plus: GPTs are coming for contextual.

Buyers will soon have far more transparency into video ad inventory sold through Google’s platform. But some publishers and video platforms have concerns.

Whether taxi riders like it or not, backseat screens are ad inventory, too. Curb, which operates a network of digital screens within taxi cabs, has technology that helps advertisers get in front of cab passengers.

In today’s newsletter: The DOJ publishes its antitrust suit against Apple; Reddit’s stock pops on its IPO day, but its long-term prospects depend on Google; and Amazon’s hollowing out Twitch.

In today’s newsletter: Performance Max has many imitators, but Google’s still ahead of the pack; France’s competition authority fines Google for using news content to train its Bard AI model without their knowledge of consent; and Apollo Global Management offers to acquire Paramount Global for $11 billion.

In today’s newsletter: The CMO role is disappearing, but it may not be a bad thing; MFA sites use gen-AI images to game Facebook’s algorithm; Apple’s policies should end fingerprinting, but enforcement falls to app developers.

Now, advertisers have more flexible access to the MTA’s four million daily riders while they’re inside the stations, waiting for their trains.

In today’s newsletter: Sensor Tower acquires mobile marketing analytics and benchmarking rival Data.ai; Minute Media will distribute Sports Illustrated; Apple fields questions at a DMA compliance workshop.

We asked industry experts: Will the EU’s newly passed AI Act put a damper on the enthusiasm surrounding generative AI in advertising, or is it good to have these guardrails, and why?

Cookie loss is happening, even if it doesn’t feel imminent, and there’s no point in procrastinating, according to Sisi Zhang, chief data and analytics officer at Publicis-owned Razorfish.

Publishers and online video platforms that rely on accompanying content video ads could see their revenue drop after Google AdX’s April 1 update.

In today’s newsletter: Google PAIR snags a CTV partnership with NBCU; why Madison Avenue and Hollywood will never make their relationship official; and TV buyers explain why they aren’t all-in on alternative currencies just yet.

In today’s newsletter: Meta will shutter news benchmarking service CrowdTangle; Reddit rolls out a new ad format to monetize its user activity; and the ANA readies a report analyzing the programmatic supply chain.

Google and Meta are playing with fire. Their opaque refund practices have already exposed them to customer blowback – and could lead to class-action lawsuits by disgruntled advertisers.

In today’s newsletter: MiQ’s Lara Koenig takes the stage at CTV Connect to talk about what’s next for programmatic CTV; Snap can’t compete because it lacks scale; and TikTok faces a potential ban (again).

New contextual targeting tools use generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) to analyze websites and and build contextual audience segments. The companies behind them believe that GPTs can address some of the problems that plague contextual targeting.

In today’s newsletter: Criteo invests heavily in the Privacy Sandbox; the open web is not too big to fail; and Amazon aims to grow its ad business to rival Google’s and Meta’s.

The acquisition should help Aditude expand its footprint in the gaming vertical. But the main rationale, from Aditude’s perspective, was CPMStar’s already-established direct sales business.

Third-party cookie deprecation creates an opportunity for publishers to increase inventory value, efficiency and partnerships in the open exchange. Here are some efficiency initiatives that should make your inventory more valuable to advertisers.

In today’s newsletter: Apple adopts the owned-and-operated model for its ad platform; the banality of click farming; and how consumers and businesses alike are getting squeezed on data storage costs.