Did you hear the one about Microsoft maybe buying TikTok? No, really, there’s a potential deal in the works.
Amid ongoing drama over TikTok’s Chinese ownership and threats from the Trump administration of a ban on the app in the United States, the technology company most associated with office software could become the owner of the social media app most associated with dancing, sarcasm and lip synching.
It’s a head scratcher, but the AdExchanger team mulls the rationale. (FWIW, I’d love to see Clippy do a TikTok dance.)
Next, the team dissects Facebook and Google’s most recent earnings results. Facebook won’t stop growing despite an advertiser boycott and gale force industry headwinds … but there’s a little something coming down the pike that Facebook actually is worried about: Apple’s IDFA restrictions. Dave Wehner, Facebook’s CFO, acknowledged to investors that the changes could have an impact on revenue this year and beyond.
And over at Google, ad revenue dropped for the first time in the company’s history. But take that with a grain of salt. As senior editor Sarah Sluis notes, “Everyone is seeing really big declines in their advertising business. In the case of Alphabet, a decline in their advertising business means that they’re actually flat, because they were growing so much before.”
Also in this episode: An examination of the in-housing trend, which is clearly here to stay. Sixty-nine percent of brands have either partly or fully moved their programmatic buying for display, video and/or connected TV in-house. What’s driving this activity? Tune in to find out.
