Earlier this week, attention metrics startup Adelaide raised $1.4 million in a seed extension led by Aperiam Ventures, the ad tech-focused venture capital firm run by ad tech OGs Joe Zawadzki and Eric Franchi.
What do VC investors look for in an ad tech company? We ponder that question on this week’s episode of The Big Story, with Franchi himself as our special guest.
The four things you need to attract investor interest are vision, product, team and traction, says Franchi, a former ad tech entrepreneur himself (remember Undertone?), so he knows what he’s talking about.
But investors are also looking to enter categories that are about to have their big moment.
Attention measurement’s moment has been long overdue, but interest is finally ramping up in response to growing concern about media quality – or the lack thereof.
The attention category will “only grow in importance over the course of the next five to 10 years,” Franchi says, because it’s like an “antidote” to bad actors and worse practices, including the scourge of made-for-advertising sites and the ad industry’s unhealthy fixation on viewability.
In the second half of the episode, we analyze Meta’s recent announcements about incremental conversion optimization and its direct integrations with third-party attribution tools, including Northbeam.
Why would Meta make these moves?
AdExchanger Senior Editor James Hercher has a theory: The more Meta can learn about what Northbeam or Triple Whale or Google Analytics says counts as a conversion, the better Meta’s own ad system will get at helping advertisers optimize to their specific goals.
“Maybe Google Analytics is very good at identifying and attributing in certain channels,” Hercher says. “[Meta] will see what that is and be like, ‘Oh, that’s what you want? That’s what we’re going to deliver for you.’”
