Welcome To AdTech Weekly
The First Edition Of Ad Tech Weekly!
The hustle and bustle of working in the advertising technology sector can make it difficult to keep up-to-date with the news cycle on a daily basis. We've decided to make it easier for you.
Moving forward, Ad Tech Weekly will be a curated newsletter centered on the most interesting -- and often most important -- news and editorials published throughout the week.
Enjoy.
Todd Garland
AdTech News And Editorial
Moving Past The Ad Blocking Arms Race And Back To The Consumers
Phil Barrett articulates multiple reasons why the rise in ad blocking behaviour is forcing a healthy evolution for online publishers and their monetization strategies. It's time we start addressing the real problems with advertising. Putting readers and consumers back into the number one priority position will help to repair the damage already done to online publisher reputations.
It’s Getting Easier To Generate Ad Revenue From Facebook's Instant Articles
From The Article:
"Business Insider has only been posting select pieces of content to Instant Articles for the past four weeks, but the business-focused online publisher said it’s pleased with the ad revenue it’s generated from the platform so far."
But, is it significant? Most publishers are earning pennies from mobile right now, so without any indication of actual revenue this feels more like scratching Facebook's back than anything else.
RIP: Adblock Plus: 'Your shady whitelisting ways mean you're dead to me.'
From The Article:
Large companies pay Adblock Plus' parent company, Eyeo, for this white-listing, though it's offered free for small and medium-size websites. Even after it started rolling out in 2011, Eyeo would not name its white-listed "strategic partners." But when information was leaked, the ad blocker confirmed to Financial Times that it was giving a pass to more than 300 businesses. It was reported that "one digital media company (which asked not to be named) was told that it would cost 30 percent of its advertising revenue to be whitelisted by Eyeo and Adblock Plus."
Its pay-for-play deals with Google, Microsoft, Amazon and multi-billion dollar "native content" ad company Taboola were also confirmed.
An interesting take on the whitelisting practices of Adblock Plus by Violet Blue.
Real Time Bidding
Going All In On Real-Time Bidding Is Like Driving The Wrong Way Down A One-Way Street
It’s time to get out of the kiddie pool, and stop worrying about the pennies RTB networks are fighting over today. Seriously.
Ad Blocking
Why Stack Overflow Doesn’t Care About Ad Blockers
From The Article:
"Anything that doesn’t speak specifically to the Stack Overflow audience is not permitted. We also don’t accept rich media like animated ads, expandable ads, or video, which are the norm for most publishers today. This strict policy means we leave money on the table, but our team wants to protect Stack Overflow from those kinds of ads, as they run the risk of alienating that established trust."
Fantastic policy from Stack Overflow. Hopefully, more publishers gravitate to a model that puts readers first. The lack of a reader-first approach in the past has directly led to the ad blocking dominated world we're faced with today.
More Numbers On Forbes' Ad Blocking Plan
From The Article:
"Those who turned off their blockers to read technology-related posts spent an average 123 seconds on the content vs. 69 seconds for visitors who never used blocking software."
This type of information is an excellent way to further the conversation about ad blocking online. We wish all publishers would share their data on ad block, as well as the experiments they're running.
Nobody has the perfect solution yet, but the more we share our learnings, the more we can help the industry move forward as a whole.
Privacy And Ad Tracking
A Company Tracked Iowa Caucus Goers Trough Their Phones And Online Advertising Mechanisms
From The Article:
"We can take a population in a discrete location — in this case a polling, a caucus site — and sample that population and go and then look at characteristics of that population that no one’s been able to discern before, because we have this incredibly rich behavioral view of American consumers based on all the digital behaviors we observe."
I guess what he's trying to say is that it's possible to tell that you'll vote for Trump because you look at lawn products on your phone. No, seriously. That's mentioned in the article. It's a little scary just how much information a person can pull together using nothing more than ad data online.