Welcome To AdTech Weekly
It's Time For Issue 2 Point 0. Here we go:
Ad tech news was abundant last week. We've managed to pare down everything into the ten most important stories. This week we have some results pouring in from publishers using ad blocking- blockers, details on ad fraud across the AppNexus network (yikes!), and even a nice little ad blocker "hack" being employed by our Canadian friends north of the border.
Here are the top ten stories:
AdTech News And Editorial
Publishers Are Handing Over Their Core Business To Facebook
Facebook now owns the audience. Facebook now owns the monetization mechanism. Facebook now owns the publishing platform (Instant Articles). If publishers don't realize that they're competing directly with Facebook and other social networks, they won't be around much longer. But do they have a choice?
90% Fraud. OMG. AppNexus. WTF.
Before the cleanup, 90% of AppNexus ad impressions were fraudulent. Fraudulent. Sure, basic supply and demand principles may have resulted in a fair price adjustment on inventory for everyone involved, but that's still a giant pile of cash being doled out for fake traffic.
The real question is this: which other exchanges are hiding the rampant fraud (Google?) and is this public expose AppNexus is doing on their internal efforts to right the proverbial ship going to pay dividends and secure trust from customers moving forward? Likely.
Ad Block Stonewalls May Not Be Working
From the article:
Only 0.33% of ad blocker users added an ad block exception for the publisher. Of those users, one-third only made temporary exceptions. Just 0.22% permanently whitelisted the publisher.
The information from PageFair (above) suggests that the public plea may be falling on deaf ears. But, others are reporting tremendous success with similar programs. Forbes has reported 42 percent of those asked have either whitelisted or disabled their ad blockers.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming months. If you know of other publisher's blogging about their experiments with ad block, please let us know.
Google To Roll Out Its Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) Program On Feb. 24.
AMP is a nice attempt at cleaning up the web and punishing those who abuse advertising online, but there are also dangerous things to consider, like, will AMP sites get priority listing in search over non-AMP sites? We pointed out in a previous story that Facebook now owns publishers, and now it looks like Google is also trying to control publisher access through search.
There are Still Some Highly Questionable Publishers Hiding in Plain Sight on Google’s Ad Exchange
From the article:
Ad fraud and traffic quality are problems that are impossible for ad exchanges to completely eradicate. Honest and legitimate publishers — the kind who invest in quality content and hold the powerful to account — receive lower CPMs for their hard-earned inventory. The only people who make serious profits are the fraudsters and those who turn a blind eye to their activities.
Sssoooo... what happens in 2017 to exchanges who aren't able to eradicate fraud, and why is it so difficult?
Ad Blocking
It’s Time For Ad Tech To Evolve.
It’s time to wake up. It’s time to realize that the biggest threat to the advertising industry isn’t ad-blockers, but the continued disillusionment of readers online.
The Ad Blocking Wars
Ad Blockers are blocking ads, and publishers are now blocking ad blockers. We've officially moved out of an ad blocking cold war and straight into a nuclear arms race. Until we start asking the real questions, things will continue to escalate.
Canadian Publisher Asks Ad Blocking Audience To Sign In With Facebook For Ad Free Experience.
From The Article:
Narcity Media, which runs a pair of city-focused sites aimed at Canadian millennials, last week started asking ad blockers to log in with their Facebook accounts if they wanted to read its sites ad-free.
Three Will Start Blocking Advertisements At Network Level
The internet service provider has decided to start blocking advertisements at the network level. It's an interesting concept, but also a pretty serious threat to net neutrality. Does Three, as an Internet Service Provider, have the right to start blocking things on the internet?