Welcome To AdTech Weekly
Advertising Makes The Social Web Go ‘Round.
We’re living in strange times. Today, most bystanders think the online advertising world is slowly grinding to a halt, but a quick study of the social web tells an entirely different tale. Everywhere you look, companies like Facebook, Reddit, Spotify and now even Verizon are betting on advertising to drive future revenue growth. The stories attached below provide an interesting overview of what each of these companies is doing (and how they’re using advertising) to drive revenue growth. The dichotomies between traditional web publishers and social media companies are quite interesting when you start looking into the differences.
What approach separates these social web platforms from media sites on the free and open web? It seems the question is this year’s billion dollar conundrum. It’s a complicated riddle to crack (no one has yet), but there are two parts to the equation that stick out more than others: social platforms own walled gardens around their products; social platforms own highly sophisticated audience targeting stacks that let them segment their audiences and sell inventory directly to advertisers.
One of those things will be hard to replicate for media and publishers online (walled gardens are not the answer). The second, however, isn’t as far out of reach as one may expect. In fact, media companies are starting to buy up ad tech companies in an attempt to regain control over their technology stacks.
Advertising on the internet is here to stay. The margins may be a little slimmer than they were previously, but if you have an audience worth pursuing, advertising campaigns will still follow. Social media networks don’t own web audiences in their entirety, but they do provide advertisers with a streamlined process for building and purchasing targeted campaigns. The approach is something worth borrowing.
Adtech is alive and well, no matter what the alarmists are declaring.
Todd Garland, CEO and Founder at BuySellAds
AdTech News And Editorial
Why People Block Ads (And What It Means for Marketers and Advertisers)
Based on the way the landscape is evolving, the future of online advertising is looking more and more tenuous. We wondered: is there a way that content producers and ad publishers can make money without creating a hugely disruptive and annoying ad experience?
The Future Of Advertising Is Curation, Not Bots Calling All The Shots
Humans will always be the best tool for combating ad fraud and other programmatic maladies. More human involvement is needed to restore the reading experience online.
Reddit to Let Marketers Sponsor Redditors' Own Posts
"Reddit users don't like being bullshitted," Mr. Huffman, CEO at Reddit, said. "Reddit is a platform where you can call people out on it. And a lot of traditional advertising feels like we're being taken advantage of and nobody likes that. But when advertisers come with honest intentions we see a much higher level of engagement with the brand. We don't see hostility and we have valuable connections."
Google Can Now Deliver Native Ads Programmatically
"With the user shift to mobile, users have higher expectations for a great user experience and advertisers and publishers are working hard to deliver on those expectations," Dan Taylor, managing director of global display and programmatic at Google, told Ad Age. "We've all had the suboptimal experience of browsing a well designed mobile site, when a legacy static display shows up and disrupts up an otherwise seamless user experience."
Spotify is rolling out programmatic ads as IPO looms
Spotify is making programmatic audio ads available on its platform in a bid to boost revenue from the free tier of its service before its IPO.
With Yahoo Deal, Verizon Sets Sights on Facebook, Google
“Yahoo brings viewers. Viewers bring advertising. Advertising brings top-line growth,” said Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo.
News Publishers’ Facebook Problem
No one seems happy with Facebook’s recent algorithm change. The anger is growing among those who put too much faith in the giant social network’s ability to monetize news content.
Ad Blocking
IAB Ad Blocking Report: Who Blocks Ads, Why, and How to Win Them Back
Don’t disrupt their flow with: Ads that block content, long video ads before short video content, ads that follow down the page, autoplay, slow loading (especially on mobile), pop-ups, or full page ads.
Acquisitions
Taboola acquires ConvertMedia
ConvertMedia specializes in what are known as "outstream" video advertising formats, which tend to appear within the content of an article and only play when the viewer is actually looking at the ad unit.