Welcome To AdTech Weekly
The Great Ad Blocking Wars Are Upon Us...
This week a browser (Brave) raised $4.5 million dollars to fuel the development of a privacy-first web browser. The ‘ad-blocking, privacy-centric’ browser hopes to move upstream and set up shop between media companies and end-users in a way that a plugin never could: enabled by default upon installation.
We find ourselves amidst an ad-blocking arms race. In one corner, there is a new browser on the market hoping to overstep ad blocking plugins (ad blocking is already pretty played out…), and in the other corner, there are companies looking to take the blocking technology directly to Internet Service Providers and even cellular carriers, thereby overstepping browsers entirely. If this arms race continues, it’s not hard to see a future on the horizon where privacy-first ad-blocking technology is on by default for the entire internet. It’s also not that far fetched to assume that a company (or a handful of them) will be solely responsible for determining what’s safe, what’s not, and what should be censored if we continue down this path (cough it should have been the IAB, btw cough). It's a severe and self-inflicted penalty for the ad tech industry.
We haven’t been able to police our industry, and the result is a third-party determining which cars have access to the roads we're all riding on today, and which are being forced into the ditch. It's not surprising that many are referring to these blocking technologies as anti-net neutrality mechanism.
But, people have been begging for better solutions for a while now. People started by asking for better user experiences and more respect for their privacy. The ecosystem we find ourselves in today is the culmination of these missed opportunities (and a whole bunch of laziness across the industry).
No-one should have to choose between privacy on the internet and access to the rich content on the web. We’re better than that.
Todd Garland, CEO, and Founder at BuySellAds
AdTech News And Editorial
Yahoo! Acquisition Should Make Verizon a Programmatic Ad Powerhouse
By combining Yahoo! with AOL, Verizon has the makings of a programmatic advertising platform capable of selling mobile ads in real time, a business that has the potential at least of taking a big cut of a pie dominated by Silicon Valley's biggest stars.
Hey IAB, It’s Time To Shake Hands So We Can Start Building The Future
If we had someone looking out for consumer interests, would we be in a different position today as an industry? I’m finding it hard to argue a case to the contrary.
Can Spotify Make Programmatic Audio Mainstream?
Programmatic audio makes much more sense if the buyer is very sophisticated programmatically, if they are targeting device IDs against mobile and web cookies. There are other buyers who may just want reach nationally. Both are important.
Brave Raises $4.5 Million to Fuel Growth of Ad-Blocking Browser
Brave Software announced Monday that it has raised $4.5 million to help grow its ad-blocking, privacy-centric web browser, which aims to nullify many of the ad targeting and tracking techniques now commonplace in online advertising.
Ad Tech View On Google EBDA
We spoke around a dozen ad tech and publishing executives, the majority of whom broadly shared the same opinion: EBDA in its current form has a long way to go before it convinces the ad tech industry it benefits anyone except Google. There were five big concerns about EBDA, which we have outlined below. Most of the people we spoke to said its planned Q3 launch is likely to be delayed as a result.
I Was Interviewed By The Folks At Hack To Start
We talk about everything from my start at HubSpot to how I bootstrapped an ad tech company while working there. I had a lot of fun doing it, and they did such a great job that I wanted to share it.
Has Programmatic Finally Hit Bottom?
In the next three years, “Programmatic 2.0” will crystallize, demonstrating that these forces are reaching a tipping point. The market will shift toward advertisers re-establishing direct publisher buying on premium inventory that is bought on an audience, not impression, guarantee. So, while CPMs will rise, the buy will be 100% transparent.
Rubicon Project -33% as analysts slash ratings after warnings
"We were on the wrong side of this one," says RBC Capital's Andrew Bruckner, who cut his rating on RUBI to Sector Perform. The company's beginning a "meaningful business transition since it has encountered the 'perfect storm' of a quicker-than-expected slowdown in desktop display advertising coupled with a faster-than-expected pick up in header bidding." He slashed his price target to $14, from $22.
Rubicon Project partners with SuperAwesome for programmatic kids ads
Rubicon Project, the public ad tech company, has formed a partnership with "kid-safe" marketing platform SuperAwesome to create what they are claiming is the world's first kid-focused programmatic advertising exchange.
New York Times Co. Reports a Loss, and a Fall in Digital Ad Revenue
The company had strong growth in digital subscriptions, it said on Thursday, but digital advertising revenue, which has been a bright spot in the past, declined.
Alphabet's revenue up to $21.5bn off the back of mobile and video ads
That is not exactly surprising. Pichai’s call was a victory lap, coming on the heels of the announcement that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, had posted a 21.3% increase in second-quarter revenue – exceeding analysts’ expectations – driven by strong advertising sales on mobile devices and for video content.
Tumblr to introduce ads across all blogs
Tumblr this week quietly announced plans to roll out a new advertising program across its site which will see it implementing ads across users’ blogs. The company did not provide specific details on how the program will operate, but it appears to be an expansion of its earlier Creatrs program, which connects brands with Tumblr users directly, instead of having advertisers work with third-party influencer networks.