Advertising Technology

Google news dominates headlines, like it’s trying to dominate digital advertising

Google certainly is making waves in ad tech these days, isn't it?

The industry is still keeping quite a keen eye on its Contributor program, which promises to block ads (on a certain few sites) for users who are willing to pay (between $1 and $3) for it. Meanwhile, data released this week showed that only a little over half of Google ads are even seen (by humans … who else would “see” them, though) anyway. Lastly, Digiday breaks down Google's dominance in the ad tech scene, and why that's concerning for the industry.

However, not everything is about Google.

  • How The Old Ad Nets Are Upgrading (AdExchanger) – As any industry evolves, its players must grow as well. See how networks have grown from a place to merely group publishers in order to scale available inventory to a place where automated transactions are maximizing economy efficiency.
  • Is RTB Killing the Creative Star? (MediaPost) – Just because the buying and selling of digital ads is becoming more automated doesn't mean there's no time for creativity. Right?

By |December 5th, 2014|Advertising Technology|1 Comment
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On the frauding, measuring and blocking of ads

Take a look at which sites are hit hardest by online ad fraud. See what industry insiders see as programmatic's biggest challenges. Viewable ads are certainly one of those challenges, and you can check out just what the numbers are on that front, as well as see what publishers think about moving to more time-based metrics. Also, Google made major headlines this week by introducing a new program that will allow web users to pay a few bucks a month to never see ads on certain sites.

  • The 10 Premium Publishers Hit Hardest by Fraudulent Ad Sellers (Ad Week) – It's obvious that some of the internet's biggest sites are the ones hit hardest by ad fraud, as they deal in the largest scale of traffic. What's interesting is how hard they're hit. Also, this article has a pretty sweet infographic of one way that fraudsters beat the system.
  • Programmatic's biggest challenges: Talent, education, fraud (Digiday) – For as promising as programmatic is for the digital ad industry, it is no secret that there are challenges to its adoption. But check out this roundup of how industry insiders, from all sides of the equation, are addressing these problems.
  • Nearly Two-Thirds Of Non-Direct Inventory Deemed Non-Viewable (MediaPost) – When an ad loads, there's no guarantee it will be seen. Sometimes it loads and the user doesn't scroll down the screen to see it. Sometimes that “user” isn't even real. Recent data from Q3 of this year, however, shows just how many of the ads are not viewable. This is using the current viewability standard of 50% by 1 second. The article also breaks down how that number changes when you adjust the standard to some of the other ones that have been considered by the industry.
  • How Time-Based Measurement is Grabbing Digital Publishers' Attention (Digital Content Next) – A recent report released based on research done by Digital Content Next shows that publishers are increasingly interested in moving to time-based measurement when it comes to the ads sold on their websites. The full report is available for download.
  • Google Program Lets Readers Pay a Buck a Month to Block Ads (Ad Week) – You read that right, Google is going to let web users pay a dollar (or three) per month to never see ads on certain websites. It's a way to “subscribe” to Google's (rather growing) corner of the internet. It makes sense to be a little skeptical about wide-spread adoptions, however. The current offering only allows users to block Google AdSense ads on just a handful of sites. If a user visits one of those sites many times, it may be worth it. But that user will still see ads on every other part of the web. The price point is certainly set up to encourage wide adoption, but the question remains: Will not seeing ads on a small handful of websites be enough of a benefit for users to even bother, giving Google enough momentum expand on this experiment?

By |November 21st, 2014|Advertising Technology|0 Comments
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Fighting over banner ads, plus a serious downer

Banner ads, for better or worse, got their fair share of the headlines this week. Some hate them, some still love them, but the expertier of experts agree that they're still quite effective. So effective, that fraudsters are still trying to cash in, these days via “domain laundering.” Lastly, despite what else you made have read, the only thing this week that actually came close to #BreakTheInternet was the DFP outage.

  • Ad Blocking: Can Publishers Catch A Break? (MediaPost) – New data show that nearly 30% of U.S. web users are using ad blockers, and that number goes up to 41% for the much-coveted Millennial generation. When ads are blocked, ad buyers are left with the chance to spend their money on some other impression somewhere else. Publishers, however, see that impression gone forever and with it the chance to earn revenue from it. So it makes sense that 76% of publishers are worried about ad-blockers. But what can be done about it?
  • In Defense of Banner Ads: Everybody Hates Them, but They Work (AdAge) – New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo blatantly declared the fall of the banner ad last week, protesting that not only are they ineffective but that “they have ruined the appearance and usability of the web, covering every available pixel of every page with clunky bits of sponsorship.” Despite the claims by Manjoo — just the most recent of many — the banner ad business remains alive and well today. The best defense of the banner ad's effectiveness came from a person whose job it is to make sure client money is spent in the method that will yield the highest return. Tim Goosmann, chief creative at agency True North, writes in AdAge that his agency continues “to design and serve online display advertising … as an integral part of any multichannel campaign.”
  • Domain ‘Laundering' Is the Latest Fraud Threat (Wall Street Journal) – There wages a not-so-secret war on ad fraud, featuring players from all sides of the equation. Take a look at one of the latest favored fraud technique from the pilferers of the programmatic landscape. It's called “domain laundering,” and it can make marketers thing they're buying legit ads on proper sites, but what they're actually buying is still (somewhat) legit traffic but on site's they're rather have no part of in purchasing.

Also, Google's DFP went down, here's the fallout …

By |November 14th, 2014|Advertising Technology|0 Comments
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20 years later, banner ads tougher to kill than cockroaches

There's been a lot of chatter over the past week about banner ads. Perhaps it was spurred by the 20th anniversary of the first banner ad that took place last month. Perhaps the online ad pundits decided to take a week off from writing about fraud, transparency and measurement.

Either way, it just seems like it was time for someone to call for the death of the banner ad. You know, kind of like how 2015 will be the year of mobile. Again.

New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo blatantly declared the fall of the banner ad last week, protesting that not only are they ineffective but that they have “they have ruined the appearance and usability of the web, covering every available pixel of every page with clunky bits of sponsorship.”

Every pixel, that is, besides those taken up by his 1,200-word opus. That's pretty hefty coverage, by the way.

Despite the claims by Manjoo — just the most recent of many — the banner ad business remains alive and well today.

Take the opinions of Manjoo's podcasting co-host, Business Insider writer Jay Yarow. To say that Yarow disagreed with Majooo's claims would be a bit of an understatement, and you can listen to his retort here at about the 11-minute mark.

Manjoo's podcasting co-host wasn't the only one to pick apart the claims of the columnist who works for a publication heavily funded by ad revenue (there were four banner ad placements on the page that displayed his column). The Wall Street Journal's Jack Marshall followed up with his response, adding that the “banner ad might be widely disliked by journalists, consumers, publishers and even marketers, but there's little evidence to suggest spending on banners is reducing significantly.”

But probably the best defense of the banner ad's effectiveness came from a person whose job it is to make sure client money is spent in the method that will yield the highest return. Tim Goosmann, chief creative at agency True North, writes in AdAge that his agency continues “to design and serve online display advertising … as an integral part of any multichannel campaign.”

He continues:

Through complex analytics, we know when a person first sees an ad, if and when they later used search to follow up on the message, and when they landed on the website. Deciding to visit a website didn't just come to them in a vision. When someone purchases at retail, you don't credit the cashier with getting him or her into the store.

Many have declared that banners are ignored and ineffective. Behavior tells a different story. We see the banner's influence again and again. When we have stopped using banner display ads for clients, we've seen traffic, search and conversions plummet.

…

I'm tired of pundits declaring the patient dead without first bothering to check the pulse. If the data tell us otherwise, we'll be the first to put our client's money elsewhere.

Compiling these responses isn't meant to pile it on against Manjoo. In fact, it's healthy for the industry to have these conversations. They act as a forced pause, getting decision makers in the space to “check their work,” so to speak — to make sure the current tools in the box are the right ones to get the job done.

Everything must be tracked and measured to ensure continued effectiveness. Those on both the sell-side and buy-side are doing that, and the data backs up that which we already know — the banner ad is still an effective marketing tool.

Therefore, as Goosmann closes his column, “the banner lives.”

By |November 11th, 2014|Advertising Technology|0 Comments
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Programmatic progress on several fronts

The industry has been talking about fraud, viewability and measurement for a while now, and these days one thing is becoming crystal clear — it's going to take cooperation on all sides to get any of this solved. This week, we've seen promises of fraud-free ad traffic and a call to action for publishers to help advertisers move past the CTR as the top measure for success in digital advertising.

  • Taking programmatic advertising from black box to glass house (VentureBeat) – It's a pretty widely accepted belief that no matter what the transaction, people want to know what they're spending their money on. They want to know how much they're spending and what they're getting in return. The programmatic ad scene can be no different, and advertisers are tired of “taxation without representation.”
  • A Better Programmatic Supply Chain Will Root Out Fraud (Adage) – Fraudsters are thriving on the supply side because that's where its easy to get away with it. That being said, it's the supply side that needs to be cleaned up. The industry is starting to take steps to get this cleaning done, but that forward momentum must continue.
  • Publishers Need To Help Brands Move Beyond The CTR (AdExchanger) – Another of the growing pains our industry is working through is that of measurement. Of course advertisers want the best return for their investment, and for years that's been measured in how many people click through to their websites, landing pages, social pages, etc. Many on the sell side argue that CTRs aren't the best measurement of digital campaigns. Check out these clear examples of how CTR simply isn't the best measure of success, and what can be done about it.
  • Fixing Programmatic Trading Models (Exchange Wire) – Big-time programmatic representatives were on had at ATS New York to discuss several fork-in-the-road situations currently facing the entire industry.

By |November 7th, 2014|Advertising Technology|0 Comments
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