Advertising Technology

Usage of mobile advertising is growing faster than any other digital ad format, but what is this doing to publishers' overall CPMs and revenue? Big brands are no longer putting up with worthless impressions, so check out how many a company like Kraft is ignoring. Publishers are new measurement standards beyond viewability, and are looking for additional ways to gain attention to the ads they're websites are serving.

Also, the banner ad turned 20 years old this week.

Here are a few of the headlines we found interesting this week …

• Mobile Advertising Is Exploding And Will Grow Much Faster Than All Other Digital Ad Categories (Business Insider) – U.S. mobile usage is, as everyone knows, on a heavy growth track. When it comes to advertising, that trend is reflected as mobile advertising formats are out-pacing all other digital advertising formats. Spending on the format is expected to nearly double in the next four years.

• The Mobile CPM Train Wreck (MediaPost) – Taking the information from the previous article and turning it toward the publishing sector, what does this mobile growth mean for ad revenue. The growth in mobile is replacing desktop usage, as opposed to adding to a publisher's overall audience. Since the CPMs of mobile banners are far less than the CPMs of desktop display banners, this is creating lower overall revenue for some publishers. So with that in mind, what can be done about it? “Fight back and raise CPMs,” this article says.

• Kraft Says It Rejects 75% to 85% of Digital Ad Impressions Due to Quality Concerns (AdAge) – It isn't just the networks, SSPs and DSPs that are fed with with dealing with ad fraud. Big brands are getting in on the fight and taking a stance too. When you take a brand like Kraft, and they're telling you they're rejecting upwards of 85% of available impressions, it gets pretty staggering.

• How Publishers Are Seeing The Light On Ad Blindness (AdExchanger) – Purch CEO Greg Mason writes that the industry's problem isn't about ads being viewable to real people (as opposed to bot), but in getting those ads actually viewed by the audience. Ad blindness, a person's tendency to simple ignore ads, is the real issue. The solution, Mason writes, is relevancy, simplicity and placement.

• Defining Bricks to Build the House of Time and Attention (Digital Content Next) – Meanwhile, Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint writes this week about the publishing world transitioning to what he calls the AV World — as in, the world “after viewability.” Kint takes a look at time-based measurement, but stresses that publishers can't carry the entire burden of the much-needed transition.

THE BANNER AD'S MILESTONE: Also this week, the banner ad turned 20! Ad Week offers an infographic timeline of the banner ad's existence, and Fast Company breaks down the history of the banner ad.

According to trends, programmatic has a bright future in advertising; there could be changes to the way success in online advertising is measured; bot ease startles conference goers; automatic guaranteed needs some clarification, and how sometimes things just make sense for publishers.

• 7 Advertising Trends That Show You Exactly Where This Industry Is Headed (AdWeek) – Who doesn't love lists? Check out this one for info on the explosion of programmatic mobile, just when the desktop display growth might flatten and how video will play a role in the whole thing.

• Pageviews aren't perfect, but ad buyers see flaws in attention measures (Digiday) – Publishers have the audience, and advertisers want access to that audience. We can all agree on that. However, there's still some pretty active discussion about how to measure the effectiveness of those ads (and, in turn, how much to pay for them). Digiday reports that many on the buy side are willing to move past impression and click counts to more “engagement-based measurements,” but it's also pointed out that a lack of standards is slowing adoption.

• Fake Ad Fraud Ring Gets Conference Goers Attention (Wall Street Journal) – This is a pretty cool example of how easy it is to create loads of fraud traffic. And hey, there's even a zombie reference.

• What Does The Future Hold For Automated Guaranteed? (AdExchanger) – CEO of iSocket and Technorati Chairman of the Board Richard Jalichandra writes, “Like any emerging technology, automated guaranteed can be most successful when we don't try to reinvent the wheel from the get-go. Even though automation changes the way we do everything, new technology can be most effective if it, at least initially, mimics the way people have always done things, and whenever possible, integrates with existing systems to make workflows seamless.”

• Programmatic Buys ‘Make Sense' For Industry (NetNewsCheck) – Three media heavyweights weigh in on how programmatic buying can be a boon for the publishing industry, from better targeting to the ability to monetize unsold inventory. In today's publishing world, programmatic ad sales are no longer “a means of filling low-value inventory with remnant ads, programmatic ad sales are now decidedly mainstream.”

Some are already hailing private marketplaces as the “future of programmatic,” while others are lamenting their growing pains. There are “big changes” coming in the world of ad fraud. This viewability stuff needs to get sorted out, because there are some killer metrics waiting.

Here are a few highlights from some of the industry news we came across this week.

• The Private Future Of Programmatic (MediaPost) – Programmatic advertising is continuing to scoop big-time dollars across an ever-growing landscape, and those dollars are expected to nearly double in the next five years. Private exchanges are being called the future of programmatic strategy. This is because that type of buying more directly resembles the the direct buys of old. You know, the ones advertisers are used to and more comfortable with. But, that being said …

• Behind The Velvet Rope: Private Marketplaces Suffer Growing Pains (AdExchanger) – Private marketplaces have yet to live up to their potential as a programmatic access-point to premium inventory, and are being held back by under-developed technology. However, growth (and maturation) is expected as interest is there on both the buy and sell sides. Even so, there are still quite a few hurdles that private marketplaces must clear before they're the go-to solution for anyone.

• It's About to Get Harder to Claim Ignorance on Ad Fraud (AdAge) – IAB's EVP Mike Zaneis admits that it's likely that publishers are neither “knowingly” buying or selling fraudulent traffic, but that the shoulder-shrugging will no longer be tolerated and the “everyone else is doing it” excuse just isn't going to cut it anymore. “Big changes are coming,” he says.

• Navigating brand safety and ad fraud threats in the programmatic landscape (iMedia Connection) – AnyClip Media CTO Alex Liverant writes about how transparency should be the target of the ad tech industry. Viewable impressions and limiting ad fraud need to be the key pieces of the industry's foundation: “Viewable ads, targeted to engaged consumers, should be the basis of this industry and its future.”

• It's Time To Move Beyond Viewability: Better Metrics Await (AdExchanger) – Much of the discussion surrounding the “viewability” topic centers around setting the standard — how many pixels for how many seconds? — but this article takes a look at what new metrics can be used to to measure the old-school goals of reach and relevance. “The real work is to tie new metrics back to these,” says Grapeshot SVP of Product Marketing Chris Stark (no relation to Tony … probably).