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Category: Commentary

Commentary; our thought leadership, newsletter notes and long form pieces.

native-advertising-CONTENT-2017-840x460
native-advertising-CONTENT-2017-840x460

This Week in Native Ads 9/29

AdWeek madness has ensued so I’ve had to put some extra elbow grease to sort through the noise. Before we go too far, this week we announced Nudge 3.0, the next wave of our platform with predictive intelligence of content performance & audience interaction, more here and here. Notable Stories this Week The Financial Times discovers up to $1.3m/month in fraudulent inventory being sold on ‘exchanges… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
September 29, 2017
apple police
apple police

This Week in Native Ads 9/22

[Via Twitter] Hunter Walk shares early data on his Medium earnings. Reminds me of the early days of Kindle Lending, where there was a fixed pool of cash divided by not many reads, so each was worth a lot more. Keen to see how this unfolds. As a reminder, here’s more on Mediums pivot away from ads. Notable Stories this Week This is a great interview with… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
September 22, 2017
robot-reporter
robot-reporter

This Week in Native Ads 9/15

With all this year’s Dmexco attendees en route home here’s this week in native. Notable Stories this Week Predictive recommendations creating new inventory for Facebook. This is part of a wider narrative developing around AI content and the ad revenue created from it. WaPo robot reporter has published 850 articles, 500 articles generated 500,000 clicks (around the election). Jack Marshall at WSJ asked FB why they allow… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
September 15, 2017
Jonah Peretti, CEO of BuzzFeed
Jonah Peretti, CEO of BuzzFeed

This Week in Native Ads 9/1

In the race to its IPO, BuzzFeed caves and opens up to programmatic display. Well, that’s the headline but this is a good step, opening up BuzzFeed to the wider programmatic ecosystem. How soon till people are placing native in those display units ;)? I’m sure more than a few readers are about to, or have already. Notable Stories this Week BuzzFeed just sent out a message to the digital publishing… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
September 1, 2017

This Week in Native Ads 8/25

Another news meaty week, if you didn’t catch WPP earnings (tldr, traditional businesses have slowed spend and WPP hasn’t kept up to date), this means more activity in digital, to catch up. Notable Stories this Week AdYouLike & AppNexus integrate. TripleLift & Drawbridge partner, for cross-device native. Taboola partners with Getty to help improve images. Creative at scale is a big challenge, this… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
August 25, 2017
This Week in Native Ads - Hyatt
This Week in Native Ads - Hyatt

This Week in Native Ads 8/18

This week yielded a few data points from an IPSOS + Polar study on the impact of native content, keep them handy for your next pitch deck. I riff on how we need to push creativity in native and we see more publishers doubling down on video. Notable Stories this Week Hyatt pulls back on its branded content partnership with The Atlantic, focused on inclusion, after events of last weekend they… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
August 18, 2017
Cocainenomics by WSJ is a great example of when native gets creative
Cocainenomics by WSJ is a great example of when native gets creative

How Native Can Get More Creative

With the recent Google announcement of AdSense native advertising, it is clear that native advertising on the Web is reaching a tipping point. These new formats include in-feed, in-article and matched content. But the idea of being able to provide something creative and thoughtful, in an environment harmonious to the feed or the context of the publication is largely being ignored. Instead. we’re seeing executions that are as bland and uninspired as traditional banner advertising back in the day. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
August 18, 2017
Facebook will stop charging for accidental clicks
Facebook will stop charging for accidental clicks

This Week in Native Ads 8/11

Google starts to put pressure on publishers with bad ad experiences ahead of its Google Chrome ad filter. Step in step with their native roll outs. Outtake, ad blocking has only really driven more revenue to the big guys. Even Facebook’s desktop ad revenue stalled, till it started blocking the ad blockers. Related Facebook makes moves to not bill for accidental clicks. My outtake, the fight is on for incremental growth. The opportunity? New places where ads could go. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
August 11, 2017
This Week in Native Ads: Google’s native ad blocker for Chrome shows up in Android developer build
This Week in Native Ads: Google’s native ad blocker for Chrome shows up in Android developer build

This Week in Native Ads 8/4

My final week in NZ, it’s a market in the state of rapid catch up, some conversations -> it’s growing rapidly, others are about to flip the switch. Heading back to the northern hemisphere, where it’s been a bit quiet the last week or so. However, I have pulled together a few recent stories, highlighting developments in the Indian market. Notable Stories this Week Refinery moves branded content further down the funnel by retargeting post… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
August 4, 2017
This week in native ads: Massive growth at Google this last week
This week in native ads: Massive growth at Google this last week

This Week in Native Ads 7/28

OutBrain acquired Zemanta, a native dsp that buys across most native providers, opening up OutBrains data exposure to right across the industry. Smart. Gameloft makes some noise about their native offering, as we see TV consumption continue to evolve emerging advertising channels like in-game are going to become more and more compelling. Notable Stories this Week Massive growth at Google. It appears brand safety concerns didn’t hold back growth on their owned platforms, maintaining growth… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
July 28, 2017