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After a break, through Thanksgiving, it’s a double whammy mega edition this week. Fake news is the big topic, with Zuckerburg unable to articulate their approach, made worse by Ev Williams’s post on Medium. A lot of informal discussion around how it impacts the companies that rely on advertising arbitrage. Notable Stories this Week Taboola, Fake News is everyone’s business. Co-founder of Reddit bags on native ads whilst… Continue reading
Brand safety on recommendation ads is the hot topic this week. i.e. knowing that you advertise without having detrimental content to your left or right in the recommendation grid. In tandem Facebook/Google have/are banning fake news sites from their networks. This should help address the brand safety issue by reducing supply of shit ads. Could this mean a tough quarter for recommendation companies who rely on advertising arbitrage? In the meantime brands will spend on in-feed native, viewed… Continue reading
Trying a new section this week, gigs/jobs in the space, ping me if you’d like to add any. Hot topic this week is, what is the path to digital revenues for publishers? Replacing print advertisers fast enough. The challenge here is most of the market are focused on existing digital revenue ala musical chairs, whereas only FB + Google are focused on helping traditional advertisers make the swap to online. I think this is still a big opportunity… Continue reading
A crisp fall (autumn) week here in New York but lots going on: Facebook Q3 results are incredible, WSJ coverage of ad spend is very interesting. And I had a great time chatting with Patrick Keane at the LiveRamp RampUp event. Thanks if you made it. Facebook is nearing the limits of their ad load – with the next horizon Instant Articles and/or any other way they can get more attention. The curious part in the data is that… Continue reading
After acquiring a tan in Maui, I’m back in action! Bit of focus on AMP this week post Google’s roll out across all search results. This feels like a big opportunity and equally an invisible tax people are paying by not being optimized. If you haven’t by now figured your AMP strategy, now is probably a good time. I’ve grumbled on the technical roll out but it is improving rapidly and hugely extensible. And an ask: I’d love… Continue reading
With Ben out of the office this week I’ll be jumping in to provide ‘This Week in Native Ads’… be nice 🙂 One of the biggest changes I’m seeing within the native content space (and not just this week), is the rise of native video across a wide range of publishers. For this week’s ‘campaigns’ we’ve focused on this format. It’s essential that when you’re looking to create video content with a publisher (or as a publisher), to remember… Continue reading
Brands are still doubling down on content, especially in finance. This week we saw Goldman announce its new initiative and Vox partnering with Chase to produce Meridian. With this continual focus of content, brands as publishers, more and more ad:tech will be now consumed by the brands direct, i.e. take a look at Chase.com they have News & Stories on the homepage. Tactics publishers use are now required client side. Notable Stories this Week Goldman Sachs… Continue reading
New York Times showcases some of Google’s Native Stack, which is neat, where we see premium publishers experimenting. It’s an early indicator of where the rest of the market will follow, especially given the Times role in helping spread native content. I have an ask this week… we want to feature more people in the industry. If you’d like to put your hand up, or someone you think we should talk to, we want to do a few… Continue reading
The story of the week is Facebook incorrectly measuring attention on its video ads for 2 years! Read it here. It’s kind of a simple (and easy to make) mistake in the algorithm. But it has gone unchecked for so long. Facebook said it didn’t impact what people paid but incorrect data changes everything about your ad spend. This supports the need for an open eco-system, which arguably Google has been more adept at. But if… Continue reading
We have some interesting datapoints from Dmexco, thanks to TheDrums coverage and interviews with Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP and Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL. Further in exciting news this week, we at Nudge are sharing a case study in partnership with The Atlantic, demonstrating how native can convert. And Yahoo wading in to native retargeting for its search advertisers. Notable Stories this Week How Vertebrae is bringing native… Continue reading
