This Week in Native Ads 8/25

• 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 is a great solution.
• Facebook adds publishers logos to links in search results. Haven’t seen commentary on volume of Facebook searches, this is an indication of the search challenge FB has though, to weed through the content and serve credible results. Logos is a blunt but fast solution.
• ^If anyone has data on FB search, would love to see it.
• WashingtonPost launches Own, their recommendation in-feed unit, using readers prior behavior to target. Part of the trend of pubs building their own ad stacks.

Deals/M&A

• YuMe & RhythmOne in strategic talks. Hot off the back of their RadiumOne purchase earlier this summer, RhythmOne is aggressively growing.
• DoubleVerify sells majority stake to private equity.
• ^As far as I’m aware, we’re yet to see these private equity plays wade in to native. I had a few analysts reach out to me a year ago but most plays were too small, suspect we will see some activity later this year.

Campaign of the Week

• [Nativeception, native content for native company] TheDrum + ShareThrough on the evolution of ad strategies.

Smartest commentary

• “It’s also important to note terminology here. What people call Content Marketing, Branded Content, or Branded Entertainment are all basically the same thing. You’re using some type of engaging story, video, website, app, gif or image so someone buys your product or service. One way to look at it: it’s simply a better ad.” – Sean Everett, Founder, The Mission

Datapoints of note

• SnapChats US user base is now expected to grow 25.8% to 79.2 million monthly.
• WPP estimates Amazon is turning over $2.5b from digital advertising.

Ta,

Ben