Topic: Advertising
WhatsApp ‘enterprise’ platform for businesses already in app – Business Insider (Jan 12, 2017)
The reporting here is based on a Twitter account that claims to be looking into WhatsApp’s code to find hints about what the app’s future business features might look like. Facebook has already said it wants to take WhatsApp in a similar direction to Messenger, with more hooks for businesses to communicate with users manually and through bots, and these would appear to be early signs of that happening in practice. WhatsApp is a challenging property for Facebook in this respect, because it has always eschewed advertising, and anything that smacks of that direction will likely be poorly received by its users, so Facebook is going to have to tread even more carefully than usual as it pursues this strategy. On the other hand, Facebook didn’t spend $22 billion to buy WhatsApp just to shut off its only revenue stream – this was always inevitable.
via WhatsApp ‘enterprise’ platform for businesses already in app – Business Insider
Instagram Starts Rolling Out Video Ads Inside Instagram Stories | Fortune (Jan 11, 2017)
As well as copying Snapchat’s Stories feature for the purposes of capturing more users and more of its existing users’ time, it appears Facebook/Instagram was creating a new channel for ads too. Instagram has already ramped up ads quite a bit to the point where roughly every 10 posts in my feed is an ad, and that’s probably about as far as it can go in the feed. But Stories offer another venue for advertising, and with users who have lots of Stories to view they’ll simply slot in between Stories from friends. Stories are easy to skip, so this shouldn’t disrupt the user experience too much, while delivering decent growth in ad revenue.
via Instagram Starts Rolling Out Video Ads Inside Instagram Stories | Fortune
Facebook is going to start showing ads in the middle of its videos and sharing the money with publishers – Recode (Jan 9, 2017)
Given Facebook’s massive push into video over the past year, it was inevitable that it would eventually begin monetizing – the question was always how. Since video autoplays on Facebook by default, pre-roll would never work, whereas post-roll ads simply cry out for abandonment. Some sort of mid-video ads therefore always seemed the likeliest option, and here they come – they’ll play at 20 seconds in or later. In an autoplay video, I suspect these will still be a user turnoff, but in the context of a longer live video they’ll be more palatable. As ever, the question is how many ads users will stand for – the beauty (for users, if not for monetization) of Facebook video is that there’s always more to choose from if one puts you off.
Apple’s Search Ads Are Generating Conversion Rates Higher Than 50% | Adweek (Jan 5, 2017)
The numbers in this article, which appear to come straight from Apple, are fairly impressive – half of those who click on an ad in the App Store end up downloading the app. That’s measuring conversion rate differently from the usual method, which would be downloads / impressions, rather than clicks, but it’s still high. And the average cost is low too – 50 per click, and $1 per install, much lower than, say, Facebook. Advertising is never going to be a significant chunk of Apple’s revenue, but this could turn into a nice little revenue stream over time, and it has a lot in common with Google’s search advertising, combining timeliness and relevance.
via Apple’s Search Ads Are Generating Conversion Rates Higher Than 50% | Adweek
Snapchat Is Beginning to Use Machine Learning to Improve Ad Targeting | Adweek (Dec 30, 2016)
One of the big goals for Snap in the coming months is driving faster revenue growth, which means making the tough transition from a niche spending category to a mainstream one for advertisers. That, in turn, means better tools for selling and measuring the performance of ads. It seems some basic machine learning is at play here, which is an interesting advance from Snap too.
via Snapchat Is Beginning to Use Machine Learning to Improve Ad Targeting | Adweek
Amazon beat competitors in a new way this holiday season: Money spent on TV ads – Recode (Dec 29, 2016)
Most of the big online companies have eschewed traditional advertising in the past, and yet that’ starting to change – Google now spends money promoting its hardware, among other things. And Amazon is now spending increasing amounts – and more than Walmart or Target – during the holiday period. That can be read as a sign of confidence, but more likely it’s a sign that Amazon feels the need to reach out to new users (the 17%) to drive growth, which in turn may be a sign of a user base reaching saturation point.
via Amazon beat competitors in a new way this holiday season: Money spent on TV ads – Recode
YouTube Needs to Become a TV Star – Bloomberg Gadfly (Dec 29, 2016)
This analysis does a great job of breaking down a couple of specific challenges relating to ad revenue from YouTube – its relatively low revenue per user, and the need to break into traditional television to tap into a bigger video advertising bucket. YouTube has evolved – notably introducing a subscription model – since Wojcicki took over, but arguably not enough. And YouTube is critical for Google growing its overall ad revenue.
via YouTube Needs to Become a TV Star – Bloomberg Gadfly
IAB: Digital Advertising Revenue Breaks Record In Q3 | Digital – AdAge (Dec 28, 2016)
Great summary of US digital and mobile ad spending in the first three quarters of 2016. Overall spending is way up, driven by mobile, while search advertising is mostly shifting from desktop to mobile rather than growing, and video is the only desktop segment that’s growing. However, as we’ve seen from eMarketer and other estimates, a great majority of the total growth is going to two companies – Google and Facebook – so though this all sounds like good news for the broader industry, others largely have to fight over the crumbs that fall from the table.
via IAB: Digital Advertising Revenue Breaks Record In Q3 | Digital – AdAge
Reversing Course, Amazon Testing Google Product Listing Ads, May Be Ramping Up Efforts | Merkle (Dec 28, 2016)
This is just third-party observation in the wild at this point, so it should be taken with a pinch of salt, but this would be a big win for Google and conversely a big concession for Amazon, which has stayed out of Google’s shopping search since it became a paid placement product. Third party data we linked to in September suggested 55% of online shopping searches start on Amazon, but 28% still start on search engines like Google. Amazon is here attempting to divert some of that 28% back to its site.
via Reversing Course, Amazon Testing Google Product Listing Ads, May Be Ramping Up Efforts | Merkle
Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them – ProPublica (Dec 27, 2016)
The headline doesn’t do the focus of the article justice – the point the article makes is that Facebook buys in offline data sources to supplement the data it collects itself, to create a fuller picture of its users when it comes to targeting ads. It isn’t transparent with its users about this, however, which some consumer advocacy groups find bothersome. The fact is, this data is gathered and used pervasively throughout the consumer marketing industry, but it’s a different flavor of data gathering and targeting from what we’re used to with Facebook.
via Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them – ProPublica
Advertising’s Moral Struggle: Is Online Reach Worth the Hurt? – The New York Times (Dec 26, 2016)
This is an interesting side effect of the fake news phenomenon, coupled with programmatic advertising – marketers advertise indiscriminately, leaving decisions about placement to computers, but this has backfired in the case of both fake news and alt-right news websites. The repercussions will be felt for some time, and will affect Google and many others in the process.
via Advertising’s Moral Struggle: Is Online Reach Worth the Hurt? – The New York Times
MRC in Talks With Facebook About Auditing Its Metrics | Digital – AdAge (Dec 23, 2016)
Facebook said all the way back in November that it intended to form a measurement council to improve external oversight of its metrics and reporting. This is one of the first concrete signs that it’s moving towards better outside auditing, though it’s not an announced deal yet.
via MRC in Talks With Facebook About Auditing Its Metrics | Digital – AdAge
Twitter app bug inflated video ad metrics by as much as 35% – Business Insider (Dec 22, 2016)
Facebook and not Twitter has mostly been in the news for misstating its metrics, but it’s clear that the latter isn’t immune. Although Facebook’s confessions have been embarrassing, it hasn’t had to refund advertisers, but it appears Twitter has, though only over a brief period due to a technical glitch.
via Twitter app bug inflated video ad metrics by as much as 35% – Business Insider
Google facing FTC scrutiny over privacy — yet again | The Washington Post (Dec 19, 2016)
The alleged privacy violations at issue here aren’t new, but the threat of formal action over them is. But of course this also taps into the long-running narrative about advertising and privacy and Google’s role in particular. Whether you care or not depends on your overall view of the tradeoffs between business models and privacy, though awareness of (and to some extent concern over) these is rising.
via Google facing FTC scrutiny over privacy — yet again – The Washington Post
Facebook Discloses Another Metrics Mishap Affecting Publishers – WSJ (Dec 16, 2016)
The latest incident from Facebook relates to Comscore tracking of iPhone usage, and comes a week after Facebook’s last disclosure of errors. All this continues to pile pressure on Facebook to engage more outside auditors in order to regain confidence in its metrics.
via Facebook Discloses Another Metrics Mishap Affecting Publishers – WSJ
Facebook Says It Has Miscalculated Several More Engagement Metrics – Forbes (Dec 9, 2016)
This was the third time Facebook had to confess to misstating certain engagement metrics, with at least one bug still unresolved at the time of the announcement, and fixes for the rest coming a week or so later. In November, Facebook announced that it planned to create a measurement council to offer more third-party verification, but those plans aren’t concrete yet.
via Facebook Says It Has Miscalculated Several More Engagement Metrics
How Facebook’s measurement errors have eroded marketers’ trust – Marketing Land (Dec 7, 2016)
All of Facebook’s metrics-tracking mishaps have unsurprisingly made marketers and publishers increasingly wary of trusting its reporting, and in some cases those marketers are reconsidering the money they spend on Facebook. Until now, this just looked like a PR black eye for Facebook, but the potential financial impact is now becoming clearer. This is something Facebook will need to address in its next earnings report.
via How Facebook’s measurement errors have eroded marketers’ trust
Facebook finds more exaggerated ad data – Engadget (Nov 16, 2016)
This was the second time Facebook had to confess to screwing up metrics, this time as a result of an internal review following the first incident. Kudos to the company for conducting the audit, though it won’t have reassured advertisers or publishers to hear that additional metrics were inaccurate. Here’s Facebook’s own post about the errors, which covered several areas across Instant Articles, videos, and clicks and views across other content.
via Facebook finds more exaggerated ad data
Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake News Sites – The New York Times (Nov 14, 2016)
Much of the attention around fake news and the tech sector has focused on Facebook, because it’s the funnel for so much of the stuff people actually see, and because its algorithms tend to create bubbles in which a false sense of reality can take root relatively unchallenged. However, many of those actually peddling fake news monetize through Google ads, and so Google stepping in to help turn off the revenue spigot for some of these sites should go a long way towards shutting down at least some of them.
via Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake News Sites – The New York Times
ANA Pushes Facebook for Greater Measurement Transparency – WSJ (Sep 30, 2016)
Following Facebook’s first metrics mishap in September, the Association of National Advertisers issued the first call in what’s since become a steady drumbeat of requests for Facebook to open itself up to outside auditing of its metrics for advertisers and publishers.
via ANA Pushes Facebook for Greater Measurement Transparency – WSJ