The platform is heaping brand new monetization features on its mobile-friendly but notoriously ‘flat’ format. Due to its lukewarm financial returns, publishers have never been keen on Facebook Instant Articles. Earlier this year, The Guardian abandoned the platform altogether, opting instead to bring readers directly to its site for more advertising revenue and to promote pai … [Read more...]
Native Works: Inside Revcontent’s Play at Proving Native Ad Performance
Native is great. But it’s not without flaws. For those who don’t know, “The basic philosophy of native advertising revolves around making ads appear less like ads. For instance, while browsing through the food section of BuzzFeed, you may come across a story titled “The Evolution of Pizza”, which has been sponsored by Pizza Hut.” [Related reading: Top 7 Native Ad Networks … [Read more...]
How to Choose the Right Technology Partner to Sell Your Ad Space
After Methbot and YouTube, it’s not just advertisers rethinking their relationship with ad tech. Publishers are doing their best to take matters into their own hands as well. Purch built itself a host of custom bidders to sell video inventory programmatically. SheKnows controls its auction dynamics through a header bidding wrapper of its own creation. Telegraph wants to o … [Read more...]
AdSense Now Flags Individual Pages for Policy Violations, No Site-Wide Bans
After the YouTube exodus, Google Display Network is taking great pains to ensure brand-safety for its advertisers, without cutting too deep into publishers’ (and its own) revenue. Last week, Google announced two updates that will allow it to act quickly and more precisely against prohibited content, all the while making all policies (and their violation penalties) clearer to … [Read more...]
How to Create an “Ad-Lite” Experience for AdBlock Users
No matter how much trouble it causes to publishers, the truth is that adblock drew the line on crappy online advertising. Media-sellers / buyers / ad tech vendors can debate the ethics and morality of “snatching away” the primary source of revenue that fuels free online content, but that isn’t going to slow adblock adoption down anytime soon. In their helpful primer on adbloc … [Read more...]
Programmatic Video: What It Is, How It Works, and Common Misconceptions
Demand for video impressions is going up, and the market is short on quality supply. Last year, eMarketer's 2014-18 estimates showed that 60% of all video ad spend is going into programmatic. The trend continues this year: The money being poured into programmatic video is expected to grow by 40%, reaching an unprecedented $9 billion for the channel. Ad tech vendors are … [Read more...]
State of Header Bidding in 2017
We’ve covered the whats and hows of header bidding pretty thoroughly on this blog. ICYMI: Here’s a simplified version of a guide to header bidding technology. At this point in 2017, most media sellers are aware what header bidding is and how it works. Most major demand sources support header bidding — either by bidding through other wrappers and/or offering their own wrapp … [Read more...]
Google AdSense Beta Launches Two New Ad Formats: InArticle and InFeed
Google seems to be taking its Coalition for Better Ads initiative seriously. In a bid make its ads less intrusive, Google AdSense is inviting publishers to join the beta for two new ad formats: InArticle and InFeed ads. Here’s what the new formats bring to the table: Native InArticle Ads These are responsive ad units (of 250px minimum width) which can be placed b … [Read more...]
Google’s Brand Safety Loss is a Win for News Media Looking to Strike Direct Deals
Google is looking at losses worth $750 million (and climbing) ever since 250 brand-advertisers pulled their ad spend following a Times Inc. report, which revealed Google’s seemingly uncaring stance on brand safety. The dust is only now beginning to settle (after Google’s vehement promises of tougher policies, third party measurement, and a string of DFP updates). Not much has … [Read more...]
Google Removes “Last-Look” Privilege in DFP for Fairer Ad Auctions
Dynamic Allocation, a popular DFP feature, lets Google AdX bid on inventory marked as guaranteed or remnant. The feature also gave AdX last-look privilege, letting AdX check out other bids and use the highest as price floor for its own auction to win most of the impressions for its exchange. (ICYMI: We've previously covered AdX and dynamic allocation in some detail h … [Read more...]