“Data is the foundation of interactive advertising.” - Interactive Advertising Bureau "Hold my beer." - Apple In December 2017, one of the largest ad retargeting vendors - Criteo - saw its stocks plummet by 27%. The reason? They had announced the net negative impact of over 20% on their 2018 revenue - as a direct result of Safari ITP. (Source) Programmatic publishers had … [Read more...]
“Speed Update”: Faster Web Pages Now Rank Higher in Mobile Search
Site speed first became a signal for search back in 2010 when Google announced that it was going to factor in how quickly a website loads into its search algorithm. This made sense: Users place a lot of importance on how fast a page loads and Google is obsessed with delivering good user experience. According to Google's own estimate, this change was to affect less than 1% of … [Read more...]
Google is Sunsetting its ‘AdWords’ and ‘DoubleClick’ Brand Names
Google started its ad business 18 years ago by letting local businesses buy text ad placements on its search engine results pages. Google AdWords, the product that enabled this, has since grown to become the bonafide industry leader with multibillion dollar revenues and access to text, display, and video inventory over multiple channels including search, partner publisher … [Read more...]
How AMP Ads are Finally Boosting Ad Revenue for Publishers
AMP ads are being revamped to perform better in terms of revenue. AMP Project came to be 3 years ago at the peak of responsive design / mobile-first movement. Back then, the project had one goal: Better mobile web experience for users. While it was fairly successful at accomplishing that, publishers felt shortchanged—What's the point of optimal UX on pages that can't be m … [Read more...]
What Ad Tech Looks Like in the GDPR Aftermath
In the weeks following the GDPR deadline, ad tech went through a period of turbulence which made one thing quite clear: No one was completely prepared for the D-day. Spoiler alert: Nothing really happened. The Internet continues to function as usual, but with more popups asking for user consent across EU than before. Most users continue to click 'accept' and get back to c … [Read more...]
Ad Fraud in 2018 – Expert Tips for the Straight-shooting Publisher
Anything that is in huge demand but short supply gets faked and sold for slightly lower prices than the real thing. This is true for the counterfeit product sellers in the real world and fake inventory/traffic sellers in the digital world. We have said this before: Ad fraud doesn't just hurt buyers. Buyers lose ad spend. But good publishers stand to lose their source of … [Read more...]
Programmatic Audio: Google, AppNexus Bring Ads to a Playlist Near You
Ad tech is finally waking up to the potential of audio. After text, display, and video, advertising on audio platforms seemed like the next logical step, but it's only with the recent spike in the usage and the widespread adoption of streaming services and podcasts that the big players are taking notice. On May 31, AppNexus announced a global programmatic partnership with … [Read more...]
“Better Late than Never”: Google to Join IAB Consent Framework by August
Google is getting ready to make GDPR-compliance easier for AdX/AdSense publishers. Before May 25th, publishers had two ways to collect and pass GDPR-compliant consent to Google demand. They could either create their own consent mechanism or use Google's Funding Choices platform. Neither was viable for two reasons: Most publishers lack the resources to develop and imp … [Read more...]
All About Sticky Ads (and How to Make the Most of ’em)
In the times of bot traffic, fraud, and ad block, precious few ads make their way to real people who promptly scroll through the page - looking for something that catches their interest - without sparing a glance for the ad. Advertisers want conversions, and their ads are useless if there's no one around to see them. For this reason, most advertisers would gladly pay a p … [Read more...]
In-Image Ads: Frequently Asked Questions
Display ads are still the mainstay of web monetization for publishers over two decades after they were first launched. But increasingly over the past few years, relying only on display ads for generating ad revenue has become an increasingly risky proposition—banner blindness led to the gradual declining of CTRs with ad blocking delivering the final blow to p … [Read more...]