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Fun And Games Until Someone Loses; Forbes Fires Freelancers, Blames Google


Bet your bottom dollar

The expansion of legal sports betting caused tough political and social issues to quickly bubble to the surface The New York Times news.

And—surprise, surprise—advertising is often at the heart of the problem.

There are reportedly many lawsuits at the state level false advertising claims. Virtually all sports gambling apps promote “no risk” or “no regret” first bets with promotional credit.

Additionally, as these applications become more sophisticated, they are able to recognize which punters are winning big on their platforms and have started blocking them or limiting the bets they can place.

Of course, bookmakers don’t limit spending when people lose a lot of money in a short period of time, which should do.

The potential for cynical and problematic ad targeting is also a problem.

If the bookmakers can spot the sharp bettors (those who consistently beat their betting lines), they may be able to catch up too. Targeting by customer lifetime value makes sense for retail brands. With a bookmaker, that means people with high lifetime losses.

There is a the bill is now in Congress which would ban in-game sports gambling ads.

Bad reputation

Google November updated its search ranking crack down on spammy affiliate marketing sites run by well-known publishers. This so-called “site reputation abuse” policy has have already caused traffic to crater for some locations.

Forbes now says it will stop hiring outside writers to create product reviews for one of its affiliate sites, according to a memo sent to freelancers that it saw The Verge. Forbes blames Google for this move.

Google’s policies are bad for the Forbes Vetted website in question.

One freelancer writing for Forbes Vetted said he was paid $3,000 for a review. That’s a huge payday in today’s digital media market, suggesting the site has been a money maker for Forbes.

For its part, Google says it’s trying to prevent large general interest publishers from using their high search rankings to get affiliates from dedicated review sites and blogs. The Google search update is particularly targeting pubs that outsource their affiliate businesses to third parties, content farms or, increasingly, generative AI.

On the Clock

The TikTok drama won’t just end.

Two weeks ago, a US federal court upheld the ban and rejected an injunction by TikTok to delay the implementation, which is currently set for January 19 – the day before President-elect Trump takes office.

Now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear TikTok’s appeal, CNBC news. SCOTUS is awaiting an oral hearing on January 10 to decide on a possible stay.

The advertising industry seems to be operating on the assumption that TikTok advertising and e-commerce will move forward mostly unaffected. And the TikTok Shop, which was not in the US at the beginning of 2024 gross sales 8 billion dollars in the US this year.

It is one of the last lifelines of affiliate marketing and the main conversion center of e-commerce.

In other words, can we really lose TikTok?

Well, yes.

ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, is adamant it will not sell the US business, which is required by law to avoid a ban. It’s also important to note that people will be able to continue using the app if they already have it. App stores in the US simply cannot allow future downloads or updates of TikTok.

But life uhhhwill find a way.

But wait! There’s more!

Nielsen publishes attention metrics to evaluate ad creatives, including a partnership with attention measurement vendor Realeyes. [Ad Age]

Q&A with Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Chair of the California Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. [Pluribus News]

Apple stops work on a project to build a hardware prepaid service for the iPhone. [Bloomberg]

You are hired

Lauren Douglass joins Brand Innovators as Brand Director. [release]

Nexxen has appointed Carine Spitz to lead West Coast sales and client services. [release]



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