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Here’s today’s roundup of AdExchanger.com news… Want to email it? Sign up here.
Soaps
Google’s DSP has taken many pictures in its time, but one of them recently is this notion promoted by The Trade Desk that Google’s alleged monopoly on the display and ad server market demonstrates DV360’s weakness in the CTV space.
Because Google does not dominate the Internet TV market, TTD is ahead of CTV’s DV360. Or so the story goes.
Ask Google, though, and it reckons the landscape has “fragmented”.
“Some platforms are offering a solution to this problem by creating a ‘premium internet,'” writes Stephen Yap, executive director of the Google Marketing Platform, Google’s name for its buy-side technology business. blog post.
That’s a shot at the sales counterwhich last year started using the term “premium internet” – as opposed to open internet. And fair enough. In addition to the gratuitous barbs during the recent ad tech antitrust trial, TTD was a vocal antagonist while trying to sink the Chrome Privacy Sandbox project.
Yap points to Google PAIR as a more open programmatic product that advertisers, ad techs and publishers can use to match audiences through Google’s cloud-based clean spaces.
By comparison, an approach like The Trade Desk’s — Yap doesn’t mention TTD by name, but we know who he’s referring to — “risks favoring exclusive deals, limiting reach and closing off growth potential.”
Commercial trademarks
Sticking with Google, a change in its search advertising business could increase advertising costs for charities, The New York Times news.
Before the policy change in July 2023, Google allowed only distributors and product review sites to use third-party trademarks in search ads. However, Google now allows competing search platforms to use third-party trademarks in search ads. Google says it made the change in compliance with the EU Digital Services Act.
As a result, the search engines Info.com and Ask.com outnumbered the charities’ bids for search terms related to their own trademarks. The charities’ only option seems to be to ask these platforms not to use or superimpose their trademarks in their search ads.
For example, in December 2023, a Google search for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has returned ads to Look Up Smart, a search engine owned by Ask.com. The text of the ad read “Donation to St. Jude | Visit our website” [sic]. Instead of driving visitors to the St. Jude, went to the search results page.
According to another charity, it paid Google $200,000 for search ads during the last two days of 2023 — more than double what it paid for the same days in 2022, before the policy change. As a result, he exceeded his search budget and was unable to advertise on December 31, the most lucrative day for fundraising.
Ruined-Scape
It makes sense that ad-supported subscription tiers are working for TV streamers so far. Commercial breaks used to be part of the television experience, so they’re not too distracting to viewers.
However, putting ads where they didn’t exist before is a whole different challenge.
Just ask video game publisher Jagex – a CVC Capital Partners and Haveli Investmentsprivate equity firms that bought it last year for $1.1 billion.
The trio is facing strong backlash from “RuneScape” players over a member survey they sent out last week, Rant game news. in the survey respondents were asked their opinions on potential new subscription features for “RuneScape 3” and “Old School RuneScape”, which included in-game ads for the basic membership level.
Jagex management was clarify quickly that there are no plans to introduce ads to member tiers. But that didn’t stop the longtime “OSRS” player review-bombing game on Steam and organizing riots in the game.
Ironically, when “RuneScape” first launched as a free-to-play browser game in 2001, the web featured banner ads to cover server costs. It wasn’t until it stopped paying the bills that the ad-free membership level was launched in the first place.
But wait! There’s more
Martin Sorrell predicts the end of the holdcos Big Six: Who will survive the upheaval? [The Drum]
DeepSee.io exposes an ad-supported piracy ring that generates more than 1 billion monthly visits. [blog]
Netflix is raising subscription prices — including the first increase to an ad-supported tier. [Variety]
Google is again updating its website abuse policy to provide better advice. [Search Engine Journal]
Former President Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence was among those revoked by Trump on his first day in office. [Bloomberg]
Meta will pay eligible TikTok creators up to $5,000 to switch to Facebook and Instagram instead. [Business Insider]
You are hired
GroupM hires Emily Del Greco as global COO. [Adweek]
We Are Social Promotes Rebecca Coleman to CEO of North America. [Adweek]