BuzzFeed ditches native, goes all programmatic with BuzzFeed News
https://digiday.com/media/buzzfeed-ditches-native-goes-programmatic-buzzfeed-news/

BuzzFeed has been on a mission to diversify away from direct-sold advertising. And nowhere is that more evident than on its new BuzzFeed News site.

On Tuesday, the venture-backed publisher launched a standalone news site that was missing the native ads that still drive a majority of BuzzFeed’s revenue. The only ads on BuzzFeed News’s site are a few display units, which it monetizes through open exchanges. The site also plans to sell homepage takeovers, though it has not sold one yet.

As with the rest of BuzzFeed, on-site advertising is just one part of how News monetizes. News has become a big part of BuzzFeed’s video ambitions.

How to Succeed in Advertising (and Transform the Internet While You’re At It)
http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/05/right-media-creators-of-the-first-ad-exchange.html

We have programmatic advertising to thank for the internet’s wealth—and privacy problems. And we have Right Media to thank for programmatic ads.

Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-10/inside-the-brotherhood-of-pi-hole-ad-blockers

For the advertising industry, ad blocking is an existential crisis. For the Pi-hole community, it’s a sport.

GDPR will pop the adtech bubble
http://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/05/12/gdpr/

Since tracking people took off in the late ’00s, adtech has grown to become a four-dimensional shell game played by hundreds (or, if you include martech, thousands) of companies, none of which can see the whole mess, or can control the fraud, malware and other forms of bad acting that thrive in the midst of it.

And that’s on top of the main problem: tracking people without their knowledge, approval or a court order is just flat-out wrong. The fact that it can be done is no excuse. Nor is the monstrous sum of money made by it.

Without adtech, the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) would never have happened. But the GDPR did happen, and as a result websites all over the world are suddenly posting notices about their changed privacy policies, use of cookies, and opt-in choices for “relevant” or “interest-based” (translation: tracking-based) advertising. Email lists are doing the same kinds of things.

“Sunrise day” for the GDPR is 25 May. That’s when the EU can start smacking fines on violators.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo:
CNBC reports that Amazon is in discussions with huge companies that want to promote their goods on Echo devices. Proctor & Gamble as well as Clorox are reportedly in talks for major advertising deals that would allow Alexa to suggest products for you to buy. CNBC uses the example of asking Alexa how to remove a stain, with Alexa in turn recommending a Clorox product. So far it’s unclear how Amazon would identify promoted responses from Alexa, if at all.

Amazon has big plans for Alexa ads in 2018; it’s discussing options with P&G, Clorox and others
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/amazon-alexa-is-opening-up-to-more-sponsored-product-ads.html

Amazon is in talks to let companies promote their products on Alexa, sources tell CNBC.
Ads will focus on sponsorship opportunities within skills or use data about a buyer’s shopping history to suggest products.

LONDON (Reuters) – Bitcoin slid to as low as $9,000 in volatile trade on Thursday, having lost more than a fifth of its value since hitting an all-time high of $11,395 on Wednesday. BTC=BTSP.

“Naturally a few of the early bitcoin traders are taking some profits off the table,” said Charles Hayter, founder of CryptoCompare.com.

“Volatility is in the market at the moment and that means both positive and negative moves.”

Ads are just a fact of life in mobile apps. You can’t completely avoid them, but there are some ad implementations that are so annoying that Google has explicitly disallowed them from the Play Store. Remember Airpush? The current advertising scourge is ad-infused lock screens, which have shown up in previously safe apps like ES File Explorer, Peel, and Hotspot Shield VPN. Google has finally listened to our pleading, and lock screen ads are no longer allowed in the Play Store.

Technically, the new policy is a bit more nuanced than “no ads on the lock screen.”

analysis revealed a significant positive effect for sexual appeals on ad recognition and recall (weighted Cohen’s d = .38, p < .001), but the effect on brand recognition and recall was not significant (d = .09, p = .30).

YouTube adds more details, and restrictions, around which videos can be monetized
More guidance for video creators and three new types of ad-unfriendly content
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15726092/youtube-ad-restrictions-offensive-content-monetization-hate-inappropriate

YouTube is taking new steps today to get a handle on content that might offend advertisers or, conversely, prevent a YouTube creator from monetizing their videos. Several major brands left the platform’s ad program recently to avoid being linked with hateful and offensive videos. And many creators were upset when videos they saw as benign started to be de-monetized.

YouTube has promised to give advertisers greater control over where their ads appear and to give creators a better sense of what they need to avoid if they want their videos to make money. Today the video service is expanding its creator guidelines on what constitutes an “ad-friendly” video, offering up more details about dos and don’ts, and, importantly, adding three new categories of videos that won’t be eligible for advertising.

YouTube is trying to walk a careful line with these new guidelines.

Lesson: Making advertiser-friendly content
https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/advertiser-friendly?cid=earn-money&hl=en&utm_source=blog&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=june-2017

If you’re interested in earning money from ads on YouTube, it’s important to understand YouTube’s ads policies and how advertisers choose where their ads appear.