There’s much debate over just what “native advertising” means. Talk to enough publishers, however, you’ll find agreement on one thing: it isn’t banner ads.
15 Alarming Stats About Banner Ads article tells the story of current state of banner ads. The banner ad is now 18 years old. It has become a symbol of all that’s wrong with online advertising: it stands out as an intruder on webpages; and it is mostly ignored by readers.
Here are some facts picked from 15 Alarming Stats About Banner Ads article:
1. Over 5.3 trillion display ads were served to U.S. users last year. (ComScore)
4. Click-through rates are .1 percent. (DoubleClick)
5. The 468 x 60 banner has a .04 percent click rate. (DoubleClick)
6. An estimated 31 percent of ad impressions can’t be viewed by users. (Comscore)
8. 8 percent of Internet users account for 85 percent of clicks. (ComScore)
9. Up to 50 percent of clicks on mobile banner ads are accidental. (GoldSpot Media)
10. Mobile CPMs are 75 cents. (Kleiner Perkins)
And yet banner continues to be a bulwark of the online advertising system. Many publishers would like to change that.
Native advertising is hot right now, even if nobody seems to know exactly what it is. Native advertising appears to mean different things to different people.
One definition: “a form of media that’s built into the actual visual design and where the ads are part of the content.” This Infographic Explains What Native Advertising Is and Summary of Native Advertising and Native Monetization 2011 – 2013 articles give a more detailed view.
You could summarize: Native advertising is the politically correct term for advertorial. Or rather, it’s an upgrade, the digital version of an old practice dating back to the era of typewriters and lead printing presses.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Google, Microsoft, and Amazon pay maker of Adblock Plus to have their ads whitelisted — Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are paying to get around Adblock Plus — Some of the web’s biggest companies have been paying to get around Adblock Plus, according to a new report from Financial Times.
Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are paying to get around Adblock Plus
http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7963577/google-ads-get-through-adblock
Some of the web’s biggest companies have been paying to get around Adblock Plus, according to a new report from Financial Times. Microsoft’s Bing search ads and Taboola’s “recommended links” box are among the ads that are currently slipping through Adblock Plus’s filter, and FT confirms that it’s the intentional result of a paid deal between the makers of Adblock and the owners of the ads. According to FT sources, the companies have paid Eyeo (the maker of Adblock Plus) to be added to an official whitelist, which allows them to bypass the plug-in. Google has a similar deal, as has been previously reported.
Eyeo has discussed the whitelist in the past as part of the company’s “acceptable ads” program, which is designed to let less aggressive advertising through the filter and encourage companies to tone down their ads.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yahoo gains further US search share in January
http://gs.statcounter.com/press/yahoo-gains-further
Google falls below 75% for first time
US Yahoo-on-Firefox usage almost triples since November
January saw Yahoo further increase the gain it made in US search share last month, according to the latest data from independent website analytics provider, StatCounter. Google fell below 75% in the US for the first time since StatCounter Global Stats began recording data*.
“Some analysts expected Yahoo to fall in January as a result of Firefox users switching back to Google. In fact Yahoo has increased US search share by half a percentage point,”
Firefox users generated 14% of US internet usage in January according to StatCounter, whose main business is to provide independent website analytics, including a free option.
StatCounter says that it is only Firefox users responsible for the change in US search share. “When we removed Firefox usage from the US search data, Yahoo’s gains and Google’s losses were erased,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon’s Newest Tool Lets Anyone Host Giveaways Online
http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/10/amazons-newest-tool-lets-anyone-host-giveaways-online/
Amazon announced a new self-service tool this morning that allows customers to host giveaways on its website. Anyone is eligible to run these sorts of promotions on the platform, though in Amazon’s case, the feature will likely attract authors, marketers, brands, bloggers, sellers and others looking to raise awareness about themselves, their products, or those who want to engage their audience using promotions.
The new system will leverage Amazon’s shipping capabilities, as the company says it will handle the distribution of giveaway prizes directly to the winners. These prizes can be selected from an Amazon product page, too, by clicking the “Set up a giveaway” link located near the bottom.
Run promotional giveaways to create buzz, reward your audience,
and grow your followers and customers.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/giveaway/home/ref=aga_shrt_hm
What is Amazon Giveaway?
A service that allows anyone to easily setup and run promotional giveaways, which are sweepstakes. Amazon Giveaway combines five features into one solution that includes: i) selecting and purchasing prizes; ii) hosting the giveaway and determining winners; iii) shipping prizes to winners; iv) handling certain income tax reporting; and v) providing metrics. As a host, you decide what you want to give away and why, and then create awareness with your audience. Participants can enter giveaways knowing they will be run as advertised, prizes are real and ready to ship, and their information will be protected.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5
http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/25/google-now-automatically-converts-flash-ads-to-html5/
Google today began automatically converting Adobe Flash ads to HTML5. As a result, it’s now even easier for advertisers to target users on the Google Display Network without a device or browser that supports Flash.
Back in September, Google began offering interactive HTML5 backups when Flash wasn’t supported. The Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tools for the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Campaign Manager created an HTML5 version of Flash ads, showing an actual ad rather than a static image backup.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lady Gaga’s Backplane Crashes, Burns Money, Tries To Rise Again
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/06/the-backplane-black-box/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1730_3979668342568572301
You know what no one wants to do? Join a brand’s standalone social network. The problem is that it took Lady Gaga’s startup Backplane four years, multiple founders, and over $14 million to figure that out. According to four sources with intimate knowledge of the company, Backplane was in free fall for years. A bloated burn rate, mismanagement, and internal squabbles led to a useless product.
There is hope on the horizon.
Backplane’s first project was a dedicated social network for her fans called LittleMonsters.com. It was a site where the fabulous misfits, gender benders, and artpopsters attracted by Gaga’s liberated music could feel safe sharing. Little Monsters scared up one million registered users in a year.
But brands ruin everything.
Soon, Coca-Cola, Cirque De Soleil, and Nike all started throwing money at Backplane
“I think this where it got a little lost,” Harrison said. “You start thinking ‘I’ll go build these for brands.’ Then you realize brands don’t move very fast.” It began working on hosting and managing social networks for Coca-Cola bottle collectors, Guns N’ Roses, and Condé Nast… sites only the craziest fans would care about.
Things went south quick.
“The burn rate is huge. Really, really high” said one source. They claimed “it was hundreds of thousands of dollar a month.”
“They ran it hotter than they should” said another source. “They had so much money and they weren’t building anything,” a third told me. “Our burn rate was hot,” Harrison said.
Internally, the company was a mess.
Harrison describes the defining flaw of Backplane, saying “We treated it like a SAAS model,” where it did the unscalable work of managing networks for the brands for a fee. “That’s what’s going to change.”
In June 2014 the startup told me it would move away from unscalable social network management for brands, and open up its platform.
Anyone can start a Place network about anything: A cycling club, a company’s HR team, your family. Each Place offers a Facebook-style feed for sharing text, photos and links, plus topic sub-groups with their own streams.
But what’s special about Place is that admins can bend or break the rules, and peer into the backend. Harrison said that Backplane built a slew of internal management and analytics tools, “and now we’re going to give them away.”
Place admins get freedoms Facebook doesn’t offer.
They can establish their own branding so you’ll never see a Place logo, and choose their own URL. Admins can check how many posts were shared, exactly who saw them, who are the most active users, and total viewership, not just engagement. Networks can be set up so only some people can post, and everyone else can only lurk or comment, unlocking Places where fans and celebrities interact without it devolving into chaos.
“We’re trying to create this world where your social life is not about being part of the crowd,” said Harrison. “We don’t have one face. We have many faces. We’re trying to let you express yourself very differently in different Places.” For some, Place could be a professional collaboration tool like Slack or Yammer. It could emerge as a promotional tool for artists or businesses. And still others will create mini-Facebooks for people like them.
Plenty of DIY social platforms and micro-sharing tools have petered out, but that was a different time. Place is most obviously comparable to Ning, Marc Andreessen’s network builder that was acquired by Glam Media in 2011 for around $150 million.
For many normal people, Facebook Groups don’t serve their needs because you can’t charge or earn money with them. “You wouldn’t believe how many groups just need to collect dues,”
Even with all the freedom and monetization options it offers, Place faces a bitter turf war. There are countless communication tools and organization spaces available online. But by ceding control to the creators, Harrison says “a space becomes a place when it’s given meaning and purpose.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The top demographic trends for every major social network
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/2015-social-network-demographic-trends-2015-2#ixzz3UFYTaf2O
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Is Practically Begging Firefox Users To Switch Their Default Search Engine
http://searchengineland.com/google-is-practically-begging-firefox-users-to-switch-their-default-search-engine-216770
A new message above Google’s search results is the most visible attempt yet at getting Firefox users to switch back to Google.
It almost looks desperate. Google has placed a big, new message above its organic search results that asks — practically begs — Firefox users to make Google their default search engine.
Why would Google give up the top two-plus inches of its search results page like this? It goes back to the November announcement that Mozilla was dropping Google in favor of Yahoo as the default search engine in its Firefox web browser. Even as the No. 3 browser with about 16 percent market share (according to StatCounter), Firefox still drives a substantial number of searches.
The switch request showing tonight isn’t Google’s first attempt to lure back Firefox users.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Timeout, Time Lords: ICANN says there is only one kind of doctor
Time travelers, PhDs, antivirus vendors and carpet cleaners – be gone!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/15/icann_doctors/
Domain-name overseer ICANN has decided that only one kind of doctor may be allowed online – and that is a medical doctor.
In a decision made late last month but challenged on Friday by one of the companies vying for the rights to run the internet registry .doctor, ICANN will insist that all dot-doctor domains be verified as belonging to “legitimate medical practitioners.”
The dot-doctor top-level domain is one of a handful of the internet’s new .things that are deemed to be “category 1, heavily regulated TLDs” and so require additional safeguards.
But while .doctor is clumped together with .pharmacy, .surgery, .dentist and .hospital in the “health and fitness” restricted use TLDs, and with .attorney and .lawyer in the “professional services” restricted use TLDs, none of the others has been told exactly who they must be sold to.
This is unfair, says one of the applicants, Donuts because there are many other types of doctor.
The irony is that the very fact that the word “doctor” has been used by many others than medical doctors is what is spurring ICANN to insist that it is only medical doctors that should be entitled to a “doctor” domain name.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google hatching YouTube Kiddie Vids – report
Chocolate Factory goes after tiny consumer units with all its power
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/20/google_poised_to_announce_youtube_for_kiddies/
Google is about to enter the lucrative revenue stream of advertising to children, with the Chocolate Factory set to reportedly announce a YouTube app for kids.
The ad giant is said to be discussing plans to generate revenue by displaying ads in the app.
The childrens’ advertising market is thought to be huge, with many currently lamenting the lack of online advertising opportunities.
Facebook has also been developing an under-13s version of its social network site.
Google and Facebook will have had to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, overseen by U.S. consumer watchdog the Federal Trade Commission.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook revamps its takedown guidelines
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31890521
Facebook is providing the public with more information about what material is banned on the social network.
Its revamped community standards now include a separate section on “dangerous organisations” and give more details about what types of nudity it allows to be posted.
The US firm said it hoped the new guidelines would provide “clarity”.
One of its safety advisers praised the move but said that it was “frustrating” other steps had not been taken.
The new version of the guidelines runs to nearly 2,500 words, nearly three times as long as before.
The section on nudity, in particular, is much more detailed than the vague talk of “limitations” that featured previously.
Facebook now states that images “focusing in on fully exposed buttocks” are banned, as are “images of female breasts if they include the nipple”.
Other sections with new details include:
Bullying – images altered to “degrade” an individual and videos of physical bullying posted to shame the victim are now expressly forbidden
Hate speech – while the site maintains the same list of banned topics, it now adds that people are allowed to share examples of others’ hate speech in order to raise awareness of the issue, but they must “clearly indicate” that this is their purpose
Criminal activity – the network now states that users are prohibited from celebrating any crimes they have committed, but adds that they are allowed to propose that an illegal activity should be legalised
Self-injury – the site says that it will remove content that identifies victims and targets them for attack, even if done humorously. But it says that it does not consider “body modification” to be a type of self-injury
The changes have been welcomed by the Family Online Safety Institute (Fosi), one of five independent organisations that make up Facebook’s safety advisory board.
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards
Tomi Engdahl says:
“.sucks” registrations begin soon—at up to $2,500 per domain
Pricing raises accusations of “extortion” and “shakedowns.”
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/sucks-tld-to-accept-sunrise-registrations-soon-but-theyll-be-pricey/
The number of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) available for use has climbed into the hundreds, and “.sucks” will soon be added to the list. However, angry customers eager to get their hands on brand-specific domains like “bestbuy.sucks” or “comcast.sucks” shouldn’t get their hopes up; according to MarketingLand, the domains will cost far more than most consumers will want to pay.
Companies with registered trademarks will have to pay an astounding $2,499 to register their trademarked names in .sucks. Registration of non-trademarked names during the “sunrise” period (March 30 until June 1) before .sucks goes live will cost at least $199 per name, while the standard registration fee after June 1 rises to $249 per name.
Companies are typically hyper-sensitive about brand usage, and few will want their .sucks domains under someone else’s control. The .sucks pricing scheme has led to outrage from many quarters, with MarketingLand’s writeup quoting several industry figures who use words like “extortion” and “predatory.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
What are your links worth to Pinterest? $11 BEEELLION!
Social network valued by investors at more than three Nests
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/17/pinterest_valued_at_11bn/
Social link-sharing site Pinterest has taken in a new round of funding that gives the firm at a hefty US$11bn valuation.
Based on sharing links to pages through “Pins” on user pages, Pinterest only recently found itself generating money as it began selling ad space to retailers who liked the idea of appearing alongside the user-shared content.
The sky-high valuation would place the company at around one-fourth the value assigned to car service Uber ($41bn) or three times more than the $3.2bn Google shelled out acquire thermostat maker Nest last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An update on doorway pages
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.nz/2015/03/an-update-on-doorway-pages.html
Google’s Search Quality team is continually working on ways in which to minimize the impact of webspam on users. This includes doorway pages.
We have a long-standing view that doorway pages that created solely for search engines can harm the quality of the user’s search experience.
For example, searchers might get a list of results that all go to the same site. So if a user clicks on one result, doesn’t like it, and then tries the next result in the search results page and is taken to that same site that they didn’t like, that’s a really frustrating experience.
Over time, we’ve seen sites try to maximize their “search footprint” without adding clear, unique value. These doorway campaigns manifest themselves as pages on a site, as a number of domains, or a combination thereof. To improve the quality of search results for our users, we’ll soon launch a ranking adjustment to better address these types of pages. Sites with large and well-established doorway campaigns might see a broad impact from this change.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Facebook to announce ad performance measurement tool on its own and third party apps next week
Mobile Ad World Braces for Facebook’s Move Into Measurement
https://www.theinformation.com/Mobile-Ad-World-Braces-For-Facebook-s-Move-Into-Measurement
Facebook next week is expected to announce a tool to help mobile app developers measure whether an ad caused people to download an app, a move designed to help entrench Facebook’s tech across the online ad industry.
Several people briefed about the technology told The Information about the service, which is expected to be announced at Facebook’s major developer conference beginning March 25. One of the most interesting aspects of it is that it will determine how ads perform whether they are bought on Facebook or other apps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Marketers Tricked SXSW Tinder Users With A Chatbot
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/15/marketers-tricked-sxsw-tinder-users-with-a-chatbot/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1462_-7068199110974571400
There are a few universal truths in online dating: most photos are carefully staged, most profiles are slightly puffed-up, and most people on them (and this is clearly fast-changing) are actually human.
Until some unlucky Tinder users spotted Ava.
A company promoting the movie Ex Machina created a fake account, Ava, with a photo of the star of the movie. Ava is an AI in the film and presumably she wants to get down. Unsuspecting men and women swiped to make a match and Ava, in a cross between cheesy AI and Eliza, asked a few pertinent questions including “Have you ever been in love?” and “What makes you human?” Normal users assumed they were talking to a human but they were actually talking to a bot. In the end, like the chatbots that now linger on near dead chat systems like AIM, Ava sent her suitors to an Instagram page where they found out that she was all a sham.
“It was done tied to the premiere of the film and only up for a short time,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
With New Feature, Bitly Links Can Now Open Apps
Company Considers Data Licensing but Privacy, Data-Protection Obstacles Remain
http://adage.com/article/datadriven-marketing/bitly-extends-profile-data-deep-mobile/297614/
Bitly is best known as the firm that helps keep Twitter posts at or below 140-characters. But every time the link-shortening system truncates a publisher or brand site URL, it’s gathering 20 data points showing things such as location and device type and enhancing profiles of the users clicking on those mini links.
Today, the firm is set to extend its technology for mobile app “deep linking,” offering clients including Ford, Campbell’s, Amazon, Etsy, Disney and Visa otherwise-obscured insight into mobile app usage.
Put simply, the feature employs an app ID which automatically opens the appropriate mobile app to display content on someone’s device when she clicks on a Bitly link. For instance, if someone clicks a Bitly link in the Facebook app leading to a Buzzfeed story, the system will open the Buzzfeed app to display the story, or suggest that the user download the app. In addition to providing additional data on mobile app users, the system promises to help companies drive more traffic to their apps.
Bitly encodes more than 600 million links each month and around 60% of its link traffic comes through mobile devices, said Bitly CEO Mark Josephson.
Bitly technically owns its data because every time someone clicks one of its links it actually redirects to Bitly’s server, prompting a first party cookie to be installed on a user’s device.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Claire Atkinson / New York Post:
Sources: Apple offers to share viewer data with partners for online TV service to enable better ad targeting — Apple offers to share TV data to entice programming partners — Apple is offering to share data with programming partners to get them on board with its cable-like TV network package, The Post has learned.
Apple offers to share TV data to entice programming partners
http://nypost.com/2015/03/17/apple-offers-to-share-tv-data-to-entice-programming-partners/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Sweney / Guardian:
Guardian, FT, CNN, Reuters, and Economist launch new programmatic advertising alliance Pangaea to take on Facebook and Google
Guardian, FT, CNN and Reuters in ad deal to take on Facebook and Google
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/18/guardian-ft-cnn-reuters-ad-deal-facebook-google-pangaea-alliance
Pangaea Alliance initiative will give brands access to more than 110 million online readers using programmatic advertising system
The Guardian, the Financial Times, CNN International, Reuters and the Economist have teamed up to pool their digital advertising space, to fight back against the drain of ad spend to tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook.
The initiative, called the Pangaea Alliance, will give brands access to more than 110 million online readers using a computerised, or programmatic, advertising system.
The global online display advertising market, worth an estimated $60bn (£41bn) according to WPP’s Group M, is increasingly becoming dominated by media owners that can offer giant scale to advertisers.
In the UK, Google and Facebook will this year take half of the total digital display advertising market, well over £1bn, according to eMarketer.
Meanwhile, more traditional rivals such as Mail Online, the largest English-language newspaper website in the world, continue to focus heavily on audience growth.
Pangaea will be launched in beta in April,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
deeplink.me launches AppWords, a platform that lets users search within apps and get deep links into other apps, and lets marketers bid for those deep links
Deeplink.Me Moves Into Google Territory With AppWords, A Deep Link Mobile Search And Ad Platform
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/deeplink-moves-into-google-territory-with-appwords-a-deep-link-mobile-search-and-ad-platform/
Here comes one more use case for deep linking — the technology that lets mobile apps reach outside of their respective walled gardens so that users can search and navigate between specific places within them. Israel’s Deeplink.me, one of the startups developing services based on the technology, is today launching AppWords, a mobile search and ad platform that uses keywords to trigger relevant content between one app and another.
If you think the name “AppWords” sounds a lot like Google’s “AdWords”, it’s not a coincidence. Deeplink CEO and co-founder Itamar Weisbrod is deliberate in trying to associate what his startup is doing with what Google did when it launched its keyword-based textual ads that come up based on what you put in a Google search, with businesses purchasing those ads by way of a bidding system.
“It’s probably the service they should have built,” he said.
Deeplink will be making AppWords available for integration by way of an SDK. Using it, app developers will be able to add deep linking capability to their apps, which will link out to other apps at appropriate places.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Launches a Mobile Ad Exchange on Top of LiveRail
http://recode.net/2015/03/25/facebook-launches-an-ad-exchange-on-top-of-liverail/
Facebook announced a number of expected updates to its ad product LiveRail at its F8 developer conference Wednesday, including the use of Facebook user data, instead of just Web cookies, to help advertisers target users outside of Facebook.
LiveRail is Facebook’s existing ad server for video ads, which means the technology helps publishers manage their video ad inventories and ensure the right ad appears for the right user.
As part of Wednesday’s update, Facebook is also expanding LiveRail’s ad management capabilities to mobile display advertising, meaning publishers can use the technology to sell both video and display ads on their mobile apps.
As an ad exchange, LiveRail can auction off extra ad space to the highest bidder to ensure all ad vacancies are filled. Until now, LiveRail’s exchange was limited to video ads. With the update, publishers can fill ad vacancies for mobile display ads as well.
What’s significant in this announcement is that LiveRail will now use its anonymized user data to help publishers serve better targeted advertising on platforms that aren’t Facebook. So instead of relying on things like Internet cookies to help publishers target a Web visitor, publishers using LiveRail will be able to add Facebook’s user data into the mix to get a better idea of who’s watching the ad.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 easy ways intelligent triggers can increase your sales conversions by automating website visitor engagement.
http://www.zoho.com/salesiq/blog/5-easy-ways-intelligent-triggers-can-increase-your-sales-conversions-by-automating-website-visitor-engagement.html
Measuring and understanding how engaged your website visitors are is key to increasing sales conversions. I’m sure you audit visitor engagement through a monthly website analytics report. But that still gives you only data from the past, not actionable insights in real-time.
1) Automated greetings
2) Recognize & engage returning visitors
3) Generate more sales from your e-mail campaigns
4) Proactively engage at decision-making phases on your website
5) Convert Zoho CRM data into actionable intelligence
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook’s new Event subscribe button offers notifications of nearby events, incentivizes musicians to set up Facebook Events
Facebook Helps Musicians With Subscribe Button For Any Page’s Nearby Events
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/30/band-aid/#gypjlZ:bo6P
You don’t want to miss your favorite band’s concert in your town, even if you don’t care to see every one of their News Feed posts. To give you a hand and appeal to musicians by boosting their ticket sales, Facebook last night added an Events subscribe button to the Events section of all Pages on desktop and mobile. Once clicked, you’ll get a Facebook notification when that Page hosts an event near where you live.
The move could help bands sell more concert tickets, which is critical in an era where recorded music is hard to monetize and touring is an increasingly important revenue stream for musicians. Local businesses running events or promotions, sports teams, and more could also benefit from the new way to tell people about IRL get-togethers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elon Musk created nearly $1B in value today with a single tweet
http://pando.com/2015/03/30/elon-musk-created-nearly-1b-in-value-today-with-a-single-tweet/
So much for haters who like to dismiss the impact and growth of Twitter.
Today the world – and particularly Wall Street – got a master class in the power of a few well placed words, when a single tweet by Tesla (and SpaceX) CEO Elon Musk cause the electric car maker’s stock to jump nearly 4 percent in just 10 minutes – adding a staggering $900 million to the company’s market cap in just 115 characters.
What new information did Musk share to have such impact? The tweet was light on details, but heavy on hype and anticipation – just the kind of commentary that the SEC tends to frown upon.
The tweet may have initially gone out to Musk’s 1.86 million followers, but the impact was far greater. By the end of the day, Musk’s message had been retweeted more than 4,700 times and favorited another 3,700, while eliciting thousands more responses.
There may not be too many other execs that could drive the kind of instant stock rally as Musk by doing little more than circle a date on the calendar.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google announces new advertising options for Android app developers aimed at increasing installs, including the mobile Google Display Network
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/31/google-expands-advertising-options-for-mobile-developers-designed-to-increase-installs/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google says 5% of its visitors have ad injectors installed, disables 192 deceptive Chrome extensions
Google Says 5% Of Visitors To Its Sites Have Ad Injectors Installed
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/31/google-says-5-of-web-browsers-have-ad-injectors-installed/#gypjlZ:FfZd
According to a study Google conducted with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, 5 percent of people visiting Google’s sites and services now have at least one ad injector installed.
When it comes to malware, ad injectors may seem relatively benevolent at first. They put an ad on your Google Search page that didn’t belong there, for example. That’s annoying, but doesn’t seem dangerous. But ad injection was pretty much what Lenovo’s Superfish was doing and that created plenty of security issues for users. Indeed, the research, which is based on the analysis of 100 million pageviews across Google’s sites from Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, classified about a third of these injectors as “outright malware.”
Given that these kinds of ad injectors are often bundles with legitimate software — and desktop developers and download sites often see them as a relatively easy way to make a bit of extra money with their installers and download wrappers — it’s easy enough to install one of them inadvertently.
Google and the Berkeley researchers found that ad injectors are now available on all major platforms and browsers. Out of those 5 percent of users that have at least one installed, one-third actually had four of them running simultaneously and half were running two. Clearly, there is a group of users that is a bit more prone to catching one of these than others.
“Unwanted ad injectors aren’t part of a healthy ads ecosystem,” Google Safe Browsing engineer Nav Jagpal writes in today’s announcement. “They’re part of an environment where bad practices hurt users, advertisers and publishers alike. ”
Google says it has already banned 192 Chrome extensions that affected 14 million users based on this research and it is now using the same techniques the researchers used to scan all new and updated extensions in the Chrome Web Store.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Exposing the Murky World of Online Ads Aimed at Kids
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/exposing-murky-world-online-ads-aimed-kids/
When YouTube released an app specifically for kids a couple months back, many parents rejoiced. If the app worked as promised, they’d have to worry less about their kids stumbling onto grown-up content on the video network, much less on cable’s carnival of depravity. But a more insidious threat may be afoot in this supposedly innocent walled-off world.
At least, that’s the claim of 10 consumer watchdog groups who filed a joint complaint today with the Federal Trade Commission over the YouTube Kids app, claiming it misleads parents and violates rules on “unfair and deceptive marketing” for kids.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile ‘Deep Links’ and the Fate of the Web
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/04/07/2248206/mobile-deep-links-and-the-fate-of-the-web
Mobile developers call the links they’re forging between apps “deep links,” but so far the whole idea seems to be more about marketing than deepening understanding. This essay over at Backchannel argues that we still haven’t delivered on the original promise of links online — the idea of enabling people to build and share “cathedrals of context.
Will Deep Links Ever Truly Be Deep?
https://medium.com/backchannel/the-failed-promise-of-deep-links-aa307b3abaa5
The buzz over linking mobile apps obscures links’ true potential: to create profound networks of knowledge and share power more widely
About a year ago I started seeing a lot of headlines about “deep links.” Developers, I soon discovered, are frantically trying to get mobile apps to work together, so that clicking on a link in one app takes you directly to relevant content in another app. Deep linking means to bore a wormhole-tunnel that hops you directly from a specific spot in one app to a spot in another, no side trip to a browser or a home screen needed.
That’s a fine thing. Today’s mobile software is all app fragments; it’s like Thirty Years’ War-era Germany, a patchwork of principalities with shifting allegiances and frequent skirmishes. Anything that knits it together is helpful.
But as I reviewed the coverage I noticed something a little odd. The idea of a deep link has a much deeper history — but no one was making the connection between the hot new trend in mobile and the one that I remembered from the 1990s.
Beginning in the late ’90s, legal spats arose on the Web over “deep links,” defined as links that bypass a site’s home page, whisking you straight to some specific location or product or piece of content. Some businesspeople didn’t like this practice; they thought they were being ripped off by people trying to steal their pageviews. They didn’t understand how the Web works, and every so often they’d push a lawsuit, and lose.
With mobile’s deep links, everyone seems to have collectively wiped the buzzword slate clean and started fresh — no context, no memory. No depth.
The link as we know it on today’s Web comes down to us from a long tradition of deep-thinking people.
As the Web took off we began to understand that links were more than just fun — they had power. They let us remix everything we encountered online. You could use them to bypass the official version of a news front page or a storefront or a government site and erect your own alternative instead. The authors of the 1999 Cluetrain Manifesto — a Web page-turned-book arguing that the Internet was transforming markets, and everything else, into “conversations” — put it succinctly: “Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.” For a while, links did just that — which was why you’d periodically see companies trying to protect their hierarchies by taking “deep linkers” to court.
Then Google came along and showed us that links could be read as signals of authority and value.
Links suddenly weren’t so much fun any more. They stopped serving us as an alternative way of thinking about and creating informational relationships; they settled into a functional role. They became tools for navigating websites and pointers for sharing content on social networks. Finally, links became click-bait — transparent come-ons for traffic in an accelerating race to the bottom of our brainstems. We found ourselves arguing whether links help us see connections or just distract us or make us stupid.
Today, links are most widely used to reference source material, not to connect ideas.
The Web was a buzzing hive of links from the day it came into wide use.
With mobile, it looks like we’re going to see what happens when you flip this sequence of events — when you try to build an interconnected network of links by starting with the marketing stuff and then, later, try to add the contributions of users.
“Right now it’s no secret that the Internet’s paid for basically by big companies buying tiny time-slices of your eyeballs against your will,” Maddern says. Button wants to change that by “capturing users’ intent.”
In a Web browser, you could have clicked straight through from one site to the other — and landed directly on a page of Barcelona listings.
If we can recreate this kind of experience in the app universe — and Button has built a popular open-source kit for developers to do just that — Maddern believes we can replace the old advertising regime with “cascades of affiliate revenue coming back down the network.” Once that happens, it’s only a matter of time before the mobile platforms begin to coalesce into a universe of content and functionality that we can traverse and curate at will — kind of like the Web is already.
“We’re still relying right now on the Web for search and discovery,” Maddern says. “The app-to-app aspect hasn’t really matured yet. Once we get past this craze of, like, ‘omigod, you can deep link things from one app to another,’ we’ll start to think of actually interesting ways of building an index — and being able to discover and drive straight down to both user-generated and brand-generated content inside apps.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube: Hank Green tells fellow creators to aim for ‘$1 per view’
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/08/hank-green-youtube-1000-cpm-vlogbrothers
Online video veteran sees crowdfunding as the answer to his peers’ complaints about YouTube’s low advertising rates
Good news: online video star Hank Green has made around $2m of advertising revenue from the billion views of his videos over the last eight years. Bad news: he spent more than $4m making them.
Green isn’t downcast, though: he wants fellow YouTube creators to look beyond the current advertising rates on Google’s service, which he suggests are around $2 per thousand views (CPM, in advertising lingo), and turn to their fans for financial support.
Green wants YouTubers to be aiming much higher, though: “If creators can climb their way to a $1,000 cumulative CPM, a person with an audience of just a couple of thousand people would be able to be a full-time creator.”
The $1,000 CPM
Advertising is a kinda shitty model. It’s very exciting that we’re moving beyond it.
https://medium.com/@hankgreen/the-1-000-cpm-f92717506a4b
Sometime in the last year, my YouTube videos received their billionth view. At the average YouTube ad rate of $2 per thousand views (a $2 CPM), that’s around $2 million in revenue from advertising over the last eight years. Not bad!
Though, during those eight years, we have spent more than $4 million on the creation of YouTube videos. So also, not good!
Let’s do some quick math:
A 22 minute TV program is accompanied by sixteen 30-second ads, at an average cost of $25 per thousand impressions. That leaves us with a per-minute CPM of around $19. A 5.5 minute YouTube video monetized the same way would make about $100 per thousand impressions. After a billion views, that’s $100,000,000.
To be fair, YouTube would have taken 45% of that money,
so really I’m only down $53,000,000.
The CPM metric is not designed for creators; it’s designed for advertisers. It’s how much advertisers pay, not how much creators make.
This Is Not Actually Impossible
Imagine that you would like to consume a piece of content, but in between you and that content is a paywall. They’re asking $15 for one person to view the content one time. While a YouTube video might net you $2 per thousand viewers, this fantasy world I’ve just described will net you $15,000 per thousand impressions…A $15,000 CPM!
With a $15,000 CPM, every two thousand views is a full-time, living-wage human per year!
Of course, this model would never work…except that it works every day at every movie theater in America.
For a two-hour movie, that’s about $125 per minute per thousand people
If advertising is perfectly economically efficient, then we should be able to say that a YouTube video is 32× less valuable to a viewer than a TV show and 250× less valuable than a movie.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Owen Williams / The Next Web:
Twitter is testing the ability to pin apps to brand profiles in its iPhone app
Twitter is testing the ability to pin apps to brand profiles
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2015/04/10/twitter-is-testing-the-ability-to-pin-apps-to-brand-profiles/
Twitter is testing yet another interesting new feature; some brands are now able to pin their apps directly to their Twitter profiles in its iPhone app.
The change was spotted by a tipster on profiles of some verified business accounts including Periscope, Vine and Uber.
It now prominently shows the company’s app, its rating on the App Store and a button to download or open it if it’s already installed.
Last month, Twitter was testing giant new app install advertising right inside user feeds. That test, combined with this new test, indicates that Twitter is pushing to become an even larger source of both app discovery and installs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon files first-ever suit over fake product reviews, alleging sites sold fraudulent praise
http://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-files-first-ever-suit-over-fake-reviews-alleging-calif-man-sold-fraudulent-praise-for-products/
Amazon has filed suit against the alleged operators of sites that offer Amazon sellers the ability to purchase fake 4- and 5-star customer reviews of their products.
The case is part of a broader effort by the company to crack down on fake reviews.
“While small in number, these reviews threaten to undermine the trust that customers, and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers, place in Amazon, thereby tarnishing Amazon’s brand,” the suit says. “Amazon strictly prohibits any attempt to manipulate customer reviews and actively polices its website to remove false, misleading, and inauthentic reviews.
“Despite substantial efforts to stamp out the practice, an unhealthy ecosystem is developing outside of Amazon to supply inauthentic reviews,” the suit adds. “Defendants’ businesses consist entirely of selling such reviews.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
Google wants advertisers to hand over customer info like email addresses to improve search ad targeting with service similar to Facebook’s Custom Audiences — Google May Offer New Way to Target Ads — Google in Talks to Let Advertisers Reach Existing Customers
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/google-may-offer-new-way-to-target-ads-1429044389-lMyQjAxMTI1NjE4NDAxMjQzWj
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon, NetFlix, KFC ad-men pay traffic cons $500k a month
Real time fleecing of instant ad buys is a thing, says researcher
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/15/verizon_netflix_kfc_admen_pay_traffic_cons_500k_a_month/
Gergő Varga reckons Verizon, Fedex, and Smirnoff are being robbed half a million dollars a month by advertising scammers.
The risk boffin and founder of advertising security firm outfit Enbrite.ly says the telco, transport and tipple trio which also includes Netflix and KFC are paying for fraudulent ad clicks.
“A relatively simple fraud scheme within the video RTB (real time bidding) ecosystem is costing advertisers such as Verizon, Netflix, Fedex, KFC and Smirnoff among others up to US$500,000 a month,” Varga says.
“While they may believe that their ads are reaching premium inventory, in fact they are appearing on file sharing, piracy and pornographic websites through this arbitrage scheme.
“So basically what we have here is a very lucrative form of impression fraud and traffic laundering.”
Real time bidding systems flog ads per impression in the milliseconds before web pages load. It is chimes AcuityAds a “revolutionary force” for online ad-men thanks to its “targeting and cost efficiency opportunities”.
But unscrupulous fraudsters are plundering these opportunities by serving ads on piracy and porn sites.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spotify wants to monetize your mood with ads based on your favorite playlists
http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/16/spotify-wants-to-monetize-your-mood-with-ads-based-on-your-favorite-playlists/
Music streaming service Spotify is taking its advertising tactics up a notch, with a new feature that will place ads based on the tone of your playlist.
The product, called Playlist Targeting, leverages Spotify’s listener data to push ads. In a press release, the company wrote:
Brands can now target audience segments based on who they are (age & gender, geography, language), what they’re listening to (playlist, genre), and when and how they’re listening (time of day and by platform/device).
While super-targeting is very hot among advertisers, placing ads based on someone’s mental state seems a little reminiscent of Facebook’s heavily criticized mood experiment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s ‘mobilegeddon’ search rankings threat isn’t quite what it seems. Here’s why
Race to the bottom for shrinking ad revs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/20/google_mobile_search_rankings_algorithm_tweak/
Google has fiddled with its algorithms so that “mobile-friendly” sites will – from tomorrow – be ranked higher on the ad giant’s search engine.
Inevitably, the move has triggered gripes that businesses – and in particular small online players – will be punished by the “Mobilegeddon” overhaul.
In light of last week’s preliminary decision brought by Brussels’ competition chief against Google’s alleged abuse of dominance in the European Union, some commentators have characterised Mountain View’s latest algorithmic tweak as an attack on SMBs that operate in the 28-member-state bloc.
However, while Google may indeed hamper the search rankings of many sites that are accessed via mobile devices, few have noted that it remains a tough place to rake in ad revenues – even for the biggest players out there today.
Which is arguably a key reason why some website owners have been slow to invest in the mobile b
So, its latest algorithm switch may be bad news for websites that suck on mobes, but it won’t solve the problem businesses of all sizes face with shrinking ad revenues in that space.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Leo Kelion / BBC:
AdBlock Plus defeats German publishers in court — The German publishers challenged AdBlock Plus’s right to suppress ads on their web pages — The creator of software that stops adverts from appearing on websites has defeated two news publishers that want to prevent its tech being used on their pages.
AdBlock Plus defeats German publishers in court
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32409952
The creator of software that stops adverts from appearing on websites has defeated two news publishers that want to prevent its tech being used on their pages.
The owners of Germany’s Die Zeit and Handelsblatt had claimed that AdBlock Plus’s product was anti-competitive and threatened their ability to make money.
But a court in Hamburg ruled that users do have the right to use the plug-in.
The judgement has implications for other disputes involving the tool.
“The Hamburg court decision is an important one because it sets a precedent that may help us avoid additional lawsuits and expenses defending what we feel is an obvious consumer right: giving people the ability to control their own screens by letting them block annoying ads and protect their privacy,” wrote AdBlock Plus’s project manager, Ben Williams, on its blog.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
IAB: Search Was 50% Of US Digital Ad Spend In 2014, Desktop Still Bigger Than Mobile
IAB: Search Was 50% Of US Digital Ad Spend In 2014, Desktop Still Bigger Than Mobile
Search was $24.6 billion of digital ad spend last year. Desktop outpaced mobile search spend nearly 4-to-1.
http://searchengineland.com/iab-search-was-50-of-digital-ads-219588
Over on Marketing Land, we have the full-breakdown of the figures: Digital Ad Spend Hits New $49.5 Billion High In 2014; Mobile & Social See Greatest Growth. While channels like social and mobile saw more growth, search remained the biggest spend overall.
Tomi Engdahl says:
US Digital Ad Spend Hits New $49.5 Billion High In 2014; Mobile & Social See Greatest Growth
Search remains the biggest spend overall, with desktop search as the biggest single channel at 38% of spend.
http://marketingland.com/digital-ad-spend-2014-iab-126020
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shannon Bond / Financial Times:
US mobile advertising spending jumped 76% to $12.5B in 2014, makes up 25% of total internet ad revenues
http://mediagazer.com/#a150423p10
Tomi Engdahl says:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Facebook Hits 4 Billion Daily Video Views in Q1; Mobile Ad Revenue Grows 80%
http://mediagazer.com/#a150423p6
Tomi Engdahl says:
Submitted on 2015/04/30 at 12:09 pm
Internet Explorer is cracking down on misleading ads before it dies
http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/29/8518723/internet-explorer-microsoft-misleading-ads
Even as it readies to effectively kill the brand, Microsoft is trying to make Internet Explorer a more palatable browsing option, yesterday detailing plans to crack down on misleading ads. As of June 1st, the browser will notify users with a warning when a site features an ad that contains malicious code, content that pretends to be part of the site itself, or directs them towards misleading downloads. In a blog post, Microsoft detailed its new unwanted software evaluation criteria, explaining how it determined whether ads were designed with the intention to mislead or deceive users.
Cleaning up misleading advertisements
http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2015/04/28/cleaning-up-misleading-advertisements.aspx
Advertisements: The advertisement should not mislead you into visiting another site or downloading files.
Advertisements shown to a user:
Must not mislead or deceive, or confuse with the intent to mislead or deceive
Must be distinguishable from website content
Must not contain malicious code
Must not invoke a file download
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:
Google rolls out new ad formats for small screens as mobile searches overtake desktop in US, Japan, and eight other countries — Google Rolls Out New Ads as Mobile Searches Top PCs in 10 Countries — Google Tuesday expanded its suite of ads for mobile devices that offer users information …
Google Rolls Out New Ads as Mobile Searches Top PCs in 10 Countries
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/05/05/google-rolls-out-new-ads-as-mobile-searches-top-pcs-in-10-countries/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook wants to turn its mobile ad network into an even bigger business by running ‘native’ ads on other apps
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-audience-network-ads-native-ad-tools-2015-5#ixzz3ZRvsJf00
Tomi Engdahl says:
Martin Beck / Marketing Land:
TweetDeck Adds Tweet Confirmation To Help Prevent Social Media Misfires — Optional extra step should help social media professionals avoid accidental tweets to the wrong account. — It’s a social media pro’s worst nightmare: posting a personal tweet on a brand account.
TweetDeck Adds Tweet Confirmation To Help Prevent Social Media Misfires
Optional extra step should help social media professionals avoid accidental tweets to the wrong account.
http://marketingland.com/tweetdeck-installs-a-backstop-128335
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Kantrowitz / AdAge:
Ad-Tech, not Content, Is King in the Verizon-AOL Deal
http://adage.com/article/media/ad-tech-is-king-verizon-aol/298574/
The deal of the year may be upon us.
Today, Verizon announced it has reached an agreement to buy AOL for $4.4 billion. The move, expected to be completed this summer, is likely to realign the power balance in the ad-tech ecosystem and will be felt in the advertising industry as a whole.
The digital advertising industry (and some might say, the entire advertising industry) is on the fast path to automation. Scores of companies have emerged to help automate different parts of the ad buy — the buying, the selling, the targeting, the attribution, etc. — and AOL owns a piece of tech for just about every step of the way. For a while, everything seemed peachy in the desktop-focused ad-tech world, but then media consumption moved quickly to mobile, where targeting cookies don’t work effectively, and the system essentially broke.
Verizon, acquirer of AOL, owns the key to fixing this problem: concrete mobile data which can be used to tie user identity across devices.
If Verizon’s data integrated into AOL’s ad-tech, it could result in the first ad-tech stack which can target across devices with deep accuracy (Facebook is currently developing one, using its login data). This combination could help ad-tech get its groove back, and should be strong enough to give Google (the market leader) and Facebook (up and coming) a run for their money.
Sad day for Yahoo
A few years ago, AOL and Yahoo were sitting in essentially the same place. Both had plenty of visitors but sold commoditized ad inventory which limited the value of their businesses. From this starting point, Yahoo invested in content, snatching up Tumblr and a number of other companies until going on an ad-tech spending spree with the acquisitions of mobile ad-tech company Flurry and video ad-tech company Brightroll. AOL, meanwhile, went straight for ad-tech, building a full “stack” while paring down its content business. AOL’s strategy, today at least, seems like it was the right one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Owen Williams / The Next Web:
European mobile networks reportedly plan to block all advertising, targeting Google
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/15/european-mobile-networks-reportedly-plan-to-block-all-advertising-targeting-google/
A report from the Financial Times today claims that European mobile networks are preparing to block advertising across the Web.
According to the story, which cites anonymous sources, the carriers have installed software from Israeli ad-blocking firm Shine in their data centers to block advertising in Web pages and apps, but not social networks.
The plan – which would be devastating to companies reliant on advertising – is not limited to a single European network. Its apparent aim is to break Google’s hold on advertising.
The FT report says that “an executive at a European carrier confirmed that it and several of its peers are planning to start blocking adverts this year” and will be available as an “opt-in service” however they are also considering applying the technology across their entire mobile networks.
This isn’t the first time a provider has tried to blanket block ads.
In 2013, French ISP “Free” blocked advertising in a firmware update to its router but was forced to back down by the government. In the US, some providers tried to inject additional advertising, which was also met with backlash.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jacob Silverman / The Baffler:
Twitter’s new features have all favored advertisers and made it more unsuitable for genuine user interaction — Tweet If You Love the Sweet Sound of Advertising — Almost all of Twitter’s recent changes have favored advertisers. / Adobe — According to Wall Street, we haven’t been clicking and tweeting nearly enough.
Tweet If You Love the Sweet Sound of Advertising
http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/tweet-love-sweet-sound-advertising/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Google to place buy buttons for products sold by some retailers alongside paid search results on mobile in coming weeks
Can Google Outsell Amazon and eBay?
Company will launch buy buttons on its search-results pages in coming weeks
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/can-google-outsell-amazon-and-ebay-1431730741-lMyQjAxMTE1ODEwNTYxMTU2Wj
Google Inc. will launch buy buttons on its search-result pages in coming weeks, a controversial step by the company toward becoming an online marketplace rivaling those run by Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc.
The search giant will start showing the buttons when people search for products on mobile devices, according to people familiar with the launch.
The buttons will accompany sponsored—or paid—search results, often displayed under a “Shop on Google” heading at the top of the page. Buttons won’t appear with the nonsponsored results that are driven by Google’s basic search algorithm.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Financial Times:
Financial Times rolls out ‘cost per hour’ advertising metric — 18 May 2015: The Financial Times today announces the launch of a new digital advertising metric, ‘cost per hour’ (CPH). Working closely with Chartbeat on the new time-based system, the FT is able to increase marketing effectiveness …
Financial Times rolls out ‘cost per hour’ advertising metric
http://aboutus.ft.com/2015/05/18/financial-times-rolls-out-cost-per-hour-advertising-metric/#axzz3aVGJ1EvM
The Financial Times today announces the launch of a new digital advertising metric, ‘cost per hour’ (CPH). Working closely with Chartbeat on the new time-based system, the FT is able to increase marketing effectiveness by measure not just whether an ad is seen or not, but for how long.
The measurement, which was initially offered in a limited pilot last fall, allows advertisers to reach a highly influential global audience with greater brand impact than through impressions alone.
Dominic Good, FT’s advertising sales director, said: “For the nearly three decades of commercial internet history, advertising has derived its value from one measure: how many people click on an ad. Low viewability scores and questions about advertising placement and fraud have increased the need for better measurement and transparency to demonstrate the actual outcome an advertiser is seeking.
“While CPM values every impression the same, CPH uses time to measure value. The FT has shown through extensive testing that brand familiarity and recollection among readers increases significantly the longer an ad is in view. Adverts seen for five seconds or more on FT.com show up to 50% higher brand recall and familiarity than ads that are visible for a shorter period of time.
The FT is already working with other global publishers to develop and increase the use of CPH, with the intention of making it a standard digital trading currency across the industry. More details are available in this white paper (Cost Per Hour: Using a Time-Based Currency for Digital Advertising) by independent consultant Nikul Sanghvi.
http://www.slideshare.net/NikulSanghvi/cost-per-hour-using-a-timebased-currency-for-digital-advertising
Tomi Engdahl says:
Editor-in-Chief of the Next Web: Adblockers Are Immoral
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/15/05/17/1426246/editor-in-chief-of-the-next-web-adblockers-are-immoral
Hot on the heels of the recent implementation of Canvas Ads (allowing advertisers to use the full page) Martin Bryant, the Editor-in-Chief of The Next Web, wrote a piece that, ostensibly, calls out mobile carriers in Europe for offering ad blocking as a service. He writes: “Display ads are still an important bread-and-butter income stream. Taking delight in denying publishers that revenue shows either sociopathic tendencies or ignorance of economic realities.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s the deal with TNW’s new Canvas ads?
http://thenextweb.com/voice/2015/05/07/whats-the-deal-with-tnws-new-canvas-ads/
One key part of our redesign is our new Canvas ad format. I thought it would be worth telling you a bit more about how and why it came about.
Canvas ads have been developed to make it easier for advertisers to design and show beautiful full-page ads.
Q: What is the canvas ad?
A: The Canvas ad is a new advertising format that allows an advertiser to design a full-page image, or movie, that can be shown in the background of an article. If a reader is interested in seeing the full ad they can click in the background and the main article will slide out of view. On some visits we slide the article out of view right away to reveal the ad, but you can hide it again simply by hovering over the article.
Q: How can I skip the Canvas ad and read the article?
A: As soon as the page loads you can move your cursor to the article and it will slide back over the Canvas ad. Pro tip: hit the ‘c’ key on your keyboard and the article will move in or out right away. Try it now to see how it works!
Q: Why are the ads so big?
A: We believe that ads don’t have to be annoying and ugly. But that means they have to be designed well. With traditional, small banners it is hard to show a beautiful photo or design. Our Canvas ad is designed to be easy to navigate away from, but also show you a whole page if you are interested.