Weekly Roundup: IAB’s Ad Spend Predictions, Apple Vs. Adtech, Contextual Ads, and More.

Summary

• As per an IAB survey, ad spending in the US market will fall 8% YoY. While the total ad spends is falling, digital will rise by 6%, whereas traditional ad spends will fall by 30%. 
• The programmatic ad spends declined by 9% in April when compared to the beginning of the year. The number of companies buying programmatic ads also fell by 8%. But July witnessed a 36% jump in the number of advertisers since January.
• The display CPMs increased throughout August. From $1.16 on August 1, the highest CPM reached $1.35 on August 23. Another source claims that the CPM’s in August was close to December 2019 levels.
• Apple has decided to postpone the upcoming iOS 14 privacy update. The new features will be applied next year so that the developers have enough time to make the required changes.
• LadBible has launched its “fully transparent” media buying solution. The product is called LadX and it charges its advertisers only for completed views.
• Publishers are getting creative with contextual ads. The NYT is targeting content categories for the ads. Other publishers are using their first-party data identifiers from their CRM records to create lookalike segments for unknown audiences.
• Facebook launches new feature to improve the user experience for the subscribers of its publisher partners.

Latest Ad Tech Trends for Publishers

IAB’s Projections for 2020

As per an IAB survey, ad spending in the US market will fall 8% YoY. While the total ad spends is falling, digital will rise by 6%, whereas traditional ad spends will fall by 30%. The results show how the digital ad market is expanding due to the pandemic. Here’s how the shift is taking place in every vertical:

Programmatic is moving back to normal

The programmatic ad spends declined by 9% in April when compared to the beginning of the year. The number of companies buying programmatic ads also fell by 8%. But now the scene has changed as July witnessed a 36% jump in the number of advertisers since January. The total ad spending also grew by 11% YoY between April and July. The advertisers from the technology, education, and media industry are the biggest contributors to the growth.

Publishers’ Optimism towards Programmatic

The display CPMs increased throughout August. From $1.16 on August 1, the highest CPM reached $1.35 on August 23. The figures are drawn by Staq from 50 publishers with more than $1.2 billion in combined annual revenue. Another source claims that the CPM’s in August was close to December 2019 levels.

Publishers are positive about the trend as the upcoming elections will bring in more money through political campaigns.

Takeaway:

Just as expected, things are going back to normal for publishers. Companies are moving quickly from traditional to digital marketing channels. This new trend is helping in the speedy recovery of the digital publishing market. As sectors like travel and apparels will rebound, the situation will be better than the pre-pandemic levels.

Apple vs Ad Tech

In our last roundup, we talked about how Apple is making new changes in its upcoming OS update and how it’ll affect publishers. There’ve been some more developments this week.

The biggest news is that Apple has decided to postpone the changes it was about to bring. Now the changes will take place next year. In its statement, Apple said, “We want to give developers the time they need to make the necessary changes, and, as a result, the requirement to use this tracking permission will go into effect early next year.” We believe that the announcement is something that the industry needed.

The new changes by Apple are leading to new mergers and acquisitions in the industry. Large gaming companies are acquiring ad tech companies, similarly some of the ad tech companies are trying to buy gaming companies. It’s happening because, in the post-IDFA world, it will be very difficult for app publishers and ad tech companies to work with third-party data. If a company will have proprietary apps and a proprietary tech stack to run campaigns on those apps, then there won’t be many dependencies on third-party data. AppLovin’s acquisition of Machine Zone and Media and Games Invest’s acquisition of Verve show the beginning of the coming trend.

While every player in the ad tech industry is preparing for the new challenge, Google is working on its level too. Recently, it updated its AdMob Help Centre page with the steps that developers need to take before the iOS update. 

LadBible’s ‘Fully Transparent’ Video Ad Solution

LadBible is offering something unique to its advertisers. The publisher recently launched its media buying solution for video ads which is “fully transparent.” The product is called LadX and it charges its advertisers only for completed views. The rates for the views are also fixed when videos are 10 seconds long. For 10 seconds video ads the rates are set at £0.02 per completed view. For longer ads, the CPCV can range between £0.03 and £0.04. The publisher is not guaranteeing the rates for longer videos because it wants to incentivize advertisers with short-form videos.

The publisher is able to provide such low rates due to the use of “adaptive streaming tech” offered by SeenThis, a Swedish video adtech company. 

Takeaway:

Innovation and competitiveness are two of the cornerstones of any business’s success. LadBible is focusing on both of them with its new offering. Every publisher should thrive for creating value just like LadBible for speedy growth.

Finding Potential in Contextual

As the ad tech industry is moving away from third-party based solutions, publishers are betting big on contextual targeting. Last year, the NYT ran 100 campaigns using contextual tools, and now it is running 100 active context-based campaigns at any given time. The publisher targets content categories for contextual targeting.

Other publishers are also trying to be innovative with contextual targeting. They are using their first-party data identifiers from their CRM records to create lookalike segments for unknown audiences. In this way, the contextual targeting is becoming more precise because it is using existing users as a reference. 

Takeaway:

Contextual advertising will become more nuanced with time because of the lack of third-party cookies in the future. But we cannot deny the fact that issues such as attribution and retargeting will remain as hurdles in the road ahead.

Facebook’s New Feature for Publishers

Facebook is trying a new feature. It’ll help Facebook’s publishing partners and Facebook itself to deliver a better user experience to its users. As TechCrunch explains:

“The idea is that when Facebook identifies a subscriber from one of its publisher partners, that subscribers will be invited to link their news account to their Facebook account. Once they’re linked, if they encounter a paywalled article on Facebook, they’ll be able to read it without hitting the paywall or having to log in again.”

Facebook will also show more content from that publisher after the user connects both the accounts. After conducting the test, it was found that users with linked accounts made 111% more clicks on articles and their rate of following the publisher increased from 34% to 97%.

Moments that Matter

Apple Will Delay Its IDFA Changes In IOS 14 Until ‘Early Next Year’ – Adexchanger

Ad-Supported Piracy Is Thriving, Thanks To Programmatic Ad Tech – Forbes

Google to pass on the cost of 2% digital tax to advertisers – Campaign

Regional publishers hit back at Facebook’s ‘inflammatory’ threat to ban news sharing in Australia – The Guardian

Fall From Grace: AT&T Explores Sale Of Ad Tech Unit Xandr – Adexchanger