Weekly Roundup: Ad Tech Magic Quadrant, Google to Pay $1 Bn, Google’s Limited Ads, and More.

Summary

• Some companies think that news is not brand-safe, but IAB’s research busts the myth.
• Political topics are taking away all the referral traffic from Facebook, other content verticals are losing it.
• Beeswax, Centro, Mediaocean, and Zeta Global are the new strong contenders in the ad tech industry: Gartner’s 2020 Ad Tech Magic Quadrant.
• Google’s Limited Ad may sound like a simple solution, but it faces some challenges. What’s ahead?
• Bloomberg starts a new content-vertical. What can you learn from it?
• Google News Showcase will be paying 1 billion dollars to news publishers. It has many exciting features too.
• Vox Media adds another product to its portfolio. This time it’s a self-serving tool for advertisers.

Latest Adtech Trends for Publishers

IAB’s Research Shows News is Brand-Safe

Research by IAB tries to alleviate the concerns that some brands have for news content. Some companies do not advertise around news because they believe that it can hurt them. The research has the following findings for such companies:

• For 84% of the consumers, the trust remains neutral or increases for brands that advertise along with the news.
• 45% of the consumers are more likely to visit the brand’s website, and 43% would consider buying from the brand when they see the ad on their favorite news site.
• 49% of the consumer find the ads relevant to them, and 46% consider the ads ‘high-quality’ when they appear with the news

Politics is Getting all the Attention on Facebook

The political fever around the presidential elections is high. Everyone is interested in political news. The social media sites are also filled with electoral content and ads. As a result, election-related content is taking away referral traffic from other content verticals.

Facebook referral traffic to pop culture sites, Ranker and Watchworthy, decreased by 12% since July. The sites share their content with 48 million Facebook fans across 30 different pages.

Twenty First Digital, an audience development consultancy, witnessed the Facebook referral traffic declining by an average of 39% for 16 of its 18 clients.

Gartner’s 2020 Ad Tech Magic Quadrant

Gartner has released the Ad Tech Magic Quadrant report for the year 2020, where it categorizes the industry players as Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players:

• Amobee is a surprise entrant from Challenger to the Leader category whereas Amazon remained a Challenger.
• Beeswax, Centro, Mediaocean, and Zeta Global were the first to appear in the quadrant.
• Usual suspects like Google, The Trade Desk, and MediaMath are in the Leaders category.

Here’s the complete quadrant for you.

Takeaway:

News has always been an inseparable part of our lives. Big events like elections, sports tournaments, wars, etc, trigger the audience to search for more information. Due to the same reason, political content is getting all the attention on Facebook. All the brands that can benefit by displaying ads around the news content will keep advertising, the others will follow suit as soon as they realize that news is not bad for them.

Ad Tech’s Concerns around Google’s Limited Ads

Google has recently announced a new feature for publishers using GAM. It is called “Limited Ads.” With the help of this feature, publishers would be able to serve simple ads to users who do not wish to share their cookies or identifiers. The new feature is for direct-sold inventory, not for programmatic ads. It’s not live yet.

In our TCF 2.0 post, we’ve already told you how Google will do so. Out of the 12 purposes given by TCF for collecting the data, the publisher has to secure consent for Purpose 1, 3, and 4 to serve personalized ads. On the other hand, Google will serve limited-ads when the user consents for Purpose 2, 7, 9, and 10. Or, the publisher can use the controversial “legitimate interest” clause to record the user’s data.

Now, the industry has some concerns which have to be addressed:

• It is unlikely that a user would spend any time in choosing the purposes. The user will either click to accept all or to reject all of them. So, the user will be deciding without giving thoughts to anything, and the publishers will have to suffer.
• Many CMPs and publishers won’t be sharing the Legitimate Interest signals if the user clicks on the “reject all” button. So, the clause won’t provide any help.
• The UK data protection authority has already declared the use of “legitimate interest” as non GDPR compliant in the case of RTB.

So, due to all the above-stated reasons, GAM may end up serving non-personalized or no ads at all, most of the time. What’s the solution? It’s yet to be found, but we’ll keep you informed.

How Bloomberg is Expanding its Platform

Bloomberg is launching Bloomberg Wealth, a new content vertical with six pillars: Investing, Savings & Retirement, Taxes, Living (where to live, renting vs. buying, divorce, etc.), Reinvention (education, careers, networking, starting a business), Opinion and Advice. It’ll also have tools for taking the right financial decisions in life. Recently the publisher has expanded in other verticals like healthcare, auto, climate, cities, and entertainment as well. 

Why should you care?

Publishers should understand the importance of content expansion in the business. You start attracting new audiences when you start covering new categories. But it’s not that simple. It is better to establish yourself as a strong brand in one niche before you start expanding. In this way, you can leverage your authority in one sector to dominate in the other.

It’s also a good idea to enter the niches which are closer to your current niche, for example, going from Business to Personal Finance. Entry in a similar space is more convenient than entering a completely new league.

Observe how the big players like Bloomberg are doing it, learn from them and then create your strategy.

Google News Showcase

Google will be paying 1 billion dollars in three years to news publishers through its initiative called Showcase. It’ll first launch in Brazil. Here are the key highlights of the product:

• It’ll first appear in Google News and later in Discover and Search.
• The publishers can showcase their stories in panels (refer to the image above) with bullets, images, timelines, videos, audios, etc.
• It’ll offer some paywalled content in the hope that the users will eventually subscribe after understanding the value of the content.
• The publisher’s brand will be prominently visible in the panels.
• Publishers will curate the panels themselves.
• The users will be able to personalize their feeds.

Google says that it has signed deals with more than 200 publishers in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the U.K., and Australia. So expect these countries to receive the new product first.

Vox Media Scales up Further

Vox Media has launched a new self-serve tool for its advertisers. The tool called Concert Ad Manager will provide all the necessary features required to run campaigns across its properties to target its 230 million unique monthly visitors.

Building products that generate revenue has always been Vox’s strategy. Its recent projects include an ad network exclusively for local publishers and a first-party data platform. It does not only help the publisher with revenue diversification but also with gaining more control over its supply-chain

Takeaway:

If you closely observe Vox’s strategies, you’ll find some common patterns:

• It tries to help its advertisers.
• It tries to own the supply chain.
• It tries to maintain its brand.
• It never shies away from developing new products.
• It can walk the extra mile to deliver the best user experience.

So, do you have some similar qualities?

Moments that Matter

Personalised advertising and users’ privacy can coexist: Facebook – Business Standard.

The Ad Platform: Why the Buy Side Wants Log-Level Data – eMarketer.

It May Seem All Quiet On The CCPA Front, But Don’t Get Complacent: CCPA Enforcement Has Begun – AdExchanger.