Fight Against the Duopoly – Unified Log-in
The duopoly has its prodigious market share because of the enriched user data and preferences. Unlike the open Internet, users are ‘logged in’ while scrolling through Facebook or searching through Google (most of the time).
And, this means they know more about internet users than anyone else. However, the real problem for the publishers stems from how the duopoly utilizes the walled data to run ads and attract billions of digital ad spends every year.
The duopoly will pull 56.8% of US digital ad investment in 2018
– eMarketer
Well, we believe the tide is changing. In our last week roundup, we captured the innovative ad products developed by the premium publishers like ESPN, Bloomberg, etc. to woo advertisers. This week, we heard something that can possibly punch the duopoly at its face.
Unified Consumer Log-In
As per Digiday, the United Internet devised almost a year ago will officially launch in a week. The alliance comprises 20 Media, e-Commerce, and agency ISP businesses and has the mission of expanding across Europe soon.
What’s the purpose?
The unified consumer login is created to help consumers to take control of privacy in the open Internet. Consumers are given a unified mechanism to provide and save consent across the media companies in the alliance. On the other hand, the login will allow publishers and media companies to get consent from the users and pass it into the digital advertising ecosystem to serve personalized ads.
“This is the European market’s last chance to change this [imbalance]”
– Sven Bornemann.
You can consider this as a login for selective media companies in Germany.
Takeaway:
Unified login might be the best shot to take down the duopoly and get the user data that can compete with the walled gardens. As users are obviously protected and respected with the consent mechanism, there are no foreseeable roadblocks near the horizon. What do you think?
The Wrapper Wars
When Ad Exchanger revealed that Index Exchange has been practicing bid caching, the industry went upside down. Some started to turn the situation in their favor, while others were busy with the press releases stating that they’re clean and transparent.
However, as a publisher, you might think the problem is over and Index Exchange is back on track. We advise you to reconsider. Why?
As per source, six exchanges and a handful of premium publishers have concerns regarding the Index Exchange bidding process. They consistently see the favored auctions as Index wrapper prioritizes itself. Or at least that’s the complaint.
Specifics
Reportedly, two of the six exchanges are composing a letter to Index CEO to report the following concerns.
Minified JS – The JavaScript from the Index wrapper on a publisher’s page is minified, which, in turn, make the code a ‘black box’.
Wrapper Versions – There are more than one versions of wrapper available in the market and publishers configure them differently. This means, there’s no neutral ground yet.
What does the Index say?
“Our header tag wrapper is 100% totally unbiased, transparent and auditable. By intention, [it] was always designed to be that way.”
– Gabe DeWitt, VP of product and technical operations, Index Exchange.
Takeaway:
The increased competition among the wrappers made the situation worse. DSPs and publishers are beginning to question the competitive edge, whether it is purely competitive on a neutral ground or favored in any way. As a publisher, partnering with the most transparent and authentic SSPs would yield better results.
Facebook Launches First-Party Cookies
It’s here. Facebook’s answer to Apple’s ITP 2.0.
As we all know, Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.0 puts the third-parties in a precarious position. Of all, Facebook was supposed to take a big blow as it can’t track users across the web. To get more context, refer ITP 2.0.
Yeah, it was supposed to. But it isn’t going to. Facebook came up with a solution to track and report on users without any trouble.
How?
“This change is in line with updates made by other online platforms, as use of first-party cookies for ads and site analytics is becoming the preferred approach by some browsers”
– Facebook.
It’s simple. ITP partitions and purges the third-party cookies, so Facebook becomes a first-party cookie. Here’s how it happens:
- User clicks on an ad served by Facebook.
- A unique string will be fastened to the URL of the landing page.
- Opted-in first-party tracking pixel will get written into the browser as first-party cookie.
The update follows Google, which also found a workaround to track the users on safari with the help of ‘Global Site Tag’. Of course, advertisers and publishers don’t need to enable the option to continue running Facebook dynamic ads.
Takeaway:
Even the duopoly isn’t safe. Amazon is gaining momentum and publishers are trying to shift the spends towards the open Internet. Besides, the scandals just keep on coming for Facebook. However, the ability to fight back and devise workarounds pushes the Facebook up every time.
Videos are the Next Big Thing in Ad tech
If you’ve been reading our Adtech weekly roundups, you might have experienced a pattern. A clear yet implicit path leading us all to videos. You don’t have to take our word for it.
a. Google’s New Search Engine
To put it simply, Google has been trying to build another search engine, but this time it won’t show us the web pages. It’ll list you the relevant videos and obviously, ads. We’re talking about YouTube. In Advertising Week, Google unveiled its plan to develop a video search engine (and an ad product) out of YouTube.
In case you didn’t know, YouTube was targeting ads based solely on the context a year ago. Now, it can target users based on search queries. Sooner, YouTube might be capable of targeting ads as the search engine (Google). In fact, as per source, the search engine queries will be somehow integrated into the YouTube to help advertisers target users based on their Google search.
b. Twitter backs its video ads with a third-party vendor
Twitter, which is already experimenting with a stream of ad products to woo publishers reportedly partnered with an ad tech vendor, DoubeVerify. This is to ensure advertisers are getting the best possible ROI on their video campaigns. Twitter has been increasingly focusing on videos and live programmes as consumer habits are leaving the text-rich formats behind.
Takeaway:
In the next few years, videos will be consumed by the readers everywhere. And, publishers like you should start embracing the format in the right way. Don’t decorate your pages with videos, place them accordingly.
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