Are We Overestimating Cord-Cutting? Digital media people love talking about cord-cutting and how the old broadcast model is disappearing for what we used to consider "TV." But Simulmedia CEO Dave Morgan's POV in MediaPost last week reminds us that cord-cutting is not universal, and the reach of broadcast TV is…
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Retargeting companies were in the industry trade headlines last week, as a couple of the leading retargeters had made efforts to allow users to opt into having their data collected. There are a few timely issues these companies are trying to address—Apple’s limits on the amount of time it’s acceptable…
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Not the CES update you want, but maybe the CES update you need. January brings with it cold weather, year-end reconciliations, lower post-Q4 CPMs, and CES. This year I had an audacious plan: I’d go to CES and actually go to CES. You know – the actual show, not just…
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I recently noted the cyclical nature of ad tech issues, and nowhere has that been more apparent than in brand safety's reappearance in the forefront of advertisers' and publishers' concerns. As technology and content have evolved, we need to reconsider just what fits under the brand-safety umbrella in 2018 (something we'll discuss…
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One of the main goals of Ads.txt is to combat domain spoofing. It's angled to be both simple to understand and implement, and harder for bad actors to game than good old whitelisting and blacklisting. But there's more to ads.txt than slapping together a list of partners who are authorized…
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Lift Tests: The Next Programmatic Trend? Among advertisers, especially performance advertisers, lift tests are on the rise, AdExchanger reports. Performance advertiser are feeling some heat to justify ROI for all their activities, which is why they’re looking at measuring incremental lift in whatever channels they’re spending in. One reason for…
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We're all aware the digital ad marketplace is currently dominated by just a couple of massive companies--and you know exactly who they are. One evergreen issue for publishers is the question of how to navigate this dynamic: Working with Facebook and Google is practically a necessity, especially where distributing your…
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Just in time for the holiday season, Google slipped some coal into publishers' stockings. Google announced that on Feb. 15, its browser Chrome will begin blocking units that don't meet the Better Ads Standards from the Coalition for Better Ads. Moreover, Chrome will remove all ads from sites that have a "failing" status…
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Apple Is Buying Shazam On Dec. 11, Apple officially announced it was buying Shazam, news TechCrunch had broken a few days earlier. Reportedly, Shazam had had discussions with other companies in months prior, including Spotify and Snapchat parent Snap, but ultimately Apple bit to the tune of $400-ish million (according…
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Throughout 2017, the discussion on the AdMonsters site, at our events and on our listserv has spun off in countless directions. A person has to wonder: Was there ever a time when it seemed the industry focused on one or two issues at a time, or do we just have…
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