Behind Headlines: 180 Seconds in Ad Tech — Two Big Blows to Facebook

Hey there! This is Cassie & Vanessa at Sharethrough. In this episode we'll be giving you a quick recap of what happened the week of October 4th in ad tech, in 180 seconds. Let’s go! 

It’s just not Facebook’s week. No doubt you probably heard that a massive outage took place on Monday across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, leaving users in the dark for 6 hours. As if the memes and general ire of the public wasn’t enough of a blow, the outage alone also cost the platform 78$ million dollars in revenue. On top of that, the platform then went on to issue an apology to the public via Twitter- their rival’s network. Although Facebook cites configuration changes to their routers as the reason for the disruption, others speculate foul play may be at hand. The timing of the outage also called attention to another problem Facebook is currently facing. Whistleblower Frances Haugen spoke in front of Capitol Hill the day following the outage, revealing Facebook’s intent to prioritize profits while allowing for the spread of misinformation to continue to cause mental harm at the expense of younger users. Stay tuned to see how it all panes out. (Source: AdExchanger; BBC; CNBC).

On Monday, Zeta Global acquired Apptness, a survey data company for 41$ million dollars. Apptness, a technology company that primarily runs as a digital survey platform, will work with ‘Disqus’ - Zeta’s publisher tech business. This product will allow publishers to further engagement, as well as expand and bolster Zeta’s identity data set, since Disqus requires an email to log on and be able to share/comment on an article. Apptness will be available to all publishers that currently use Disqus for free within 90 days. (Source: AdExchanger; BusinessWire)

Earlier this week, YouTube announced their plans to make video ads more ‘shoppable’ on connected TVs. By plugging in a URL directly in the video campaigns, users will be able to access the brand’s website from their connected tv. Since the link will be featured on the bottom of the screen, this will also avoid interrupting a viewer's watching experience - which tends to be a common irritation with disruptive ads. With more and more people watching YouTube primarily on TV screens, coupled with younger consumers simultaneously watching videos while they shop, it’s no surprise that more and more platforms are focusing their investments towards this latest trend. (Source: TechCrunch)

Is FLoC ready yet? Not according to Criteo. After concluding testing over the summer, the DSP has announced that FLoC presents too many unknown variables to be considered a viable solution in a post-cookie environment in the near future. Citing privacy and performance issues, the company is also concerned over its economic model, claiming a FLoC solution is most likely to favor large publisher platforms. (Source: AdExchanger)

Even with the enforcement of GDPR, it appears a great deal of user data collection is still taking place without consent. As reported in an article by Digiday, around 500,000 daily ad impressions between the months of May and August this year were tracked against the users’ set preferences in accordance with GDPR. While Confiant, an ad security monitoring company, claims there appears to be no malicious behavior involved, ad tech vendors not adhering to consent frameworks can still spell trouble for publishers - who would ultimately face liability for unauthorized practices on their websites. IAB Tech Lab is currently monitoring and enforcing compliance, with more plans to effectively ensure players are following consent guidelines. (Source: Digiday)

Thanks for tuning in! For more in-depth information or to subscribe to these weekly updates, check out the links in our blog. This has been Cassie & Vanessa at Sharethrough for our weekly 180 second-recap in Ad tech. See you next week!