Category: Commentary

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 1/6

Welcome to 2017! Medium’s downsizing has everyone talking, I shared my thoughts below. Great data points this week, and it seems everyone’s just rolling up the sleeves and getting in to helping native scale, addressing the barriers raised in late 2017. Notable Stories this Week Why SSPs never gained traction among China’s publishers. The ad tech renaissance, a response to Fred Wilson and Jason Kint around Facebook/Google soaking up spend, AppNexus CEO Brian… Continue reading

Ben Young

January 5, 2017

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 12/23

Closing out the year, I touch on the luxury opportunity and the rise programmatic direct, both discussions are interlinked around transparency for advertisers. Where are ads showing and are the numbers real? Fake news isn’t helping! Notable Stories this Week Another metrics mishap from Facebook. This time Instant Articles. Methbot, large-scale video advertising fraud. Video can be very dubious, especially on mobile. There’s a nice commentary on this article too, grounding the… Continue reading

Ben Young

December 22, 2016

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 12/16

Twas the week before the last week of the year – and last minute campaigns were going out left right and centre, whilst some of us were lucky enough to begin to slip away for the holiday season! It was a quiet week on the release front but some good posts for the year ahead. Yesterday, we launched The Best Native Ads of 2016, take a look, please share. And grab… Continue reading

Ben Young

December 15, 2016

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 12/9

Tough week for Breitbart, losing advertisers, left right and centre. A nightmare scenario for retargeters whose ads aren’t blacklisting. But so, it’s that time of year for wraps, trends and looking ahead to 2017. This week we have IAB members predictions for the year ahead. Keep an eye out for our The Best Native of 2016 released next Thursday, December 15th. Join the webinar to hear our discussion and analysis. Notable… Continue reading

Ben Young

December 8, 2016

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 12/1

After a break, through Thanksgiving, it’s a double whammy mega edition this week. Fake news is the big topic, with Zuckerburg unable to articulate their approach, made worse by Ev Williams’s post on Medium. A lot of informal discussion around how it impacts the companies that rely on advertising arbitrage. Notable Stories this Week Taboola, Fake News is everyone’s business. Co-founder of Reddit bags on native ads whilst… Continue reading

Ben Young

December 1, 2016

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 11/18

Brand safety on recommendation ads is the hot topic this week. i.e. knowing that you advertise without having detrimental content to your left or right in the recommendation grid. In tandem Facebook/Google have/are banning fake news sites from their networks. This should help address the brand safety issue by reducing supply of shit ads. Could this mean a tough quarter for recommendation companies who rely on advertising arbitrage? In the meantime brands will spend on in-feed native, viewed… Continue reading

Ben Young

November 17, 2016

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 11/11

Trying a new section this week, gigs/jobs in the space, ping me if you’d like to add any. Hot topic this week is, what is the path to digital revenues for publishers? Replacing print advertisers fast enough. The challenge here is most of the market are focused on existing digital revenue ala musical chairs, whereas only FB + Google are focused on helping traditional advertisers make the swap to online. I think this is still a big opportunity… Continue reading

Ben Young

November 10, 2016

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 11/04

A crisp fall (autumn) week here in New York but lots going on: Facebook Q3 results are incredible, WSJ coverage of ad spend is very interesting. And I had a great time chatting with Patrick Keane at the LiveRamp RampUp event. Thanks if you made it. Facebook is nearing the limits of their ad load – with the next horizon Instant Articles and/or any other way they can get more attention. The curious part in the data is that… Continue reading

Ben Young

November 3, 2016

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 10/28

After acquiring a tan in Maui, I’m back in action! Bit of focus on AMP this week post Google’s roll out across all search results. This feels like a big opportunity and equally an invisible tax people are paying by not being optimized. If you haven’t by now figured your AMP strategy, now is probably a good time. I’ve grumbled on the technical roll out but it is improving rapidly and hugely extensible. And an ask: I’d love… Continue reading

Ben Young

October 27, 2016

This Week in Native Ads

This Week in Native Ads 10/21

  With Ben out of the office this week I’ll be jumping in to provide ‘This Week in Native Ads’… be nice 🙂 One of the biggest changes I’m seeing within the native content space (and not just this week), is the rise of native video across a wide range of publishers. For this week’s ‘campaigns’ we’ve focused on this format. It’s essential that when you’re looking to create video content with a publisher (or as a publisher), to remember… Continue reading

Hollie-Blue Allum

October 20, 2016