The Refresh: Google Guilty, Aperiam wheeling and dealing, the battle for DSP dominance and Brand Safety

Welcome to The Refresh, a weekly newsletter from AdTechGod and Marketecture. Every Thursday we’ll bring you the latest advertising news, commentary, and memes.

• Disney is laying off roughly 2% of staff (AdWeek)

• Fox closes upfront with upfront with digital and linear growth (Adweek)

• Google gives more transparency and controls for buyers (AdWeek)

• Reddit acquires Memorable ai to build its version of Google PMAX (AdExchanger)

• Aperiam Ventures is wheeling and dealing with 2 acquisitions in a week (Linkedin)

• Roku and the Trade Desk partner on UID2 (Press Release)

• Criteo touts its agency and walled garden partners (AdExchanger)

• Magnite tackles fully automated pre-bid wrapper optimization (AdExchanger)

• Criteo says Google won’t pull an Apple when it asks whether people want third-party data (digiday)

• X sues everyone (AP)

• Ziff Davis is buying CNET (The Verge)

Our dear leader gives his hot takes on the news of the week

Major Brands' ads found on offensive content, study claims industry-wide safety flaws

The latest Adalytics study reveals that ads from hundreds of major brands are appearing on offensive content, including racial slurs and explicit material, on the fan wiki site Fandom. The report underscores industry-wide brand safety issues and calls for improved technology and practices. The study found tags from major verification vendors on those pages, though DV wrote a rebuttal to these findings.

Ari’s view: While it is unclear whether the verification vendors were wrong in this instance, the general point I’ve been making for a while is that AI fully solves the problem on content analysis, and we should expect near perfect detection of bad content in the future.

AdAge article

Inside Google, Amazon and the Trade Desk’s battle for ad dominance

Google, Amazon, and The Trade Desk are fiercely competing for market share in the Demand-Side Platform (DSP) space. To attract advertisers, Google and Amazon have increased incentives, such as offering buying credits. Meanwhile, The Trade Desk is leveraging the challenges Google faces with its Privacy Sandbox, promoting its advanced user interface and robust fraud control measures. Additionally, Amazon is enhancing its DSP offering through a partnership with Magnite, aiming to position itself as a comprehensive programmatic ad solution. The U.S. programmatic display advertising market is projected to grow to $157 billion in 2024, with connected TV programmatic video advertising expected to reach $24 billion..

Ari view: There’s a clear leadership pack in the DSP space and most advertisers are trying to reduce the number of platforms they use for operational efficiency. There are still many niche DSPs that have a role to play, but none are really breaking into the leadership ranks any time soon.

AdAge article

Google Glitch

Google Merchant Center accidentally shared unencrypted customer and product info between accounts for two weeks, likely due to a Google Ads outage. Multi-account vendors, like agencies, are most effected. Google's response has been minimal, and the issue may be linked to a new account system rollout, causing further confusion.

Ari’s view: Shit happens. But it’s more about the lack of accountability from vendors we need to rely upon that is of concern.

AdExchanger Article

Chris Vanderhook from Viant calls out Nike

Chris’ POV, summarized: Nike's marketing strategy is outdated, relying heavily on performance advertising and lacking integration between direct-response display and brand campaigns. This approach focuses on last-touch attribution, which ignores the influence of brand-building activities like athlete sponsorships and TV spots. For example, a consumer inspired by Nike's Olympic ads and athlete endorsements may end up purchasing via Google search, but attributing success solely to search ads overlooks the broader brand influence. This flawed strategy, common among many brands, fails to recognize the connection between top-of-funnel and lower-funnel activities, ultimately misattributing credit and missing opportunities to create genuine demand. Nike needs to shift its focus from mere attribution to understanding the full contribution of all marketing efforts

Ari’s view: Chris has a point, and is largely saying the same thing a lot of other people have been saying — that if you over-optimize to the bottom of the funnel you are eating away at your future.

Linkedin post

Google guilty of illegal monopoly in search

A federal judge has ruled that Google violated antitrust law by maintaining a search monopoly through exclusive contracts, a landmark decision that exposes the company's monopolistic practices in online search. The ruling criticizes Google's deals with Apple and other companies as anticompetitive and highlights its high search ad prices. This decision has the potential to reshape online information access and impact Google's exclusive deals. Potential penalties could include implementing a choice screen for users and monetary fines, with broader remedies, such as breaking up Google, are also possible.

Ari’s view: I wrote about this pretty extensively in my newsletter earlier this week. The part of the opinion people aren’t talking about as much is the finding that there was a monopoly in text ads. Is there a chance the judge forces external bidders into search ad results?

CNN article

After Party: Return to the Golden Era of Madison Ave.

MadTech, Marketecture and Aperiam are thrilled to announce our next event in New York City, aptly named "Return to the Golden Era of Madison Ave.”

👉 Save your spot: https://www.adtechgodevents.com/ 👈

Event Details:
▶Located at the Virgin Hotel, NYC.
▶ 300 special guests from advertising, media, adtech and the agency world.

Sales is tough, we get it. The new strategy involves legal action. However, your quota won't be set until 2.5 months into the quarter, virtually guaranteeing you'll miss it.

We now have TikTok and Insta accounts, so make sure to follow us. It's time to update those keyword block lists!

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