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At Centro, we know that keeping up with the trade pubs and latest trends can be tough and time consuming. To make that easier, we’ve compiled all the articles, reports, and other bits of awesomeness you may have missed, but should definitely read. Enjoy our latest list below!
Ad Blockers Are Employed by 10% of U.S. Desktop Users, comScore Finds
Adoption of ad blocking software remains flat when comparing mid-year to year-end 2015 numbers. It’s interesting to note that comScore’s report offers a more conservative adoption rate than reports by Adobe and PageFair, which recently stated that US ad blocking rates are 17%.
Retail Brands are Testing the Power of Messaging Apps
Sephora partnered with Kik to launch a one-to-one chat experience with its consumers. The service provides reviews, tips and recommendations, as well as the ability to buy products directly in the app. Digital savvy brands are looking toward messaging apps as a way to stay relevant to the mobile-first generations.
Algorithms are Being Tweaked and the Idea of “Free” Social is Dying
Facebook has been a pay-to-play environment for brands for a while, but now Instagram and Twitter are following suit. The bottom line: to succeed in social, the focus needs to be on creating content that will make an impact and applying a solid paid strategy that will make is soar.
Facebook Adds Video Ads to Articles
Facebook has set the bait and added video ads to Instant Articles in the hopes of enticing more publishers to join. Instant Articles enables easier access to a variety of news sources, along with faster load times for all types of content. Facebook rivals have already jumped in with alternatives to Instant Articles, like Google’s “Accelerated Mobile Pages”.
Mobile First? New Research Says ‘Not So Fast’
This article’s content may seem like a ‘no duh’ at first, but it contains some important considerations for marketers to keep in mind as to when and why mobile might be the right—or wrong—strategy for a given product or audience.
Publishers See Rising Premium on Mobile Advertising
A rising demand for mobile advertising opportunities is facing limitations, specifically the smaller screen’s ability to offer as many units as desktop display environments. Accordingly, publishers are now leaning towards creating more premium ad units that better enhance the mobile user’s experience.
MRC Proposes Mobile 'Viewable' Guidelines, Says Newsfeeds Remain Vexing
The MRC, as promised, finally released guidelines for mobile viewability which essentially mirror desktop standards, except for some differences for mobile newsfeeds.
With Its Total Audience Measurement Rollout Delayed, Nielsen Will Share More Connected TV Data
In a move that shows even further proof of the evolving TV and video landscape, Nielsen announced that beginning later this month, it will make brand-level data available from connected TV devices through its TV panel. The next phase will focus on identifying the apps viewers use to watch content on these devices.
Microsoft Gives Marketers Video Ratings Data On Par with TV
As part of the Microsoft Pulse service, the company is rolling out new technology for traditional marketers to rate ‘sentiment’ and ‘performance’ of messages in online video campaigns. The data gives media buyers, creative teams, and market researcher’s insight into what viewers think about their video ads.
Digital Audiences Become the MVP of TV Sports Sponsorships
With all the platforms and devices consumers have access to these days, it’s no surprise sports sponsorships have started to extend beyond live programming.
City-Wide Survey of Chicago Professionals Gives Centro Accolades for Workplace Culture;
Generous Employee Benefits Help Propel Centro to Consistent Growth for More Than a Decade
CHICAGO – April 7, 2016 – Centro (centro.net), a provider of enterprise-class software for digital advertising, today announced it has been rated as the No. 6 Best Place to Work according to Crain’s Chicago Business. In previous years, Centro had been No. 1 on the list for four years straight. Crain’s Chicago’s research showed that Centro employees credit the company’s generous benefits that include unlimited vacation days, 401(k) matching, medical/dental/vision insurance, and more. It is a testament to how Centro balances strong growth with responsible business practices and caretaking of employee needs. The company is continuing to add to its team of software experts, media specialists and sales leaders, and opportunities to join can be found on centro.net/careers.
To compile the list of top companies in Chicago, Crain’s conducts an annual survey with Buck Consultants to gauge the sentiments of the regional workforce. The research spotlights Centro’s positive culture as a staple of its business character. In the past couple of years, many organizations have given the company recognition for its programs and benefits that keep employees happy. Centro’s awards include:
“I am incredibly humbled and grateful for the appreciation our employees have bestowed upon Centro. Our efforts to build a lasting business that cares for employees, partners and customers are magnified by our position in Crain’s Chicago’s Best Place to Work list,” said Shawn Riegsecker, founder and CEO of Centro. “Our company’s focus on the well-being and happiness of our people has fueled the rapid growth and ascension Centro has experienced the past few years.”
To help drive its goal of making digital advertising easier for the people who work in the industry,
Centro added more than 200 team members throughout North America in 2015. The company is building the digital advertising industry’s first system-of-record technology for managing all aspects of the media buying lifecycle. Centro’s software platform automates and streamlines digital campaigns from start to finish across all sites, channels and devices.
Crain’s Chicago Business’ yearly survey with Buck Consultants, a human resources consulting firm, determines the Best Places to Work. With 191 companies applying and 13,100 professionals submitting survey responses, the evaluation examined a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative workplace factors.
About Centro
Centro (centro.net) is creating a platform to make digital advertising easier. Its enterprise-class software centralizes, organizes and automates all digital media campaigns across all channels, accessing both guaranteed and biddable inventory, to achieve any objective. Our holistic approach gives marketers a single system of record to fulfill their research, planning, buying, optimization, reporting and reconciliation needs. Since 2001, Centro has successfully planned and executed more than 250,000 campaigns across all digital display platforms and ad format types. Headquartered in Chicago with 32 offices in North America, Centro has received numerous accolades for its commitment to employees and workplace culture.
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Contact:
Anthony Loredo
646-462-4888
It’s clear that 2016 will be a breakthrough year for programmatic advertising in politics. In fact, just this week, Borrell Associates raised its digital advertising estimate for political in 2016 by 8%, now projecting a 620% increase over 2012 spending.
Programmatic media buying offers the ability to target voters more efficiently, at scale, serving relevant creative across devices. But with that promise comes a host of pitfalls that political buyers need to be aware of: fraud, quality, and brand safety.
Fraud
Smart buyers must protect themselves and their clients from the outright theft of their advertising dollars through fraud, but also have to be conscious of the environments that their ads appear in. At their most benign, misplaced ads are wasteful, and at their worst, they have the potential to be extremely embarrassing and damaging to a campaign.
Ad Quality
Campaigns are struggling to find scale within quality content, with a reported 70% of premium publishers blocking political ads as a vertical on the open exchanges. Doing the extra legwork to create private marketplace relationships with publishers directly – or working with a partner who’ll take on that heavy lifting – is essential this year.
Brand Safety
Centro is at the forefront of combatting fraud and creating safe, high-quality ad environments, and we made it part of our mission to educate marketers about these topics. So for this issue of Political Digital Digest, I’m going to focus on articles that highlight what you need to know to stay safe in the rough neighborhood of digital ads.
Each issue of Political Digital Digest brings you the latest news and developing stories about the innovative role digital media is playing in the 2106 election. Everything you need to know is right here, right now.
What You Need to Know
Examining the Ad Fraud Marketplace
http://www.campaignsandelections.com/campaign-insider/2674/examining-the-ad-fraud-marketplace Campaigns & Elections reminds us that if it sounds too good to be true…
Group finds campaign ads on ISIL-inspired videos http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/03/30/group-finds-campaign-ads-isil-inspired-videos/82446396/
The worst-case scenario example of why quality has to be a concern.
How Much of Your Audience is Fake http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-click-fraud/
A great behind-the-scenes overview of the fraud problem from Bloomberg
Why the Open Exchange Isn’t Always Ideal for Political Buyers
http://adexchanger.com/politics/why-the-open-exchange-isnt-always-ideal-for-political-buyers/
Who Should Be Responsible For Stopping Programmatic Ad Fraud?
http://marketingland.com/responsible-stopping-programmatic-ad-fraud-152412
If it’s in everyone’s long-term interest to stamp out fraud, why aren’t more stepping up? A look at the layers of participants and the role they play.
DSP Spotlight: Buying for Quality with comScore Bid Ratings https://centro.net/blog/centro-dsp-spotlight-buying-for-quality-with-comscore-bid-ratings/ Learn how to use this data to select the best-quality inventory for your campaign in Centro DSP.
Webinar: The Many Faces of Ad Fraud: Our ad fraud expert, Ian Trider, is hosting a 3T Spotlight webinar on April 20, focused on how you can protect yourself against the many forms of ad fraud, learn more here.
Response to our 3Ton30 webinars have been tremendous and as we continue our quest to educate and service our customers in the smartest and most efficient way possible, we’ve realized that certain pressing topics demand our full attention. When such topics arise, we shed light upon them with 3T Spotlight – a comprehensive, 60-minute webinar and Q&A that provides all the information you need on complex topics in digital advertising today.
April 20th at 1:30 p.m. EST premiers the new 3T Spotlight series, where Centro’s Director of RTB Platform Operations, Ian Trider, will give you an in-depth look at the current state of ad fraud. Specifically, Ian will give you insights into the many forms of ad fraud, how widespread the problem is and provide tips and best practices for identifying and protecting your brand against fraud.
Whether you’re well-versed in the murky and treacherous waters of ad fraud or you’re new to the subject entirely – our spotlight webinar on March 20th will be full of valuable Tips, Trends, and Techniques every marketer is looking for in order to dominate digital in 2016.
Click here to learn more information and to save your spot. Registrants will receive a handy prep sheet to guide them through the webinar. Can’t make it this month? Keep your eyes peeled for 3Ton30 webinars every month in 2016.
"Solid benefits include a new unlimited vacation policy; matching 401(k) contributions; an employee stock option plan; medical, dental and free vision insurance; 12 paid holidays plus one Save the World day a year for charity; and support for continuing education."
Read more in Crain's Chicago.
The use of HTML5 to code and create dynamic ads (over Flash) is gaining popularity. While Flash is used for ads with animation, video, and other creative elements, HTML5 also comes with the same benefits and much more. HTML5 is open source, which allows the developer community to quickly improve on it by fixing bugs, adding new features, increasing capabilities, and more. Flash is proprietary software and doesn’t benefit from the backing of the wider community. It is therefore more susceptible to malware and viruses, which could endanger publishers and users loading pages with content and ads that are animated by it. The industry has begun the shift toward HTML5 as a standard format of creating ads.
What’s happening?
Basis DSP is one of the first programmatic advertising software providers that enables users to upload and host HTML5 ads free of charge, without the need for a third-party ad server. HTML5 Ads allows users to directly upload HTML creatives as a Zip file in My Ads and link them to any of their campaigns. Users that have ad tag access will have the ability to upload HTML5 ads directly to the platform or as an ad tag.
Why is this important to users?
Unlike Flash ads, HTML5 ads can run on all platforms (desktop or mobile) and don’t require additional plugins to render correctly, thereby providing customers with a better experience to engage with ads. Additionally, HTML5 not only loads faster than Flash ads, but it also takes up less data when loading, which makes it more favorable on mobile devices. This is one reason iOS no longer supports Flash ads. Furthermore, HTML5 is not exposed to the same security vulnerabilities as Flash (as mentioned above), so both advertiser and internet user are better protected.
How would a user utilize this?
Users have two ways of uploading HTML5 ad tags in CDSP: 1) Upload the HTML5 zip file directly to Basis DSP or 2) upload a regular ad tag (just like they do today).
Hosted by Basis DSP: Uploading an HTML5 ad directly in Basis DSP means the user will be uploading a Zip file containing all the files necessary for the ad to display properly on a publisher’s site. Additionally, users would set the destination URL, determine if all the ad or just parts of it are clickable, and declare the ad’s SSL status. For detailed tips on creating ads in HTML5, the IAB provides some guidelines.
Third-party ad tag: Users can work with a third-party ad server to supply the HTML5 ad as an ad tag. This can be uploaded directly to My Ads. It is worth noting that unlike an HTML5 ad hosted by Basis, a third-party ad tag cannot be modified through Basis DSP — the destination URL and clickability functions of the ad will all be controlled by the ad server.
With Chrome now pausing Flash content that isn't “central to the webpage,” Flash ads, by default, will be paused on the first frame. Marketers using Flash in their ads (served in Chrome browsers) would be paying for a static ad unit that users would have to manually activate to see the creative. To bypass this hurdle, users can instead use HTML5 for their ads.
If you’re interested in HTML5 ads, give it a try on Basis DSP today.
The programmatic world provides nearly unlimited access to inventory of all types, but how do you select the best-quality inventory for your campaign? comScore Bid Ratings™ can help. comScore Bid Ratings™ leverages the classification technology from Proximic, acquired by comScore in 2015, and combines it with comScore’s rich data set, including the data that powers comScore Media Metrix®, Video Metrix® Rankings and validated Campaign Essentials™ (vCE®).
comScore Bid Ratings data is found in the Contextual and Brand Protection sections of the DSP UI. Choose from the following options in the “Contextual” section of the Campaign Editor:
These data segments can be combined — for example, to target the top 10 entertainment sites:
comScore Bid Ratings > MMX Category > Entertainment AND
comScore Bid Ratings > MMX Category Rank > 1-10
Just as with contextual segments, these data segments can be combined — for example, to target sites likely to have less than 5% invalid traffic and exclude sites with the worst viewability:
comSore Bid Ratings > Invalid Traffic > Likely to have <5% IVT AND
comScore Bid Ratings > vCE Viewability > Tier 5 (Bottom 20%) (EXCLUDE)
"Grace Briscoe (Centro) said her company maintains its own list of sites where advertising is both effective and safe. 'We spend a lot of time and invest a lot of money in making sure that we do have the controls in place for this.'"
Read more in USA Today.
"Some exchanges are putting out offers to address specific political “brand” safety concerns. Centro, which sells workflow solutions, also has an invite-only exchange called Brand Exchange, which last week debuted political targeting segments (“liberal,” “conservative” and “political influencer”) for political advertisers buying on news sites."
Read more in AdExchanger.