AD TECH AND MARTECH
Conviva, The Trade Desk | July 30, 2021
Conviva, a streaming analytics startup, launched its first ad tech product on Thursday, contextual data integration with The Trade Desk.
Conviva embeds a sensor in the videos or streaming material of publishers and programmers. The sensor is not a third-party data collector in the same way that a cookie or SDK is. Instead, according to Conviva CEO Keith Zubchevich, it is the tool that publishers use in their video players to monitor video quality and engagement, such as buffering rates or overall watch time.
“In the last couple of years, we began to collect extremely extensive content information, since there is no limit to what you can send through the sensor that sits in the video player, including contextual ad data and even IDs,” Zubchevich said.
The new Conviva bidstream connections, for example, may notify buyers whether a certain video spot is a short-form video, the length of a TV episode, or a complete movie, and can also provide contextual data about the kind of content that will play during that viewing session, according to Zubchevich.
According to Josh Sharma, VP of ad partnerships at Local Now, local weather and content streaming service and a pilot partner for Conviva’s data partnership, contextual advertising data for streaming video are frequently cobbled together from site pixels, mobile app SDKs, ad verification tech vendors, and aggregated third-party data sets, which monitor the page but aren’t embedded in the video player.
“For a long time, it’s been a source of frustration among our DSP partners that they do not see the context of the content itself,” Sharma said.
Aside from factors such as video length – is it a bite-size video or a full-length show? – he stated that Local Now, a subsidiary of Entertainment Studios (owner of The Weather Group and local affiliate stations), can use the Conviva bidstream integration to pass data about specific content adjacency.
Buyers can place more value on inventory if the context is precise. For example, some companies could be willing to pay extra for an ad spot during a kids cartoon if their buying platform allows them to target ad units following a sports-related scene rather than simply general family-friendly content.
According to him, the data could also assist advertisers in targeting users depending on session watch length. For example, suppose someone has been engaged and viewing videos with Local Now for the last hour, and that information can be conveyed in the bidstream. In that case, advertisers can bid more confidently on that impression.
According to Sharma, targeting relevant neighboring material during a movie, show, or news program is commonplace for linear TV advertisers. Bringing such capacity to CTV will help “bridge the gap” for television budgets, he says, since ad revenues are shifting to streaming content at a far slower rate than consumers’ viewing habits have changed.
According to Zubchevich, the Trade Desk was the natural starting point for this contextual data play. Conviva polled its publishing and broadcast partners, and The Trade Desk was a major source of demand across the board. However, he said that the company intends to expand to other DSPs and ad platforms.
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Facebook | September 24, 2020
The long-standing rule had been shifted to less stringent over the years, with this week marking their complete abandonment of the 20% text rule. Media buyers in Facebook’s platform began to notice recently a big change: their images were no longer being disapproved for a lot of text. When the Change Was Noticed. It’s been confirmed via a few sources the long-standing rule for Facebook Ad images being no more than 20% text has been sunset. Buyers started receiving direct communication from Facebook this week regarding this change: Prior to this communication, media buyers were noticing the text overlay tool page was redirecting: At that time, no Facebook documentation had been updated, but this appears to have been updated in the past few days. While it still gives tips on reducing text proportions in ad images, it now stops short of saying to keep it at 20%. Instead it now cautions the 20% metric as a best practice.
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DISPLAY ADVERTISING
Backtracks | January 18, 2022
Backtracks, the world's most advanced platform for end-to-end podcast and audio management, advertising and data analytics, announces today the addition of dynamic client-side ad insertion (CSAI) for audio. This latest offering will provide publishers, advertisers and creators “over the top” ad insertion capabilities by using VAST (video ad serving template, the combined standard in the digital advertising industry for both audio and video advertising) to access ads from multiple servers and destinations, with accurate measurement and analytics provided by Backtracks’ robust and feature-rich platform. The advancement of CSAI in audio and podcasting content adds extra value for marketers, expanding contextual ad and episodic targeting capabilities, the ability to benefit from and extend the advertising ecosystem built around video advertising into audio. Additionally, it allows creators to take advantage of growing demand from advertisers, while having yet another way to increase creator earnings.
This announcement marks the first of multiple innovative product releases from Backtracks to come in early 2022, all aimed at further modernizing the podcasting industry through the development of technology and tools that gives advertisers and publishers greater access to the best fit of content, ads, and audience. Advertiser enthusiasm for podcasting rapidly increased in 2021 as consumer behavior towards spoken audio has evolved and audiences have steadily expanded. IAB projected that podcast advertising revenue would top $1 billion in 2021 and double to $2.2 billion, by 2023. Backtracks is dedicated to continuing to serve this rapidly growing media channel by providing the most advanced infrastructure platform for advertisers and publishers alike.
Our universal approach to audio advertising is the first-of-its-kind. Backtracks is applying the power and flexibility of all the versions of VAST from 2.0 to 4.2 to podcasts, pre-recorded audio, and live audio. By pushing the envelope we are directly solving long standing problems in podcast and audio advertising capabilities and optionality. Host read or spoken ad’s have long been the podcasting norm, and while they have their benefits, there are limitations to the reach and scale for both publishers and advertisers.”
Jonathan Gill, Founder and CEO of Backtracks
Client-side audio ad insertion allows for dynamic and targeted advertising that’s interchangeable by listening context location, time-of-day, episode, content, and more. Similar to experiencing a YouTube ad, but without breaking apart the listening experience in the middle of a sentence, dynamically inserted and contextually relevant ads that are not embedded or baked-in allow for a more satisfying user experience, and additional campaign scale revenue options for advertisers and publishers.
Backtracks’ integrated software platform allows advertisers to find, click and buy podcast ads with confidence and clarity - seamlessly integrating with brands and agencies’ advertising strategies, while harnessing the power of in-depth actionable analytics to know and grow podcast advertising campaign success without the capture and storage of personally identifiable information and cookies. Backtracks allows publishers and creators using the Backtracks Player to monetize their content and control ad placement across shows and episodes on any app, live-stream, over-the-top audio or digital radio with IAB verified metrics and analytics.
2021 was a year of innovation and milestones in the product landscape for the Backtracks platform to deliver unprecedented value to podcast publishers and advertisers. The company made advancements in technologies including; podcast analytics, podcast attribution and conversion tracking, AI insights, machine learning, Backtracks SDKs, Backtracks Player and accessibility tools, interactive audio and head-nod detection in Apple AirPods and supported earbuds, IAB podcast measurement certification for podcast analytics and advertising metrics, and a collaboration with Google Cloud to allow advertisers view their analytics data within Google Data Studio.
In 2022, Backtracks will continue to invest heavily in further development of existing and new product offerings across its infrastructure and data platform. Its continued innovation in audio technology is aimed at advancing the industry and continuing to help podcasters and audio partners around the world better measure, monetize, and advertise in audio and podcasting.
About Backtracks
Backtracks is the leading technology infrastructure platform for end-to-end podcast management, advertising and data analytics. Through a product suite of turnkey tools and data analytics solutions, the company provides the technology for publishers, brands and advertisers to gain greater insights for engaging, reaching and understanding their target audiences while delivering a superior listening experience to their listeners. Founded in 2016 by engineers Jonathan Gill and Kevin Wright, Backtracks is on a mission to modernize the podcast medium by providing podcasters and advertisers with the tools to measure, discover and monetize their content and data. The company empowers thousands of podcasts and audio partners, including Wondery, This American Life, McKinsey & Company, RANE, Samsung, Mediahuis, OECD, The Memphis Grizzlies, and NASA.
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