Google is building a tabletop smart screen for video calling and more that will compete with Amazon’s Echo Show. The device could help Google keep up in the race for the smart home market after Amazon just revealed a slew of new Echos and as Facebook continues to work on its codename “Aloha” video calling screen. [Source: TechCrunch]
MailChimp took another step toward becoming a multichannel marketing platform, announcing that users can now create and deploy Google Remarketing Ads within its dashboard. [Source: MARTECH TODAY]
Both Twitter and Facebook have continued their push into TV-like content this week, with new announcements on programming which will further expand their efforts. [Source: Social Media Today]
Twitter’s defining feature — the tweet’s 140-character limit — may soon go the way of Instagram’s square posts and Vine’s, well, everything. If Twitter does opt to officially adopt 280 characters as the new maximum length, it would mark the biggest change to the social network since its founding in 2006 and the biggest big bet yet by the company to increase its user base. [Source: Marketing Land]
Instagram, which has traditionally focused on images as opposed to exchanges, has worked to stay ahead of the curve, introducing advanced reporting tools and features to give users more control over what they see on the platform. And now, Instagram’s adding in some new tools to help, with three updates to help improve community safety. [Source: Social Media Today]
Designed to help advertisers reach their audiences with relevant messaging, at scale, the new features touch on improved targeting options, creative offerings and measurement tools. [Source: Marketing Land]
Advertisers that run Bing Ads campaigns to generate leads can now upload offline conversion data back into the platform to get a more complete picture of campaign impact on actual sales. [Source: Search Engine Land]
Pinterest announced the unlocking of more than 5000 varied ‘interests’ that digital advertisers can target against a ‘Taste Graph’. This means a much better precision-based targeting will be made available for digital ad marketers, which in turn, is expected to boost the conversion from Pinterest substantially. [Source: Logicserve Digital]
Facebook’s introducing a new messages objective for ads which will help businesses raise awareness of their Messenger presence (and bots) and directly connect more users to the option. [Source: Social Media Today]
Snapchat debuted its latest augmented-reality ad format on Thursday. Advertisers can now create their own branded versions of Snapchat’s 3D World Lenses that allow people to augment videos shot with their phones’ rear-facing cameras with animated three-dimensional objects, like Snapchat’s famous dancing hot dog, that can be moved and resized to fit the scene. [Source: Marketing Land]
Expert Opinion:
1. How do you think Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) deals will work in India?
Ad tech is constantly evolving. We keep hearing about so many new technologies and platforms that offer a host of benefits for online advertisers and publishers.
Programmatic Guaranteed is one of the latest technologies provided by Google which eliminates lot of the back and forth that happens between buyers and sellers during a direct deal setup. With PG, a buyer can pre-negotiate the terms of a deal and lock-in their ad spends, delivery or volume commitment with an end publisher using Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) ad server. For advertisers, PG is about securing pre-negotiated rates against an audience that is otherwise hard to find.
Programmatic Guaranteed efficiently automates traditional reservation buys, enabling publishers and advertisers to negotiate and execute one-to-one deals in a secure digital setting. It is rapidly seen as a way to assure media buyers as well as sellers against concerns about the miss-delivery of various ads using such technologies, and also the potential loss of inventory prices via auction-based selling using real-time bidding (RTB) technologies.
Programmatic Guaranteed is a great way for hesitant buyers to test the programmatic technology. Buyers who are uncertain about programmatic are using the method to experience the benefits of programmatic buying, without the ambiguity that comes while bidding for a price and not knowing if the required inventory will be secured by them.
Publishers across every category and continent are seen to be offering larger inventory through programmatic deals. PG is expected to evolve rapidly in the coming years. Some of the key factors shaping the evolution of programmatic guaranteed include:
– Many publishers are pushing agencies to use PG with some publishers becoming PG only
– Advertisers are drawn towards the security and brand safety features of PG
– Multinational brands are driving buy side adoption
Programmatic Guaranteed is creating new opportunities for advertisers and publishers to connect. Programmatic guaranteed penetration is expected to grow 6 -10 times in India by 2020. Programmatic platforms are predicted to connect every piece of the advertising ecosystem in the future. By harnessing the power of data, inventory and audience discovery will become seamless, and it will be easier for buyers and sellers to find each other and their target audience. Building new relationships will become faster and simpler with the use of PG.
PG is indeed changing the ad tech space in India with many publishers and advertisers moving towards a future with the highest touch deals taking place in a programmatic environment.
