💾 The ad-blocking arms race

Will dynamic ad insertion (ad stitching) be the solution to ad blockers?

Author

Jeff Sauer
March 15, 2024

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📢 TOP STORY

Many prefer to see ad blocking as a wake-up call that requires a mindset change by publishers and advertisers. Others see yet another tech problem to solve. Enter ad insertion.

Server-side ad insertion, also known as “dynamic ad insertion” or simply “ad stitching,” is a technology that lets publishers stitch their video and ad content together on the CMS level rather than on the level of the browser. It’s a technology that’s been around for years but one that’s picked up steam as ad blocking has become a bigger concern for publishers.

To understand why ad stitching is important, you first have to understand how most video ads are currently served. Videos and video ads are coming from different places — videos typically from a content delivery network (CDN) and ads from a third-party ad server, such as Doubleclick. These are then combined on the fly when people start watching videos. With server-side ad stitching, that combination of video and advertising happens on the backend.

Ad blockers work by scanning pages and using filter lists to block domains that lead to third-party ad servers. The ad blockers can then prevent ads from being served while also letting publisher content through. Server-side ad stitching, however, combines the ad and video content into a single stream, which means that if the ad doesn’t get through, the video itself doesn’t either.

“Having tech that lets you make those kinds of changes is pretty powerful, and we’re just starting to see what people can do with it,” said Alan Ramaley, CTO of thePlatform, which sells tech to video makers.

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Every day, real people go to Reddit to fuel their passions, solve problems, and make decisions. Behind the billions of posts and comments, Reddit’s interest-based communities are a one-of-a-kind foundation for businesses to understand, inform and engage authentically online. 

Reddit Pro is giving businesses and organizations the tools to unlock where, when, and how to effectively participate on the platform, whether as a complement to their Reddit ads or as a means of standalone organic engagement. Businesses using Reddit Pro – which is currently in its beta test phase – have access to an interface with multiple tools via their existing or newly-established Reddit user account.

Hundreds of major brands unknowingly have their ads served on Made for Advertising (MFA) websites. Ads are being placed on these sites through both programmatic and non-programmatic channels, according to a new study by Analytics.

What are MFA websites? MFA websites are sites created primarily for profit through advertising and generally provide a poor user experience, potentially damaging the reputation of digital advertising overall. They often have poor-quality content and display a high number of ads.

Amidst the decline of third-party cookies, businesses are turning to contextual advertising.  Contextual advertising allows advertisers to supply relevant ads to users based on near real-time analysis of the content that they consume rather than relying on past browsing behavior. This not only addresses privacy concerns but also ensures that ads are more aligned with user interests and preferences.

The shift towards this type of advertising is further fuelled by advancements in web scraping and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Through leveraging AI-driven algorithms, advertisers can analyze the context of publicly available online content at scale, allowing for more nuanced and targeted advertising campaigns.

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In a remarkably short time, generative AI has gained widespread popularity, emerging as a transformative force in marketing. 

Capgemini research institute’s recent cross-sector research found that generative AI holds significant potential in sales, customer service, and marketing. 

Additional consumer research on generative AI underscored consumers’ comfort with AI’s implementation in marketing and advertising, provided it doesn’t negatively impact their overall experience.

Almost 60% of organizations are already integrating generative AI into their marketing efforts, and 37% of these are actively implementing it across various initiatives. 

Furthermore, close to 80% of organizations have either already allocated a budget or plan to do so in the next six months to integrate generative AI into their marketing initiatives. There is strong consensus among marketers that generative AI will not diminish but rather augment human creativity in the long run.

While generative AI poses challenges and risks, nearly 60% of the organizations surveyed believe the benefits outweigh the risks.

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