💾 Admageddon

Brace for impact! An accountability asteroid is headed for Ad Tech’s dinosaurs.

Author

Jeff Sauer
February 14, 2024

📢 TOP STORY

The biggest shakeups to online advertising can come when outsiders get a glimpse of how web monetization works – are revolted – and force change as a public service.

Adalytics is an online ad transparency tech startup created in 2020. 

Its founder is a computational biology researcher by training. He was attracted to ad tech by the oceans of available data, from log files and campaign info held by brands, publishers, agencies and ad tech systems to the public data that anyone with JavaScript experience can parse from web pages.

He was also disturbed by how advertising supported the spread of misinformation during the 2020 US election, and by the experience of personally being served ads for completely off-base businesses.

The question – “Why did I see this ad?” – eventually led Franaszek to launch Adalytics followed by a string of blockbuster ad tech exposés. Users pay to unlock specific information about which tech vendors, publishers and campaigns improperly served their ads. 

Although Adalytics focuses its reports on discrete topics, like the Google Search Partner Network or IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework, the company also offers traditional marketing analytics, like ROAS measurement.

Franaszek doesn’t have it out for Google specifically. Rather, Adalytics zeroes in on nontransparent ad products, and has a record of scoring real hits. Google operates the largest and least transparent ad platform out there, followed by Meta and Amazon. 

Although Adalytics produces research, at heart it’s a software analytics solution built for brands and ad buyers. Users pay to unlock specific information about which tech vendors, publishers and campaigns improperly served their ads.

 🤝 WITH ARIYH

The latest marketing science in your inbox

Effective marketing is built on science, not opinions. 

Ariyh turns the latest scientific research into 3-min recommendations to improve your marketing.

Join 25,000+ evidence-based marketers who get a new insight every Tuesday, for free. Subscribe for $0

📰 THREE HEADLINES

What is it about marketing that lends itself to using complicated words and jargon? Think about the terminology used to describe what it takes to do great work nowadays. Can you honestly tell me that any of this makes sense to normal people?

Read the books, get the knowledge, the tools, the frameworks. Understand the jargon, but then use it to interrogate the business better. Ask simple questions like: what impression do people have of us?

This tactic of faking competitor ads to sink Google Business Pages is an alarming new potential threat. Google linking LSAs automatically provides an opening for abuse, and time will tell if the company can find a solution.

As the search marketing community waits for Google to address the issue, this incident is an eye-opening reminder of extremes some will take to hinder competition. For now, businesses are advised to carefully monitor their Google Business Profiles and swiftly report any abnormalities.

Last week, the Connecticut Attorney General published a privacy enforcement update that made my stomach turn. A consumer had sent a complaint to the AG’s office because they received an advertisement in the mail for cremation services after recently completing chemotherapy. Apparently, the individual had been part of a list sold to the cremation company by a data broker.

We shouldn’t be talking about the letter of the law on this issue. We have to do better.

🧵 THREADS

MoEngage and Marketoonist Research Reveals 45 Percent of Brand Marketers Can’t React Quickly Enough to Deliver Timely, Personalized Customer Experiences

Almost half (45%) of North American business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers said they struggle to move quickly enough to deliver timely, personalized customer experiences. 

Given this, it’s no surprise that 65% of marketers plan to increase their technology spending in 2024. These marketers use at least five engagement channels to reach customers but still have outdated technology tools and even spreadsheets to manage and optimize them. 

In 2024, marketers indicate that they will measure success primarily through the lens of customer acquisition. Getting new customers is the top priority by a significant margin. Marketers should take caution and keep sight of prioritizing customer retention this year. Retaining existing customers through personalized engagement can provide better ROI than focusing too much on acquisition.

Email still takes the crown as the top customer engagement channel. But data points out a growing trend in digital spaces: Mobile Apps, SMS, and Push Notifications are on the rise. While they’re already showing a promising return on investment, marketers have barely scratched the surface of what these channels can do for customer engagement.

 🤝 Insights, Please

The latest marketing science in your inbox

Effective marketing is built on science, not opinions. 

Ariyh turns the latest scientific research into 3-min recommendations to improve your marketing.

Join 25,000+ evidence-based marketers who get a new insight every Tuesday, for free. Subscribe for $0

🎧 AUDIO VISUAL CORNER 🎥

🤝 A CALL FOR SPONSORS

Get Your Message In Front of 40,000 Marketers and Agencies!

There’s no better place to reach your target audience in the marketing world than the Data Driven Newsletter. But you will want to act fast. We only have one advertising slot available for January!

You can see rates and placements here to sponsor this newsletter and get your message in front of your ideal customers.

🎁 SHARE DATA DRIVEN