Again, we can see sudden changes and innovations such as the Ads.txt project or gradual but overwhelming market changes such as a systematic increase in Facebook revenue. We bring a selection of topics that can be most interesting for advertisers and publishers. All topics include a hyperlink to the source data and articles.

Facebook and Google continue to in beating traditional Publishers

There is no doubt that digital advertising is the key medium for advertisers today. The following chart perfectly illustrates the ongoing trend of strong growth of digital advertising, particularly at the expense of traditional print advertising. Since the digital advertising emerged at the turn of the millennium, we have witnessed an obvious decline in investment in traditional publishing houses.

The chart shows the evolution of the advertising revenue of traditional publishing houses compared to online giants Google and Facebook. The values are reported in billions of dollars a year since 1950. Traditional publishers were at their peak period in the second half of the 1990s. Google and Facebook easily beat their current income. Source: Charman-Anderson.com

In less than 14 years, Google has been able to get to the revenue of the same amount all publishers of print media altogether have ever achieved. Facebook alone has exceeded the amount of investment in printed media in just seven years of advertising activity.

Significant changes can also be seen from Martin Sorrell, the CEO of British WPP group. Five years ago, his company invested the largest amount of money in advertising in traditional media. Google was at the fourth place in the amount of investment, Facebook was at the twenty-eighth place. However, in 2017 Google was definitely the first choice for WPP, and Facebook has become the second most important advertising channel for the entire group.

But not everything is lost for traditional publishers. Changing approaches will not be easy or cheap, but some possibilities exist.

By the way, do you know who are the largest media owners? According to revenue, the largest media house is the parent company of Google (Alphabet). Facebook is fifth alongside the giants such as Walt Disney, Comcast and 21st Century Fox.

Another interesting chart related to Facebook accounts for the largest share in the annual growth of revenue. As JACKDAW Research Analysis shows, Facebook is also behind Google on this scale.

The annual growth of revenue of media groups in billions of dollars. Facebook has a higher annual growth than Google. Source: Salesforce.com

The rise of video ads and mobile ads

We have already got used to the fact that mobile and video ads grow even faster than everything else in online advertising. It is interesting to compare the growth of digital video and TV – According to the eMarketer in 2018, digital video will grow 5.5 times faster than television. And, of course, Facebook and Google will be the biggest sharks in the ocean again. However, other groups are doing well – for example, Impression Media was completely sold out in December and is looking for new websites.

By the way, mobile phones are the reason standing behind the huge growth of Facebook. The following chart shows that Facebook’s desktop revenue has been stable at around $ 1.22 billion a year during the last few years. However, mobile ads on Facebook yield up to 8 times more.

Google supports adblock in Chrome, publishers have to adapt to it

The increase in the popularity of ad blockers has inspired Google. Google claims that the best regulation is the one we ourselves make plans for and while sticking to this claim, it announced a new adblock feature in Google Chrome at the beginning of 2018. The blocker itself should be active by default and it will filter certain ad formats that users have poor experience with.

Inappropriate formats could include, for example, unsolicited advertising “pop-ups” or a video ad that plays automatically with the sound on.

Due to the clear dominance of Chrome on the browser market, all online publishers have to adapt to this new fact and they will have to come up with less invasive ways of online advertising.

The chart shows the evolution of the shares of individual web browsers on all platforms (desktop, smartphone, tablet) since 2011. Source: Andreas Gal

First-price auctions come to the forefront

Until recently, the term Second-price auctions was one of the basic concepts in the programmatic sale of advertising. However, first-price auctions are spreading very quickly with header bidding. It means that the advertiser pays the amount he/she actually bids regardless of the amount the other bidder is willing to pay.

This brings necessary changes for advertisers in the field of price optimization – especially when it comes to retargeting, it is necessary to start setting reasonable ceiling prices – see Criteo’s thoughts. And it is also a big change for publishers who can make more money the implementation of headerbidding with first-price auctions.

Fight against fraud and for more transparency with ads.txt

The online advertising market is also undergoing major changes in the area of fraud-fighting. For example, Adform recently reported the emergence of a major US-dedicated fraud network called HyphBot, Google is also developing a special series of filters to greatly help legitimate advertisers and content producers.

And the implementation of the ads.txt file has also been considerably expanding.

It is strange how quickly this activity spreads. While no one has ever been asked to implement the ads.txt before the summer holidays of 2017 (in Impression Media), all SSPs started to require it more or less strictly after the holidays.

Between September and December 2017, more than 70,000 players in the online advertising market joined the ads.txt implementation. Even in August, ads.txt was used by something over 3000 companies. For example, you can track the speed of implementation in the so-called 2017 Ads.txt Trends Report. The following chart comes from this report:

The implementation of the ads.txt file in the fourth quarter of 2017. The chart shows the number of involved subjects in particular weeks. Source: Pixalate.com

GDPR and ePrivacy

The real start of GDPR implementation is coming, the regulation will be effective as of May 25, 2018. Everybody knows about it, everybody focuses on how to deal with it

But if you are from the advertising industry and you feel that GDPR is getting on top of you, then get to know that it is much more focused on banks, insurance companies, hospitals and other institutions that handle personal data to a much greater extent than people in advertising.

From the point of view of advertising, however, ePrivacy and the form in which it will eventually be accepted is probably more crucial for us.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Czech.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Czech.

In recent years, the revenue structure of media publishers has changed. Google and Facebook take a significant amount of money from classic publishers. A clear proof is Martin Sorrella’s statement that he invests $ 7 billion from client budgets into Facebook and Google this year: https://adexchanger.com/agencies/wpp-spent-7-billion-google-facebook-year/.

A quote from the article:

NewsCorp., Twenty-First Century Fox, Sky and Foxtel all tied as the second-largest destinations for client spend.

By comparison, WPP spent between $750 million and $2 billion with traditional media owners this year, said CEO Martin Sorrell on the company’s earnings call. Just five years ago, Google was the fourth-largest destination for WPP’s media investment, and Facebook was 28th.

These are alarming numbers for the owners of “classic” media. But why is that so? Because advertising on Facebook and Google is “effective”. Both of them sell targeted advertising (= programmatic) and do not charge extra money for targeting (the price is included in the payment for space/placement). And targeted advertising brings better results for clients.

When comparing our own campaigns, investing into Facebook and Google has also been growing significantly faster than into traditional media.

Publishers do not only have to adapt to it, they have to be better to succeed, and some part of the lost has returned to them.

However, it is easy to say and difficult to do. But I will give some examples how to make it work:

1) Effect for the client foremost

Publishers, lets be honest, please. For how many of your clients are you sure you understand their goals and needs? Some customers want specific placements, others high CTR, other high visibility, other purchases on their eshop, … and what do you sell them?

Do not sell what is the easiest thing for you, sell what the clients want and reassure yourself that they are getting what they want.

2) Measure, analyze, optimize

The time when the campaign was set up at the beginning and the report was sent to the client at the end is gone. Set up your systems and processes so that the campaign is constantly compared with and optimized for the client’s desired goals.

3) Be transparent and apply a partnership approach

Our personal experience with Google campaigns says: “The results are usually very good, but God, I’m never sure that our client’s ad will not appear on a terrorist supporting site or fake news site.” This is very dangerous, and every brand does not want to be associated with certain content. And no account manager wants to explain his/her client why the campaign managed by the account was just realized on such sites.

Media publishers have a huge advantage of knowing exactly what content will never appear in their media and they can guarantee this advantage to their clients.

4) Do not sell your data and impressions, sell the effect

The common business model of publishers looks like this: Clients, we sell your impressions for X, targeting the region for Y, targeting sociodemo data for Z, … it’s like a puzzle.

Facebook and Google are successful just because they do not charge for data (targeting) and impressions separately. They offer everything in their bundle and actively invite clients to target as much as possible. Because a targeted campaign is more effective than the one which is not targeted. In the end, the targeted CPT campaign costs more, but it is not listed anywhere in the campaign, and the higher price is automatically calculated and the client is happy with it because he/she see a better result with such price.

Traditional media publishers have to change their attitude quickly or they are going to come to their end.

Image source: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-tests-mid-roll-video-ads-2017-1

Even though retargeting is one of the most efficient methods of online marketing, there are only a few authors and articles which go into the depth of this topic.
I have chosen the best works on this topic from my point of view.

Book: The Retargeting Playbook

This is a perfect book to get the basic information about whole subject of retargeting. It was written by AdRoll employees – this company is specialized in remarketing. However, it was published in 2014 and some parts are getting outdated.
https://www.amazon.com/Retargeting-Playbook-Web-Window-Shoppers-Customers/dp/1118832647/ref=sr_1_sc_1

Book: A step-by-step guide to Facebook Dynamic Product Ads

My book about Facebook dynamic retargeting. It is rather a manual than a book and it is includes best practice tips and tricks.
https://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Dynamic-Product-Ads-guide/dp/1976134188/ref=sr_1_1

Infographic: The Seven Types of Effective Retargeting

Nice graphic elaborate of seven retargeting strategy – quick and easy.
https://neilpatel-qvjnwj7eutn3.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/image297.png

Infographic: Incredible Retargeting Ads stat

A very nice infographic about retargeting. Unfortunately, it is very old – from 2013.
https://corp.wishpond.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/7-incredible-retargeting-stats.png

Presentation: Retargeting 101: Everything You Need to Know About Retargeting

A presentation which is rich in information – a lot of texts, few pictures.
https://www.slideshare.net/Retargeter/retargeting-101-everything-you-need-to-know-about-retargeting

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Presentation: Q2 2017 Benchmark Report: Marketers Deepen Facebook Ad Investments as Mobile and Dynamic Ad Retargeting Soar

This presentation includes trends not only in remarketing regarding Facebook advertising.
https://www.slideshare.net/nanigans/q2-2017-benchmark-report-marketers-deepen-facebook-ad-investments-as-mobile-and-dynamic-ad-retargeting-soar-79538140

Presentation:  Intro to AdRoll Retargeting

It is not only an intro but a complete retargeting strategy. Unfortunately, it is from 2014 – so some parts are old. It is interesting but provides only superficial information.
https://www.slideshare.net/AdRoll/intro-to-ad-roll-retargeting

Sorry, this entry is only available in Czech.

Source: https://www.koeppeldirect.com/drtvblog/programmatic-advertising-benefits-trends-solutions-infographic/

Audience targeting isn’t a new idea, but as tools improve and the data we have access to gets increasingly more detailed, programmatic advertising solutions are getting smarter and better at reaching the exact group of viewers that a marketer wants to address.

Not only does the message go where it should, the return on marketing investment skyrockets and waste is reduced. There are a lot of benefits to like about programmatic advertising.

This is probably why it’s such a rapidly growing advertising trend, with programmatic ad spend expanding at a rate of about 20 percent annually. We’ve taken a deep look at programmatic advertising in this enlightening infographic to help you better understand where this marketing technique is going and what the future of programmatic advertising will look like.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Czech.

Pixel Helper is a Google Chrome tool which shows Facebook the pixels that are loaded on the website you’re browsing. Nice and fast, with no previous programming experience needed. In addition to troubleshooting errors on your website or e-shop, you can also use it to check pixels on other websites — a great way to learn from other’s mistakes!

If you haven’t installed Pixel Helper on your browser yet, do so now and keep reading for some useful tips on how to best utilize it.

This article was written at a time when facebook started implementing a new type of pixel that reads some data from the web, called “Microdata” and other events. They will be described in the following articles, and we will be missing out on this topic for simplicity.

What can Pixel Helper do?

To put it simply, Pixel Helper can show you details of a pixel installed on the website you are currently browsing. For more detailed directions of pixel setup, go to: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-pixel/api-reference

However, Pixel Helper doesn’t show you the entire code, just the most important part.

Let’s use modcloth.com as an example. After clicking the Pixel Helper icon on the modcloth.com homepage you’ll see this:

The script of the website code will read as follows:

In this particular case, the script doesn’t run within the web code, it’s launched through another program, so viewing and analyzing its details is a task for someone with programming knowledge.

What Pixel Helper shows at the click of a button:

• Pixel ID is 1524838827781275
• There is just one event reported on the web: ‘PageView’

If you want to see more details, simply click the event:

Now you can see what information they’re collecting, but this is nothing compared to what we’re about to show you.

Product pixels

More useful insight comes from looking at a specific product: https://www.modcloth.com/shop/dresses/garden-crossing-dress/10013124.html?dwvar_10013124_color=083&cgid=dresses_107#start=2 (Once this product becomes unavailable, the link will stop working. When that happens, we would love it if you emailed us and let us know so that we can update it and continue to use current examples. Thanks!)).

Here, Pixel Helper shows two events:

In addition to the ‘PageView’ event, which we saw on the homepage, there’s the ‘ViewContent’ event, which Facebook uses to identify a particular product:

• Product ID: 110882
• Product price: 89.99
• Product category: dress
• Product name: modcloth>shopping>pdp>garden-crossing-dress (click ‘show’ to view this)

This information is crucial for you as a website owner. However, your point of particular interest is the green icon indicating that everything is working properly. Should the icon turn red, something went wrong. An error might occur in pixel setup, in the product catalog definition, or while exporting products to the catalog. And that’s when ‘content_ids’ in Pixel Helper will come in handy because you know that this is where you should look for the error and you don’t have to search the entire catalog.

If you’re browsing your competitor’s website, you can see that their Product Catalog and Pixel are set up so that they can use Facebook Product Ads. In contrast, you can see that e.g. Etsy.com doesn’t use Product Ads at all (as of May 2017).

It might also be of some interest to check what e-shops put on their websites. E.g. Macys.com:

As you can see, they use three different pixels, two of which are set up incorrectly.

Keep in mind an error message may not always mean you did anything wrong. It’s simply to call attention to irregular use. For example, we leave some products out of the XML feed, therefore the pixel reports a bug. As long as you know why the error message is there and it’s used strategically, you’re fine.

Then there’s Wilson.com:

Ten different pixels, yet not one with correctly set products.

You can usually tell at first sight that there’s an error the e-shop should troubleshoot. In general, this is information useful for the e-shop owner and employees.

Inspire Yourself

When the time comes to set up your own pixel, it’s highly recommended to look for some inspiration from your competitors’ events and pixel setup first. You’re bound to come across some interesting and inspiring ideas to enhance your own work.

We recommend drawing  inspiration from XMLCanvas.com or Booking.com.

First we can check out Booking.com and their pixel setup:

Here, Booking.com gets a lot of interesting information from the pixel, which helps target ads. Information collected includes searches for  destinations, hotel quality, number of guests, number of children, type of facility, what device users are on, etc.

Interestingly, they work with pixels on the booking page where they use the AddToCart and Initiate Checkout events:

Now let’s look at  an  XMLCanvas.com pixel:

We launch many events which we use to collect information about visitors, such as:

• How many times they’ve visited
• What device they use to browse our website
• What per cent of the webpage they scrolled down
• How long they’ve been browsing our website
• And much more…

We use all the information accordingly when setting up advertising campaigns. Why would you retarget someone who’s visited your web just once and left immediately? All this can help us (and you!) boost ad effectiveness and cut costs.