The AdMonsters team is back for another week of intense courtroom drama in the Google vs. DOJ trial. We’re now deep into week three, and let me tell you, the plot has thickened faster than a bowl of your grandma’s gumbo.

Week 3 Overview

If you’ve been keeping up with the trial, you know we’ve already had heavy hitters taking the stand, spilling the tea on Google’s iron grip over the ad tech ecosystem. But this week? It’s all about the tangled mess of “ad tech spaghetti.” Google came out swinging in its defense, but rather than clearing things up, they managed to tangle themselves up even more. It’s like watching someone try to detangle a pair of headphones — they’re only making it worse.

Check out the AdMonsters Team breaking down the highlights of week 3 of the DOJ vs Google trial in the video below and you can also catch their weekly updates on YouTube.

Key Testimonies

Andrew Byrd jumped into a few polarizing testimonies, particularly from witnesses like Mark Israel. Israel defended Google, claiming regulators focused too narrowly on open web display advertising. He waved off the allegations like, “Look over there! TikTok! Facebook! Amazon!” — and suggested that competition from social media platforms and e-commerce sites like Facebook, TikTok, and Amazon was being overlooked.  He was saying just anything to divert attention from the real issue.

His argument that Google’s share of the online ad market had dropped from 15% to 10% over a decade due to a shift toward mobile and app-based advertising was… let’s just say, an interesting flex. Critics like Ariel Garcia from Check My Ads quickly noted that this defense overlooked the publishers’ plight, focusing too heavily on advertisers.

Publisher Concerns

Andrew further elaborated on testimonies from Kenneth Bloom from BuzzFeed, who, despite some nervous energy, praised Google’s ad display business. The over-reliance on Google’s tools is real, and it’s leaving publishers in a tight spot. There’s a clear tension—while some publishers benefit from Google’s ad tech, it’s a double-edged sword.

A viral LinkedIn post from Ariel hit the nail on the head: publisher revenue losses weren’t fully addressed in Israel’s defense, leaving his argument feeling like Swiss cheese — full of holes.

Eyewitness Accounts

To make matters worse, Yakira talked about when a Google project manager called a prominent ad tech journalist “stupid.” Talk about drama. These actions only underscore the growing tension and contradictions in the testimonies that have been the hallmark of this trial.

Internal Google Emails

One of the most damning pieces of evidence has been internal Google emails, which disclosed strategic advantages gained through acquisitions like DoubleClick. The DOJ used these documents to argue that Google’s market power resulted from deliberate actions to stifle competition, not just from good business practices. Oh no, say it isn’t so. Say it wasn’t a well-orchestrated game of Monopoly with Google holding all the prime real estate.

Judge’s Stance

Judge Brinkema isn’t letting anyone slide either. She’s been giving some Google employees the side-eye, openly questioning their credibility. You know things are getting shaky when the judge looks at you like Hmm emoji. This added yet another layer of drama to the proceedings, leaving Google’s defense team scrambling to keep their narrative intact.

The Complexity of Ad Tech

To wrap up the week, it’s clear the ad tech ecosystem isn’t just complex—it’s like the ultimate Choose Your Own Adventure novel. And guess what? Google isn’t just a chapter; they’re the whole darn book. Their fingers are in every part of the ad tech supply chain, from publishers to ad buyers, and everything in between.

Transparency Issues

Of course, transparency (or the lack thereof) is an elephant in the room. Key testimonies are happening behind closed doors and some trial documents are sealed. It’s giving major “black box” vibes. The public and the industry are left speculating about what’s really at stake.

Implications for the Future

So, there you have it. Week three’s tangled mess of spaghetti — that none of us would want to eat — unveiled a web of power plays and serious courtroom drama. We’ve got Google’s defense team spinning its wheels while the DOJ tightens the net around Google’s ad empire.

At its heart, this trial isn’t just about Google; it’s setting the stage for the entire ad tech industry. You can bet competitors like The Trade Desk are watching this soap opera unfold, taking notes on what not to do. Will this end with a Google split-up, or will they find a way to wriggle out of this like Houdini? Only time will tell.

Got thoughts on the trial? Head over to our Slack community polls and spill the tea. 

The post Google vs DOJ Trial Week 3: Ad Tech Spaghetti and Courtroom Drama appeared first on AdMonsters.

I had no idea that would be omen. (Also, I’m wondering if I could have cashed in on some ad tech nostalgia…)

Last week a blog post dripping with PR glaze informed us that DoubleClick for Publishers has been merged with AdExchange to become Google Ad Manager—“a new name that better reflects how our platform helps you earn more and protects your brand, wherever your audience is engaging and however advertisers are looking to work with you. “

No more DFP and ADX, but GAM in its place. Whereas DFP will always be “Dat F—ing Platform!” to me, I’m afraid GAM brings to mind images of a single, detached but very shapely leg.

So am I weird to envision this every time I think about Google Ad Manager (GAM)? pic.twitter.com/ruza53I5F1

— Gavin Dunaway (@AdMonsterGavin) July 3, 2018

Already I can hear the quotes—

“I can’t get a leg up on fourth-quarter forecasting revenue in GAM.”

“Check out the GAM on that suite of sites!”

“I knee you to traffic those ads in GAM in calve the time.”

“The discrepancies coming out of GAM are so thigh!”

Gone too is AdWords, amputated to just “Ads.” In addition, DoubleClick’s buy-side products and Analytics 360 Suite have been condensed into Google Marketing Platform—and I strongly suggest that you yell, “Bring out the GMP!” every time you load it up.

A Merger Made in… HELL?

Terrible, terrible jokes aside, the name changes are the resolution of a year-and-a-half long merging project between Google’s various platforms. (A friend even noted that Google Ad Manager is a resurrection of a Google product from before the DoubleClick acquisition.)

What’s the point of this unholy fusion? SYNERGIES! Make somewhat disparate Google offerings work better together!

And considering that the melding has been under way since about the same time Google announced Exchange Bidding for Dynamic Allocation—the server-to-server connection right into the exchange formerly known as AdX that popped out of beta in April 2018—my guess is that the top goal is to try and wean publishers off of header integrations and get them hooked on EBDA demand.

It seems funny to me that there’s no longer even a pretense of separation between ad server and SSP/exchange. The name change re-emphasizes that Google will leverage its near-monopolistic control of the publisher ad server market to shoo away other demand sources—whether or not that’s good for the publisher or the advertiser.

[Quote_1]It’s another attempt to squeeze out competition and keep publishers (and advertisers) sucking at the Google teat. I can never forget that Google’s Dynamic Allocation managed to further throw the playing field into disarray beyond the waterfall.

Google will always try to spin the odds in its favor—which is not something that other SSPs and programmatic offerings do. Consider AppNexus and Index Exchange working towards standardization in header wrapper integrations. As we’re seeing with Open AP and the Advertising ID Consortium/DigiTrust, industry collaboration between competitors can be the rising tide that lifts all boats.

However, Google plays to win, and seems to have no qualms about slowing the progress of the industry on the whole if it drives more revenue for shareholders.

The Peanut Gallery Speaks

Fortunately, I think smart publisher ops people will foil this effort just like they did with header bidding. I turned to my publisher base to get their read on the re-birth of Google Ad Manager and the feelings were mixed.

• The chief advantage seems to be enabling programmatic and direct-sales ops teams to work in the same system. One called it quite the boon for holistic yield management efforts. Since the rollout has been rather gradual, some have been able to easily adjust.
• Others however suggested that the merging has somehow created more annoyances and work than before. It seems pulling reports (and getting certain data included) is a work in progress at best.
• Some questioned how the consolidation will affect pricing.
• The unification has made it easier to offer programmatic guaranteed, including integrated first- and third-party data products as well as custom executions.
• Can’t complain about easy access into EBDA—there is quality demand coming through that channel.
• But especially in the wake of its GDPR power grab, publishers are wondering what data Google will take advantage of… and how?

So while many welcome the move, skepticism is flowing throughout the publisher community at typical levels. I expect to hear far more about it at the August Publisher Forum in Portland, OR. I am aware we need to change the name of the “DFP Commiseration Group” at PubForums—how does “GAM Appreciation Society” sound?

UPDATE July 9, 2018: Google reached out to tell me that the branding for Google Ad Manager is simply Ad Manager. But I’ll never forget the leg… GAM on, my friends—GAM ON!

The post Death of DoubleClick, Birth of a Monster? appeared first on AdMonsters.

 Facebook head of security Alex Stamos grabbed a lot of attention this weekend and maybe even riled up some oppressed developers when he demanded on Twitter that Adobe set an “end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the browsers to set killbits on the same date.” 

It is time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the browsers to set killbits on the same day.

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) July 12, 2015

He claimed the major reason developers are slow to upgrade to HTML5 is that they believe bug-prone, malware-carrying, ultimately insecure Flash will live forever. Not even Steve Jobs could kill it, so it must be… IMMORTAL. (Cue Queen theme to Highlander.)

However, a slew of announcements point to Flash lingering to oblivion on its own – sooner rather than later. The latest is Firefox’s June 13 decision to block the technology completely from its browser. This seems much more drastic than the Google Chrome Flash Pause (or the Chrome Plugin Power Saver), which has set the digital advertising community atwitter over the past few weeks. 

At the same time, Mozilla Support Chief Mark Schmidt admitted that Flash could be re-instated on Firefox as soon as Adobe “releases a version which isn’t being actively exploited by publicly known vulnerabilities.” Yes, it will be back… (Flash isn’t like the Terminator because not only is it old, it’s also obsolete.)

According to WT3 Tech, that Flash is only used by 10.6% of all websites. Designing websites in Flash went way out of fashion when Adobe cut mobile web support for the technology in 2011; responsive design powered by HTML5 has dominated site redesigns since. 

We all know it’s advertising that’s clutching to Flash for dear life, and the Chrome Pause puts a stop to all those animated times. Google DoubleClick account representatives sent emails to their clients late last week confirming that the Chrome Plugin Power Saver will be default on the popular browser as early as September 2015. With the second largest desktop browser share, it’s effectively a death sentence for Flash. 

Advertising has clung to Flash for numerous reasons. First, it’s a well-known tool with kits and libraries aplenty for developing content (namely creative) quickly. The same kind of support for HTML5 has been limited, but is quickly growing.

Beyond that, most programmatic platforms have strict file-size limits (the famous 40K) that Flash, the great condenser, can squeeze into. HTML5 files tend to be big because they contain a whole helluva lot of files. For example, loading videos in Flash is easier than HTML5 because different browsers prefer different formats and sizes; therefore, ad units need multiple video files. (Incidentally, some older browsers don’t support HTML5, so that actually requires including a fallback Flash file.)

As you can imagine, that bulks up HTML5 creatives considerably, but it seems to ridiculous to be stuck with 40K limits in the age of the petabyte (1,000 terabytes). With Flash going out of favor fast, expect programmatic platforms to up their capacity quick. The Google Display Network’s recommended initial maximum file size for display banners is 150K, but total load size taps out at 2.2 MB.

The Chrome Pause affects units smaller than 400 pixels wide or 300 pixels long; a conversion tool in DoubleClick Campaign Manager automatically converts non-rich-media Flash ads into HTML5 ad units. But flashy Flash units appear shaded gray with a “play” arrow on top. Hoo boy, I can’t wait to start pressing play on those ads… Said no web user ever. Incidentally, impressions are still being counted. 

Google’s advice: hop on the HTML5 train fast! And of course Google has services to help with that, including the Swiffy converter and Google Web Designer, both of which are free. But publishers should take this moment to examine a bigger creative opportunity. More on that here.

The post #OPSPOV: Flash in Freefall appeared first on AdMonsters.

“We are excited to be bringing the real-time, programmatic buying to Brazil,” commented Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management for AdX and a speaker at AdMonsters Brasil. “We’ve found, in other markets, that the ability to buy and sell ads in real-time is an amazing way to improve the performance of marketers’ campaigns, increase yields for publishers, and grow the overall display pie for everyone. With the launch of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange in Brazil, we are excited to introduce this powerful platform to this vibrant and quickly growing market.”

We caught up with Scott to hear more about the Latin American launch as well as his thoughts on why this is a prime time to expand in the Brazilian digital advertising market.

Why has Google decided now is an opportune time to bring AdX into the Latin American market – Brazil in particular?

Brazil is one the largest, global economies in the world with a vibrant advertising ecosystem. In many markets, we see that consumers are switching their media consumption from offline to online, but advertising spend has not kept pace. The DoubleClick Ad Exchange allows ad networks and trading desks to leverage their audience data to reach users online. This increases the ROI for online advertising and brings the spend more in-line with where users have migrated – increasing the online advertising pie for everyone.

What is the most exciting aspect of the Brazilian digital advertising marketplace? How is it different from other markets?

The 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil present huge advertising opportunities. Events like these will give Brazilian pubs an opportunity to capture greater audience and increase their revenue. In addition, these events will attract significant advertiser interest. These events, in combination with the maturing market for online advertising represents a great opportunity where programmatic buying can really help.

What aspects are pushing ad dollars to digital marketing in Brazil?

In general, more and more consumers are spending time online. This media consumption rate is disproportionate to the amount of spend by advertiser and agencies online. Tools like programmatic buying and others allow advertisers to better target their advertising online and help brig spend in-line with consumer behaviours.

In addition, there is a massive trend towards mobile media – viewing sites or using apps on cell-phones and tablets. According to Mobile Business Briefing, Brazil reached almost 250 million mobile connections in 2011. It’s now larger than Mexico, Argentina and Columbia combined, according to Mobile World Live/Mobile Business Briefing (Feb. 17, 2012). We believe explosive growth like this will bring more ad dollars and tools like the Ad Exchange enable high-ROI advertiser spend across multiple media platforms.

What do you see as the biggest challenge currently in Brazilian digital advertising? What’s looming on the horizon?

Every market has its own nuances that can impact adoption of new technologies. For digital advertising in Brazil, one of the key challenges is bringing advertisers and inventory together. For example, there is a significant amount of online view content available in Brazil, but online video advertising spend has not caught up to it. Similarly, there is a much faster mobile adoption rate in Brazil than in many countries, and many advertisers still struggle to get a strong ROI on mobile inventory. We hope to partner with many clients in Brazil to help work through these challenges and build a vibrant advertising market.

What opportunity or opportunities are currently being missed in the Brazilian market? Do you expect that to change in the near future? Why or why not?

There are many opportunities in Brazil. One immediate opportunity is the ability to sell non-Brazilian users to international advertisers or for Brazilian advertiser to buy Brazilian consumers on non-Brazilian sites. These types of international transactions used to be hard to execute and therefore more costly than the value they produce. With technology like the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, these transactions become simple to execute.

The Brazilian digital advertising scene is heating up – AdMonsters Brazil will bring digital advertising leaders and ops professionals together to discuss and develop best practices for the budding Brazilian online ad infrastructure. Register today for AdMonsters Brazil, which will be held April 24, 2012, in São Paulo.

The post Como Vai Voce, DoubleClick Ad Exchange? Latin American Launch Q&A With Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management appeared first on AdMonsters.

Yesterday at the AdMonsters Publisher Forum in Palm Springs, Google gave us a peek into DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Optimization, new technology to “supercharge” the value of both premium and non-premium inventory. We caught up with Alex Vogenthaler, Senior Product Manager, to see how DFP’s new solution differentiates itself and how publisher ad ops expectations are evolving.

What ad op pain points is Google aiming to relieve with DFP Optimization? When implementing the technology, what’s the first thing the ad ops team is likely to notice?

Ad ops will often hear from their Sales team that if they could improve the overall performance of an advertiser’s ads (in terms of clickthrough-rate or conversion rate), the Sales team could close bigger and better deals. Or an ad ops team might hear that to retain a key advertiser, who is frustrated with site performance, they have to drive better performance. What is ad ops to do though? Typically someone on the team will try tweaking targeting (content, time of day, user lists, etc) to find pockets of traffic that perform well for the campaign. But with the number of possible tweaks (literally in the millions), it’s an impossible job to do manually.

DFP Optimization solves this problem by 1) automatically segmenting a publisher’s traffic along every possible dimension: all data from ad tags, any user lists, geography, time of day, site section, etc and then 2) performing controlled experiments for every ad to see which segments perform best for it. It does all of this while respecting the existing targeting and schedule for the ads. The result is automatic lift in performance of virtually every ad across the site.

How does DFP Optimization improve on the ad server’s previous optimization technology? What leaps have been made regarding modeling and pattern recognition?

The system is entirely new, built using the exact same machine learning models that power Google’s own AdWords optimization system. This system supports effectively unlimited numbers of segments, and it refreshes itself automatically every night. Any new data coming in on the ad tags and any shifts in traffic patterns are accounted for within 24 hours.

The other major improvement is that contextual data from AdSense is automatically incorporated into the model for every publisher. AdSense crawls millions of sites and classifies them into a category (e.g. “sports cars” or “digital cameras”), and automatically crawls advertiser landing pages, to help determine what is being sold (car insurance or flash memory cards, for example). Using this data, DFP Optimization can automatically pair run-of-site or run-of-section ads up with just the right content, even when publishers’ own CMSs don’t have subject tags on their articles.

What sets apart DFP Optimization from other publisher-side optimization solutions? How does the service leverage other Google technologies?

DFP Optimization is fully integrated with DFP, so the system is ready to use for all of a publisher’s inventory with the flip of a switch. In addition to advanced modeling and pattern recognition, the system is able to leverage Google’s AdWords machine learning and AdSense contextual matching as additional signals to help deliver ads to users who are more likely to respond to them.

Can you go into detail about reporting features such as the control group? How can publishers best use these options to increase ad spend?

Reporting for DFP Optimization is awesome! All of the reports are built right into the UI, so for any ad or slice of inventory a publisher can see what their lift was (increase in clicks or conversions), the number of extra clicks or conversions, the impact on eCPM (for CPC ads), and what percentage of traffic was optimizable. It’s all right there — including charts and graphs.

Your question about the “control group” gets to the heart of how we can produce these reports. We separate the delivery of every ad into a “test” and “control” group, to perform controlled experiments. That allows us to measure the increase in performance and chart it out right in the reporting UI.

Publishers can use these features to show advertiser how their system performs versus a “non-optimized” baseline. The effect is more repeat business, larger deals the next time around, more referrals and fewer make-goods.

Beyond DFP Optimization, how are publisher expectations of their ad servers changing? How is Google addressing these?

I’ll mention two things here:

1) We heard from publishers for years that impression-based pricing for optimization technologies didn’t line up with their expectations. Publishers who want to use optimization really want to use it on all of their inventory. With the new version of DFP, because the system is so scalable, we have been able to switch to an all-you-can-eat pricing model for Optimization. Once a given publisher signs up with the service it is on for all of their traffic, 100% of the time.

2) Publishers don’t see mobile and video as separate, experimental projects anymore. And they don’t want to use separate technologies to monetize them. With that in mind, DFP Optimization has been built from the ground up to inherently support mobile and video.

Up to date on the latest happenings in the automated trading space? OPS Markets will bring digital advertising leaders and ops professionals together to discuss and develop best practices for operational excellence in the evolving automated landscape. Register today for OPS Markets, which will be held April 18, 2012, in New York.

The post Powering Up Performance With DFP Optimization appeared first on AdMonsters.

At OPS Markets London on Thursday, Feb. 9, Sean Harvey, Business Product Manager for Google DoubleClick, will speak toward the “Audience Opportunity,” or how the sell-side can get a leg up in the bustling data trade. In this exclusive Q&A with AdMonsters, he tackles ad servers’ biggest challenges at the moment, publishers’ evolving use of the RTB space and unified measurement across platforms.

What are the challenges facing ad servers like DoubleClick in 2012? What are you doing to overcome them?

I focus on publishers and their challenges are ultimately our challenges. I see three big ones: video, audience and reconciliation. With video we’re being asked to invest aggressively in our premium video capabilities, especially around monetization and video syndication. Publishers ultimately want a single ad serving platform across display and video, so it’s our job to have the best tools for both. So that’s exactly what we’re doing.

On the data side publishers are demanding better tools to manage data. We need to provide analytics and insight that give them a good sense of why buyers are buying a given set of inventory and what its value is.

With respect to reconciliation, this is flat-out the biggest single operational stumbling block in our industry, period. We’ve tried industry standards and it just hasn’t worked. So we’re starting to build tools into DFP itself that will provide more direct integration, transparency and control over the whole process.

What are your thoughts on the RTB market in 2012 and who do you see as the key players/ones to look out for?

Publishers are the ones to look out for in 2012. This is the year that pubs will begin to enter the RTB market in force – as buyers. From a demographic and personal interest perspective, large publishers often know their users just as well or better than the big agencies. Taking that relationship with their audience and extending it offsite via RTB is a very big long-term opportunity. Some of our savviest sell-side customers are already using our DoubleClick tools to define their audience onsite and then extend that relationship across the web via RTB.

Many have touted 2012 as the year mobile realises its potential – do you agree? Can mobile be monetised effectively with the tools currently available?

We’re used to thinking of a “mobile” device as a phone. But a tablet is a “mobile” device too, and tablet applications are starting to provide a rich, interactive creativity. Tablets are going to be a major driver of industry growth next year, and the quality and interactivity of the ads they deliver will grow over time to be unparalleled in any medium.

We’re also seeing much greater demand from premium buyers for the ability to deliver true cross-platform campaigns that span from desktop to video, tablet and phone, with each platform having a key role to play and unified measurement across the environments. I would say this is the year of cross-platform – which encompasses mobile but is not limited to it.

What was the thought process behind acquiring Admeld and what do you see as the challenges for Google now in taking this on?

We wanted to give our publishers more control and flexibility in the way they manage their inventory and maximize their returns. The acquisition was just completed in December so it’s quite early to discuss integration, but we expect to be able to make AdMeld’s services available to our DoubleClick Ad Exchange and DFP customers over time.

What do you see as the main impact on the digital ecosystem of Adobe relinquishing Flash and opting for HTML 5?

Flash isn’t dead quite yet and will still be a big part of the mix for creative agencies in the coming year. But the increasing adoption of HTML5 will ultimately make life easier for everybody.

Up to date on the latest happenings in the automated trading space? OPS Markets will bring digital advertising leaders and ops professionals together to discuss and develop best practices for operational excellence in the evolving automated landscape. Register today for OPS Markets, which will be held February 9, 2012, in London.

The post De-fragmenting RTB and the Challenges Facing Ad Servers in 2012: Q&A With OPS Markets Speaker Sean Harvey, Business Product Manager, Google DoubleClick appeared first on AdMonsters.