Meta Slams Apple Over ATT, Google Hit By Second U.K Anti Trust Investigation
Meta airs grievances over Apple’s market power in the mobile app industry To FTIA.
When the Federal Telecommunications and Information Administration (FTIA) asked what technology companies thought about Apple, Meta enthusiastically responded. Apple’s new tracking prompt has cost Meta billions of dollars and made innovation impossibly hard for them. Meta mostly criticizes Apple throughout 19 pages of comments. Meta, which is itself the target of a federal antitrust suit, paints Apple as a behemoth that restricts its ability to expand. Meta wrote in the letter,
Despite having some of the most popular apps in the world, Meta’s ability to innovate on its products and services and even reach its customers is determined, and in some cases, significantly limited, by the most popular mobile operating systems, such as Apple’s iOS.
Meta also made a connection between Apple’s ad business which witnessed explosive growth and its challenges in the same market. Other relatively smaller tech companies (mostly app developers), and the Coalition for App Fairness, a group that represents companies including Epic Games, Match Group, and Spotify, filed a comment to the NTIA that also criticized Apple’s market power. They have called on Congress and the Biden administration to act against the power of dominant app store companies like Apple and Google.
Whether this branch would take action is unclear, but it will be interesting to see what approach they decide to take against a tech company.
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Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s Chief Executive said,
We’re worried that Google may be using its position in adtech to favor its own services to the detriment of its rivals, of its customers, and ultimately of consumers. Weakening competition in this area could reduce the ad revenues of publishers, who may be forced to compromise the quality of their content to cut costs or put their content behind paywalls. It may also be raising costs for advertisers which are passed on through higher prices for advertised goods and services.
Since the tech giant owns the largest service provider in three key parts of the chain. CMA investigation will examine Google’s dominance in the following parts:
Demand-side platforms (DSP) allow advertisers and media agencies to buy publishers’ available ad space from many sources.
Ad exchanges provide the tech to automate the sale of publishers’ ad inventory via real-time auctions by connecting to multiple DSPs and collecting bids for them.
Publisher ad servers that manage publisher inventory and determine which ad to show based on bids received from exchanges and/or direct deals between publishers and advertisers.
CMA advocates for greater regulatory authority for overseeing anti-competitive behavior from tech giants under the new regulator ‘Digital Markets Unit’. It is expected to be introduced in 2020, with the power to fine tech companies up to 10% of global revenues for breaching new digital rules. However, the government has not given the watchdog the authority to impose such fines.
Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s Chief Executive-
This would be bad for the millions of people who enjoy access to a wealth of free information online every day. It’s vital that we continue to scrutinize the behavior of the tech firms which loom large over our lives and ensure the best outcomes for people and businesses throughout the UK.
In response, a Google spokesperson said,
We will continue to work with the CMA to answer their questions and share the details on how our systems work.
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Google Introduces New Ad Tools, YouTube Short Ads Are Coming
Google has announced numerous new ad tools at its Google Marketing Live event, including new ad options for YouTube Shorts, new layouts for Responsive Display Ads, improved analytics, and new ad testing options.
YouTube Shorts
YouTube has been teasing ads on Shorts since last October, but is now progressively rolling it out worldwide.” Google has integrated Shorts advertising into its Video Action and App campaigns. Brands will be able to connect product feeds to their Shorts promotions and make video ads more shoppable.
This could eventually be integrated into regular Shorts clips, enabling creators to monetize their content better. Although it isn’t available yet, the new display could prove valuable for brands, as Shorts delivers more than 30 billion views daily. As quoted by 9to5Google, the company said,
“This is an exciting milestone for advertisers, and a key step on our road to developing a long-term YouTube Shorts monetization solution for our creators, which we’ll share more about soon.”
Google Discover Feeds
Discover feeds are where people scroll through their favorite personalized content for ideas and inspiration. Though it is a lesser used Google app, the new video ad options could help to connect with users and offer more compelling and engaging ad experiences.
Display & Video 360 ad
Google’s also updating its Display & Video 360 ad options and getting new visual shopping ads.
Advertisers will soon be able to add Connected TV campaigns to reach affinity, in-market, and demographic audiences across YouTube and other ad-supported connected TV apps. On the top-left corner, one can swipe through various images accompanied by various product details, such as prices and ratings. This might include information about loyalty programs.
3D Models of products from merchants will also appear directly in search results, as Google claims 90% of Americans currently use or would consider using, AR for shopping.
Responsive Search Ads
Later this year, Google will roll out automatically created assets for responsive search ads, which should make ads more relevant.
“If you opt in, Google Ads will automatically create assets for you based on content from your landing pages and existing ads. The system will then display the best-performing combination of automatically created assets, and the assets you provide, to make your ads more relevant. The system will then display the best-performing combination of automatically created assets, and the assets you provide, to make your ads more relevant.”
Mobile-First Layouts For Responsive Display Ads
All-new, mobile-first layouts will allow advertisers to showcase their brand on full-screen portrait ad inventory. In addition, Google is introducing scrollable ads and videos based on the product feed.
Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max campaigns to help advertisers drive better results across Google’s channels and inventory They include A/B testing, campaign management, support for store sales goals to optimize for in-store sales, new insights, and explanations, including attribution, audience and auction insights, and optimization score and recommendations.
Google Insights
Google’s also adding new personalized trend data to its ad insights page to improve contextual understanding and targeting. They include three new reports- Attribution insights, Budget insights, and Audience insights.
Other New Advertising Features
Conversion Lift Test
Google is also bringing Conversion Lift tests directly in Google Ads and Display & Video 360. It will help to measure incremental conversions based on users and regions, and Search Lift tests will enable you to measure the effectiveness of YouTube campaigns at driving organic traffic to YouTube and Google.
Privacy-safe options for interest-based advertising and remarketing
There will be worldwide testing in Google Ads and Display & Video 360 later this year. These tests will incorporate signals from the new Privacy Sandbox APIs.
Ad Control Center
Earlier this month, Google previewed its Ad Control Center at its I/O Summit. People will be able to pick the types of ads they want to see more or less of and control how their data informs ads they see across YouTube, Search, and Discover.
There are several interesting new additions, but the new Shorts display option is the biggest. Users will be able to expand their reach with the rapidly growing Shorts audience. With the growth of TikTok, short-form video has become highly influential. Brands should take note of these options and work to find ways to make use of them in order to maximize appeal and resonance.
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Anthony Nakache Appointed as the New Managing Director of Google MENA
Lino Cattaruzzi has left Google to take on a worldwide leadership role as Global Customer Partner and Anthony Nakache has been named the new managing director for Google in the Middle East and North Africa, located in Dubai.
Lino has overseen Google’s business and operations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since 2016, during which time he has helped businesses in the area expand using Google’s products and services, as well as increased the company’s growth and presence through regional office developments.
Interesting Read: Google Replaces FLoC With Topics API
With the support of a covid recovery digital skills program, Google recently helped two million people and companies in MENA digitize and flourish.
Anthony Nakache has been with Google for more than 13 years. His most recent position was as the head of Google’s Online Partnerships Group, where he was in charge of scaling Google’s monetization solutions for publishers and developers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
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Google Replaces FLoC With Topics API
FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts), Google’s divisive attempt to replace cookies for interest-based advertising by arranging users into groups with similar interests, is no longer active. Google has replaced it with a fresh idea called Topics.
The idea is that while you navigate the web, your browser will learn about your interests. Google is now limited the number of subjects to 300, with ambitions to expand this over time. It will preserve data for the last three weeks of your browser history. These themes will not cover sensitive categories such as gender or race, according to Google.
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Google categorizes the websites you visit based on one of these 300 topics to assess your interests. A lightweight machine learning system in the browser will be integrated for sites it hasn’t previously classified and offer an approximated topic based on the domain name.
Google’s Privacy Sandbox lead Ben Galbraith said –
“The design of topics was informed by our learnings from the earlier FLoC trials. As such, Topics replaces our FLoC proposal and I want to emphasize that this whole process of sharing a proposal, doing a trial, gathering feedback, and then iterating on the designs — this is the whole open development process that we wanted for the Sandbox and really shows the process working as intended.”
How does Topics works?
When you visit a site that employs the Topics API for advertising, the browser will show you three topics that you might be interested in, one for each of the last three weeks, chosen at random from your top five topics.
Going ahead, this information will be shared with the site’s advertising partners, who will select which adverts to display to you. This would potentially provide a more private means of determining which ad to show you, and Google claims that it also gives consumers significantly more control and transparency than the current standard. Users will be able to review and eliminate topics from their lists, as well as disable the Topics API entirely.
Also Read: Google’s New Advertising Page Will Show Brand’s Recent Ad History
Is Apple Secretly Buying Google’s Search Advertisements?
Apple is said to be discreetly purchasing Google search advertisements for high-value apps on the App Store. Because Apple gets a 15% to 30% share of the app and in-app sales, some developers believe is affecting their revenue.
Apple is “secretly” paying Google advertisements that send consumers to an app’s App Store listing rather than the developer’s website, according to multiple app publishers who spoke to Forbes.
One source told Forbes,
“Apple is trying maximize the money they’re making by driving in-app purchases that people buy through the Apple Store. Apple has figured out that they can make more money off these developers if they push people to the App Store to purchase there versus a web flow.”
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Masterclass, HBO, Babble, Tinder, and Bundle are among the applications that have been marketed in Google searches, according to the report. The advertiser isn’t identified in the ads, but they all have essentially similar tracking data, indicating that they’re all purchased by a single business.
It’s worth mentioning that Forbes was unable to confirm that Apple was the buyer of the ad slots. Developers provided such information. It’s most likely due to the fact that the app developers didn’t pay for the advertising and that they all lead to an App Store link.
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Google Introduces New Ways For Publishers To Activate First-Party Data
Google unveils a new way for publishers to utilize first-party data for targeted advertising. Digital advertising is changing rapidly, and user privacy is at the heart of this change. Publishers, advertisers, and technology providers are rethinking and reimagining how they handle and use user activation to better protect people’s privacy online.
Google’s new offering lets publishers share Publisher-provided identifiers (PPIDs) with Google’s programmatic demand to improve their ad campaigns, targeting, and advertising experiences. Steve Swan, Product Manager, Google Ad Manager said in an announcement.
“By helping publishers expand the use of their first-party identifiers to more transaction types, like the Open Auction, our partners will be able to show ads that are more relevant to their audiences, which will increase the value of their programmatic inventory,”
What Is PPID?
As defined by Google in a blog post, Publisher provided identifier (PPID) allows publishers to send Google Ad Manager an identifier for use in frequency capping, audience segmentation, and targeting, sequential ad rotation, and other audience-based ad delivery controls across devices.
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The New System And Its Functioning
Publishers and advertisers will benefit from the new PPID sharing option because it helps protect their privacy.
- Google Ad Manager turns PPIDs into per-publisher partitioned IDs before sharing them with Google Demand, so users cannot be identified across different publishers’ sites and apps.
- As a result, Google Ads and Display & Video 360 collate anonymized data from publishers as a way to build audience segments.
- Advertisers can programmatically deliver relevant ads to publishers’ sites and apps using these segments based on first-party data.
- Furthermore, Publishers can earn more revenue in the auction while the data allows advertisers to unlock options, such as cross-device reach, frequency management, and creative optimization, without relying on cookies or other identifiers.
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Why Is This New Update From Google Important?
Steve Swan, Product Manager, Google Ad mentioned that Google prioritized this product area based on partner feedback. It will continue to create features that provide publishers with the data and identity tools they require to prepare and grow their businesses.
“Investing in first-party data is a privacy-forward way that publishers can increase the value of their programmatic inventory now and in the future.”
This move could help news outlets recoup some of the lost revenue from Google’s other policies in light of Google’s tumultuous relationship with publishers. This feature enables publishers to control what data is passed and to which bidders they send signals. The Ad Manager only routes signals on behalf of publishers, but it will not be able to read them. Likewise, advertisers who advertise on these publications can show a more targeted and useful inventory to readers while maintaining the privacy of users.
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Google Ads Launches Performance Max To All Advertisers Globally
Google ads announced an expanded rollout of Performance Max campaigns to all advertisers globally that will help them to drive more conversions.
What Is It About?
Last year, Google introduced Performance Max campaigns which enable users to buy ads across multiple platforms, including YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps, with one single campaign. In addition to keyword-driven Search campaigns, they complement Google’s full suite of advertising channels and inventory.
Google Ads launched Performance Max campaigns in beta last year, and advertisers that tested the service saw an average of 13% incremental conversion increase.
Performance Max campaigns will start to roll out to all advertisers today! This new campaign type can help you drive more conversions across all of Google’s ad inventory.
Check out new best practices and case studies → https://t.co/n0VEGlqPvg pic.twitter.com/jfgL2n3NoN
— Google Ads (@GoogleAds) November 2, 2021
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How Will It Help Advertisers?
Performance Max helps increase online sales, generate leads, or grow offline sales. It helps you achieve your goals in four main ways:
- Increasing conversions and value: Capitalize on new conversion opportunities by adjusting automated bids across channels in real-time.
- Finding new customers: Google’s real-time understanding of user intent, behavior, and context can help you create more relevant ads to target new audiences.
- Gaining richer insights: Performance Max campaigns are now included in the insights page.
- Working together with automation: Get better results through automation by providing high-quality creative assets and insights into which audiences convert well.
MG, Deezer, and Allianz are brands that have used the beta version of the campaign. Marketers report that it helped them improve their conversion rates, find new customers, and understand consumers better.
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New Features In The Works
The Google Ads team announced that next year it will add more Performance Max features specifically for retailers. Retailers with local inventory feeds will see new Search and Maps ad formats integrated with their products to help increase foot traffic to their stores. Furthermore, Smart Shopping and Local campaigns will be upgraded next year.
Eduardo Indacochea, Google, senior director of product management said in a blog post,
“We know the holidays are a critical time of year for your business. You should continue using Smart Shopping and Local campaigns to reach more shoppers across online and in-store experiences this holiday season.”
He further added,
“However, when the time is right for your business, you can start testing Performance Max campaigns before next year’s campaign upgrades.”
Google plans to continue investing in Performance Max and improving its automation technology in order to help businesses succeed.
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Google To Demonetize Ads That Spread Climate Change Misinformation
Last year, Google-owned YouTube announced that it will prohibit all anti-vaccination content on its platform except for COVID-19-related information. This time – Google is targeting climate change misformation.
In an attempt to debunk myths about climate change and discourage the denial of the phenomenon, Google recently stated that it is censoring information on its network that undermines well-established scientific data, effectively shutting out climate naysayers.
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After media buyers and content producers voiced reservations about ad misplacement, the tech giant revised its advertising policy to ban misinformation about climate change.
According to a company blog post, Google is targeting advertisers and publishing partners in Google-served ads who attempt to encourage climate change misinformation on pages and videos. It is also focusing on YouTube Partner Program creators attempting to monetize their climate change misinformation videos.
The blog post read –
“We’re announcing a new monetization policy for Google advertisers, publishers, and YouTube creators that will prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change”
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Google Ads : New Monetization Policy
Google’s new regulation specifically targets statements that claim climate change to be a “hoax or scam.” Furthermore, any claims that contradict long-term environmental patterns, and those that disregard crucial factors in climate change, such as greenhouse gas emissions or human activity causing climate change, are all targeted by the revised policy.
On climate-related issues, such as educated discussions on climate change and reliable research, Google will continue to allow advertisements and monetization.
Google made an official statement saying –
“We’ll look carefully at the context in which claims are made, differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim”
Also Read: Google Is Reportedly Planning to Index Instagram and TikTok Videos
Google Is Reportedly Planning to Index Instagram and TikTok Videos
Google is working on a potential deal with Byte Dance and Facebook to bring TikTok and Instagram videos respectively in Google Search results. At the moment, reuploads of Instagram or TikTok videos on YouTube or any third-party platform can be seen on Google. However, Google is trying a big change. If the deal goes well, Instagram and TikTok videos can be seen on the Search using the keywords. The tech giant is negotiating a deal to get data to rank and index the Instagram and TikTok videos on Search.
Regarding the deal talks, a Google spokesperson provided the below quote to The Information,
We help sites make their content discoverable and benefit from being found on Google, and they can choose how or whether their content appears in Search
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A Similar Deal With Twitter
In 2015, a similar deal was formed between Google and Twitter. As per the deal, Google pays a licensing fee to access the tweet data for indexing. Prior to the partnership with Twitter, Google did not rank and index individual tweets in search results like today. However, it is now easy to find Twitter content with a simple search.
If the said deal pans out, then it will be easy to find short-format video content as common as tweets in the search results. But the big question is will Instagram and TikTok hand over data to Google? Their reluctance is understandable, as Google owns YouTube and competes for the same short-format videos audience. Therefore it will be interesting to know if the deal turns into a formal agreement.
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Win-Win For All!
If the internet giants agree then it will be a win-win situation for all. The Instagram and TikTok content will be discoverable on Google and receive an annual compensation similar to Twitter. In the long-term, Google will have billions of new videos to an index which will make the search engine a destination for articles and videos. This will also increase the search volume on Google which means more opportunities for publishers.
Presently, the terms of the agreement are not available between Google and Facebook as well as Byte Dance. We will keep you posted on the progress of the deal. Stay Tuned!
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Google’s New Advertising Page Will Show Brand’s Recent Ad History
Google announced new changes to its online ads with a focus on transparency. The new advertising page will offer an overview of what an advertiser has run on Google’s platform in the past 30 days. It will disclose more information that allows web searchers to know more about the advertisers, why the ad is served, and other ads the advertiser has run on Google platforms like YouTube.
Insight Into The Advertisers Page
The ad catalog will give a comprehensive insight to consumers and advertisers at the ad creative for large to small local brands. The ad catalog also called ‘advertiser pages’ will be accessible through the ‘about this ad’ tab on YouTube and Search. For example, imagine you’re seeing an ad for a coat you’re interested in, but you don’t recognize the brand. With advertiser pages, you can learn more about that advertiser before visiting their site or making a purchase.
In addition to this, the search giant presents it as a useful tool from a consumer perspective to report any ad that violates the policies. On the blog, the Product Manager for Ads Privacy and Safety, Mojdeh Tomsich explains that the Advertiser Pages are based on a verification program. The program requires Google advertisers to verify information about their businesses, where they operate from, and what they’re selling or promoting. So far, Google has verified advertisers in over 90 countries to identify them as credible sources.
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Transparency Is The Buzzword
The changes are a part of the search giant’s broader revamp in the face of increased regulatory scrutiny. Google’s approach to online advertising has been shifting and is focusing on transparency and consumer privacy. Google shared that over 30 million users interact with ad transparency and control menus every day.
Users engage with our ads transparency and control tools on YouTube more than any other Google product. To help our users make informed decisions online — no matter where they engage — we will roll out the “About this ad” feature to YouTube and Search in the coming months.
The feature will initially be rolled out in the USA in the coming months and then in other countries in 2022.
Today, we’re introducing advertiser pages as part of our ongoing efforts to give users more information about the ads they see. From “About this ad,” users will be able to see the ads that verified advertisers have run over the past 30 days and more. https://t.co/lunm0YUnu5 1/2
— AdsLiaison Is Away This Week – Back 3/18 (@adsliaison) September 22, 2021
A Major Shift In Internet Ad Companies Data Sharing Strategy
In recent years, internet ad companies have been disclosing more information about how their ad targeting works, the data used for targeting, and the creativity behind the ads. The walled garden ‘Google and Facebook’ share in-depth information on political and issue-based ads. Facebook ads library is a searchable archive that provides all current campaigns including non-political ads. It provides a glimpse into the kind of marketing done across their apps.
Google’s advertising page is not a searchable archive and will appear only when a user is served an ad from any brand. If a user sees any particular brand ad then it will have access to that brand’s 30-day advertising history. These types of tools help in promoting more transparency. It aids consumers to procure more information about the entities in the case of any fraudulent too.
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