Snapchat organized its’ first partner summit.

Snapchat held partner summit, during which it introduced its’ audience network similar to that of Facebook. Professionals in the industry point out that Snapchat is quite often closed and do not reveal any plans, but this kind of events help them to be more transparent and show the progress. The social network is popular for vertical videos and with this innovation it will be able to place vertical ads on other partners’ apps. It is interesting that they also started partnership with Tinder and want to integrate Snapchat Stories into the app. Some experts also notice that ad networks are usually created, when all of the inventory on the platform itself is sold, but it does not seem to be the case with Snapchat.

Additionally, the company couldn’t neglect fast development of gaming and shared some information about it during the summit. However, it was not very surprising, because Snapchat recently partnered with a game streaming platform called Omlet Arcade. Games will also have integrated commercials, the part of thr revenue from which will go to developers.

Twitter: The promoted trend spotlight ads testing on the explore tab

When you are using Twitter on mobile, you will generally see the ads post during you scroll on Home tab. But mostly, people notice and skip the ads, and focus on the post that they are interested. To make the ads more attractive, Twitter decides to test the ads on the top of the explore tab, called as the promoted trend spotlight ads, which everyone can see when they need to check about the trend or the highlight topic.

Source: Techcruch

With that position, it is the eye-catching area that can help the brands to create more brand awareness and impact on driving the conversation within Twitter. The ads can be the photo or GIF on the background to be attractive spotlight among the trend list on the explore tab. Moreover, people can seek more about the ads by clicking on it, and they can see the feed related to the topic on the ads. Compare to the regular ads on the home tab; it is just one ordinary twitter post that cannot be explored more and also blended with other posts on the feed.


This change is an opportunity for Twitter to earn more revenue from the great ads on the explore tab which impacts to its turnaround and financial statement as well.

Resource:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/11/twitter-promoted-trend-spotlight/

Adweek: Facebook Begins Rolling Out Ads Within Messenger

The future of digital media is now. Mobile messaging, which is growing at a rapid rate and has significant engagement from users will soon have annoying ads. This of course is a small price to pay given that the ability to send messages to others is virtually free. That said, if what app includes ads, does it risk losing all of its market share to another app that doesn't show ads? Consumers certainly have many to choose from. I myself have 4 to 5 different messaging apps on my phone that I use interchangeably. This includes Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, GroupMe, WhatsApp, Slack.

Facebook has been pushing Messenger and all its new features heavily, basically forcing me to download the app. They will have to be careful and make sure to preserve the user experience.

The worrisome thing, like all internet targeting, is how deeply Facebook will utilize the information. Maintaining confidentially will be important because what I text to others is very private. I hope standards could be set in the future with regard to safeguarding our information, because I believe it will be increasingly more important.



http://www.adweek.com/digital/facebook-begins-rolling-out-ads-within-messenger/

Facebook introduces changes to video ads

Facebook is one of the sites with most viewed videos, but this is kind of controversial, as a person does not have to click the video for it to play.
Innovating in the video ad arena, Facebook announced that it will let advertisers pay only for video ads if it appeared 100% on a person's screen. This is definitely a move in favor of the advertisers as it will remove the uncertainty if the was played just because it is the way Facebook is considered or the person was actually interested.

How Facebook uses you to annoy your friends. And how to stop it.

In the last lecture we discussed how ads work on FB and we tried to create an ad ourselves. Amazed and amused, I finally discovered the roots of the most annoying (for customers and for me today) and profitable (for businesses and for me tomorrow) characteristic of Facebook: ads, indeed.

As a Digital Marketer, I loved this tool. In a simple way, I can target my potential customers and delivery my ad right on their homepages. Back in the customer’s shoes (in which I still feel more at ease), I hate it. I hate ads. I have always hated them. Except perhaps for those cool TV commercials of the 90s. Some. With years I developed a useful disease: a complete insensibility to ads. Blindness to ads on webpages, deafness to radio commercials, blindness and deafness to TV commercials. If ads had a smell, I would probably be unable to smell it by now. Facebook ads no: they are persistent, they force me to see them. Even worse: they are targeted. They know me, or at least think they know me. I was looking for a holiday a week ago and now I keep on seeing ads of flights, rent-a-car, hotels. They are terrible and powerful.

We have seen in class how FB, or better, the advertisers that use FB, targets us. Let’s now look at how FB collects information. The easiest way is, of course, when we like something. Easy: we like it, therefore we are interested. Secondly, FB understands what we are interested in from the data we provide (e.g. our age) and from what our friends like. More subtly, however, FB gathers information from every activity we do on the web. Facebook social web apps send information to FB and can post to our profile and to those of our friends. Also, FB cookies never expire: they are only altered when we log off, not cancelled.

What can if we want to stop FB? A lot, starting from 4 steps.

1) FacebookDisconnect: FB gets notified when you visit a page that uses Facebook Connect and that data can be used to target ads. Facebook Disconnect stops that flow of data.

2) Facebook Privacy List for Adblock Plus: This subscription for Adblock Plus blocks Facebook plugins and scripts from running all over the web so your browsing data doesn't get tied to your Facebook account.

3) DoNotTrackMe: DoNotTrackMe is another extension that blocks trackers and anyone who wants to collect your browsing data to create targeted ads.

4) Opt out of the Facebook Ads that use your actions (liking a page, sharing pages, etc) to promote ads to your friends. Disable Social Ads.

If you want this tools can help you protect your privacy from the intrusions of FB. However, we are digital marketers after all. So, keep them for yourself and don’t tell your client!

To know more:

http://lifehacker.com/5994380/how-facebook-uses-your-data-to-target-ads-even-offline

http://lifehacker.com/5843969/facebook-is-tracking-your-every-move-on-the-web-heres-how-to-stop-it

http://lifehacker.com/5987248/how-facebook-is-using-you-to-annoy-your-friends-and-how-to-stop-it

What Google knows about you and how can you manage the ads you see

Have you ever explored what Google shares with you about his knowledge about you?

Well, I suggest you go to your gmail account, click on your picture on the top right of your screen, and then on “account”.

Apart from some basic personal information (how does Google know all my phone numbers from different countries!?), you’ll find some pieces of interesting information.

On “Data tools”, you can “Search for yourself” and find out what people see when they search for you on Google. More interesting, you can “Stay current with web alerts”, and receive an email from Google when new information about you appears online (eg. when there’s a new search result for your name).

If you now go to “Account history” a bunch of information is available.

On the “Things you search for” you’ll find your own search history (obviously it includes both desktop and mobile search), and also some stats about your search activity.

If you have the “Places you’ve been” active, you can see a map and a line showing where you were each day. If you have bad memory and were asking yourself “what did I do two days ago”, don’t worry, Google tells you!

You can continue exploring the website, see what youtube searches you did, and what have you watched, and you finally arrive at the bottom of the “Account History” tab and have a section of “Ads settings”.

Google shows you some of your profile characteristics that it uses to show you “interest-based” ads on search, youtube, maps and gmail.

Apart from some basic demographical data that Google knows from my profile, they show me what languages do I speak (based on websites I visited) and also my interests. Yes, Google just told me what are my interests based on both my search history and websites I visited.

Finally, you have an “opt-out” of interest based ads option, Google states that you’ll continue to see ads, but they “may not be related to factors such as your interests, age, or gender”.

Twitter Ads- Novel or Nuisance?

Twitter is set to launch a product called “Promoted Tweets To Followers” in early August. The “Promoted Tweet” ads that Twitter had been selling until now mostly came up in searches. The “Promoted Tweets To Followers” would appear in/disrupt followers’ actual timelines and not just be the result of a search. However, ads will only appear for brands that users already follow. The full article on Twitter’s new ads is available here. I think this is a good step that Twitter is taking- by limiting ads to users who follow brands, the site is ensuring that its feed remains relevant and adds value for users- as opposed to just ending up as spam. What do you think? Will you be annoyed to get ads from brands that you follow even if you’re interested in the company? Will this cause people to think twice about following brands on Twitter?