Drip Sequence💧

In case you missed it:

I sent out a report detailing the comp survey, if you missed the first newsletter the URL for the LookerBI Dashboard can be found right here.

If you are here for the Google API Doc leak and nothing else, link is right here and you can skip the rest if you want to.

Also I am always open to suggestions to evolve this newsletter, feel free to either DM me on IG or reply back to this email with feedback or with stuff you would want to see in here.

Headline Overviews

• A Zero Day TikTok Hack Is Taking Over Celebrity And Brand Accounts A TikTok hack has compromised accounts of celebrities and brands, including CNN and Sony, through malicious code in direct messages. The breach raises significant concerns about platform security and the safety of brand accounts. If you haven’t already, highly recommend enabling 2FA onto brand accounts unless it creates any significant bottleneck in your work flow.

• TV’s Upfront Ad-Sales Talks Start to Heat Up, With Some ‘Rollbacks’ Expected TV networks and advertisers have begun negotiations for the annual "upfront" ad-sales market, with early focus on Disney and NBCUniversal. Pricing for ad slots on streaming platforms, particularly Disney+ and Hulu, is a hot topic, with expected CPM rollbacks of up to 3% for less-valued inventory and potential increases of up to 5% for high-demand content like sports. The influx of new streaming inventory and uncertain advertiser budgets may lead to a second consecutive year of reduced ad commitments for TV networks.

• Meta is testing unskippable ads in the Instagram feed Instagram is testing non-skippable ads in its main feed, locking scrolling and requiring users to watch ads for a few seconds, a first for scrolling social media platforms. The new "ad breaks" have received negative reactions from users who find them intrusive. Despite user discontent, Instagram continues to generate significant ad revenue, with $22 billion reported in 2020, making it a major revenue source for Meta.

• Court rules Google must face £13.6bn advertising lawsuit Google faces a £13.6bn lawsuit in the UK, alleging it used its dominance in the online advertising market to act anti-competitively, causing UK publishers to lose revenue. The case, brought by Ad Tech Collective Action LLP, claims Google engaged in "self-preferencing," promoting its own services over rivals and charging high fees to publishers. Despite Google's attempts to dismiss the case as "speculative," the court ruled it can proceed to trial, highlighting ongoing scrutiny of Google's adtech practices by regulators in the UK, Europe, and the US.

• Ad market braces for M&A surge The advertising market is anticipating a surge in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), driven by companies like Publicis and Mediaplus making early moves. This trend is expected to continue as high interest rates and economic uncertainties push firms to consolidate for stability and growth. Influencer marketing agencies and ad tech vendors are likely targets, with dealmaking activity predicted to pick up significantly towards the end of the year, particularly in the U.S. and eventually in Europe.

• L’Oreal media departs WPP for Publicis EssenceMediacom X, part of WPP, has lost the L'Oreal UK and Ireland account to Publicis Media, a significant shift given L'Oreal's massive £220m advertising spend in the region. This loss, coupled with a pending re-pitch for another major client, Sky, raises concerns about WPP's recent strategic decisions, including merging digital specialist Essence with Mediacom. WPP's broader strategy to simplify its media agency offerings faces challenges, and the outcome of these high-stakes client relationships will be crucial for the company's future stability.

The Trade Desk Wants Us To Get To The Future, Faster

The following article is a contribution by Shiv Gupta of U of Digital

The Trade Desk’s ‘premium internet’ shift stirs concerns among publishers over ad dollar allocation (Source: Digiday)

Summary: The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green sent publishers in a tizzy when he recently laid out the DSP's vision for a "premium internet" defined by high-quality ad inventory, first-party data, and user consent. Some publishers are worried that they'll get cut out of the equation if they don't have enough email addresses or support Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), The Trade Desk's alternative identifier. Some are concerned that they'll lose control of their data by integrating with UID2, since they'd have to share hashed emails of their logged-in users with TTD, who would then propagate that data across the web. The Trade Desk says publishers only need to have 5%-10% of their audiences logged in to grow their ad revenue from The Trade Desk, but reaching that threshold is a big lift for some publishers. The Trade Desk says publishers can increase their logged-in user bases with OpenPass, its single sign-on product that collects email addresses and converts them into UID2s. All of this makes publishers wary about the amount of control The Trade Desk has over their ad businesses.

In related news, The Trade Desk released their first ever ranking of the top 100 publishers. The Trade Desk is continuing to define the "premium internet" with its new list, which will be updated every six months. Hulu is No. 1 in the inaugural list, followed by Disney and Max.

Opinion: The Trade Desk is exerting their market power on publishers. Why? Because they want first-mover advantage to be able to monetize the best of the open web. They believe that's the way of the future. Let's unpack their strategy.

The scrutiny on quality inventory along with cookie deprecation has pushed publishers to a crossroads; will they play nice with ad tech or put up their walls in order to wrestle back control? Smaller publishers will definitely play nice. They have no choice. Either play nice and maximize programmatic demand to extend your runway or die now. Some big ones will play nice too. But the cream of the crop will try to put up their walls, as they aspire to be in the class of Google and Amazon and not just another publisher beholden to ad tech. The Trade Desk is working hard to prevent these walls from going up, for the benefit of their customers (marketers) and for the longevity of their own business.

The Internet will likely bifurcate into two tiers in the future: the walled gardens, and what Jeff Green is calling 'The Premium Internet'. The long-tail of the Internet will largely die off. And when that happens, so will the droves of ad tech companies that make a living off of monetizing it. All that money will move upstream into The Premium Internet and the walled gardens. That's good for The Trade Desk, especially if they can minimize the number of walled gardens and maximize the size of the Premium Internet.

While The Trade Desk rails against the walled gardens publicly, it quietly knows they aren't going anywhere, so it is pushing the Premium Internet narrative in order to take out the rest of its competition and consolidate all of that long-tail ad spend up to its sweet spot.

The Trade Desk wants us to get to the future, faster, and be in the driver's seat when we get there. It's a smart strategy.

Reported Layoffs

• Layoffs reported at STN Digital 5/31

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