Tag Archives: mobile ads

The One Somewhat Bright Spot For Embattled Twitter: Advertising

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From my Forbes blog:

On a day when Twitter’s stock got hammered in after-hours trading, it’s hard to find a bright spot for the embattled company. But if there is one, it would be advertising.

It’s certainly not user growth, which rose only 8 percent from a year ago–the slowest yet, and one of the big reasons shares fell 13 percent in trading after the market close. That was the key takeaway in Twitter’s third-quarter results reported today.

And even on the advertising front, the news wasn’t all good. In particular, Twitter’s revenue guidance for the fourth quarter came in substantially below what analysts had been forecasting, though comments from Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto on the conference call for analysts implied the company is being conservative about what is customarily a very strong December.

But while Twitter’s main focus remains getting more users and getting them to use Twitter more often, the bottom line ultimately is how much advertising revenues Twitter can generate. And few investors were complaining about the 60 percent jump in ad revenues, to $513 million. It would have been 67 percent if not for currency exchange rate changes. “Overall, the existing platform remains sufficiently differentiated and valuable to a sufficiently large group of advertisers,” Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research Group, wrote in a note to clients. “We think investors should focus on the company’s revenue enhancement initiatives such as the growing use of video units” and other advertising opportunities.

Today, Twitter cited a raft of other promising signs around advertising. …

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Billions Of Online Ads Are About To Die A Well-Deserved Death

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From my Forbes blog:

Businesses that run annoying ads on your smartphone and laptop are about to get a rude awakening.

Not only are online ad blockers quickly gaining in popularity, now two very big companies will soon offer us new ways to avoid in-your-face video and animated ads, pop-ups, and other intrusive ads that plague our online existence.

Today, Sept. 1, Google will start blocking ads that use Adobe’s Flash software, employed widely by video advertisers, in its Chrome browser. And as early as next week, Apple is expected to release its new mobile operating software for iPhones and iPads that will allow the installation of apps that keep ads from appearing in its Safari Web browser.

These developments suggest a new era in which you’ll finally be able to zap annoying ads like those in the video above. For a variety of reasons, it’s unlikely that ad blocking alone will cause advertisers and publishers a big problem. But the fact that the two biggest forces in mobile phones are both cracking down on annoying ads means the online ad business is about to change in a big way. …

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As Mobile Video Ads Soar At Facebook, Big Brands Pile In

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

From my Forbes blog:

Facebook’s second-quarter results today didn’t thrill investors, who knocked shares down more than 3% in after-hours trading. They don’t like to hear about an 82% jump in expenses to get revenue growth of half that much–even less so when Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of the social network, says that spending won’t slow down much anytime soon.

But advertisers were a different story–in particular, big brand advertisers like Procter & Gamble and Under Armour that are looking to reach people via the mobile devices they carry with them all the time. Mobile ad revenues shot up 74% from a year ago, considerably faster than ads overall, which rose 55% after taking out currency impacts, and it’s now 76% of ad revenue.

In particular, Facebook is starting to become a must-buy for big brands that still spend the most on television, because it has the reach and the impact they want. Now, according to ad agency executives, they think Facebook is finally poised to capture more TV ad dollars that Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has spent years pursuing.

“We see Facebook at a core pivot point,” says David Hewitt, VP and mobile lead at the digital agency SapientNitro. “It’s now a safe bet to put a lot of money into.”

In the last six to eight months, he says, brands have started to understand the reach Facebook has among smartphone users–some 844 million people each day. “It’s hard to get reach on mobile,” he says, but now “Facebook checks that box” in a way that few others online besides Google can. …

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Have Scammers Hijacked Your Phone For Mobile Ad Fraud?

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From my Forbes blog:

For years, scammers have been hijacking people’s computers into so-called botnets, opening hidden browser windows and automatically clicking on ads. That’s fooling advertisers and their ad agencies into thinking real people saw their ads, costing them billions of dollars a year in wasted spending.

Now, the fraudsters have started moving to mobile phones. Using a technique that one ad fraud detection company calls mobile device hijacking, the scammers use mobile apps such as games that run as many as 20 ads a minute, then simulate random clicks. Forensiq, a New York firm that provides ad fraud detection and prevention, today is releasing one of the first studies to look at the relatively new technique.

Already, the company says, more than 12 million devices have been infected–about 1% of devices Forensiq observed in the U.S. and 2% to 3% in Europe and Asia. Forensiq figures that the hijacking affects some 13% of all in-app advertising impressions.

The cost to advertisers is adding up quickly, Forensiq founder and CEO David Sendroff said in an interview. He projects that in-app ad fraud, which the company estimated at $857 million last year, will pass $1 billion worldwide this year.

Users generally don’t see any of this happening on their phone, at least not directly. But the apps–some 5,000 identified by Forensiq–still can be a plague on their phones. Forensiq found that in as little as an hour, a malicious app can download two gigabytes of images and videos, draining battery life and potentially burning through data limits. …

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