Vidmob analyzes the performance of advertising creative, which you might imagine would be a good business to be in. You’d be right: LinkedIn reports their headcount grew by 57% in the past year. And they just raised a $110 million Series D round, bringing total funding to $231.6 million.
Connected TV, which includes streaming, is cruising towards a 20% share of all TV advertising. Brand safety concerns are growing right along with it. Yahoo DSP is addressing the problem by integrating Comscore’s Activation product, which offers pre-bid inventory filters based on analysis of program content. The filters will enable fine-grained exclusions that protect brands while leaving more inventory available to advertisers.
This newsletter generally avoids writing about rumors, but the marketing world has been buzzing loudly with speculation that Apple is going to substantially increase its ad sales programs. Most of the buzz is positive, since nothing makes marketers more excited than a new ad channel. But some observers note that Apple’s privacy rules make it hard for other companies to sell ads to Apple customers.
It’s deal-making time for generative AI model builders and publishers who can provide them with quality data. Germany publishing giant Axel Springer is trading access to its data for Microsoft adtech, AI, and Azure hosting solutions. Meanwhile, The Financial Times has struck a deal with OpenAI to license its content with attribution of summaries and quotes.