CDP Institute

Score one for the rich guy.  Just days after Elon Musk’s X filed a lawsuit charging members of the World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Alliance for Responsible Media had “colluded to withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from X, the WFA has disbanded GARM. The suit probably won’t yield more advertising for X, but that was never the point.

Customer engagement platform MessageGears has announced that it is “Google cloud ready.” A native integration with Google Cloud Big Query will enable direct access to data in that repository with, says MessageGears, no need to copy or move it. A reminder that Snowflake is not the only game in town.

Data-driven content and creativity platform XR Extreme Reach has expanded its partnership with streamer Roku to improve performance and insights and optimize targeting. Shared customers will be able to deliver ads directly to Roku and track engagement, conversions, and sales. They will also be able to leverage XR content intelligence to enhance creative effectiveness.

The rich can do as they please and the rest should do as they’re told, is the apparent legal theory underlying many Elon Musk lawsuits. His latest case attacks major advertisers for avoiding the hate- and lie-filled cesspool that once was Twitter.  Speaking of which, five secretaries of state have sent a letter asking Musk to do a better job of blocking election-related lies, even though they clearly lack standing since none is so much as a uni-billionaire.

Last year, then-Twitter tried to address advertisers’ brand safety concerns by partnering with DoubleVerify and IAS, which promise to stop ads from appearing near objectionable content.   But industry gadfly Adalytics has just found that those services often fail to block ads when they should.  The study didn’t focus on X although the same problems probably apply.

TikTok has bowed to pressure to remove a supposedly addictive rewards program in many European countries. The TikTok Lite app had been awarding points to members for watching and liking posts and inviting others to join. The E.U. says TikTok failed to disclose the risks associated with using the app, including its addictive potential.

Channel partner marketing software serves brands that sell through independent dealers or franchisees. As you might imagine, it requires specialized features and is sold by relatively few vendors.  The list just got smaller: partner marketing vendor Ansira has acquired competitors BrandMuscle and SproutLoud and plans to fold their teams and technology into its current offering.

Meta has opened a new AI studio where anyone can build custom chatbots or “AI characters.” The chatbots can be deployed on social media platforms such as Instagram to answer common DM questions or respond to story replies. They can also be used by businesses to respond to social media messages faster.

Twenty-three percent of global programmatic mobile app ad spend was lost to invalid traffic in Q1 2024, including ad fraud, according to a new trends report from Pixalate. That represents $1.4 billion of the estimated $6.2 billion total spend. North America accounted for over half of that total spend.

Google lost a massive antitrust case on Monday when a federal judge ruled it has violated antitrust law to maintain a monopoly for its search business.  The opinion focused on deals such as its $20 billion payment to Apple to be the default search engine on the iPhone. Google will surely appeal.  Penalties will be determined in a separate proceeding, with the potential to restructure major portions of the internet economy.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has issued policy recommendations supporting open source work in the generative AI space. The availability of open source models, like the latest iteration of Meta’s Llama, allows developers to build independently on previous work, speeding innovation. The NTIA also speaks of minimizing risks of bad actors taking advantage of open source systems.

Up to 85% of visitors to retail websites go unidentified, according to a new report from retail marketing platform Bluecore. Identifying and engaging with visitors consistently leads to higher repeat purchase rates. There were also reactivation rates as low as 10% across the board — and reactivated customers spend more than new ones.