OpenAP, the identity graph provider owned by Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Warner Brothers Discovery, has convinced three major programmatic ad sales platforms to use its OpenID identifier. Advertisers buying through FreeWheel, Magnite, and Xander Monetize SSPs will be able to target and measure deduplicated OpenID audiences for both linear and connected TV. Media agency GroupM will be the first buying agency to adopt OpenID.
Google made a slew – maybe even two slews – of announcements today at its Search On event. Most relevant to this newsletter were new features related to shopping, including visual search, personalized results, and buying guides compiled from multiple trusted sources. It’s probably safe to say that Google wants to reclaim its position as the top product search destination, now occupied by Amazon.
Ad buyers have so many different targeting options that it’s hard to know which are really important. This Pubmatic study provides an unusual bit of clarity, at least for the connected TV (CTV) world. It turns out that targeting at individual users is the most common CTV ad buying method (used by 87% of buyers), followed by contextual ads (79%), cohorts or segments (71%), location (63%), and publisher (55%). Now you know.
It’s tough to get brand safety right, but the industry keeps trying. IPG Mediabrands announced a new set of tools to find and block inappropriate ad placements, while IAS expanded its suitability measurements to include standards from the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). Meanwhile, DoubleVerify admitted a mistake made brand safety on X/Twitter look worse than it really was in October 2023 and March 2024.