Ridiculous is in the eye of the beholder, but facts should not be. At least, that’s the theory behind NewsGuard, which rates the reliability of news sources. They just did a deal to make their ratings available to contextual ad targeting platform Semasio, which will let Semasio clients avoid placing ads on unreliable sites.
Subscription management platform Zuora is buying Zephr, which adds marketing and personalization capabilities to subscription services. Subscriptions have become an increasingly popular way to squeeze earn more revenue from customers, although $18 per month heated car seats still seem ridiculous.
We haven’t heard much recently about Unified ID 2.0, probably the most widely supported alternative to third-party cookies for ad viewer tracking. But it’s still growing. Latest to hop on the bandwagon is ad buying platform MediaMath. It’s not an exclusive commitment: MediaMath also supports identity solutions from ID5, LiveIntent, LiveRamp, Lotame, Parrable, and others.
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.