Ad Blocking Blame Game; Financing Rumors For Yahoo

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Ad Bloat

The ad-blocking trend is often laid at the doorstep of publishers and their ad tech partners, but there’s plenty of blame to go around. The Wall Street Journal examines the role of agencies and brands in perpetuating the enormous file sizes that damage user experience, especially in mobile. Forbes CRO Mark Howard tells the Journal that “agencies will frequently supply Forbes with ads that are four to nine times larger than Forbes’ specs.” And! ”Agencies will often send the ad information late, even if sites require that creative gets delivered three days before the start of a campaign.” For shame.

SEOlden Days

“Since introducing AdWords 15 years ago, we’ve seen a fundamental change in the way people find what they want,” writes Google VP of product management Jerry Dischler in a blog post. The decline of web sessions into smaller (harder-to-reach) mobile “moments” requires new visualization and reporting, which Google has provided with a revamped UI. Dischler says the changes will unfold over the next two years, so there’s no rush. More at Ad Age.

Apple Tried

In a eulogy for iAd, Smaato CEO Ragnar Kruse writes for TechCrunch that Apple’s restrictive policies doomed the mobile ad network. He says those rules inhibited the use of data, limited the creative process and isolated advertisers from global markets. As a result, fill rates plummeted. “The move toward an open ecosystem has become a necessary one to stay competitive in ad tech, but wasn’t a concession Apple was willing to make.” More.

A Bitter Pill

These are tough times for health care marketers, Christine Birkner writes for Adweek. The erosion of print and the ascendance of mobile formats that aren’t good at showing complementary data – warnings, qualifications and usage directions – has flustered big pharma. And then there’s the prospect of a direct-to-consumer ad ban. “Sixty percent of people get their first piece of health information from going online, or emailing their friends or checking social media,” says Jane Parker, CEO at the Omnicom health care specialist agency Interbrandhealth. “To say you’re going to ban this kind of advertising, why go there?” More.

Sunk Costs

Rumors of a Yahoo bid have caught Microsoft’s attention. The company has been meeting with private equity firms with interest in the legacy search and email provider to discuss financing. No deal has been struck yet, but Microsoft’s interest makes a Yahoo buyout all the more serious, despite CEO Marissa Mayer’s desire to turn the company around herself. “If Microsoft put in a billion, it would cost them almost nothing,” an investor who spoke with the company said. “It’s a minor thing and it buys them a lot.”

But Wait, There’s More!