Native Spending To Increase; Google's EU Legal Troubles Worsen

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Native ‘Working’

Marketers will spend $4.3 billion on native advertising in 2015, up 34% from 2014, according to eMarketer. “I would expect our spending in this area to increase considerably over the next 18 months, specifically in the area of video,” HP’s director of strategy, Ed McLoughlin, told Ad Age. “We just dipped our toe into the water this year, but I would say we’ll see a five- to 10-times increase over what we spent this year,” added Matt Eaves, VP-engagement at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Eaves thinks native advertising is “definitely becoming a line item in the budget that we’ll have dedicated dollars to put against because I believe it’s working.” By 2018, eMarketer predicts native ad spend will reach $8.8 billion.

Breaking Up Google

Google can’t catch a break in Europe. Its latest headache is a resolution, advanced by German regulators, proposing a breakup of the company as part of a 4-year-old EU antitrust investigation into Google’s search and ads business. While nonbinding, the resolution “would probably increase pressure on Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner, to bring formal charges against Google,” says The New York Times. Read on.

Northern Exposure

Findings from Acuity Ads and Marketing Magazine reveal that fewer than 10% of Canadian marketers are comfortable buying programmatically. Of the 522 marketers surveyed, 34% had never heard the term programmatic and nearly 50% of those that had rated their understanding of programmatic “very poor.” “When brands start to see and feel the efficiencies programmatic buying can deliver, it will be a mad rush, and they’ll be demanding it of their agencies and looking at bringing it in-house,” Maggie Fox, global SVP of marketing for SAP, told Marketing. “It’s just a matter of time.” That said, Canadian marketers already embracing programmatic estimate their brands will commit 15.9% of ad budgets to automation, and predict that figure will nearly double by 2017. More.

Bubbling Up Content

OneSpot wants to help marketers find quality content for ads on top publishers’ sites and social networks. “Instead of basing [content efforts] simply on the brand goals, they can base it in part on actual data that we have, in terms of how content is successfully distributed and sequenced,” said OneSpot CMO Adam Weinroth. “These pieces have been siloed. We are bringing them together for big brands.” Time Inc., Meredith, Contently and NewsCred have signed on. Adweek has more.

Sales Management Gap

In a sales leadership survey floated by UpStream and Seller Cloud, 58% said they were being managed “modestly but inconsistently,” “poorly” or “not at all.” Commenters on Seller Crowd’s message board suggests managers spend more time engaging with sellers on strategy and focus less on number-crunching. “As we head into the new year, maybe we all commit to filling ‘the digital sales management gap,’” writes Doug Weaver in The Drift. Read more via The Drift.