Sorrell Speaks; Facebook Changes How View Tags Work

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Sorrell Speaks

Martin Sorrell had plenty on his mind as he took the stage at Luma Partners’ DMS conference on Tuesday, so much so that moderator Terry Kawaja could hardly get a word in. Sorrell’s most surprising comments were on Amazon’s ad business. He said Amazon’s ad teams are “superb” and more sophisticated than their counterparts at Google and Facebook. “The Amazon people are extraordinarily well directed.” He also described a long negotiation WPP undertook with Amazon to put a client’s product on the platform. As part of the deal, Amazon agreed to share first-party data with WPP and its client. However, “after a long negotiation the product goes onto the platform and Amazon doesn’t provide the data.” As a result the deal was canceled. Sorrell also said of the tech giants as a group: “They have massive economic power and with massive economic power comes responsibility. Where’s the transparency of the algorithm? Where’s the transparency of the page rankings? They have to be responsible for the content that flows through their pipes. They can’t disown responsibility.”

Hazy View

Since 2012, Facebook’s view tags have allowed marketers to see if their ads drove sales. They were a convenient tool back in the day when Facebook needed to prove out its desktop advertising. But Facebook said in a blog post that it is altering the way view tags, which don’t work well in mobile, can be used: “Moving forward, we’ll work with a more focused set of view tag providers to allow them to count impressions for verification purposes, but view tags will no longer be used for measurement purposes beyond counting.” The change begins with new campaigns beginning July 1, and campaigns running before July 1 will see the changes on Oct. 1. Read the blog.

Kargo Jettisoned

Kargo has hit the pause button on its European business as GDPR looms. As of May 25, Kargo won’t be “running revenue” in the EU, transferring three-quarters of its London office to the French-owned digital ad company Sublime Skinz. The move represents Kargo’s attempt to “wait out” the uncertain regulatory and enforcement environment of a post-GDPR world, writes The Drum’s Ronan Shields. Also, Kargo – like many of its ad net predecessors – is attempting to become a pure programmatic tech provider, and it cut 40 staffers in April to accommodate that shift. More.

Dumping The DMP?

Marketers including Duracell and Deutsche Telekom have moved away from using data management platforms because they feel they’re not getting value. And with GDPR on the horizon, brands are removing tags from their websites and advertisements to limit their collection of third-party data. DMPs are expensive and take a lot of resources to set up and manage, and as marketers bring more resources in-house, they’re debating whether the cost is worth the benefit, writes Seb Joseph at Digiday. “Eighty percent of the advertisers I speak to feel like they’re not getting the most from their DMP,” an ad tech consultant said. “But rather than shut them down and admit that a piece of technology so expensive hasn’t worked up until now, I’m seeing marketers use the GDPR to exercise break clauses in their contracts with DMPs so they can figure things out.” More.

But Wait, There’s More!