Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Variation On A Theme
Google launched a new Performance Max search feature called “search themes,” a rare opportunity to learn from the black box that is PMax campaigns.
Search themes are broad terms that can inform targeting, even if the company doesn’t bid on those terms.
In a Support page, Google uses the example of a museum with great outdoor activities for kids. The museum doesn’t have a landing page or site promoting that, so it’s not obvious to a site crawler. But the museum could list “outdoor recreation” and “activities for children,” and that’s enough to put Google’s algo on the scent.
Search themes don’t usurp the search apparatus. For instance, a museum is still better off self-promoting kids’ prices on its site than trying broad search themes, according to Navah Hopkins, brand evangelist for the PPC ad-buying firm Optmyzr, which beta tested search themes.
Hopkins tells AdExchanger she’s excited that search themes, unlike search terms, can be changed midflight of a campaign. Search term changes require new test-and-learn periods.
And since themes can be adjusted, they’re effective ways to test what’s working or even to see when a theme is searched directly more often than an actual keyword and perhaps should be promoted.
BuzzFeed’s Napoleon Complex
Need another sign that times are tough for digital media?
BuzzFeed is in talks to sell Complex to Live Nation-backed ecommerce company Ntwrk for about $140 million, The New York Times reports. BuzzFeed paid $300 million for Complex all the way back in … 2021.
However, BuzzFeed will retain ownership of Complex’s First We Feast brand after the sale, including its “Hot Ones” interview show, where guests eat spicy chicken wings as they chat.
The Complex acquisition was part of BuzzFeed’s effort to add heft before its IPO. The entire idea of going public was a mistake, though, considering BuzzFeed lost nearly $1.7 billion in market cap since IPOing.
Complex was profitable before the acquisition, but was an albatross for BuzzFeed. CEO Jonah Peretti blamed BuzzFeed’s advertising underperformance this year partly on problems integrating the two sales teams into one.
Other digital media darlings haven’t fared better. Vice Media was valued at $5.7 billion in 2017, but sold out of bankruptcy for about $350 million in June. And, after being valued at $1 billion in 2015, Vox Media sold 20% of its business to Penske Media for $100 million in February.
Can’t Strike A Deal
More than 100 days after the actors’ strike began, the Screen Actors Guild still has no agreement with studios.
Netflix, Disney, NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery expect to delay their programming lineups if the standoff continues. But the union won’t back down from its demands – which include a sizable slice of streaming revenue.
The union is asking for 57 cents per year per global streaming subscription account, which could total as much as $500 million annually, Variety reports.
Studios, though, call this demand “untenable,” and are countering with bonus incentives for actors whose shows reach certain viewership thresholds.
The studio counter-offer is similar to its deal struck with the writers’ union, which considers a show worthy of a bonus when 20% of a platform’s subscribers watch it within 90 days of its release. One estimate pins this offer at around $27 million in yearly payouts, about 5% of what actors are asking for.
But Wait, There’s More!
Google, Amazon and Meta gain revenue despite ad industry setbacks, thanks to their ad tech and AI. [Ad Age]
Mozilla says it will ship Global Privacy Control in Firefox 120. [Google Groups]
Google paid $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine for browsers and mobile devices – about triple what it paid in 2014. (h/t Leah Nylen) [tweet]
Businesses are renaming themselves things like “Thai Food Near Me” to game Google Search’s algorithms, but is it working? [The Verge]
You’re Hired!
Microsoft replaces longtime CMO Chris Capossela, promoting former cloud marketing lead Takeshi Numoto. [WSJ]
BuzzFeed CFO Felicia DellaFortuna is leaving the company and will be replaced by EVP of finance Matt Omer. [release]
