Pixel Me Rollin’
After recent layoffs, Netflix headed into earnings with a fresh pitch to advertisers.
On Tuesday, Netflix unveiled what it calls the Netflix Pixel, an add-on to the conversion API (CAPI) it launched in March within the Netflix Ads Suite. The Pixel helps standardize the way marketers measure lower-funnel business outcomes, such as conversions. It also creates a way for brands to use this conversion data for audience segmentation and targeting, according to a blog post the company published Tuesday.
Netflix is also adding The Trade Desk to its list of DSPs that will have programmatic targeting available for Netflix ad inventory, starting next month. The streamer launched new targeting capabilities within Amazon DSP and Yahoo DSP earlier this year.
The new announcements came the same morning that Netflix reported its third-quarter results.
Netflix touted 12% year-over-year revenue growth last quarter, which was in line with its forecast, but execs acknowledged during its earnings call that ad revenue growth in particular didn’t meet expectations. In January, Netflix shared its hope of doubling its ad revenue again this year.
The streamer hopes that beefing up its ad stack, including more programmatic demand sources and fancier targeting and measurement features, will work to woo more marketers into Netflix’s orbit.
We’ll FTC About That
The acquisition of data collaboration platform LiveRamp by Publicis is one step closer to reality.
The Federal Trade Commission approved the proposed acquisition on Tuesday – although it imposed some conditions aimed at preserving LiveRamp’s neutrality, to which Publicis has agreed.
Per the FTC, Publicis must guarantee neutral access to LiveRamp’s products and services. And it must set up firewalls that prevent it from using LiveRamp to access the data of competitors or their clients.
The FTC will impose these requirements on Publicis for five years, starting from when the acquisition officially closes (a date that has yet to be established). An independent auditor will periodically review Publicis for compliance with the FTC’s provisions.
Publicis has also promised not to retaliate against LiveRamp customers who raise compliance concerns with the FTC. On top of that, LiveRamp customers can request an audit at any time to check whether Publicis is complying with data security and privacy protections.
It’s notable that the FTC approved this acquisition without extracting any political concessions. Last summer, when the FTC approved Omnicom’s merger with IPG, it did so on the condition that the combined holdco not “deny advertising dollars to media publishers based on their political or ideological viewpoint.”
Amazing how quickly the government’s priorities can change.
The Untipped Applecart
Apple sent shockwaves through the online advertising industry with a Monday evening blog post penned by three WebKit engineers, who delivered the company’s clearest – and most decisively negative – assessment of the category to date.
The dark comedy here is that what’s a crisis for online advertising is a selling point for Apple, which spent the summer touting Safari’s tracker-blocking features in an ad campaign.
Meanwhile, outside the ad industry, Apple’s WebKit plans have barely registered.
The bigger news out of Cupertino is that Apple is reportedly preparing to debut its first touchscreen laptop and a foldable phone, according to The Information.
Those are the developments likely to draw attention in the coming days and weeks, rather than anything Apple’s WebKit engineers have to say.
But Wait! There’s More!
IAB Tech Lab CEO Tony Katsur has a reminder: ID vendors aren’t the only ones who have something to lose from Apple’s WebKit domain blocking. Publishers do, too. [LinkedIn]
Salesforce will buy cloud CRM and marketing software provider Braze for $5.7 billion, more than 50% above Braze’s share price the day before. [Bloomberg]
Spotify removes 50 million AI generated music tracks from user recommendations as an attempt to curb the growing issue of AI slop. [Variety]
Meta disabled a feature that lets users share their Muse AI assistant chat history via links because doing so can expose sensitive information. [Ars Technica]
A California judge ordered Meta to reveal which executives authorized the use of torrented content libraries for training the company’s AI models. [Torrent Freak]
Court records show TikTok employees have been trying to sound the alarm about the platform’s potential harm to children for years. [NPR]
Recent fixes that Plex made to vulnerabilities in its media server app are being exploited to install malware, initiate cryptomining schemes and create residential bot proxies. [Ars Technica]
Food delivery app Just Eat depicted “sausage soda bread” as a glass of soda with meat floating in it – yet another example of AI food imagery gone horribly wrong. [The Independent]
How global marketing trade org Bridge is trying to keep bias out of AI outputs. [The Drum]
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