BuzzFeed

With no-click generative AI search gaining steam, here’s how publishers can thrive when search traffic disappears.

Perplexity AI, the generative AI search engine trying to out-Google Google, began rolling out its ads products last week. Plus, An AI-powered shoppable ad platform is causing problems for readers of BuzzFeed Australia.

BuzzFeed took another lap around its AI-related talking points as its advertising business took another lap around the drain.

In today’s newsletter: The “user agent” concept is dead; principal-based buying is just arbitrage by another name; and a deep dive into BuzzFeed’s doomed acquisition of Complex.

In today’s newsletter: Criteo’s investors clamor for a sale; the FTC fines VPN provider Avast for deceptive data practices; air quality-focused site HouseFresh laments the state of online search.

Publisher frustrations with the algorithm-driven internet are boiling over – and the rise of generative AI-powered search, which rarely links to the stories it scrapes, will cause irreparable damage.

As stiffer competition between social media companies shuts out publishers that depend on social traffic, BuzzFeed’s ad revenue drops 35%.

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 […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Results Are In YouTube told clients earlier this month about plans to start billing some of its video inventory based on its own co-viewing numbers starting in January. Now the buy-side backlash is rolling in, Ad Age reports. This plan “contradicts the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. No Labels Amazon is dropping a large portion of its private-label products: 27 of its 30 clothing lines will soon be gone, The Wall Street Journal reports. On the one hand, who cares? It’s not like anybody notices the Amazon private labels. “Oh […]

BuzzFeed is “laser focused” on using AI-generated content to drive audiences to its owned-and-operated platforms and away from social media, CEO Jonah Peretti told investors.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Upfront At The Upfront NBCUniversal’s upfront was quite the affair. Executives had to enter Radio City Music Hall through a side door because the entrance was blocked by Writers Guild of America protesters. (Guess Netflix was onto something.) Once everyone was settled, the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. “The DDL Difference” The TV industry says addressability is the future. But there’s more to the picture. This upfront season, Warner Bros. Discovery is combining its addressable and data-driven linear (DDL) tech stacks. These offerings were previously separate prior to the merge of […]

BuzzFeed is sticking to its conviction that journalism is old news and influencer-led video and generative AI are the future.

Zitron argues that the internet is being ruined by the Big Tech players that control it and that advertising needs to lose its sense of entitlement over everyone’s data.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. High Voltage Media Last week, we mentioned Volta, a company that manufactures electric car charging stations, in our new weekly Commerce Media newsletter as an apt example of the strange inventory grab-bag that sometimes exists behind a retail media platform. For Volta Media, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Live Shopping ROI … Or RIP? Amazon, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube have all tried their darndest to make livestream shopping happen in the US. But Americans just aren’t into it, Wired reports, and Chinese influencers and companies aren’t having much success exporting their […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Social Ladder These days, fraudsters seem to prefer social media as their venue of choice. In 2021, Americans lost $800 million to social scams compared to $700 million in reported losses to phone scammers. Last year, phone fraudsters scammed people out of […]

BuzzFeed hopes its investments in trendy tech like generative AI and short-form vertical video, with a bigger focus on commerce, will eventually pay dividends.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Dot Dot Dot – Dash Dash Dash – Dot Dot Dot Dotdash Meredith is feeling the same pain as many others amid a pullback in advertising. And IAC’s revenue woes were compounded by soft consumer demand, which dinged its affiliate marketing business, according […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Battle Lines Drawn The online advertising industry is struggling with its own brand perception. Nomenclature like “fingerprinting” doesn’t help, and over the past few years programmatic has been caught up in a vortex of negative opinions. Terms such as “surveillance capitalism” and even […]

The most commonly cited rationale for publisher staffing cuts has been marketers’ hesitance to spend on advertising amid persistent economic uncertainty. But publishers’ latest pivot to video and increased competition among digital channels is also likely to blame.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. BuzzCuts BuzzFeed is laying off 12% of its workforce, Variety reports, based on an SEC filing. The reduction will apparently help BuzzFeed “weather an economic downturn that I believe will extend well into 2023,” writes CEO Jonah Peretti in a memo.  BuzzFeed’s revenue […]

As BuzzFeed struggles with advertiser uncertainty and a drop in user engagement, it reported flat Q3 ad revenue. Advertising revenue was $50 million, matching last year’s Q3. Ad revenue growth decelerated compared to Q2, “driven by ongoing price compression and uncertainty around consumer demand,” said BuzzFeed CFO Felicia DellaFortuna.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. What’s For Sale? Amazon has started down the path of “Googlification.” Which is to say, its search engine has flipped from primarily serving up the best organic options to servicing advertisers with the best prospecting and conquesting opportunities.  There were turf wars in […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Maybe Web 4 Apple has asserted its dominion over Web 3 developers.  In its latest app review guidance, which went live this week, Apple introduced language to clarify that apps “may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality, such as […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Drizl Before The Storm New retail media players raise difficult questions about particular use cases.  The latest platform, for instance, is Drizly Ads, launched by the Uber-owned alcohol delivery company. On the one hand, booze brands need to find online customers. Targeting […]

Brand awareness is top of mind for PepsiCo’s senior director of media strategy and investment Katie Haniffy. And PepsiCo is focused on adjusting its brand awareness campaigns in response to shifting consumer behavior, as well as pivoting to keep up with the latest evolutions in ad tech.

The market is not being kind to digital media companies. The nearly 40% drop in BuzzFeed’s stock price on Monday and the decline of its valuation from $1.5 billion when it went public in December to roughly $300 million now is no doubt causing other digital-native publishers to rethink their IPO plans. But any doom and gloom about the long-term viability of digital publishers in public markets is likely overblown.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Path Less Traveled More publishers have signed up for OpenPath, The Trade Desk’s direct buy-to-sell-side integration. Since launching in February, TTD says it’s “registered interest” (interesting turn of phrase) in OpenPath from more than 100 publishers.  The latest crop to, uh, register […]