Ad Tech influencer, @marketecturetv Author: Yield. How Google bought, built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance marketecture.tv/
New York, NY
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I wrote a book. It’s called Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance. I think you’ll like it. Let me tell you more 🧵
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I love the Kumon logo because it makes it so clear that the child is not happy to be there.
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This web3 shit is starting to annoy me, so here’s a thread with my opinions on the relevance to media and advertising. 1/21 🧵
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When talking about a Google/DoubleClick break-up, the ways the products come together can be extremely confusing. I created a diagram explaining the Google display advertising stack (with footnotes!):
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The reason Meta is ultimately doomed isn’t VR adoption, Apple, or TikTok competition. It’s their brand, which is so tarnished they can never launch anything new.
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Thrilled to announce that Beeswax has agreed to be acquired by FreeWheel. Read more in my blog post: blog.beeswax.com/beeswax-com…
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Thousands of crypto folks are flying to New York this week to discuss why everything should be de-centralized.
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But in general:
-The problem of concentration in media is caused by consumer choice.
-Paying consumers to change their behavior is IMHO not going to happen at scale.
-Decentralization is literally the last thing ad tech needs.
21/21.
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In contrast, when you visit a newspaper website you are bombarded with poorly targeted garbage that makes the content hard to read, revs your CPU, and disrespects the user. That’s the decentralized, ad hoc ad tech stack. 18/21
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The web3 promise to decentralize media distribution ignores the need to attract hundreds of millions of consumers based around a vague promise of freedom. The only benefit to a web3 media distribution is for content that is banned or restricted on the current platforms. 8/21
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Based on my many years experience, I’ve developed 24 laws of ad tech product management. These are “laws”, meaning they are always true, everywhere. Thread...
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The reason Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others control distribution of media is because consumers LOVE these services. They are hard to build, expensive to maintain, and have strong network effects. 7/21
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Until you make the ads public this rings very hollow. You've seen them but the American public deserves to see them.
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Any rational person looking at the experiences of consumers on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and other “centralized” web2 sites will notice that the ads are actually really good. They don’t overwhelm the consumer, are often relevant, and don’t mess up the content. 17/21
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Let me see if I get this. Microsoft buys Twitter ads to tell us Snapchat is better than the company they bought.
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Imagine you own Peacock, a streaming channel with no limits on the content you could present.
And you have the Olympics, an endless source of quality long tail content.
And you choose to only make a single “prime time” feed available.
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The Beeswax thesis:
1. AdTech market is VERY large;
2. Buyers becoming more sophisticated, can’t use “one size fits all” solutions
3. Very hard for older DSPs to adapt.
More in my blog post, linked below.
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It is vastly more likely that you used your mom's WiFi and thus had the same IP address. An ad tech company used the IP to target ads to use, instead of using cookies or MAIDs. Not saying it's good or bad, just unlikely they used GPS for this.
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Problems with “pay for your data”: 1) It isn’t worth very much; 2) It is worth the most to the big web2 companies that already have it; 11/21
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In honor of today's congressional antitrust hearings I've updated my diagram of the Google ad stack. Feel free to use with attribution. (Changelog in thread below)
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For our all-hands we had to change Zoom background to something scary, so I made mine our AWS invoice.
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Early 2022: Unique images on the blockchain could be worth millions.
Late 2022: We can create limitless images for 1c per run of the AI.
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Gather round folks, let's start a thread about the possibility that the government would force Google to divest DoubleClick. 1/x
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Imagine buying the NYTimes homepage masthead ad slot then letting a vendor decide it wasn’t brand-safe? Idiocy.
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Her: What do you do?
Me: AdTech
Her: Those annoying pop-up ads?
Me: Actually, no one has seen a pop-up in years since they were blocked.
Her: Those ones that squish all the content.
Me: Ah, you see, that’s not a pop-up at all. It is called a push-down. <smiles confidently>
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Folks have been wondering what I’m up to after selling Beeswax. Well I’m happy to announce my first project, launching today: Marketecturetv.tv (read on for 🧵)
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To start, a lot of the posturing around the impact of web3 is frustratingly vague, and so therefore hard to refute. The central premise is that using the economic incentives of tokens, you can bootstrap and maintain decentralized services. 2/21
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The problem is that very few people will ever see your media unless you also distribute it, and that’s where the tech giants have a huge role and take their vig. 6/21
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“Does what he says” is conveniently leaving out a lot of what he has said. Such as massive deportations, prosecution of his enemies, 100% tariffs, taking control of the Fed, “becoming a dictator on day one” etc. If he does what he said it is the worse case scenario.
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Media creation is already decentralized, that was the great innovation of web2. With a couple of clicks you can create a blog, storefront, or whatever media you want. 5/21
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IAB conference feels like an AA meeting where we tearfully admit our addiction to third party cookies and promise to clean up. #IABALM #12cookiesteps
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<Thread> Because we're a) bored, and b) obsessed with ad tech, I'm hereby launching #adtechmadness a single elimination set of face-offs to determine the "winner" of the ad tech game. Rules and details follow...
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Unpopular opinion, but the Theranos documentary on HBO was really a piece of crap. Lots of footage, but no insights into why, how, when the fraud took place. A shadow compared to Bad Blood, which was incredible.
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OMG OMG
digiday.com/marketing/after-…
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And even if you wanted to execute a scheme where you pay for user data, just do that in a SQL database (AllAdvantage anyone?). Why have a token with high gas prices, fluctuating value, complexity, etc. 12/21
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Google would see when it’s own systems had both the first- and second-best bids and then would pay the publisher as if the second bid didn’t exist, but charge the advertiser as if it did. Wow.
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True story: When I was at Google (pre-iPhone/Steve Jobs) we had a meeting about “how to get rid of Flash” and concluded it was impossible.
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There’s no way to interpret this X lawsuit other than capitulation that the brand dollars are never coming back.
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It's OVER. @integralads is the AD TECH CHAMPION in #adtechmadness. 🏆🔥🏆🔥🏆🔥
They beat @InMobi with a literally last-minute upset. The numbers were changing on every refresh.
Great tournament everyone, thanks for playing. Now back to tweets about cookies and antitrust.
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The transition from “everyone I know is getting out of ad tech” to “everyone I know is getting rich from ad tech” has been quite something.
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I wrote my take on the Google cookie news on AdExchanger, including a rare Sex in the City reference: adexchanger.com/data-driven-…
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While we’re all watching the drama at Twitter, the big mystery is WHY Elon is doing the things he’s doing. Below are five theories, along with a poll at the end for you to vote on your favorite:🧵
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And again if you really want to execute a scheme to pay for user data, it makes sense to do it at the browser level (Brave) rather than at the execution level in a new social network or media company that will only have part of the consumer’s overall attention. 13/21
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RIP my tweets. LOL.
It's official: @BeeswaxIO is now part of the FreeWheel family. "We couldn’t be more excited about combining our efforts, visions, and roles in the ecosystem to build technology that provides TV with the transformation it so eagerly awaits.” - @DaveClark
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Killing myself on #peloton so I can come in slightly ahead of the screen name hip_replacement_60s_florida
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I enjoyed his utterly deranged and chaotic 1-10 questions.
"Chance of a nuclear war before Thanksgiving, 1-10. No, the answer is 7!"
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Our Instagram ads never advocated guillotining kittens, we just highlighted the beautiful finishes on our hardwood guillotine frames. What people do with the devices is out of our control.
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3) This concept appeals to the least valuable consumers; 4) specific data points (“I’m ready to buy a car”) are vastly more valuable than generic data, and you can get that data more efficiently through lead-gen tactics. 11/21 cont.
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File under “unintentional metaphor”, the Trade Desk’s booth at #POSSIBLE2023 is on it’s own island.
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Quick hit thread on the DOJ filing. Just some observations, not a comprehensive review. 🧵
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There may be very specific areas where web3 projects intersect with the media/advertising landscape and add value. Single sign-on using NFTs. Verification of advertising transaction counter-parties. I’ll wait and see. 20/21
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First banner ad ran exactly 25 years ago today #bannerday. Now a $333 billion digital ad market. Read more at thefirstbannerad.com/
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Just got invited to a "Blockchain Happy Hour." I assume it won't have a central location and we'll all just drink alone in our rooms.
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Discussions of web3 always head towards the idea that consumers will adopt new ways of consuming media that will compensate them for their data. There are some companies trying to do this (@PermissionIO). It’s got a lot of problems, and doesn’t require web3. 10/21
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When I hear professional product management people talk about their processes I realize that my entire career was just "winging it".
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A quick 🧵on my new venture and how we’re helping companies launch new products and features better. 1/x
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Don’t take notes in meetings. You’ll never look at them and if you spend your time active listening instead you are more likely to absorb the outcomes.
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The absolute last time I use Bluekai’s “Dumb racist fascist” segment for targeting.
Looks like the good people at Trumps War Room have been checking @BeeswaxIO out and have been retargeted @aripap
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There’s a lot of start-up advice. But what about the really boring stuff no one talks about that will mess you up as a CEO? Here’s a 🧵of really *boring* advice from someone that’s sold a company. Boring advice thread 1/x
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Apple has done the impossible. They got every single company in ad tech to admit they are an “ad network"
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Zooming out, why would you expect anything else out of the religion of decentralization? Having many competing services that are mashed together however any party chooses will naturally be messy and difficult, across all web3 initiatives. 19/21
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In the wake of the massive Google Ads re-org reported by @SarahSluis and @adexchanger I'm going to indulge in some kremlinology and speculation about what's ahead for Google. A thread.... 1/
adexchanger.com/platforms/go…
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1/x <Thread> In-depth log-level study coming out of the UK's ISBA analyzing how funds flow from buyer to seller in ad tech (PDF download). Some highlights: isba.org.uk/media/2422/execu…
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The accuracy.
Is this the end of "accept or deny cookies" pop ups?
ft. @macyagilliam
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Advertising doesn't work!
Also: People are literally burning their own shoes because they don't like an ad campaign.
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Me: Trying out random SaaS tool for a minute
CEO of SaaS co in my inbox for next month:
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First day back at the office and I literally went into the wrong building, up the wrong elevator and into the wrong company.
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That’s already pretty vague. Clearly there’s an enemy in mind, the centralized winners of web2: Google, Facebook, etc. 3/21
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Life Hack: When someone suggests you set up time to meet or for coffee, just ask them if they are free right now and call them. Saves tons of overhead and calendar BS.
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Me: Apple is single-handedly destroying advertising in an uncompetitive manner.
Also me: Pre-orders $3,500 MacBook on day of announcement.
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