Adtech

Google are going all in on Privacy and have made it clear they will no longer support any form of tracking. Their Sandbox initiatives continue and it seems their FloCs concert will be renamed as Web Crowds. With regulators everywhere taking an interest in ads, daata/targeting and GAFA, I think Google have recognised the inevitable and want to be really clear that they are out of the targeting game. Most people have seen this coming, but as the purveyors of various ID work arounds continue to advocate for new forms of tracking Google is being crystal clear. And given…

Merchant

The latest results from RB show how CPG brands can embrace change and organise a ‘traditional’ business to take advantage of changing behaviors. ecommerce grew 56% year on year and now accounts for 12% of total group revenue.

Doing some work for a Google talk I looked at how Tesco hired 3000 drivers and 10000 pickers to cope with the spike in demand for online grocery. They closed their 24 hours stores at 10pm and the pickers worked through the night packing orders. Enabling them to go from 600k orders a year to 1.5m. …

News & Politics

So the Australian squabble over paying to link to news blew up this week. All the headlines went to the global deal with News Corp but all the major news organisations in Australia have struck a deal with Google. Reuters, Nine, Seven etc will join the Google News Showcase — and get paid for links. News Corp have laddered up the deal to apply globally.

Facebook decided they don’t want to play, but in taking their bat and ball home have incensed the Australian government and just about everyone else.

It’s worth reading the coverage by Benedict…

newTV

In our Deep Dive on newTV this week, we focused on the Super Bowl — and how it proves the value of Creative — and on Sports. If you missed it, catch up here.

A friend at Samba TV shared their interesting analysis of the Super Bowl and its audience.

Are we seeing the first signs of some issues for newTV? All the plans were done pre Covid so it’s no surprise people are rethinking. One story is that NBC are concerned over the poor performance of Peacock since launch and are looking at potential partnerships — with Warner…

Adtech

So much noise in this sector — and so much up in the air as we wait for Apple to implement their much anticipated changes around Privacy.

Probably the best place to start is this Stratechery interview with Fix friend Eric Seufert — the Don of App Marketing and Mobile Advertising. It’s a great explanation of the current situation and has interesting thinking on how Apple and Facebook are affected in the short and longer term.

(It’s also a good explanation of how smart people are using Facebook right now — ignoring the targeting options and letting Facebook use…

Dollar Dollar

It’s earnings time and Facebook went first — with another big quarter — revenue up by 33%, beating expectations. Ad revenue per user tops $51 for Q4 in the US — over 3 times that in Europe. And Zuck took every opportunity to have a go at Apple and their Privacy driven changes to IDFA etc;

“Apple may say that they’re doing this to help people. But the moves clearly track their competitive interest,”

I think the idea Facebook takes a significant hit from the Apple privacy changes just doesn’t hold water. The best estimate is probably the…

Merchant

Wednesday saw our first Merchant deep dive since early December so there was lots to cover. We focused on Metrics, Returns and Churn. Catch up here.

One area with lots of action is Fashion. Asos reported sales up a third, with high street rivals being closed. Interestingly the profile of goods being bought now has a lower returns rate, so good for the margin too.

There are some really strong European players in fashion. German based firm MyTheresa is valued at $3bn after a very strong IPO — shares were up a third in early trading. The business changed…

Merchant

There are two big pieces on Trends in commerce that merit attention. The annual Shopify Future of Commerce is full of insight and lots of intra country comparisons. I think it’s very telling that one of their 5 themes is around Modern Finance. We hear that the traditional banks can be hard work for Merchants and we know that new ways of paying can have a real impact on sales. Making Klarna, Cash App etc work for you can be really effective/

And Faceboook have a content partnership with the FT to promote their Discovery Commerce concept.

Surprisingly neither…