Huawei’s Android Loss
Chinese company Huawei has been dealt a devastating blow by Google this month, being barred from using some of Android’s updated operating systems.
This comes following the Trump administration adding Huawei to America’s blacklist of companies that aren’t to be traded with unless the American company has a license to do so.
This will of course have implications on the Huawei users amongst us. Any Huawei smart phone user will still be able to update apps, push through security fixes etc., but the next version of Android that launches later this year may not be available.
Wave Goodbye to Average Position
For any established Google Advertisers, this is going to come as quite a shock. Google has announced that their ‘average position’ metric, one of the oldest metrics on Google Ads, will no-longer be supported come September.
Instead, it will be replaced with the following:
- “Impr. (Abs. Top) %” & “Impr. (Top) %” – The percentage of received impressions that were at the very top of the page & the percentage of received impressions that were above the organic results
- “Search absolute top IS” & “Search top IS” – The percentage of opportunities to appear at the absolute top you’re actually turning into impressions in that space & the percentage of opportunities to appear above the organic results you’re actually turning into impressions in that space
The change is due to the realisation that average position can actually lead to misleading data through scenarios such as only showing ads at the top that meet the relevance threshold, and only reporting when an impression actually happens.
Maybe it’s worth while scrapping the average position and adopting the new metrics sooner rather than later afterall…
The End of a Grumpy Era
Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few years, you’re probably more than familiar with a certain miserable feline face, Grumpy Cat. AKA Tardar Sauce - yes, really.
A social media celebrity, having over 2million followers on Instagram and starring in thousands of memes, she certainly was a star in her own right.
Just last year, the cat's owners won a $710,000 (£555,000) pay-out in a copyright lawsuit against Grenade, a US coffee company, for exceeding an agreement over Sauce’s image. The company only had rights to use the cat to sell its "Grumppuccino" iced drink, but also sold other ‘Grumpy’ products.
Digital Ad Revenue Hits Historic Highs
According to a report released by the IAB, digital ad revenue achieved an all-time high in 2018 at $107.5bn. Marking a 22% year-on-year increase from 2017’s $88.3bn.
One of the major contributors to this increase is the increase in mobile and video advertising. With mobile ad spend accounting for 65% of last year’s figure, and video accounting for 37%.
Randall Rothenberg, the chief exec officer of IAB said in a statement:
"Surpassing $100bn in annual revenue is a watershed moment for the digital advertising ecosystem—one built on its power to build direct relationships between brands and today’s consumers”
With the 5G revolution on the horizon too, we can only predict that the future of ad spend will increase.
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