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☆ Taboola is looking to compete with Google and Facebook for small-business clients using a new generative AI tool for ad campaigns
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-15 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The tool was built using OpenAI's GPT-4o and data input from years of Taboola ad campaigns. They've maxed out Google and Facebook, not because their threshold for margin is tapped, but the way most spend on Google and Facebook, they will spend, and spend, and spend, and they stop because it gets expensive," Singolda said in an interview. Singolda said Abby was designed to help Taboola bring on more advertisers and tackle the onboarding process. And Taboola itself already offers an AI tool called Maximize Conversions that automates its clients' ad bidding strategies. Advertisement"I don't see generative AI tools as likely to drive near-term adoption of new ad platforms among SMBs," Lipsman said.

Persons: Abby, Taboola, —, Adam Singolda, Singolda, Publicis, Andrew Lipsman, Lipsman Organizations: Service, BBC, CBS, Yahoo, Apple News, Business, Google, Facebook, Big Tech, Omnicom, WPP

☆ Advertisers are scrutinizing the value of AI tools as some early efforts fall flat
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-09 | by ( Lucia Moses | Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

AdvertisementTwo years after OpenAI's ChatGPT and other chatbots launched, the advertising community's excitement over generative AI has come down to earth. The shift was evident at New York's Advertising Week, a four-day gathering this week that organizers expected 17,000 to attend. Last year, a Salesforce survey showed about three-quarters of marketers were or planned to use generative AI. Though enthusiasm about AI was tempered in the industry at this year's Advertising Week, there wasn't a widespread abandonment of the tech. Adtech company LiveRamp announced a pair of AI partnerships to help marketers find the right AI company for a given problem.

Persons: —, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Ashwin Navin, there's, Andrew Lipsman, I'm, Zaid Al, Qassab, He's, Let's, Samba's Navin, That's, NBCU, DoubleVerify, Nick Fairbairn, Joshua Nafman, it's, Nafman, Fairbairn, LiveRamp, Scott Howe, Howe Organizations: Publicis, WPP, Service, New, Samba, WPP —, Saatchi, Business, Google, Advertising, Media, Diageo

☆ Meta and Google have become new allies for retailers in their battle to steal ad dollars from Amazon
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-28 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Read previewRetailers have new friends in their battle to steal ad dollars from Amazon: Meta and Google. And Kroger inked a deal to sell targeted Meta ads for grocery-focused brands. Instacart is working with YouTube to let advertisers target ads based on someone's shopping behavior on Instacart. Kroger Precision Marketing's Pratt said that Kroger is also pitching Meta ads to social advertisers as performance ad formats. Advertisers typically buy social ads to increase big branding goals like awareness, but retailers want to prove that social ads also drive sales.

Persons: —, Kroger, Ross Walker, Walker, Andrew Lipsman, Cara Pratt, Instacart, Shopify, Andrius Baranauskas, Baranauskas, Marketing's Pratt, Lipsman Organizations: Service, Google, Meta, Business, Amazon, Retailers, Media, Kroger, Marketing, Kroger Precision Marketing, YouTube Locations: Canada, Acadia, Shopify

☆ Kroger, Albertsons, and Instacart are all racing to snap up an $11 billion chunk of the retail media market
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Offsite ads currently make up about 15% of retail media spend and are expected to make $11 billion this year, according to Insider Intelligence, increasing to $24 billion by 2027. Kroger works with adtech firms like Magnite, PubMatic, and OpenX to sell streaming ads targeted with retail data. Retailers are riding the death of cookies and streaming TVBy increasing the audiences that see their ads, retailers are betting they can seize two major opportunities. "When cookies come out of the marketplace, where retail media shines is that we all offer large audiences of real people doing real things," said Kristi Argyilan, SVP of retail media at Albertsons Companies. Using retail data, they can target specific groups — like moms who buy specific products at the grocery store every week.

Persons: —, It's, Andrew Lipsman, Roku, Kroger, Lipsman, Kristi Argyilan, Cara Pratt Organizations: Service, Intelligence, Business, Walmart, Brands, Albertsons Companies, Disney, Kroger Precision Marketing

☆ Amazon's latest sales event demonstrates 'the power of the Prime subscription'
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-13 | by ( Paulina Likos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon's two-day Prime Big Deal Days on Tuesday and Wednesday "outpaced" last year's inaugural "holiday kickoff" event , the company said Thursday. The event is a follow-up to Amazon's main Prime Day sale held in July. In the last two years, however, its market share has flatlined," Lipsman said. Still, Amazon's latest Prime event is "a strong indicator of consumer demand heading into the holiday season," he said. An Amazon worker moves boxes on Amazon Prime Day in the East Village of New York City, July 11, 2023.

Persons: Amazon's, Jeff Marks, Andrew Lipsman, Lipsman, That's, Goldman Sachs, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Spencer Platt Organizations: Investing, Amazon, U.S . Federal Trade, Intelligence, CNBC, Getty Locations: East, New York City

☆ Instacart stock subdued as debut enthusiasm loses steam
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Cheney Orr/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsSept 20 (Reuters) - Grocery delivery app Instacart's stock (CART.O) fell nearly 5% in premarket trading on Wednesday, on course to join other new stock market entrants in failing to keep up with their strong gains on debut. Shares of San Francisco-based Instacart ended 12% higher in their Nasdaq debut on Tuesday, failing to hold onto an intraday gain of as much as 43%. The company's initial public offering on Monday had given it a valuation of nearly $9.9 billion. In August, it announced interest from PepsiCo (PEP.O), which has agreed to buy $175 million in preferred convertible stock. Reporting by Savyata Mishra and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika SyamnathOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Eric Cohn, Cheney Orr, Instacart, Alex Frederick, Frederick, Instacart's, Andrew Lipsman, Savyata Mishra, Niket, Devika Organizations: Safeway, REUTERS, Investors, San, Nasdaq, Walmart, Amazon, PitchBook, PepsiCo, Insider Intelligence, Thomson Locations: Tucson , Arizona, U.S, San Francisco, Bengaluru

☆ Criteo sees a $42 billion opportunity from retail media, but must solve a challenge that could cut those revenues by 20%
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Ryan Joe | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Criteo is eyeing a $42 billion slice of the retail media market. A glut of retail media networks could reduce that $42 billion retail media opportunity by 20%. Criteo said that this type of "fragmentation" could cause retail media revenues to drop 20%. He said brands will often buy across three or four individual retail media networks, which means smaller retail media networks can struggle to attract advertising dollars. The Trade Desk's CEO Jeff Green has previously announced his ambition to control "most" of the retail media market and it has aggressively sought partnerships to prove that retail ads drive sales, to inspire more advertisers to buy retail media.

Persons: Criteo, Let's, Brian Gleason, Megan Clarken, You've, Andrew Lipsman, Lipsman, Jeff Green Organizations: Boston Consulting, Amazon, New York City, Intelligence, Trade Locations: China —, New York

Instacart also sells ad space on its site, including to Pepsi and Kellogg's, which want to promote products online. Instacart, valued at $9.3 billion, said its grocery orders remained flat for the first six months of 2023 at 132.9 million compared to the year-ago period, Securities and Exchange Commission filings showed. Gross transaction value rose 4% to $14.94 billion over the same period, while ad revenue grew 24% to $406 million from $327 million. Gross profit grew faster than gross transaction value for products sold on Instacart, including merchandise, taxes and fees. Some advertisers may not be as worried about Instacart's slowed order growth, said Nikhil Raj, retail media business lead at ad solutions firm Moloco.

Persons: Eric Cohn, Cheney Orr, Instacart, Fidji Simo, Andrew Lipsman, there's, Lipsman, Gross, Instacart's, Nikhil Raj, Raj, Arriana McLymore, Richard Chang Organizations: Safeway, REUTERS, Pepsi, Securities, Exchange, Insider Intelligence, SEC, Thomson Locations: Tucson , Arizona, U.S, San Francisco, New York

☆ Attention Walmart Shoppers: You may soon be hit with a slew of ads while shopping
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( Yeji Jesse Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Walmart is expanding its in-store advertising, as first reported by CNBC. One analyst said that we may be at an "inflection point" for in-store advertising opportunities. While Walmart is expanding its third-party advertisements in stores, it has shown ads through digital screens, TVs, and self-checkout registers for years. Retailers, like Walmart, are beginning to look to their physical stores as ways to bring in more advertisement revenue. Though in-store advertising "remains a nascent market segment," shoppers should be "thought of as 'eyeballs' for brands to reach," the report said.

Persons: there's, Andrew Lipsman, Lipsman Organizations: Walmart, CNBC, Service, Target, Kroger, Intelligence, CNBC . Retailers, Insider Intelligence Walmart, Walmart Radio, Walgreens, Costco Locations: Wall, Silicon

NEW YORK, July 14 (Reuters) - Amazon shoppers snagged deals on food delivery, travel and healthcare during a two-day Prime Event that ended on Wednesday, highlighting the potential for growth in services at an e-retailing giant long focused on goods. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the shift to include services. Amazon offered a 28% discount for a one-year subscription to its One Medical service for U.S. Prime members who signed up before the Prime Day event ended. Experimenting with more Prime Day deals on services and discounted memberships could bolster Amazon's advertising services, Lipsman said. Investors expect ad revenue to reach $11.2 billion in the third quarter, which will include Prime Day data, according to Refinitiv data.

Persons: David Klink, we’re, Klink, Amazon's Grubhub, Grubhub, Andrew Lipsman, Lipsman, Arriana McLymore, Howard Goller Organizations: YORK, Adobe Analytics, Huntington National Bank, Walmart, Paramount, Priceline, Booking Holdings, Priceline's Hotel Express, Amazon, Intelligence, Merchants, Thomson

☆ Amazon charts its own course on A.I., leaning on its strengths in cloud and e-commerce
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Paulina Likos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

AI in advertising Amazon is not only differentiating its gen AI strategy by leveraging the cloud, but it's also incorporating AI in e-commerce to support its ad business. Amazon Prime Day Amazon Prime Day, the global shopping event that attracts consumers seeking huge cost-saving deals, on a variety of products will be held July 11 and 12 in 24 countries. Coupled with the cloud, e-commerce is the other big piece of what Amazon is all about. The 48-hour event is expected to bring in $8 billion in U.S. e-commerce sales, according to data by Insider Intelligence. Still, Insider Intelligence data shows Amazon Prime Day e-commerce sales will surpass that of competing retailers.

Persons: Andy Jassy, Scott Devitt, Devitt, Andrew Lipsman, it's, Lipsman, Sellers, Gene Munster, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim Organizations: Amazon Web Services, CNBC, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, AWS, Insider Intelligence, Google, Deepwater Asset Management, Intelligence, Amazon CNBC Locations: U.S

☆ Amazon has lost market share for the Prime Day shopping holiday it invented. Walmart is setting itself up for a bigger slice of those sales.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( Yeji Jesse Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Walmart once again is looking to compete directly with Amazon's Prime Day. In previous years, the company held "Rollbacks and More" events in July to compete with Prime Day, and last year Walmart launched a summer savings event called Walmart+ Weekend which took place just before Amazon Prime Day. Walmart is holding a summer savings event called 'Walmart Plus Week' between July 10 and 13, around the same time as Amazon's Prime Day. "Amazon's Prime Day market share will continue to slip, dropping from 62.0% in 2018 to an expected 59.6% in 2023," the report said. Roots of Walmart-Amazon Prime Day rivalryThe yearly battle over customers between Walmart and Amazon's Prime Day could date as far back as 2015.

Persons: Andrew Lipsman, Lipsman, Marc Lore, Jason Del Rey Organizations: Walmart, Amazon's, Service, Amazon, Intelligence, Insider Intelligence, Target, Jet, Target Circle Locations: Wall, Silicon, Amazon

Since 2015, Prime Day sales have risen to more than $7 billion and could top $8 billion this year. Now in its ninth year, Amazon's annual Prime Day has become a fact of American life — a quasi-holiday that retailers of all types pile into. Protestors in New York raising awareness of Amazon facilitating ICE surveillance efforts coinciding with Amazon Prime Day 2019. How Prime Day is goingLast year, Amazon drove more than $7 billion in sales through its Prime Day sales, according to Insider Intelligence. The number of Amazon Prime account holders has ballooned too, with nearly 175 million people using Amazon Prime in the US today — around two-thirds of the country's population — according to a report by Insider Intelligence.

Persons: Michael M, Jack Ma's Alibaba, Diego Piacentini, Jeff Bezos, Brad Stone, Bezos, Execs, Stone, Meagan Wulff Reibstein, Wulff, Kevin Hagen, Brian Olsavsky, Rafael Henrique, Scott Olson, Andrew Lipsman, Lipsman, — Organizations: Amazon Prime, Companies, Amazon, Intelligence, Insider Intelligence, Workers, Walmart, Getty, Target, Target Circle, Black, Prime Locations: China, Tokyo, London, Paris, Munich, Japan, Europe, New York

☆ Alo Yoga says it's the 'Tesla' of athleisure, and it's loosening Lululemon's grip on Gen Z
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Leslie J. Allen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Alo Yoga's "studio-to-street" fitness clothes are a hit with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the Wall Street Journal reports. Segment leader Lululemon faces growing competition not just from upstarts like Alo, but also legacy brands like Nike. Alo Yoga is building a following among two key demographics, Gen Zers, loosely defined as those born between 1997 and 2012, and their younger counterparts, Gen Alpha, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. Alo YogaAlo's growth was boosted by influencers and its digital rootsAlo Yoga started in Los Angeles in 2007. It's created openings for others beyond Alo, but Alo certainly has started to set itself apart as a power brand in its own right."

Persons: Alo Yoga's, Gen Z, Alpha, Alo, —, Lululemon, Alo Yoga, Gen Zers, Gen Alpha, it's, I'd, Andrew Lipsman, Lipsman, Hailey Bieber, Bella Haddad, Budrul Chukrut, Danny Harris, Wall, It's, Lisman Organizations: Wall Street, Nike, Service, Street, Intelligence, influencers, Ford, GM, Chrysler Locations: Los Angeles, China, Alo

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationApril 24 (Reuters) - A quarter into record layoffs, investors in U.S. tech giants will scrutinize if the cost cuts boosted profits to their satisfaction, while the companies emphasize how artificial intelligence will be their next growth driver. Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Instagram owner Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) and Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) all report quarterly results this week. From a year earlier, profit is expected to slump nearly 16%, on average, with Microsoft expected to perform the least poorly with a 0.5% slip. These three companies, along with Amazon, said between November and March they would slash 70,000 jobs in a rapidly weakening economy, following a pandemic-led hiring boom. "There are expectations that companies could create or do even more with AI ... every tech investor is expecting those companies to be in the frontier."

☆ Gap has quietly dissolved its advertising business. It shows the challenges companies have competing for the $45 billion retail media industry.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Gap was hoping to tap into a lucrative new revenue stream called retail media, projected to be worth $45 billion in 2023, according to Insider Intelligence, Insider's sister company. Instead of GPS Media, Gap is devoting resources to support GPS Platform, which handles logistics and fulfillment services for other retailers including next-day and two-day shipping. Gap has also started GPS Apparel, which customizes apparel for companies. Lipsman said that Gap also had a disadvantage in retail media because it only sold its own brands. Are you a Gap employee or do you have insight about retail media to share?

Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), which has the smallest cloud business among the three, said Google Cloud grew 32%, the slowest rise since the company began reporting the measure in 2019. "Once thought as the most defensive revenue stream in tech, we are seeing investors questioning the cyclicality for the (cloud) business," analysts at Bernstein said. Microsoft's revenue in its so-called intelligent cloud business that includes Azure rose 18% to beat expectations for October to December. Amazon finance chief Brian Olsavsky said on Thursday that the company expects slower cloud growth rates for the next few quarters. "Those (AI) advancements and demand for related cloud services will take time to materialize.

☆ Retail advertising will make $45 billion this year — here are 3 ways companies like Nordstrom and Albertsons are looking to cash in
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Many big retailers are building ad businesses this, which Insider Intelligence predicts will be a $45 billion opportunity in the US this year. Leaders from Albertsons and Nordstrom spoke during the panel about how they plan to grab that money. But retailers also need to grow their advertising businesses beyond those companies to so-called non endemic advertisers, like automakers and insurance companies. Argyilan said Albertsons is also working on a tool to help advertisers plug Albertsons' measurement into their broader measurement efforts. "I think measurement needs to grow up quite a bit in retail media space," she said.

☆ Amazon bulked up its advertising behemoth in 2022 — and its becoming an even bigger threat to Meta
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Amazon's digital ad business is only behind Google's and Meta's — and it's already stolen budget from Meta. Today, that advertising business is no longer simply a way to drive product sales on Amazon. Amazon's ad business, which generated $9.5 billion during the third quarter of 2022, dwarfed Microsoft and Snap and ranked third behind Google and Facebook parent, Meta. There are now nearly 600 advertising partners in Amazon's advertising ecosystem, according to Amazon's directory of companies in the space. As part of its ambitions to grow advertising, Amazon also pitches a data clean room called Amazon Marketing Cloud.

☆ Criteo has bet big that e-commerce ads will contribute to $1 billion in revenue by 2025. But a new crop of startups are also coming for those dollars.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Adtech firm Criteo is battling for retailers' ad businesses with new competitors like CitrusAd. E-commerce advertising is driving much of Criteo's growth, with the firm hoping to hit $1 billion in revenue from retail media by 2025. Criteo's technology has moved beyond search ads to include display ads and ads that appear off the retailer's site. Not all retailers outsource their ad businesses, creating more competition with CriteoCriteo also faces competition from retailers themselves. Some retailers don't want Criteo or CitrusAd managing their ad businesses and license technology to build ad businesses that they manage themselves.

☆ How Cyber Monday surpassed Black Friday to become the biggest shopping event of the holiday season
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Cyber Monday is the biggest holiday-shopping day of the year by sales, outpacing even Black Friday. But the shopping holiday wouldn't have been what it is today without retailers eager to make it a success. That year, shop.org, NRF's online arm, issued a press release in November declaring: "'Cyber Monday' Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year." "This year, online retailers will be capitalizing on the increased traffic by offering special promotions and discounts." In five years, it had gone from obscurity to the highest-grossing shopping day of the holiday season.

☆ Complexity for Marketers Has Meant Opportunity for Ad Agencies
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Megan Graham | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Their performance is striking compared with ad agencies’ plight five years ago: Facebook and Google had established direct relationships with marketers and were winning growing portions of their ad budgets before agencies could even offer their services. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CMO Today CMO Today delivers the most important news of the day for media and marketing professionals. PREVIEWSome major owners of ad agencies watched their growth slow or flatten in 2017 and 2018. Agency companies have responded by building practices to help marketers on platforms like TikTok and Amazon. Marketers navigate outside partnersSome major marketers still want to keep a close handle on some of their data efforts.

Cloud services for years has been one of the largest and most dependable sources of growth for some of the biggest tech companies, including during the pandemic as people worked and studied from home. Growth in Amazon Web Services (AWS), the firm's lucrative cloud unit serving enterprises, has ticked down consistently in the past four quarters, adjusted for changes in forex. "The AWS slowdown is a clear sign that businesses are beginning to trim costs, so this will likely put more of a squeeze on Amazon's bottom line in the coming quarters," said Andrew Lipsman, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. Alphabet's Google Cloud revenue grew 38% in the quarter, beating estimates. Cloud services typically help companies save money so budget cuts in this sector could be especially worrying, indicating that companies think cost is king going into tougher times.

☆ Weak Amazon outlook another blow to tech-type growth shares
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

But Apple earnings on Thursday were a bright spot, with higher than expected revenue leaving its shares (AAPL.O) only slightly lower. But then we look at the Apple report and they reported strong growth in a lot of their consumer categories. Going into the holiday season you would expect the consumer to really ramp up so that I see a big divergence between Apple and Amazon." What we saw in the past is that in a period of growth, tech really grew faster than anything else and got multiples that reflected that. There was always concern going into earnings, and quarter after quarter, they surprised to the upside.

☆ Kroger-Albertsons Merger Would Create a Big Player in Retail Advertising
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Patrick Coffee | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

It also would create a big player in so-called retail media, one of advertising’s fastest-growing sectors. Kroger and Albertsons entered the retail advertising market in 2015 and 2021, respectively. Kroger and Albertsons don’t break out the ad revenue generated by their Kroger Precision Marketing and Albertsons Media Collective divisions. The merger of Kroger and Albertsons would create a fourth market leader at more than 13% market share, Mr. Lipsman said. For marketers, that would help simplify the retail ad market for consumer-goods brands and other advertisers who currently confront a rapidly increasing number of offerings.

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