Upfront TV Ad Sales Expected To Rise; Facebook Offers More Measurement To Publishers

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The Going Rate

Industry analysts expect upfront TV ad sales to be up 3-4% from last year, a solid rise considering ratings dipped for broadcasters as a whole, according to The Hollywood Reporter. TV nets see the result as an endorsement of their primacy – in the minds of marketers, at least – over digital video rivals like YouTube. “The inability of companies of that magnitude to guarantee brand safety was truly the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says NBCU ad sales Chairwoman Linda Yaccarino, whose upfront haul this year was up 8% over 2016. More.

Instant Measurement

Facebook is rolling out an analytics tool for publishers that shows how their posts perform on Instant Articles compared to the mobile web. Facebook previously shared an aggregate lift number across all publishers for Instant Articles, but will now let media companies monitor data on individual article performance validated by Nielsen. Read the blog post. While publishers who have gone all-in on Instant Articles (e.g., Wired and the Daily Mail) are excited about getting more granularity from Facebook, others that have stopped using Instant Articles due to low monetization rates (e.g., LittleThings) want to see more before returning to the platform, Digiday reports. More.

Hit Refresh

The IAB released the final version of its new cross-screen ad unit standard. The new unit replaces units like 300x250s and 728x90s with ratios, like 1×1 and 8×1, to better work across different size screens. “Flexible-sized ad units allow for ad delivery across multiple screen sizes and integration with responsive website design,” the IAB said in a release.The future is modular, baby.

Annexing Retail

There’s no hope in being an Amazon holdout. That’s what Sears signaled to the marketplace on Thursday when it announced it will sell its Kenmore appliances on the platform and integrate Alexa voice commands with its smart appliances. Sears, which has accumulated $10 million in losses in the past six years due to ecommerce disruption and changing consumer shopping habits, saw shares soar 24% after announcing its decision to team up with Amazon. Meanwhile, rivals like Home Depot, Lowes and Best Buy suffered a corresponding sell-off. “The launch of Kenmore products on Amazon.com will significantly expand the distribution and availability of the Kenmore brand in the U.S.,” Sears CEO Eddie Lampert told Bloomberg in a statement. More.

But Wait, There’s More!

You’re Hired!

This post was syndicated from Ad Exchanger.